A deserted island... a lost man... memories of a fatal crash... a book written by a dying explorer. Dear Esther is a ghost story told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional gameplay, the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly triggered by moving around the environments, making every telling unique. Features a stunning, specially commissioned soundtrack. Forget the normal rules of play; if nothing seems real here, it's because it may just be all a delusion. What is the significance of the aerial - What happened on the motorway - is the island real or imagined - who is Esther and why has she chosen to summon you here? The answers are out there, on the lost beach and the tunnels under the island. Or then again, they may just not be, after all...
Oh, memories... I remember actually getting lost around here. It just doesn't awe me as much as it did way back then now that I've had a peek of the remake.
Why not? I think this original version was elegant in its simplicity, something I don't find so much in the re-make.
Yes, but Dear Esther is really visual dependent, and a more breathtaking visual can really increase the games appeal. It's sort of like 3D movies... sort of. Well okay, maybe that was a bad example.
But it certainly adds more originality then the stock HL2 stuff and more realistic environment. Personally I love great scenes in games. Like in TF2 sometimes if there isn't much action I catch myself just looking in the distance, listening to the sounds, watching what is in the background, beyond the map and it's so nice to find some little details.