About This Game Based on real events and eyewitness testimonies.In this authentic, historically accurate, stunningly engaging experience -- you must decide who to trust and what you stand for -- as the world is set ablaze around you.**Winner of Grand Jury Prize at IndieCade ‘16, Official Selection of The PAX 10, Game of the Year Finalist by TIGA, BEST OF E3 Nominee by IGN, People’s Choice Finalist by FoST, Medal Winner at Serious Play Awards.**Key FeaturesCRITICAL CHOICES - The choices you make will shape your experience in the Revolution, and the fates of those around you -- both in the present and the future.CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE - Branching cinematic story told through motion captured animation and voice over performances. Discover the rarely seen world of Tehran in the 1970’s, through a striking visual style. EXPLORATION - Explore the world of the collapsing city under martial law: covert headquarters, rioting protests, bustling city streets and more.PHOTOGRAPHY - Take photos of the period accurate in-game world and compare them to the original archival photos captured by celebrated photojournalists.UNIQUE GAMEPLAY - Including urban triage, interactive action scenes and photo processing. KEY COLLECTABLES - Discover and unlock more than 80+ unique stories that color and enhance your experience of the Iranian Revolution: including primary sources like archival videos, home movies, graffiti, photographs and more.BASED ON TRUE EVENTS - Based on real first hand testimonies of freedom fighters, witnesses and casualties of the revolution which helped define the 21st Century, as well as those who were imprisoned in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.Featuring Performances ByNavid Negahban (Homeland, American Sniper)Farshad Farahat (House of Cards, Argo, 300: Rise of an Empire, State of Affairs)Omid Abtahi (Damien, Hunger Games, Better Call Saul, Argo)Bobby Naderi (Fear the Walking Dead, Under The Shadow)Mozhan Marno (The Blacklist, House of Cards, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night)Nicholas Guilak (Of Gods and Kings, 24)Ray Haratian (Argo, Under The Shadow)Mary Apick (Homeland, Beneath The Veil)Fariborz David Diaan (The Brink, Stoning of Soraya, Weeds) 1075eedd30 Title: 1979 Revolution: Black FridayGenre: Adventure, IndieDeveloper:iNK Stories, N-Fusion InteractivePublisher:iNK StoriesRelease Date: 4 Apr, 2016 1979 Revolution: Black Friday Activation Code Generator I've always been wary of games that try to tackle historical events, because they rarely seem to get their subject matter right. There's something disrespectful about historical games like the early Call of Duty titles, which placed players into real wars that real people fought and died in, exploiting those experiences by transforming them into mindless entertainment for the masses. Tackling this kind of heavy subject matter requires a degree of nuance that bleak loadscreen quotations or pressing F to pay respects don't even begin to provide.1979 Revolution: Black Friday doesn't share those problems. Created by Rockstar Games veteran and Iranian national Navid Khonsari, whose family escaped the turmoil the title aims to portray, the game tells the story of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which lead to the deposition of the Shah of Iran and the end of the Pahlavi dynasty. The influence of this period in Iranian history cannot be understated, yet knowledge of this point in history remains woefully elusive to the American public consciousness.It's fitting, then, that the game starts out with so much exposition. This isn't a Call of Duty title looking to capitalize on history as a mere backdrop to action-heavy gameplay. The Telltale-esque title places players into a series of unfolding events as an Iranian photojournalist recently returned home from Germany. Early in the story, players will take a walk through a protest-crowded street, snapping pictures and listening to their companion expound on the issues facing Iran leading up to the 1979 revolution. Westernization, income inequality, government censorship - the developers are clearly aware of their audience's unfamiliarity with the setting and do a fantastic job of the setting the stage for the players.It all comes naturally; your character, after all, has been out of the country for awhile, so it stands to reason that he might need to be caught up on current events. After snapping a photo, players are presented with a quick blurb of information and given the option to learn more, leading them to small snippets of Iran's history in the game's journal.Fortunately, unlike many titles tackling heavy subject matter, 1979 Revolution is at least somewhat able to stand on its own as an entertaining game. It's informative without being preachy, and engages players with choice and consequence and quick-time event systems Telltale Games or Life is Strange veterans will find immediately familiar.1979 Revolution is best described as a political thriller, and it isn't long until your jaunt down exposition lane is interrupted by the proverbial♥♥♥♥♥♥hitting the fan. It's a character driven story, showing Iranian nationals with a variety of different political and religious views reacting as their country is turned upside down. The voice acting is crucially well executed, thanks to a cadre of veteran film actors. Almost everyone involved with the project has a prior work that I've seen or am at least familiar with; I recognized the voice of Mozhan Marnò from The Blacklist, House of Cards, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night immediately.The game is an indie title though, and you can tell that the funds for