Before Your Eyes is an ambitious first-person narrative roller roaster that strikes all of the right chords. What makes this story about a small child growing up in a quaint little town by the sea, to two loving parents so unique? Keep reading our Before Your Eyes PC Review to find out!
Created by GoodbyeWorld Games and published by Skybound Games. Before your Eyes places you into the soul of benny, a voiceless male in which you are the eyes as he approaches the afterlife. Benny is to meet his maker – In the literal sense, so that he can have his life assessed, With the help of his “afterlife lawyer”, simply called The Ferryman. You partner up in an effort to creatively tell your story to the maker, thus selling your case that you have led a good, worthwhile life, allowing you entry into The Good Place.
Contents
Gameplay
The game is ideally experienced through the eyes of the player via the use of a webcam, though this isn’t a requirement as the game can be experienced in its entirety through the use of the mouse. As the eyes of Benny, you are tasked with the often challenging task of holding your eyes open whilst the characters in the world around you unravel the story, quite literally, before your eyes, creatively throwing in little tasks here and there so that you can really immerse yourself into the world of Benny – From pushing a boat around a bathtub to playing the piano in an attempt to get into a prestigious music college, The game excels in including you, the player, into the story.
The mechanics of controlling the tempo of the story through your eyes is difficult and often flawed. Often leading to moments of having to justify to yourself that you, in fact, did not blink midway through another character’s line, as you have to fit the pieces together of what you may have missed.
The incredible minute details are really what makes the gameplay so special. And there really is no way of delving into it further without risking ruining the experience. Maybe when my time comes to build my case with the Ferryman, He will look unkindly at me for not disclosing more… But for now, I’m abstaining regardless.
Graphics
The Graphics on Before Your Eyes is simply stunning, to say the least. With the aid of the incredibly written story, even the most static of objects are given a life of their own. the scene of each flashback usually starts out with a large portion of the scene in complete darkness, with a small lit-up area and icon hinting at what you have to do to progress, thus unveiling more of the scene, be it through the unveiling of more of the room or progressing time along. Many cleverly included devices being used to seamlessly progress the story along – devices such as a camera, a paintbrush, a pencil or even a games console.
Even outside of the flashbacks, your time on the ferry is spent in absolute awe of the surrounding area as you approach the large daunting tower where you are due to be judged.
Story
The story is another part of the game where I can speak for days about how and why it is an utter masterpiece. So many intertwined themes peppered throughout that tie in with one another, details such as learning about Egyptian gods at Bennies school… including Anubis, The Egyptian god of the underworld who is tasked with taking souls to Ma’at to be judged. So many of these fine details are linked in, some there to subtly foreshadow future events, others just there to add seasoning to the incredibly passionate and well-written narrative.
I mentioned that I could write for days about why the game’s storyline is such a masterpiece, And in my reviews, I generally like to give a rough example of what you can expect from the game. But again, I feel with Before Your Eyes, going in completely blind is the best way to get the most out of the game — Allow the game to tell you the story, not some guy sat behind a screen telling you what you can expect, believe me, you’ll thank me later!
Sound
a good script is nothing without a good voiceover, nor will it stand out from the rest without good backing music, Before your eyes tick all of the boxes. With a voice cast that offered up an award-winning performance in bringing such a difficult array of characters to life. Tackling difficult, yet relatable topics with such accuracy and fluidity.
Not only did the game offer up a good soundtrack to accompany the themes of the story. They developed it into a focal point of the story, through the use of having music heavily connect the characters from one another – Flawlessly setting the mood for particular scenes whilst not in anyway taking away from the immersion and connection the player has with Benny.
Before Your Eyes PC Review – The Verdict
Before Your Eyes is a journey never before experienced through the use of video games. an absolute one-of-a-kind masterpiece that is easily worth the $9.99 (£7.99) price tag. I may never play a video game again that played with my emotions quite like Before Your Eyes managed. It’s going to take quite some doing for another game to top this title as best game of the year!
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