Our Life: Beginnings & Always

DB
Apr 15
3 min read

More coming-of-age than falling-in-love.

The player character's mothers (left and right) with her sister, Liz (middle) - from Our Life: Beginnings & Always

Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

Found out this was free to watch on YouTube, so thought 'why not?' - shame the series isn't streaming anywhere (that I can find), as I'd like to watch that one day.

As for the film, it's still fun even if it does rely on some hokey science and the MAJOR plot hole of a super-smart person not paying back a $100k loan to a Russian mobster ASAP - especially with over $2m in the bank...

GAMES

Our Life: Beginnings & Always

Game summary: a feel-good simulation, as well as a “feel-better” one, where painful emotions such as sadness, anger, stress, and worry can all be expressed, then met with reassurance, understanding, and support. (GOG.com)

I don't know what led me to downloading Our Life: Beginnings & Always to my GOG library of games, but I'm glad I got it whatever the reason was, because it's a really sweet game.

It's intended as a romance game, but the romance side of the game really didn't land for me in the slightest, but the growing up/coming-of-age side to the story? That just about saved the game.

You play as a young girl, Jamie, starting off at eight years old in Step 1, jumping five years at a time through Steps 2-4 and I have to admit that I really bonded with my version of Jamie, so well done to the writers!

Not so well done for me was the intended romantic partner, Cove, who never felt appealing - not helped by the fact that he's miserable, moody and upset for the entirety of Step 1 (at least, he was for me).

There are valid, and very realistic, reasons for him to be that way, but his behaviour was just constantly unappealing and off-putting to the point that I spent most of the game trying to avoid him.

That was pretty tricky to do, because the game and characters in it repeatedly try to force Jamie and Cove together to the point of feeling ludicrously forced - to be fair, at least Cove is well-written enough that he doesn't try and force something to happen.

It's also more than a little weird that a game with so much queer representation really tries its hardest to force you into a heterosexual relationship, even if you tell your cousin you don't like guys and even after literally outing yourself as a lesbian (should you so choose)!

Fortunately, as bad as I felt the romance was, the evolving relationships you can have with the characters in the game over the 15 years the game spans feel genuine, real and sincere.

I have to admit that I did wish I got to spend more time as Jamie, interacting with these characters (yes, even Cove) by the time I'd finished a minute under the five hour mark and seeing how the rest of her life played out.

One weird thing about this game is that there's a huge number of ways to customise your character, but little to none of it actually counted for anything in my game - maybe it's more relevant if you do romance Cove?

And if you do end up liking Cove, and end up romancing him, your playthrough could feel entirely different to mine, which is a credit to the developers for making a game that can feel so vastly different from one player to the next.

In my experience, Our Life: Beginnings & Always completely missed its mark as a romance story, but brilliantly nails the 'coming of age' side of things and it's free, so give it a go! [7/10]

Assassin's Creed Origins - The Hidden Ones DLC

I've finally rounded out what I wanted to do in the base game and am now working through the first DLC, which has been a bit of a mixed bag after the first several missions.

Hacknet

I'm giving this a go even though I don't think it's really my kind of game from first impressions - especially after I accidentally soft-locked the game by deleting a file I should've downloaded instead.

Also currently playing: Batman: Arkham City, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)