its actors may have been diverted from other areas of its limited budget. The art assets in particular leave a bit to be desired; it will quickly become apparent that character models and animations are being reused for the game's extras. In a game like this though, pursuing flawless writing and voice acting for its characters ultimately should trump almost everything else.1979 Revolution does end a bit abruptly. It's not as bad as say, The Banner Saga, but I was expecting the narrative to go on for an additional chapter, or maybe for it to show a bit more of the revolution's aftermath. It's not a bad ending per se, but it does sort of build and build and then just end in the middle of its own climax.Overall, the game succeeds in bringing a historically accurate, better understanding of the titular revolution to those who play it. It's not a deep look and it doesn't get too bogged down in historical details, instead focusing broadly on the people of Iran as they lived through this formative moment in their nation's history. 1979 Revolution is worth checking out on that basis alone if you're interested in experiencing a sample of pre-revolution Iran and how it evolved to become the nation we have today.If you're not interested in that, I'd find the the title harder to recommend. This is a game of ideas, and it follows that the title is inextricably linked to the message it wants its players to receive. Standing on its own, its narrative isn't as satisfying as a Telltale Game and its gameplay doesn't touch Life is Strange, but if you're generally interested in experiencing a bit of history, that can make the title shine.1979 Revolution: Black Friday is a short game at just over two hours of total playtime, and is available on Steam for a full price of $12. I'll leave the value judgment up to you.. Let me start off by saying this: I bought this game knowing almost nothing of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I just wanted a nice story based game where your choices impacted your future, and this game delivers. You can die if you make the "incorrect" choice too many times, but the game does not make you start back from the beginning, but instead a checkpoint. I thought that was really nice. Without giving too much away, you can take different routes. Personally, I only too one route. I can't bare to take the other one! Not only is the design and the art of the game nice, there are optional little lessons explaining certain elements of the games you may choose to read up on. I came out of this game knowing a bit more about the Iranian Revolution from this, and it was really interesting. This game is unorthodox. Not many people I know like history, but even if you do not, I feel as though you feel like you are in the middle of the revolution and feel the feelings others must have felt at that time.. TL;DR: I recommend this game for fans of TellTale/Life is Strange or those interested in learning about history.I picked up this game after reading about it on RPS and being a fan of TellTale Games and Life is Strange, as well as enjoying 'The Cat and the Coup', a short game about the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953. I also like games where you learn things - I always faithfully read the historical notes in Assassin's Creed games and am pleased to see that this game crams in around 100 historical notes.The game places you as Reza, a young photographer who becomes caught up with revolutionaries during the 1979 Iranian revolution. Similar to a TellTale game, you choose dialogue options based on a time limit and perform key-presses and QTEs for a couple of action sequences. The game also has a photography mechanic, linking the pictures you take to real photos from the time. There are 19 'chapters', which are better called 'scenes' due to their length.The story is short, but gripping. It throws you straight into a situation and story you know nothing about (unless you're familiar with the 1979 revolution in Iran). This has its pros and cons. It means that you begin by making decisions without really knowing Reza, or why he might want to choose certain options. As you go on, you learn more about the political situation and Reza's life. Rather than creating a character from scratch, you often find things out in later chapters that make you wonder whether you made the right decision. This along with its length and the chance of finding all the historical notes certainly gives it more replay value than a TellTale adventure. However, it may have been nice to learn a bit more about Reza and Iran before being thrown into the story. The historical notes add depth to an otherwise limite story - there simply isn't enough time to build up a strong emotional connection to the characters. I'd say that the story is less character driven than politically driven. You find out more about the revolution, the factions and Iranian culture/history during the game and this informs your choices more than the relationships of the characters.The game recommends headphones - I used them, but they aren't necessary. The audio is fantastic and helps put you right in the setting. Voice acting is also of a top, profesional standard and occasionally blends farsi phrases into the speech, so keep subtitles on because these are fully English.However, the gameplay left some things to be desired. The time to choose dialogue option is too short. It makes conversations more realistically paced, but barely gives you the chance to read all the options before you choose. I also experienced some major, frequent framerate drops, and I'm running on a mid-to-high range gaming laptop.Overall, I'd say this was a very good attempt at making a game that tells the sort of story rarely touched upon in video gaming. Games are often afraid to deal maturely with politics, either having an indistinguishable red/blue faction or a clearly evil enemy organisation. Real world politics is even less commonly used in games. 