It turns out, that's the perfect amount of time.
While I played, I got into the habit of tackling one chapter per night, usually a commitment of no more than an hour. The episodic, three-headed story approach also goes a long way toward making the unexciting gameplay a lesser concern. Last Stop's three stories fit neatly into their own genres: surreal horror for "Stranger Danger," conspiracy-fueled mystery for "Domestic Affairs," and, as I said, family comedy for "Paper Dolls." But none of them really manage to stretch their formal structures anymore than that one episode does. Unfortunately, though, it's a solitary example. It takes the story's inherent family comedy vibes in a refreshingly different direction, to great effect.
#Last stop review movie#
The whole thing is presented with the pace and patter of a heist planning session, a la the Ocean's movie of your choosing. My personal highlight in Last Stop was a middle chapter of "Paper Dolls," in which John and Jack plot how they'll each do their respective jobs after their consciousness switch. I still would have liked to see Variable State take more stylistic leaps, however. Like a lot of peak TV-era shows, "Last Stop" is actually stronger when you don't binge. Last Stop never quite managed to captivate me with its gameplay - which is mostly just walking through scenes and choosing dialogue prompts - but the expert pacing in each brief chapter held my interest all the same and kept me hungry to find out what would happen next. The stories themselves are completely engaging thanks to a mix of sharp writing and convincing performances from the voice actors. Once you do all three episodes in a chapter, Last Stop moves on to the next one.
Select the episode you want to pick up, and its star stands up and leaves the train. In a clever bit of framing, each chapter starts with the three protagonists sitting side by side in a London Underground train car.
#Last stop review tv#
The three tales are presented almost like individual TV series, complete with their own titles and logos: "Paper Dolls" for John, "Stranger Danger" for Donna, and "Domestic Affairs" for Meena. Meena's journey is the most grounded up front, but as with the others, there's something not quite right about the growing mystery that surrounds her. She's also an unfaithful wife and mother, and absolutely a sociopath. In Meena's robotic worldview, everyone is a set of data points to be measured in terms of how they can or can't help her.
#Last stop review professional#
Credit: variable stateįinally we have Meena Hughes, a cold and calculating professional with a shady past and a ruthless competitive streak. Here we have John, in Jack's body, feeling unsure about his choices and where they've led. But are they kidnappers, really? Said neighbor doesn't seem entirely human: He doesn't speak, he brings lots of people to his apartment but no one is ever seen leaving, and.oh yeah, also, his eyes glow green sometimes. His daily grind of an existence takes a turn, however, when John and his kind of dickish neighbor Jack swap bodies, Freaky Friday-style.Įlsewhere in London, high schooler Donna Adeleke and her two friends Vivek and Becky become the perpetrators of an accidental kidnapping when they trail Vivek's suspicious neighbor to an abandoned building and, in a moment of panic, knock him out. There's John Smith, the ambitionless and disorganized single dad who clearly loves his daughter, Molly, but just can't seem to keep it together in any aspect of his life. The bulk of the 7ish-hour adventure is actually split into three separate and tonally distinct plots following a trio of Londoners who each face an unusual predicament with supernatural undertones. The latest Annapurna Interactive–published game from Variable State, the three-person team behind 2016's award-winning narrative mystery Virginia, is a three-headed beast of a story, literally. But here's a wacky thought: What if that was the whole idea? Last Stop feels like a story that could've been told without the video game built around it.
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