Gone Home (Xbox One)

Gone Home originally released in 2013, it was released in 2016 for consoles. It is a walking simulator, featuring a girl who is returning to her family home after living away for a while.

There is no gameplay besides walking and interacting with objects. You find a note on the front door from your sister, telling you she's left home but not to worry about her. You spend the entire game discovering more about your sister's life and why she actually left.

The game looks beautiful. You feel like you're in a real home. It amazingly designed, so many small features and so well designed. The house was great to just look through. Family photos, old boxes of possessions, detailed books on shelves, there's so much detail and you won't even see most of it.

There's lots of reading involved, reading notes helps guide you around the house and you even discover a number of hidden areas around your house. You find out a lot about the characters faster too, who is a struggling author. You even find a number of post cards your character sent to the family.

The sound work is amazing and so is the voice acting. It's all done perfectly. There were two issues I had, it all felt very sinister. I really wasn't sure if this was a horror game or not, I knew nothing about it when I played it. Hearing the pouring down rain and the thunder, the fact it was night and some of the creepy rooms and secretive notes I found, I thought it was gonna become a horror or discover something disturbing, but there was none of that. It was also really short too, if you didn't explore you could easily finish in less than an hour.

It ends up being a really well told story, and a nice story at that. I couldn't help feeling let down though, not only was I expecting it to be a different genre, I was expecting something bigger to happen. Although I had a good time playing, mainly because I was waiting for something, this game doesn't really serve much of a purpose, and there's no reason to play it again. It walking, reading and small puzzle solving, but at the end you feel it wasn't worth it.

It not worth buying unless it's really cheap, if you have it already, definitely give it a go and see what you think. You'll at least get a kick out of the brilliant design like me.

6.9/10