Back to the Supposedly Wonderful Future.
Most of us wonder what the future will look like. To be honest, our view is very skewered by Sci-Fi. Star Trek inspired the first mobile phones. We’re looking at making wormhole travel and light speed engines. We see it as nothing but positive.
What Supposedly Wonderful Future does is look at the human side of our future. The problems we would face in such a time. As we rush to cure out the negatives of our humanity, what do we leave behind? A story which holds strong pretty much until the end. While this game really does not look, and I’m not exaggerating, the part it hides behind a few thought provoking questions.
SPOILER WARNING: from here will give away some of the story. I’ll try to give as little away as possible. To avoid spoilers, please ignore the next 3 paragraphs.
You are Michael, a simple programmer who works with his friend as a programmer-for-hire. On a normal day of work, a strange woman appears at your door, claiming to be from the future. Believing this crazy story you follow her to the future to give your outsider perspective on several issues existing only in the future.
These stories are designed to bring up questions, ones which are meant to push your philosophical understanding. Is curing all illnesses the best idea? How many issues should we allow euthanasia for? Why are we here? How far should we snoop on people’s lives? Where is the line on policing behaviour? Would we believe a god even if he spoke to us, and how would he do so? Should we allow people to identify as penguins? Over several days in the future, you are put through your paces, without ever being given a definitive answer on whether what you have done is right.
Now 90% of this story is stunning, the characters are fairly well developed, and the story moves at a steady pace. Where my issue lies, is the ending (SPOILER WARNING again) which decides to throw all of that decision making aside for a cheap soliloquy about how everything else you did was just to fill time for no real reason, where you have to decide if human life is worth living if we remove all the suffering. Choose to end the life of a man who has cured all human problems and as such finds no emotion in anything, or get shot yourself. I cannot deny the curveball but it is one with poor execution in comparison to the other stories.
SPOILER SAFE SPACE. Now when I said this game was graphically subpar, it would not be a game you would consider to have such rich story. That is a shame, as I feel people are gonna miss out on it because of that. But the game has the look of a 90’s music video or a cheap asset flip. Character models have no definition and are rounded yet still lacking key facial details. Particularly this lack of quality is apparent on windows, which have blatant scenery pasted on to them which does not bend when you move around the room.
That being said, there is little wrong with this game. There are no glitches, bug, or graphical errors. The music is particularly good, with an impressive mixed soundtrack for each situation, however, the pace you move between them means you may be hearing the same snippet of a track a lot. The game also does not lock you behind hurdles of difficulty, and a playthrough is relatively smooth, taking me about 3 hours.
So please, don’t be put off by the graphical design of this game. Behind the rather aged looking graphics is a deep story with only a few spotty points. It’s a game that made me think in a good way and didn’t let anything get in the way of its story. Supposedly Wonderful Future is a good look at the philosophical debates of tomorrow, and that’s really cool.
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