Christine Love is a polarising figure in video games. As a writer and a game developer, she has become known for using her games to make political and social stances which veer towards sex positivity, gender equality, and warnings about possible futures or even repeating the past. Analogue: A Hate Story is no different, and from the response online, she is not rid of these criticisms yet. Perhaps they should never leave her, as it shows her work is challenging and a little different to the male-dominated games of today.
Analogue: A Hate Story starts slowly as you log into an abandoned colony's computer, interacting with two very different AI personalities and piecing together what exactly happened to the colony in the first place. This involves a lot of reading. If that bothers you, then you can take your interest elsewhere. I have to say, though, that while I love games with a rich narrative, reading countless logs by characters who you never meet and only know by Korean names (or no names at all if you're female) can be a little daunting. I eventually pieced together a mental picture of what happened, although I couldn't give you a full comprehensive explanation of the family tree of the two core families of the plot.
Graphically, Analogue is a step up from Christine's other titles, Digital: A Love Story and don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story. I wouldn't say I fell in love with the graphical style, though. I feel as if I would have been more entranced by an important character like Hyun-Ae if she weren't portrayed as a generic anime female. When you're offered a chance to cosplay Hyun-Ae in sexy costumes, things get weirder. There's an inconsistency to the art style and the message which betrays that, perhaps, Love couldn't leave her appreciation for the anime style behind in favour of something new. Nevertheless, I liked the smoothness of the animation and the UI was explained well. Sound-wise, the music used was hypnotic but mostly stayed in the background, allowing you to immerse yourself in the story. This was a wise choice, as repetitious music while you try to read would be distracting.
I have to say that, just like Digital and DTIPBIJAYS, I was left thinking by Analogue: A Hate Story. Love argues that even with the imperfection of the equality between the sexes we have today, things could become much worse if our society regressed back to the sensibilities of the past. The rights of women are placed forefront in Analogue, and the two AI narrators share differing views, often asking you how you feel about the ethical situations you read about. I feel as if Love fell short in making one of the AI characters better written than the other. Hyun-Ae is a complicated and tragic figure, driven to extremes from her treatment by her so-called family. Mute, the other AI, arrives later in the plot and appears to be almost a caricature of women who have been raised to believe they are inferior. I found her hard to identify with and felt she was only there to offer the exact opposite in ethics to Hyun-Ae when she could have been just as complicated, if not more so.
There are many ways to look at Analogue: A Hate Story and I feel each player will take away a different experience thanks to the branching paths and multiple endings. Deeper than that is the opinions and beliefs a player will take into the game and how they will feel once they leave. As I've said, gaming is largely dominated by men, from development to those who play, and I've encountered enough misogynistic attitudes around the Internet to anticipate the reactions from some people who play this game. At times, I felt that Love veered on preaching her own beliefs through the plot, only to quickly throw in the opposite argument to appear neutral. Still, I think I know which side she falls on, and Analogue suffers for this bias. If a video game is to address gender equality and attitudes towards women, I feel as if it should not have an agenda to tell one side of that argument more favourably than another.
I completed Analogue: A Hate Story with 93% log completion and I have seen three of the six endings. When I go back to complete the rest, I'll update the review on any new feelings I have. In conclusion though, I don't know that I'd recommend Analogue: A Hate Story to everyone, but it is short enough that I'd hope a ton of people experience it anyway. A solid entry in Christine Love's ever-expanding catalogue of thought-provoking interactive stories.