- Played via the Xbox Game Pass
- No more in 5 hours
Ahh Twelve Minutes... By seeing him hang out in my wish list for two years, I was attached to it. Since the 2019 E3 where it was unveiled, I have carefully put it in one corner of my head by hugging it from time to time. A long wait, filled with hype and envy, through the trailers that Luis Antonio, his creator, revealed to us episodicly. And then one day, on August 19, the wait went, soon replaced by the desire to get hold of the game and burn all the passion stored in it during these long months. Twelve minutes, it's a bit like a romance that was supposed to be beautiful and passionate and that once the routine of everyday life was established, makes us realize that it would have been better to stay at the imagination than it was done. It's a little bit of Christmas waiting, being a child, where one dreams of magic and gifts to finally understand that it's your old depressed uncle who hides behind this too small costume. Twelve MinutesFinally, it's like this too long intro, allowing for an exhaustive and inspiring content, while it's nothing...
What's left of my hopes?
There was something to trust. Annapurna Interactive knows what he's talking about when it comes to publishing games with a special atmosphere in a particular setting, all around a wonderful universe. I have to think about What remains of Edith Finch and Outer Wilds. VEritable masterpieces of imagination and poetry, these two nuggets announced the best for Twelve Minutes. In each of them, there was always this surprise expected and this pleasure to discover in which world, twisted but enchanting, they were preparing to train us. WhileEdith Finch takes us from room to room, to discover the secrets of a mysterious building and thatOuter Wilds makes us travel from planet to planet in a time loop, Twelve Minutes He also promises us that he will continue to return to square one, in which our wife is murdered by a police officer. Add to this promising concept a beautiful aesthetic and a neat top view, and we had all the ingredients to make the game a success.
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BIS REPETITA
However, once the game is launched, it is clear that the account is not. The man whom he embodies returns home, where his wife waits: "Good evening, darling, I have a surprise for you." Then it starts to turn round looking for objects and clues. Why exactly? We don't know too much but because of point and clicker Everywhere, we end up finding some things. The instant after, a policeman knocks us at our door and, for some reason, kills us.
« Good evening, darling, I have a surprise for you. » Back to square one, here, this knife found in the kitchen must be useful, I'm going to wait wisely for the policeman and show him how to dance.
« Good evening, darling, I have a surprise for you... » All right, a prioriThe knife is not that, back to square one.
It's been approximately 12 minutes since the game was launched and I can't do more. It's hard to say what's wrong. Perhaps those loops too long or too short, but which make the experience so frustrating. The slightest attempt at a new strategy obliges us to regroup almost 10 minutes of dialogues already heard dozens of times. Or perhaps the soulless and lifeless man whom one embodies and which one sees groping at random without finally succeeding in identifying with the character. Or finally, the scenario that unfolds as one discovers about the protagonists, but that never encourages one to invest in the narrative. After a few hours, the experience becomes frustrating and can quickly become a real ordeal if you don't quickly find the right solutions to move forward. The line-ups stars (Daisy Ridley, Willem Dafoe and James McAvoy) do the job, but even their good performances become painful by hearing them in loops. Beyond the shortcomings of the game, the interest of the point and click or visual new of which: Twelve Minutes often remains a well-tied scenario, which helps digest sometimes laborious gameplay passages as is the case here. Unfortunately, the scenario is even more absurd and drawn by the hair. A kind of plot twist muddy and creepy will come to finish any kind of craze for the game. At this point, the only real interest I had in the game was to finish it. To move on.
And then disappointment, a formula that is well known. Cyberpunk... The opportunity to recognize once again that patience is a mother of safety when it comes to pre-orders. The last prong of CD Project re-colmates the holes with a string of patches designed to correct the shot.
I was able to play Twelve Minutes via the Gamepass and this is probably the best way to play it at the moment. You will be frustrated but still less than if you had paid the price. For those without Gamepass therefore, wait for a price reduction or promotion. Not that the first hours are completely unpleasant, the excitement of getting into this couple's privacy and discovering their secrets remains a vice that we, the lubricated human beings, always love. However, even the most voyeuristic of us will find it very difficult to satisfy ourselves with so much inconsistency and frustration. Luis Antonio here lays promising bases for a category of play rarely put in the spotlight, so much so that we come to hope that a variant at Twelve Minutes will be born, finally looming with all its flaws? Why not hope that it will be the first of a long series of interactive thrillers to be played with perverse curiosity to reveal what dark secret there would be to discover. If necessary, count on me to put each of these games on my waiting list. I'd wait patiently for them to come out, snooping over it from time to time. But with a little less hope this time. The loop is closed!
For
- Beautiful graphic atmosphere
- Undeniable originality
Against
- Time loops far too frustrating
- Scenario worthy of a Z series
- Very medium writing
- Replayability non-existent
Well, I felt the same way you did! I stopped after two hours, completely tired of having to do the same thing again and type in the unapplyable dialogues to try a new idea of progress. Too bad because the concept was nice.