The characters stand hunched over and gaunt, lurching across the screen like paper puppets in a spectacularly creepy avant-garde puppet show, sliding across backgrounds that juxtapose photo-realism with stark, disturbing images. Often the game will be monochrome before suddenly bursting with colour. Each new scene looks meticulously crafted, with so much detail and love pouring out of every pixel.
The first sequence involves Susan standing in a wind-swept field of golden wheat and depending on which direction Susan faces, her hair is swept back in the direction of the wind. It is a small detail, but it made me smile at how much care and attention was put into this game.
Susan herself surprised me in that she looks like a real person. All of the characters have a very stylised, artistic look to them, but comparing Susan to any female protagonist in games – even high-profile “acceptable” female characters like Jade from ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ or Faith from ‘Mirror’s Edge’ – you’ll see that Susan is a far fairer reflection of what a woman who has lived in the real world would look like. She is hunched, skinny and her face is worn; she is “ugly” by the terrible standards of beauty the whole world seems to subscribe to.
I await the booth-babe interpretations of Susan with bated breath.
Read the full preview at Link Dead Gaming