“A deserted island…a lost man…memories of a fatal crash…a book written by a dying explorer.” Two years in the making, the highly anticipated Indie remake of the cult mod Dear Esther arrives on PC. Dear Esther immerses you in a stunningly realised world, a remote and desolate island somewhere in the outer Hebrides. As you step forwards, a voice begins to read fragments of a letter: "Dear Esther..." - and so begins a journey through one of the most original first-person games of recent years. Abandoning traditional gameplay for a pure story-driven experience, Dear Esther fuses it’s beautiful environments with a breathtaking soundtrack to tell a powerful story of love, loss, guilt and redemption. Winner of 2012 IGF Excellence in Visual Art. Supported by Indie Fund.
This game is not a game and the game length is almost as long as a movie. It's not worth the price tag for such a remake like this and should have deserved watching this through YouTube without the need to walk and play through a boring tale without the usual purpose of gameplay.
Dear Esther is one of those games that pushes its identity strongly as an art form. An art form meant to encapsulate an idea rather than deliver an entertaining experience. I would compare this to the difference between moden and classical art, with Dear Esther being in the former category.
It focus exclusively on delivering atmosphere, but the immersion level of the mod can only go so far with just that. A barely coherent story and the lack of variety in gameplay will inevitably subtract from the overall austerity of the game.
The only revolutionary input for this game seems to be the fact that it's soley based on exploration, novelity derived from a lack of novelity(if that makes sense). The fact that the game has so little that you have to make more of what remains. Thankfully what you have left are beautifully detailed environments and exquisite voiceacting. But the incoherency of what has to be said only intrigues the brain in trying to figure out what the hell the damn narrorator is trying to make sense in the first place, instead of pondering the ideas he has left with us.
Dear Esther is not something I would pay for, but I would nevertheless play if I got the chance. Dear Esther is in every means a beautiful game, if you can even call it a game.
Amazing story,
Amazing graphics,
Amazing atmosphere,
And amazing sounds.
"Dear Esther" stands as one of my all-time favorite game, (along with LBA2 ;)). Apart from the aesthetically pleasing side of "DE", with hindsight it became an enigma, that encounters an urge to decipher...
Pretty, pretentious and more of a slideshow than a game.
This sucks its not even a game why are they even calling it a game who knows its more like a book that your inside you cant do anything but walk around thats it i would give this thing a 0 but i cant it wont let me i think the high ratings are fake
I've already enjoyed the mod and so I had to buy the game. It took me 1-2 hours to play through and I guess it was the money worth. The visual is breath taking and that was the only negativ point about the mod. Now the project "Dear Esther" is quite perfect.
If you support these guys with buying their game, you'll put an example that quality should stand at the top of every video game. Maybe some big will recognize...
Terrible "game" with no gameplay. I can't stand all these dumb hipsters giving it 10/10.
You cannot interact with anything.
9 / 10.
Jag älskar stämningen i det här spelet. Men som har diskuterats i otaliga recensioner är "spel" kanske inte rätt ord, men det får andra fundera över. Du följer ett ganska utstakat spår på en ö, tittar på omgivningarna och lyssnar till en berättelse som kanske har med spelaren att göra. Kanske är det man ser, eller det man hör, en metafor för det andra.
Ett spel i ordets rätta bemärkelse är det inte, det har sagts av flera som recenserat Dear Esther på nätet. Det är en upplevelse. Underhållning för de som tycker att Bioshock Infinite hade varit bättre om det varit mer som Myst och mindre av FPS. Man klarar spelet på en timme, och spelar man om det kommer man få se och höra samma saker. Kanske lägger man märke till någon ny detalj eller så, men i stort är som att se om en film.
Ett spel som appellerar mer till känslor och medkänsla än intelligens och logik. Medelpoängen 8,7 är nog för hög sett till hur pass annorlunda Dear Esther är. Förväntar man sig mer av spel och interaktion så blir man nog besviken och ger det ett lågt betyg.
"Come back".
I'm not sure why the game makes me constantly start over, if I could play it more episodically I think I would like it more. It appears that there is a system supposed to be in place but I always have to start over. Now to the good stuff. I feel that games are so stuck in this model of player choice and instant reward that people forget that a story told without anything but the ability to explore is just as viable. I'm tired of most action games, I have a hard time differentiating one shooter from the other anymore. I'm sick of retrieval quests with the only break in the monotony being waves of enemies to gun down. Life is an experience and I think games should be too. This is probably the most interesting medium for story telling around yet so often it only serves to grease the palms of large corporations. This is one of the most refreshing experiences I've had the pleasure of taking part in. I'm sure this isn't most peoples cup of tea but that's why I'm here at Desura instead of Steam or Origin or Uplay. I don't want run of the mill, I want exceptional and this game delivers.