Life Is Strange: Episode 2 - Out of Time

Life Is Strange - Episode 2: Out of Time takes everything that you did in Episode 1 and brings it all back to either bite or benefit you. The repercussions of your choices, regardless of how small, are made apparent here. You're once again thrown into Max's time reversing adventures, but this time she starts to see the limits of her abilities.

The episode begins with plot points from the previous episode immediately resurfacing; Max's rekindling her relationship with Chloe, her new friendship with Kate Marsh and various other characters get their moments to shine. Not only this, but you can help Max find out the extent of her abilities alongside Chloe. The plot this time around is a lot less like an introductory episode and more of a pay-off, with certain storylines finally being addressed. You find out more about each of the characters depending on how you interacted with them. Once again, you do have the option of ignoring the side characters, but that decision will come into play later. This is the episode is where small actions that Max may or may not take affect the world as a whole.

A major focus of Out of Time is to show the player that Max's powers has amazing extents and tight limits. Max isn't Superwoman, and we see the effects time travel has on her. Max has nosebleeds and passes out when she overexerts herself. Most of the time, this is when she's around Chloe who urges her to use her abilities for good and bad reasons. In the previous episode, Max mentioned the phrase “Being an Everyday Hero”, which comes back in this episode full force. A lot of the seemingly meaningless tasks from the previous episode come back in this one. Max, being a good friend in the other episode, will cause certain people to greet her in a more friendly way. It also helps her solve various problems on campus, most of them being minor things, but near the end of the story we are treated to a moment where Max has a chance to change the course of the world at large by a simple action. She becomes an everyday hero through mundane actions, but uses a supernatural ability to do said actions.

The players themselves are ultimately in control of Max. With her they're learning how to use her abilities. We see Max's limits here when the screen turns blood red and her head pulsating with pain when she overexerts herself from too much time-travelling. So we as the player have to be careful not to make Max have too many of these headaches. In the last episode there were many dynamic events that the player could rewind easily to prevent their demise. In this episode however, not only do we have that choice but there's another dynamic event using exploration to save the life of another character.

There's an event similar to this later on, but we are treated to a blood red scene and Max holding her head as she's rewinding time. The player will find out that this event, while preventable, is also the last shot they'll have at saving this other person. This means that they'll have to use the knowledge and negotiation skills that they have gained throughout the episode in order to save this person's life. The episode actually builds up to this, using subtle set pieces in the game. They can be easily missed, but if the player doesn't explore certain parts of the world, remembering small details and picking certain environmental objects, this character can saved. It's not a bunch of meaningless stuff either, everything the player finds is important to the character in question. The only thing that seems a little ham-fisted in was how at the end, there was a final choice that would possibly change the course of the next episode, and you were able to rewind that one. It's a nitpick, sure, but after emphasizing the fact that you couldn't rewind anymore that day and you had to rely on your own instincts earlier, this came off as lazy. If you're going to have a permanent choice at the end of the episode, go all the way.

In the previous episode the teenager's style was off the charts to the point where it could get pretentious and annoying. It's been toned down in this episode considerably. In contrast to last episode, which had more of a world building and showing just where you were and who you were. This episode focuses more on the relationships you may or may not have fostered in the previous episode as well as your choices. There is more of an emphasis on small challenges, and if you're not great with memory and noticing small details, you may find some difficulty in this episode.

The collectables are back as well, but they're more noticeably placed this time around, so it isn't as much of a scavenger hunt as it was before which is a little disappointing. Before it was fun to find each one, but this time there were a lot of obvious ones if you knew where to look. But perhaps that's just because Max is getting better as a photographer.

Life Is Strange - Episode 2: Out of Time surpasses the previous episode in the emotional and storytelling aspect. If this series gets any better, then we may a company on par with TellTale Games when it comes to this type of story based gameplay. Only next episode will be able to tell.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)