Va-11 Hall-A

I won't keep you in suspense for this one. It's bad. I do not recommend for anyone.

Obviously I wanted to like this game. It's got cyberpunk, it's got alcohol. What's not to like? Firstly, there's the gameplay. Va-11 Hall-A is a “Visual Novel” style of computer game which I automatically am not much of a fan of. What's that mean? Basically a visual novel is very light on actual gameplay. It involves static pictures as background, and text to read through at the bottom of the screen. Mostly dialogue. You will spend a lot of time reading. Now don't get me wrong, I like reading. So why don't I like visual novels? I guess because they're one of the least interactive things a computer game can do. They generally have very limited options, if you get options at all.

So, being light on actual gameplay, Va-11 Hall-A is really dependent on good writing, and at this it fails, terribly. It is tedious. I suppose in that sense it might actually be a good simulation of what a bartending job is actually like, but it doesn't make for a good game. You make small-talk with a bunch of people, but the dialogue is disappointing to say the least. It comes across as being written by someone who watches too much bad anime. That is to say, it's unnatural and childish. It makes a lot of sexual references that are supposed to be funny but in my opinion they decidedly are not. There's a child-like robot that is also a prostitute, a bartender that giggles whenever anybody orders a 'bad touch'. I gave up on the game after the robot started going on about dildos and fucking a pony. The humour seems designed for adolescents that still find swear words naughty.

Now I could forgive the bad dialogue and terrible humour if the story was strong enough to keep me entertained. But I clicked through eight hours of this crap and as far as I could tell the plot was yet to emerge. Judging from my achievements I think I was about halfway through the game. Honestly I'm shocked the game has favourable reviews, because in my mind this is an absolute flop.

Buy The Red Strings Club. Infinitely better.