After just getting my PS4 and "Limbo" and "Inside" being the 1st two games I played, both indie games, both getting high reviews on Gamespot, and both AMAZING, I figured I was safe to try Gone Home. Boy, was I WRONG, to the 5th degee. This game is not a love story, it's a gay rights statement, and nothing more. If that's all you need to make a game "great", which is apparently all Gamespot needs, than fine, but I would think most gamer's need something more than that.
After watching Gamespot's (and to be fair one or two other review sites as well - I'm looking at you IGN), review, I thought this would be a game that had a fair amount of mystery and exploration to it, and that you were left to decipher from the clues scattered around the house what actually happened to Katie's family for yourself. But nope, it's pretty obvious straight from the get-go what happened. Katie's sister Sam, is gay, fell in Love with her friend Lonnie, and ran off with her to start their new life together. That's it. That really is all there is to it. The other "seeming" options at the beginning, the house is haunted with her crazy relatives ghost and apparently "crazy" runs in the family (which would open the door to all kinds of possibilities), some old weirdo neighbor friend named Dan is contacting Sam after a number of years and wants to reconnect, Sam is starting to get into trouble with the wrong crowd, etc., all are very quickly dismissed as possibilities due to clues scattered around the house. There are other aspects to the family story as well that I won't waste any time going into but that never really get fully fleshed out either. I mean, Katie comes back after a year abroad and her parents go out of town that weekend on a "marriage-saving" trip after her mother has had some kind of an affair with Ranger Rick (I'm not making that up - although would have been another great avenue to pursue for the story)? I'm all for saving marriages but if my kid was gone for a year and came home, I'd postpone the weekend away and be home for my kid...but that's just me.
Anyways, this game stinks. Everything about it is disappointing. So glad I only paid $7 for it. I will certainly be more discerning in the future when buying an indie game.
Don't waste your time.