As mentioned earlier this week, the Playstation Store was having a sale on games that got good critical reviews, so I grabbed several. Good thing, too. If I'd paid full freight for Dear Esther, instead of a buck-fifty, this would probably be a much more hostile review.
The game starts you at the shoreline of a bleak island somewhere out in a wind-battered sea beneath a cloudy sky. The lighthouse and attached house are in disrepair, but there's some sort of broadcast tower further down the shore, the red transmission light flicking on and off steadily.
So you move that direction, for lack of better options, a man's voice occasionally narrating as you go. He's not describing what you're doing, though he may discuss certain points of interest or lore on the island if you move near a specific area. No, it's like letters or diary entries describing his life or, an accident involving Esther, to whom the narration was addressed. The further in the game you go, the more the specifics of the accident are revealed.
The gameplay is, you walk across the island and you look at things. You don't pick things up, you don't jump to clear crevasses where the slope has given way. You don't press switches or light torches. You just walk, at what became a maddeningly slow pace that you cannot speed up, via the joystick. The path may branch, or more accurately, offer little cul-de-sacs you can venture down. Or not. I did, because I wasn't sure what was going to happen in the game, so I didn't want to miss anything.
As it turns out, not a lot happens, so all you'd miss is more narration. Any controller button you push simply lets you zoom in slightly on whatever's on-screen. The sea, the wind blowing the grasses, the rock formations when you fall into a cave. You spook birds once or twice. The walls and cliffs are covered in fluorescent paint, spelling out molecular bonds, circuit diagrams and what look like neurons. I guess you would miss some of that if you didn't explore.
Once, while in a narrow canyon along the shore, I saw movement above me and thought it was someone watching me. Then the wind blew again and it was just grass fluttering into view. I saw a spectral figure later, only to conclude it was just mist or fog off the sea. Then I saw another one, and I was sure it was there. Although the character could be hallucinating.
There's music, sometimes. Slow, sad, bleak like the island you traverse. It's not so much a game as it feels like you watching a guy in the last spirals of despair. You can't put him on a boat off the island. You can't make him paint something different, or pluck a flower and smell it. All you can do is send him on to the place he's ready to go. Which is true in a sense of most games. Mario ain't gonna save the princess unless you pick up that controller. But with Dear Esther, there's nothing to it. It feels less like you're helping him achieve a goal, and more like he's taking you on a guided tour of this island he's already turned into a crypt.
It took me about 90 minutes to get through, and I can't see myself ever bothering to do it again.
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