I had been eyeing this game up for a while because the trailer and description made it sound like an interactive game with a fantastic and touching story similar to What remains of Edith Finch which was a game I truly enjoyed and consider to be a bit of a masterpiece.
Virginia tries to do this as well and also to do it without speaking any words or even having much in the way of things to read on the screen. Instead, the player is left to try to interpret the story on their own which is something I normally like provided they do a good enough job representing what the story might actually be in the game. I do not feel as though Virginia accomplished this because I completed the game and don't really have any idea what the hell just happened.
src
We play the role of an FBI agent who has a crisis of conscious about her job and what she has to do in order to get ahead in her career, or at least that is my interpretation of it. You start out in a bathroom putting on your lipstick using the one and only button that is used in the game (bonus!) and make your way to a stage where you are presented with your FBI badge because I'm presuming you just became and agent.
The rest of the story has us traveling all over the place and meeting with people and finding clues in the houses that we enter that advances the story. The problem is the story jumps all over the place in a never-ending Mulholland Drive sort of way. One minute you are walking down a hallway and now all of a sudden you are in a forest for some reason.
src
During the intro screen we are let know that the events in the game are based on a disappearance of a child in Virginia and I have no idea if this is something that actually happened or if they just made it up. All I know is that the game is over pretty quickly and at the end of it I don't have any idea what the hell just happened.
In other games this non-understanding of what the hell is going on might prevent you from finishing the game but in Virginia you can't really lose, even if you try to. There are only certain things that you can interact with and a lot of the time it just seems like you are doing a ton of walking in order to get to that item or door that you need to walk through.
Although there are not too many cutscenes, thank god, there are a ton of rooms and halls that you can't really interact with anything. You don't jump, you don't run, you basically just walk in one direction waiting for the circle button to appear on your screen indicating that you have found the one thing in this house that you are supposed to look at or open. Thankfully, when you do find these things you are mostly magically teleported to the next place you are supposed to be rather than needing to figure out where you are supposed to go in some sort of open-world experience. Had they chosen the latter, I am certain that I would have walked away from this game very early on.
src
I can't really say that the game is terrible but I will say that it isn't really a game. It has been called "interactive cinema" but the main beef I have with the game is that your choices aren't really choices, they are the only thing that you can possibly do. As far as I know there is only one ending to this game and once you get to it you are going to be thinking "alright.... what the hell was all that?"
There might be some sort of anti-FBI message in there or links to the Illuminati or something like that, but I honestly can't tell you what it is. I do know that you will likely get pretty bored with this one if you are expecting it to be interactive. It's a short film at best and not a very entertaining one at that.
I can't really recommend this game because it isn't really a game. Just because you push a button every now and then doesn't make something interactive.
I definitely would feel duped if I had paid money for this but I did finish the entire game because I was hoping that at some point all that I had seen was somehow going to come together and things were going to make sense. They didn't come together and it didn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it.
Games played so far in my trip through all the "Extra" games on Playstation Plus
- Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
- Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
- Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
- Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
- Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
- Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
- The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)
- Megadimension Neptunia VII (typical JRPG with some adjustments made to combat for uniqueness. Could be fun and I lukewarmly recommend for someone willing to dedicate 50 hours to a turn-based RPG)
- Monster Jam: Steel Titans 2 (monster truck racing game that will appeal only to people who are already fans of the sport - not recommended for any other people)
- Entwined (Visually appealing rhythm pace game that is very easy to pick up but gets repetitive after 30 minutes or so - recommended for anyone that can get it for free.)
- 2Dark (8-bit graphic survival horror/stealth hybrid. The game becomes extremely difficult really fast and therefore failed to hold my attention - not recommended)
- Virginia (interactive-cinema...not really a game and it is over in a couple of hours. Not recommended)