Xbox Reviews

Virginia review

Review Virginia | Whistle  the theme song from The X-files before reading this review, okay?  You will be in the exact mood required for playing Virginia. This one-of-a-kind experience from Variable State is now available for Xbox One.

THE GOOD!

  • The first thing I want to say about Virginia is the impressive and unforgettable music. Performed by an orchestra in Prague. I want to applause them for their work. It’s good, brilliant!
  • Reason why you will be enjoying Virginia is for the mysterious and confusing story.  At some moments I was expecting Mulder & Scully to show up because things really get very weird. For example, I never thought a damn buffalo could be so scary and mindcracking.  Anyway, some scenes are hallucinations, fake outcomes or parts that don’t follow the timeline so keeping up and paying attention to every detail is very important while playing Virginia. Complex but overall I really loved the story
  • I loved the story because of the way it’s told. You will never have any dialogues, story is purely told by music and what you see. It must have been a nightmare for the developer coming up with some of the thing you see, to make some parts understandable. To be honest, I don’t fully understand what happened whilst playing Virginia but I think that was on purpose. Giving the player different options for having an opinion about what happened, what is real and what is fake and most importantly with the way it’s set up players can connect dots themselves. Maybe even finding some things out that the developer hasn’t thought about. A real remarkable performance, you need some real visual and creative talent to make a game like Virginia, so well done Variable State!
  • It’s hard to describe the visuals, a mix from The Witness, Limbo’s artistic environments and a celshading technique that stands out. The style is very distinct and surely makes the game beautiful.

Mixed Feelings

  • While this is clearly aiming for an interactive movie experience I did miss some gameplay interaction. You basically run around finding an object or person to move to the next scene, you hardly need to do anything else. It would have been cool to have a little bit more “things to do”

THE BAD!

  • The intriguing story is a little longer than an average movie, with little purpose to replay it. Some secrets (achievements) will likely require a second play through but that’s about it. You can play it again to understand some parts better but I couldn’t find myself doing that.
  • Some scenes have frame rate issues, especially on big open places like early on in the office. Nothing game breaking but annoying nonetheless.

Score: 83% | Saying that Virginia is unique is an understatement, there is nothing like it on any Xbox-console. The storytelling and music are sublime making the game an easy game to recommend.

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