4.5/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Papers, Please.

TLDR: Glory to Arstotzka. Gameplay: I can't believe they made this game so fun. Your ass is working a 9 - 5 in the least glamorous checkpoint in your country. You check papers, approve or deny them and it's so fun. At first you are given simple guidelines such as letting in everyone with up to date documents. And day by day these rules change, sometimes as one-off days and other rules stay around and compound off of each other until you're cross-referencing half a dozen documents for inconsistincies while the timer ticks down and there's always a chance for a terrorist attack. Papers, Please also has an interactive narrative completely dictated by your gameplay decisions. Throughout the game you are approached by an organization looking to infiltrate the Artotzkan government, and it's up to you to help or completely ignore their tasks. These tasks are very interesting and they range from letting certain people in to poisoning somebody by putting anthrax on their passport before you hand it back to them. Your performance for this group is a spectrum, and your ending is dependent on how well / how many tasks for them were completed. Leading to about 20 different ending variations. All ranging from doing your job dutifully and being rewarded (not being arrested), freeing Arstotka from tyranny or escaping to another country just like what many of the immigrants you denied were trying to do. Story: The story of Papers, Please works so well because the game makes you feel bad and does not reward you for being nice. You are a border checkpoint inspector. You check papers. You lose money for unauthorized entrants. So do you risk the financial security of your family and let in every sob story / help a terrorist organization? Or do you do it all for your country and keep unauthorized people out no matter what? Graphics: Pretty iconic style. I mean look at the portraits of everyone. The screen is purposefully cramped to give you less room to work and to also give you a bunch of information. But I love the sprite work. Something I still don't know how they did is how they made the "turning" sprites as entrants enter the booth. Weird. Sound: There's like 3 songs in the game. But we all know that main menu theme. The Good Ending theme also slaps. And so does the bad ending. Basically all three songs slap. Everything else is just silence. The sound effects are really good and you become very familiar with them very fast. Best aspect however, the fake language everyone speaks. Extra: Branching save files are genius. Theres a bunch of different endings, however going after them yourself is a bit of a slog after a certain point. Favorite Thing: That one guy who accidentally gives you two passports immediately Not My Favorite Thing: Fingerprinting is borderline impossible. Trying to decipher if the sprites are the same or not just doesn't work so you must use the inspection mode which is frustrating. But...I guess that's kind of the point...