2/5 ★ – jake84's review of Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

Oh my lord. How I wanted to like this. Like the first one, it's hard to. I'm not a big fan of prequels, but the idea of explaining the backstory of the relationship between Rachel Amber and Chloe Price is not a bad one - especially since, even after completing the first one, I really had no idea what was going on. So it's one of those rare occasions where a prequels seems justified and not totally redundant. But (and that's a huge but) the writing is not up on that level it needs to be when telling a story of teen angst. More often than not, Before the Storm becomes a parody of teenage angst. It doesn't help matters that while Max was a bit anonymous as a a protagonist last time around, Chloe is a snotty, little brat. First off, the actress (Rhianna DeVries) playing Chloe is stiff and doesn't make the dialogue fly off the page - and that would've been nearly impossible, considering the material. "I can't believe Firewalk is playing the old mill. Fuck. Yes." She then proceeds to flip off some random stuff (including inanimate objects, such as a sign) three times within the first 10-12 minutes of the game. Then she calls a guy a "dickhead" - whose crime it was to tell her that the price of a t-shirt is $20. How very edgy. How very hardcore. And what a subtle Twin Peaks reference! It comes off really lame and makes for an unappealing protagonist. She constantly bitches about going to an academy that looks like fucking Hogwarts, calls the idyllic town of Arcadia Bay a shithole and being beyond bratty to her mom's new boyfriend, David. Look, I get it, the man is not Ryan Gosling, but there's no need to behave like such an idiot. If Oregon is such a shitty place, then show us. If Blackwell Academy is unpleasant, then show us. All I get is some nice nerds playing D&D. Which is far and away the most well-told and well-executed scene in this episode. I mean, I cannot actively hate a game, where a full ten minutes is dedicated to playing Dungeons & Dragons. It's hard to get into a game where the conflict (or lack thereof) is that Chloe really needs a friend, but all we know is that she's writing something about Max in her diary, being an idiot to everyone around her, and generally not being a sympathetic person. That is, up until the point, where she is taking her frustrations out on a scrapyard. That had some emotional weight to it. But the game is called Before the Storm, implying that everything here plays out before the interesting stuff - the storm being both literal and figurative - and I really got that feeling. That this is just character stuff and no plot. The plot shows a vague glimpse of its shadow at the end of this episode, but that's not good enough for me. With the lack of time travel, which was Max' gift, Chloe is left with something else: The power of winning an argument with backtalk! I'm not even joking. Seriously, every now and again, Chloe is able to talk smack at people in a mini game, where you're supposed to use a word the you just heard them say and flip it on its head. It's so silly. Entertaining, yet silly. What I still like is the atmosphere of the game. The town, Arcadia Bay (which Chloe for some reason hates like it's a fucking Nazi concentration camp) is haunting and pretty, and the soundtrack is a mixed bag of charming, shoegazy, twee tunes. But subject matters such as these - sexuality, trauma, teenage angst - need better writing than what's on display in this game. It's as simple as that. By the end I was thinking: Jesus Christ, how slow can you pace a none-story? How much can you exploit and over-explain that one piece of emotional punch your story had? Yuck.