3.5/5 ★ – SilverScroll's review of Papers, Please.

This is a good game but I can't lie when I say that I expected a bit more from it. Papers please manages to take the seemingly menial and dull task of document inspection and turn it into a fun video game, with the characters you get come through your booth in the story mode livening up your playthrough. The game incentivises you to break the rules from time to time in the form of collectible tokens and bribe money to feed your family, offering the player different pathways to go down, loyalty to the state or loyalty to your family. And that's where the majority of my issues lie, for a game set in the eastern block (in the fictional country of Arstotzka) draped with the backdrop of war, poverty and desperation, I was never once forced to make a hard choice, never was I forced to choose between one of my family members or which desperate soul to let through my checkpoint, and that made the game worse than. If you even slightly know what you are doing in terms of saving money you will coast through the whole game without having to worry about it, which deprives the game of an important element. With a few changes to decision making and whatnot this could have been a 10/10 but here we are. A solid enough game mechanically let down by the lack of emotional weight in the story and decision making, particularly the family side. I can't help but say I'm a little disappointed considering its status.