So... I just finished Gone Home.

I really loved it. Great, relaxing

Old news OP.

Yeah.

Meh. I enjoyed it. A different pace, and a nice story.

Different strokes for different folks...

eh it strikes me as an arthouse game, not my taste at all.

I feel like if I played it back in high school, or even a couple of years afterwards, I would have hated it too. Maybe you just need to be old, but mostly through that "coming of age" period when pretty much everything in your life changes to be able to appreciate it, but it also depends on people. Some people go through that phase without any change at all; obviously they won't be able to relate to the story.

It's irrelevant that it's about a teenage girl who rediscovers her sexuality, or that she is, well, a teenager who thinks she's smarter than she really is. For all we know, she might have just committed the biggest mistake of her life, but it's an important thing from which she'll learn big time in the long run. You're not necessarily supposed to relate to her with her own problems, but maybe reflect on it and remember yours. I know I went through all those little things that I used to do in high school after I played it for the first time, and it's such a weird experience to look at it from now. That is a completely different world, but experiencing this game actually made me remember it more clearly, and I could reflect on it. Now I can be absolutely sure that I was a shitty teenager, but so were we all to an extent, and I'm glad that I went through all that awfulness because I feel that it improves me as an adult.

Anyway, without getting too much off track from what I wanted to say, all I'm saying is that certain people won't "get it". Not because it's a hard to understand piece of art, nor because it requires knowledge or superior brain functions, such as some art movies, but because not everyone went through that phase facing their troubles. It won't resonate with those people, and that's fine. Chick flicks don't resonate with me either, and I'm not going to call them shit.

What really baffles me is that a lot of people hate it for its gameplay. I mean, this is a whole different genre, which is very love or hate for gamers. Why would you even consider playing it if you know you can't expect too much of a gameplay from it? Looks like gamers can't even be accused of not being mature enough to appreciate art, but it seems to me that the majority of us has such a retarded attitude that it's far beyond redemption. Have you ever seen a single individual who hates horror movies, then goes on to watch them just to get worked up about them and get into people's faces to tell them that they just suck? Probably, but those are the odd few; here the odd few give at least partially objective reviews or just stays away from it knowing the genre is not their thing.

And saying the writing sucks is just bullshit. Everyone with a slight knowledge of literacy knows that it has an insanely effective way of creating interesting characters, and that it has a solid and innovative structure. Even better, it uses the game environment to create a very organic storytelling, rather similar to what we've seen in old Thief games for example. It has the right to exist as a game, and not a movie or a written piece.

I enjoyed it, it's not the typical kill shit rinse repeat like most games.