Always Sometimes Monsters

Much like life, Always Sometimes Monsters is brilliant but flawed. There’s strong stuff in there, made only better by its rarity within games. Those who have experienced homelessness, extreme poverty, lost love or most other hardships will likely find something to identify with. There’s a soundtrack to rival Hotline Miami chilling throughout and some of the illustration is superb. But there will be times when its minigames will remind you there isn’t a good game under all that writing, and the repetitive money-grinding activities required for better endings will anger, even if intentionally. Y...

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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by fetch quests.

Games like Always Sometimes Monsters are designed to make you think, ponder, and reflect. The game focuses on choices, consequences, and is ambiguous about whether the decisions you make matter in the end. Some questions I asked myself while playing through Always Sometimes Monsters were: am I good person? Would I do this if it were real? Do I really need to keep going? When will it end? Indeed, a large portion of the game had me struggling to continue or see the point in carrying on.

Do you convince your rockstar friend to take drugs again? Do you shoo away his crazy ex? Do you agree to buy drugs for a random girl, buy cheap pills and pocket the change, possibly resulting in her death? I’m literally scratching the surface here on the sheer amount of choices you have in this nine hour adventure. The journey is exhausting, and not many people will strive to play it again especially if they got an ending that utterly sucks the joy out of them.  Coupled with the tedious activities you could choose to partake in and Always Sometimes Monsters is a journey that is very, very hard...