I have nothing against whatever is the actual name for the genre often (un)affectionately called the "walking simulator". I like stories, I like short and even linear game experiences. Firewatch is an excellent story, told poorly, wrapped inside of an incredibly boring game. Without giving anything away, Firewatch's story deals with heavy themes and tries to do so in a unique way, with an excellent narrative concept of futility tieing the whole thing together towards the end. But it all falls so flat. The acting is fine, but the dialogue is uninteresting in a sub-Sorkinian banter type of way. The narrative concept I'm tiptoeing around spelling or for fear of spoilers is clever, but almost goes wasted with how clunkily the implementation of it ends up being. Overall the story feels like it would have fit well in a pretty good TV movie, but then the game forces you to actually play it in between. Frustratingly slow climbing and jumping animations as you walk down what is essentially a pretty corridor. The game flirts with what at first seems like an interesting focus on exploration, but almost immediately you realise that there is one path to take, and the game will go to great lengths to make sure you don't stray from it. There's little of interest to interact with along the way, so that aspect of this style of game which makes something like Gone Home so engrossing is missing too. It's just flat and laborious. A very dull game driven unsteadily by an okay-not-great story.