1979 Revolution deals with this well, teaching us that there is not necessarily a right or wrong side. Instead, politics is messy with many different groups pursuing goals for many different reasons. It has its flaws, so I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but fans of adventure games or those interested in story-led games should definitely check it out; it's the same price as a movie ticket and the same length for a single playthrough.. From my perspective, I viewed this rendition of history as heavily pro-Tudeh (the Communist Party of Iran) and though it touches on the application of fiqh to Communists from the religious characters within in the game, "1979 Revolution: Black Friday" communicates its narrative as the Arab Spring in another lacquer. And that's a shame really. There is no equivalency to be drawn between the current Sunni revolutionary movements and the Iranian Revolution proper.The developers did their homework for sure, but I couldn't get my character to become a Shia fundamentalist or lead him to become a basiji so what's the point of player driven actions or agency? Though Reza (the protagonist) is clearly Westernized, it didn't permit me the option of having a developing narrative drive a connection towards increasing his faith.As an honest assessment, this game's presentation falls into this terrible milquetoast middle ground that simultaneously would♥♥♥♥♥♥off Shah loyalist expats and a contemporary Shia as the Tudeh are portrayed as harmless, albeit naive, saints. They're only critiqued as hypocritical, or worst of all, taken for the fools that they were. Aside from those notes, the game is a "rah rah go student revolutionary movements" within a general context and retelling that Pahlavi was a pretty bad leader (I agree only in part to this sentiment) and that the SAVAK weren't a friendly bunch. The game does highlight what Iranian life was like from 1953 on as it modernized and, though there are some shoutouts to Mohammad Mosaddegh's overthrow courtesy of MI6 and the CIA through Operation Ajax, this only serves to reaffirm the developer's bias to the effect of -- "Wow, isn't it such a shame that Iran became an Islamic Republic."To illustrate better, I'll draw my thoughts from another angle: imagine if the insufferable coming of age movie "Garden State" (2004) were combined with a youth political drama. Yeah, I can feel your excitement building already.Another, different, and probably more substantive critique I could provide for those unaware of the political, social, or historical components within the game is that it could've been more expansive with a branching plot. You, Reza, the player, are permanently stuck as a dumb collaborator with naive revolutionaries. In this way, "1979 Revolution" truly sticks to history as it occurred.Welp, those are my thoughts about this adventure game from a self-anointed, self-styled, and perhaps in this case, immodest scholar of the Middle East.. Telltale-style game about Black Friday[en.wikipedia.org]. It consist of 19 short chapters and it won't take long to play thru them all, but it's always interesting and you keep learning new stuff (at least I did, who had very little knowledge about the Iranian Revolution). While there are fictional stuff in there (must be since you had choices to do things differently), it was like playing a documentary rather than watching one, which I think was rather cool and I wouldn't mind playing more games like this that are about real events.Valiant Hearts: The Great War (World War I) and Never Alone (Alaska Native culture) are two other games I learned some stuff from, which I also recommend.. Despite not having the most visually appealing design, and at times having the game feel of an early PS2 game, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday touched me in a way few games have. For one the games story is both fasinating and engaging. The game does an excellent job of making you feel like you are in late 70's Iran as well as giving you tons of information about the Iranian revolution and life in Iran. Reza's journey throughout the game was one that told the story of the revolution in probably the most neuanced way I've ever seen. Despite this though, the game does have some flaws. For one it's super short. Like 2 hours short if you really spend your time looking at things and reading the in game information. The quicktime events also feel like justification to have "gameplay" in the game when game play is a glorified press x when you see x. It's not fun here and it isn't fun anywhere else. Which is kinda sad when most of the more interactive parts of the game are very enjoyable including the medic minigame. The game also is filled with false choices that don't actually effect the story which wouldn't be a big problem if it didn't also include some of the major choices in the game. The choice on who is the mole is actually a false choice which makes who you choose have way less actual impact as is the choice on who to save at the end of the game to an extent. The ending is also fumbled pretty badly A lot of these flaws can be attributied to the fact this is a small indie development company working on a pretty small budget. This game really made me think about both the revolution in 1979 but also our current times and for a game currently selling for only 6 bucks, its worth your money.
debooketanreureal
Comments