You play Raz, a trainee psychonaut and reluctant acrobat, learning the fine art of delving into people’s brains to understand their psyche (and, sometimes, mess around with their motivations). This endearingly bizarre adventure is a true original, effortlessly funny and unapologetically itself. It’s a game that doesn’t hold your hand, and ultimately it’s down to you to decide the truth – another secret of a good mystery done well.Messing with your mind … Psychonauts 2. Telling Lies requires a deliberateness from its players that turns us from viewers to active plot participants. There’s too much to explore, too much to untangle, and even a working copy of Solitaire to play when your brain is fried by the latest plot twist. Despite the Hollywood pedigree of its cast, this is a game in a way that an “interactive movie” can’t be.
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Telling Lies is an excellent expansion on the work Barlow did in Her Story to resurrect the full motion video (FMV) genre. Marshall-Green’s bedtime stories to her via video call provide some of the tender moments of the game. An unexpected joy is Vivien Lyra Blair ( Bird Box), who plays their young daughter with adorable confidence. Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus) anchors the plot with ease and assurance, while Kerry Bishé (Scrubs) is convincing as his increasingly impatient wife. These small facial inflections are brought to life via stellar performances that never lose believability. An upside to this is you end up paying more attention to details whizzing past in the background, or a tiny eyebrow raise you’d otherwise have missed. This leads to some frustration when a keyword drops you into the video at the five minute mark, and you have to rewind the clip back to the beginning like it’s an analogue cassette rather than a digital media player – thus wasting valuable time. The computer you’re working off is a stolen NSA database of recorded clips, some of which run for eight minutes. Your interface in Telling Lies is a computer desktop where you can search videos and, when your brain is fried, play Solitaire.
“Who are they talking to?” is a common question in the opening few hours, but given enough time with the characters you’ll be able to work out who they’re speaking to in a new clip simply by their tone of voice. Each clip is a one-sided conversation, which creates a fascinating puzzle where part of the challenge is guessing the right keyword to assemble the other half of the dialogue. This seemingly unending web of possibilities makes Telling Lies a brilliant detective story. Conversely, it’s also troublingly easy to lose hours chasing a red herring. It’s a testimony to the set designers and Barlow’s fastidious writing that each clip is bursting with possibilities that could be the key to unlocking a lie. This intimate access not only builds a believable world, it deepens the mystery where a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of a name badge becomes a vital clue to progress. From a violent rally to a seductive webcam session, you’re tantalisingly close to the characters’ lives. No longer hearing about events in the past tense, this time you witness key moments as they happen.
The effect is like the moment Dorothy steps from her monochrome farmhouse into Oz – everything opens up. Her Story’s static police camcorder is swapped for webcams, mobile phones and even a hidden camera in a belt buckle. Whereas Her Story had one character in a police interview room, Telling Lies has multiple locations with a large supporting cast over two in-game years. Telling Lies follows four people working in very different jobs when a lie brings them all together. By making notes and playing detective, it’s your job to decide what the truth is.Īnchoring the plot with ease. One of those clips might include another clue, such as a name, which in turn can be searched to pull you further down the rabbit hole. Your main investigation tool is a search bar where you type in keywords such as “love” to pull up tagged clips. In that game, you play an unnamed character who, for reasons unknown, is sitting at a computer trawling through hours of stolen police station video footage showing a suspect being interviewed. It’s the “hSam Barlow’s critically acclaimed Her Story (2015) introduced us to the concept of the interactive search engine thriller. S uspense, plot and character have long been considered the foundations of a good thriller – but really, the sign of a mystery done well is a sound.
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