The Last Chance Review (PC)

Time is of utmost importance; it’s a crucial factor in which I don’t have the mental capacity to comprehend or conquer. There’s a deadline looming over me—a constant reminder that words do not etch themselves into the slate on their own accord, that reports do not conclude without the added wealth of hard-hitting knowledge and evidence. But I have an even greater burden hanging in the balance: a five-day hourglass that just so happens to reflect the bitter taste of a consequential life that will haunt me if I fail to scrape enough pages together. I have a home to analyze, and a tapestry of heirlooms and documents to sift through. But what I don’t have is a story. I need that story. If I don’t make ends meet by the eleventh hour, I won’t have anything to come back to. This is The Last Chance.

The pressure of having to thread the needle and find a newsworthy story is an immense burden that I can’t quite fathom, more so given that I have absolutely no time whatsoever to complete the draft. But I’ve been told that there is something worth chronicling here, in the ominous depths of an unsolved murder case. With a word of warning from the editor already mulling over my conscience, I have found myself at something of a crossroads. Do I risk it all and find another story to report on, one that’s less noteworthy, or do I brace myself for what could potentially be one of the most dangerous on-set investigative journalism stories in history? The latter option is coercing me to not think twice about it. The timer has already shed its first few grains, and I’m running out of time. I’m going in.

Questions, Questions, Questions

The Last Chance tells the tale of a failing journalist—an ill-fated reporter who, after a spiraling career of failing to deliver captivating beats, makes the decision to venture deep into an unsolved murder case. With just five days left to produce a report that’s worthy of sharing the headlines, the reporter arms themselves with the usual tools of the trade, and traipses deep into the roots of an old estate, desperate to use their knowledge and wisdom to not only chronicle their findings, but unravel an investigation that spawned copious amounts of questions and fewer answers.

In The Last Chance, you have a somewhat simple task to complete: rummage through a home, and collect evidence and other crucial information about the case in question to help produce a story. An investigative thriller at heart, there are no B-list jump scares to subject yourself to, nor are there any monsters to outrun or hide from, for that matter. Rather, the story invites you to immerse yourself in a tainted world that bleeds disconnected dots and illogical ideas. It yearns for you to dismantle the truth, if not through violence, then through good old fashioned journalism. And it’s your job here, in short, to sort the fact from the fiction—the things that keep the secrets from being revealed, and the pub talk that carries no real weight.

Tell Me a Story

While The Last Chance isn’t a naturally scary game, it does generate a lot of strong atmospheric effects and unsettling moments of intense gameplay. Alas, this isn’t your typical run-and-gun thrill fest; it’s a slow-burning detective mystery that pools its secrets into a fairly sizable journey that’s as equally gripping as it is teeming with strands of evidence for you to document. As such, it isn’t in receipt of any majorly exciting segments; in fact, it spends the majority of its time handing you things to look at and pages to analyze. It also pours a lot of its efforts into providing you with witnesses to speak with—a grey area that sadly fosters a worrying amount of bad dialogue and questionable voiceover work—and other interactive opportunities. Again, a slow burner. But stick with us.

Encased within a lot of these poor dialogue pieces is a pretty decent experience. It’s a walking simulator, and so, there isn’t much for you to do other than aimlessly waltz through the same corridors at different times of the day and interact with things until the rightful beat clicks and ushers you forward. And there are several good moments to enjoy, too, all things considered. I can’t say that it’s the most exciting case to get your hands on, but it’s also a far cry from a bad one.

On the plus side, The Last Chance isn’t sullied by any majorly negative technical drawbacks or graphical errors. Perhaps I was one of of the “lucky” ones, I’m not sure. But it played well — and that alone counts for a lot, truly.

Verdict

While The Last Chance isn’t as emotionally charged or as riveting as Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch or The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, it certainly isn’t the worst investigative walking simulator that I’ve ever had the chance of playing. Sure, the dialogue is bad, and the world design isn’t teeming with great, much less interesting characters or mementos to pick up, for that matter. But in spite of all of this, The Last Chance is still a pretty solid thriller, and it definitely benefits from a lot of good storytelling qualities, warts and all.

With all of the above said, I still can’t find it in me to actively throw all of my eggs into the one basket here. The Last Chance isn’t the worst of its kind, but it doesn’t do anything particularly grand or special to shake up the usual narrative, either. Even still, for a meager asking price of a couple of dollars, it is worth taking a look at, if only for the sake of being able to bathe in the handful of genuinely good aspects that it brings to the table. However, if you would much rather opt to take a route down an alternate path—a road that spouts more adrenaline-fueled storytelling and unhinged drama, for example—then you might want to consider taking your pen and notebook elsewhere to scratch that itch.