I don’t know why, but I scrutinize acting in video games very harshly. If you can’t act as well as Tom Hanks, then I don’t think you should really be acting in a serious manner. I honestly take Hanks as seriously in the Carly Rea Jepsen’s I Really Like You music video as I do in The Green Mile. You could say I really really really like Tom Hanks, but that’s got nothing do with acting.

I say most of that because I despise the acting in Her Story. I wanted someone to walk in with a big knife and go wild on her and her bright suit, I hated the overdone nature of it all. Much like L,A Noire, the actor(s) was instructed to make sure every single word was breathtaking, ultimately making it feel like a high school production of Philadelphia. Then the story grew on me, I still hated the acting but grew to hang on every word looking for the rest of the narrative.

You see, this is the thing about Her Story. You play a desk jockey at a small southeast English police station in the 1990’s, scrolling through the tapes of an unsolved murder. At least this is what I’ve garnered from the story, as I’ve yet to figure out how to complete it. I know where the story is going, but I can’t tell how to get it all to click together. I’ll avoid spoilers, but it is not only the script you should pay attention too.

You are given the interface of a 1990’s PC or a CRT monitor effect over a Windows 95 parallel for an operating system. With that, your desktop is filled with only the basic “Log Out” icon, a bin or “Rubbish Bin,” two .txt files, a clock, and a “DB Checker.” Then in the center, you have the “L.O.G.I.C Database,” which I assume stands for, Logistically-Organized-by-a-Gorilla-In-Christmas-Island. With the files disorganized you have to place all these in order and solve the crime, I assume. This is a task that is hard when you know nothing about this woman you are greeted with, and inevitably want to strangle her for being obtuse.

However, you are given helpful little tools to catch her lies, her inconsistencies, and knowledge of what you have already searched for. For example, typing “Anal,” after she was asked about her sex life, is something I’ll never be able to un-search for. You see, in the database, you have to search for terms in the transcribed tapes. If she says something about mental health, I’ll jump into “Depression,” or “Bi-polar” faster than Frasier Crane will argue with his dad.

To that, you might think you could just type “Who did it?” in the search engine of the database. You can’t do that. You have to figure out who she really is, why she’s being questioned, and piece together months of information. Without a list of questions asked by other members of the constabulary, you have to assume what is being asked next, and what she may reply with. To figure out Her Story.

As I’ve already stated, her high school drama classes didn’t go amiss here. However, what pulled me inward and held me close was the desire to hear her full story. The beautiful sound design only aids this. Every click of the keyboard sounded so perfect as I wore headphones to drown out my already clicky keyboard. The ambient sound of rain and the constabulary whizzing by outside with sirens blazing made me pull the headphones a couple of times. I won’t introduce another hyperbolic statement by saying, “It’s oh so realistic,” it’s not but it had its’ moments.

In conclusion, I highly suggest if you enjoy a good mystery now and then, that you give Her Story a try. The acting may not be to my admittedly high standards, but it can grow on you. The sound design is tonally perfect to the rainy little isle.

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Her Story

$9.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Pitch perfect sound design
• Expert use of FMV
• A brilliant mystery

Cons

• The acting