Review: Simulacra (2017)
Your phone may be watching you.
★★★★
Technology may be a blessing, with all it's cool features and amazing feeling of feeling convenient, but it's not all pros. There are a lot of cons to technology. For example, there's the imfamous speculation that an FBI agent is watching your phone, however with technology like this, no matter how secure it may get, there's always that one nerd behind a computer who will find a way to bypass it, even creating a virus. A virus so deadly which all your data can be corrupt and possibly stolen.
"Simulacra" takes that idea turns it into a horror/mystery game. The game starts of with you, the player, discovering a lost phone belonging to a woman named Anna. Inside, you find a video message that conveys her desperate cry for help. As you explore the phone further, it begins to behave strangely. You speak with her friends, but they have no idea where she might be. Her texts, emails, and photo gallery contain fragments of information that deepen the mystery. It’s up to you to piece everything together.
The thing with these other people in her phone aren't mostly black and white. They're people that you might meet in real life. Greg Summers (Gavin Yap) Anna's boyfriend, is the cold, cheating douche bag, who isn't very bright. Taylor Perrera (Phraveen Arikiah) is the smart but socially awkward "friend" who Anna mets on Spark, and Ashley (Denise Chan) is the best friend that everyone might want, who do anything to be there for her friend.
Anna (Wendy Van Horen Carneiro), on the other hand, is a complex character. Her life was going smoothly until she finds out that Greg cheated on her, her coworkers don't treat her with respect (Even her boss, who types out all of his emails on capital letters), and gets rejected from vet school. After having a "fight" with Anna, not sure if they broke up. The wiki says so, but I don't remember if it was mentioned in the game. Doesn't matter, but after they two have their fight, Ashley suggests to Anna to make a Spark profile. Anna is hesitant on the idea of online dating, but is convinced. She meets Taylor, but gets interested in James Aulner, who suspiciously was good in guessing Anna's past, so the two decidee to meet up, ultimately causing Anna's disappearance. As a person, I felt bad for Anna because she was having relationship problems, stressful work, and horrible peers, but she should've stopped talking to James after he was giving out so many red flags. Cassie caught onto it, not sure why Anna didn't.
This game has four different endings, with one being the good ending. One is to lose both Anna and Taylor, others have you saving one of the two, and the finale one is the save both. Saving both is the good ending. James may have still be dead, but at least both Taylor and Anna can go home safely. Taylor, before taking Anna home, stupidly askes Anna to go out for coffee. Like, she almost died, and that's the first you say to her? No wonder she isn't interested. But hey, at least she didn't mind being friends with him. Although, I do think she's more interested in me because I saved her life. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)