REVIEW – As Square Enix and Dontnod announced at E3, they launched The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit, which is a demo/teaser, set in the Life is Strange 2 universe, introducing a small slice of it to us. Indeed, it’s a teaser.

The whole event starts out as a harmless child play, but, as we got used to it with Dontnod, the stakes are raised in no time – Captain Spirit „can bend any matter at will,” and in roughly five minutes, the game already makes us decide whether he would wear a mask or not. Later, it’s followed by the armour size, the colour, and after all that, The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit throws you into deep water.

Build-up

This time, I can’t do the usual review. Why is that, you ask? Well, this game is supposed to build up hype for Life is Strange 2, and – unlike Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes – it is a free product. You can look for it on the PlayStation Store if you don’t believe me, they will not charge you for it. Thus, while I will list between the positives that it’s free, it will not affect the rating, though – better explain this up now than never.

We can likely bid adieu to Max and Chloe forever, as Arcadia Bay has been replaced by Beaver Creek in TAAOCS (no, I won’t keep writing the game’s name in full, except for the end – let’s keep the character number low…), and the protagonist is also a newcomer called Chris Eriksen. His adventures start on a calm, pre-Christmas Saturday morning, and the location is his house, his treehouse, and the garage. The other characters will be two kids who will possibly be Chris’ friends, Mrs Reynolds, and Charles, Chris’ dad.

We’re talking about a young kid who dreams that he is a superhero with telekinetic powers called Captain Spirit with the goal to save the world – he has a to-do list, which, if you want to complete all, should take roughly 95-100 minutes. The tasks include target practice with the beer cans, playing a game on Charles’ mobile (I won’t help you with the code, but I’ll give you a hint: HAWTDAWG), which means the episode isn’t serious, and that’s fitting.

TAAOCS has a nice vibe due to the music which has always been a positive in Life is Strange. Have a listen to one of the songs from the game – it suits this short adventure down to a tee:

I have no complaints with the voice acting, and the visuals – which are again handled by the Unreal Engine 4 – are on the same level as the first game. There’s no improvement here in my opinion.

Build out

I found two easter eggs that referred to the original Life is Strange characters: the Teen Spirit Seattle 1990-1995 book was written by Mark Jefferson (and the book’s cover has someone who looks like Max), and there’s also a letter from Ray Wells, who is the principal of Blackwell. There’s probably more, but I don’t think I should spoil the fun, right?

The story is about Charles calling Chris for breakfast (don’t think about the mother…), but the original plan of buying a Christmas tree after the basketball match is getting ditched as our father drinks alcohol. Quite a lot of alcohol. This problem is likely going to be a recurring issue. The family issues, especially if they are drinking-related, are never good. At the same age as Chris, I had experiences with it, unfortunately…

Good for a teaser

The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit gets a 7 out of 10 because it’s good. However, it’s not as action-packed or supernatural as the original game (and imitating it doesn’t count). It’s a perfect way to warm up for the first episode which is set to launch in late September. I do have to bring up one more thing: what the hell did Square Enix think when they put the Denuvo anti-tamper into a free game? Get the game on PlayStation 4; you won’t have that there.

-V-

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Dontnod

Genre: adventure, Life is Strange 2-teaser

Release date: June 26, 2018