Game Reviews Volume 2

Mr. Robot 1.51: Exfiltration (iOS, Android)

I remember when I first heard about Mr. Robot. I was handed a flyerat University which had some guy in a hoodie on it and some averagetagline to get you interested. I threw it away roughly 5 secondslater.

Then posters started popping up around campus, flyers were at almostany information desk & cafeteria, my Amazon Prime was beingbombarded with marketing for it and to top it all off it was beingshoved in my face on my Facebook feed which is almost exclusivelyvideo game advertising.

Eventually I decided to give it a watch. The first season had alreadyfinished, and I had a week filled with absolutely nothing to do. So Ikicked back and stuck the pilot episode on just to see what the fusswas about. Now over halfway through it's second season I can happilysay that Mr. Robot is probably the best TV show I have ever watchedand has remained consistently good each and every episode since itspilot. That is something that has only ever happened with one otherTV show and that was cancelled after its first series(then revivedfor a second series, which was also cancelled afterwards)!

The TV show follows a twenty something named Elliot who suffers fromanxiety, depression and struggles to interact socially with otherpeople. To top it all off he is also addicted to morphine and thoughan employee for a digital security firm by day, he is part of ahacker group by night that is on the verge of changing the world.

So when I saw Telltale Games & Nightschool Studios tease Mr.Robot posts on Facebook I knew something was up, just a few dayslater 1.51:Exfiltrati0n was available on Google Play & the AppStore.

Styled like a messaging app, created to match the style of E Corp,the antagonistic corporation of the series. The story behind the gameis you have found an abandoned phone, picked it up and decided tokeep it as your own. Little do you know however that this phonebelongs to the head of Elliot's hacker group, Darlene. Darlenecontacts you and simply asks for a file that is on the phone, thenshe'll leave you alone forever and totally not ruin your life.

However you cannot access the file due to a system reboot thatoccurs, and so you must do her bidding until you are able to downloada scan software that will allow you to access said file and send itto her.

I have to say, at first I was unsure how it was going to work butafter finishing it I'm happy to say it works a lot better than Iexpected it to. The game plays out in real time over the course of aweek, you send and receive text messages from various established andnew characters from the world of Mr. Robot, as well as manipulateemployees from various corporations to unwittingly help fsociety'scause.

A lot of people wont be too keen on how the game plays out. It's 100%text based, as a messaging service would be, plus it takes almost aweek to actually be able to finish the game as you do need to wait tobe messaged by Darlene and other characters to know what you need todo next.

It's not a game that you can sit down and play for a period of time,but it's something you can play whilst you just use your phone on adaily basis; picking up small chunks of story every few hours. It'snot particularly long but because it takes place in real time ittakes a long time to actually get through.

Though it's a text based adventure where you pick a response from apre-determined list; it's actually pretty difficult to be able to getthrough some sections of the game. I'm unsure whether you canactually fail the game, but at one particular point I was having tocommunicate with an idiotic employee who was being told by someone onthe security team not to do what I was telling them to do, because Iwas also having a conversation with them that made them question whoI was and what I was getting their employees to do.

The majority of the time you're not even given any real clues on whatto say to people, or who to message. It's just a matter of trustingyour gut instincts and answering some pretty interesting logicpuzzles by digging around on people's social media profiles.

It does end rather abruptly though and as such it feels like there isa lot more left to come. Though the situation appears to be resolved,I doubt this is the last we will see of this type of Mr. Robot game,due to the complex nature of the show.

It's a great companion to the show that fans will undoubtedly love,but I doubt it will have the same appeal to newcomers as you're keptvery in the dark about what's actually going on, even until the end,because it assumes you have already seen the show and know what'sgoing to happen.

I'm really looking forward to see what comes next from NightschoolStudios & Mr. Robot.

Mr.Robot 1.51:Exfiltrati0n – 8/10

+AMr. Robot Game!

+IncrediblyImmersive, Especially Thanks To It's Real Time Gameplay

+Sleek& Stylish In Design

+PuzzlesCan Be Complex, But Never Illogical

-VeryBuggy Until Patched

-DoubtIt Will Entice Newcomers To The Series