A review of PAPERS, PLEASE
Available systems: Steam Games
Hello once again, and welcome to IIWYM reviews! Today, we take a look at PAPERS, PLEASE and get our passports stamped to dystopian adventure!
On it's surface, Papers is deceptively simple. You are selected by the government of a cold war era communist country to inspect people's papers for accuracy, and to ultimately determine whether or not they get to enter the country through a very secure checkpoint.
This. This is a lie.
For you see, the game quickly gets much more complicated from there. First, they start you off simply denying all foreigners. Then it escalates. Check for the proper date. check a person's weight. Check their stamps. Detain certain people, strip search others, defuse bombs... Even pull out a rifle and shoot intruders. Yes. In a game about papers, you are called to Spy VS Spy some terrorists.
The game is incredibly immersive, as well. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about people just from reading their documents (Hue, hue), but it's true. The game is presented in 8-bit (Maybe 16. I might have miscounted my bits!) graphics, and the sound has that quality of something you'd see on a old NES game... Which is a perfectly apt descriptor. The whole game feels like some forgotten gem from 1984.
But that doesn't mean the game can't do tension. For you see, the government doesn't pay for the housing they give you. Of course not, that would be too easy. No, you're paid by commission for each person you see in a day. There is a very definite time constraint, as you try to see the maximum amount of people you can so you can continue to feed your wife and often sickly son and keep the heat on in your house (Because it's based on communist countries on earth. It's freakin cold in those parts.) Each time you mess up, the game tells you with a telegraph from the head office. The game seems rather lenient with letting you slip up early on, but I have a feeling they're going to really hit you with the fines towards the end of the game.
There's several items to collect as well from certain people and special tasks, and the replay value is incredible. I got arrested for something that was rather stupid to do in a communist country (Report bribes and such) and got ending X out of 20. So... There is ALOT to the choices you make. Because you see, you have ultimate authority over who goes in and out of that gated checkpoint. It's not a game over if you let one person through without papers (Which you may often have to to get some of the special tokens, I feel).
All in all, there are few games with this much dedication to the writing. This is a heavily text-based adventure, and the quality of the writing and characters shines through the gameplay through what starts off as simple mechanics. For this is not a game about stacking and shuffling papers.
It's one of the best games with a moral choice I've seen in YEARS. Move out of the way, mass effect. I was more torn over whether or not to let a refugee in without papers than I have been since that game.
I got this for $10, and I would have been happy paying $45 or more. Note however that the game is also best played in shorter stretches, as the documents can, of course, get tedious (Especially when you booch it several times or try things as an experiment and need to replay a day or two)
PAPERS, PLEASE gets a BUY ANY PRICE
This has been Nev with IIWYM reviews, who has just been approved to cross the border to gaming pleasure. I'll see you there.
I was kind of on the fence about buying this one - but after your review, I'm downloading it on steam immediately.
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