{"id":19262,"date":"2018-05-03T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/late_shift"},"modified":"2018-05-03T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T16:00:00","slug":"review-late-shift-switch-eshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/05\/03\/review-late-shift-switch-eshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Late Shift (Switch eShop)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/late_shift\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/late_shift\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89293\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89293\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>That grandiose term \u2018interactive entertainment\u2019 has been bandied around for decades, usually rolled out when the word \u2018game\u2019 feels too throwaway or restrictive. Sure, it\u2019s highfalutin, but sometimes it\u2019s simply a more accurate descriptor. FMV release <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/late_shift\">Late Shift<\/a><\/strong> is a case in point \u2013 it\u2019s likely to garner criticism with people asking, &#8220;well, where\u2019s the <em>game<\/em>, then?&#8221; However, by eliminating puzzle mechanics, developers Wales Interactive has doubled down on creating tension and maintaining the pace of a thriller.<\/p>\n<p>You play as Matt, a student who moonlights as a valet\/security guard in the underground car park of a swanky London residence. The titular night shift gives him time to ponder (via voiceover) the chaos and probability that govern our life choices as he lusts over the luxury motors that fill the garage. One night in the guard\u2019s booth, while brushing up on some light algorithmic game theory, a disturbance leads to him being co-opted into a robbery from an auction house. From there on out, the story twists and turns as you race around the city getting involved with the police, the Triads and all manner of shady individuals.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89287\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89287\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Or not. You see, Late Shift is essentially a choose-your-own-adventure book. Every so often a choice will appear on screen with a short countdown timer \u2013 stand still or run away? Act cool or protest? Flirt with the pretty girl or give her the cold shoulder? Highlighting your choice and hitting &#8216;A&#8217; sends you onwards down a narrative branch. The game is split into chapters and, while certain story points and locations will always come up, your choices inform how the scenarios play out. Should the timer reach zero, a decision is made for you and the story carries on regardless.<\/p>\n<p>Matt\u2019s personality is revealed by the choices you make \u2013 aggressive options will inevitably lead to violence; play as a goody two-shoes and he\u2019ll run to the police at the first opportunity. On our first playthrough we took the \u2018charming rogue\u2019 route. The point is you shape the protagonist, and therefore the story, through your choices. This has the potential to become incoherent and incongruous very quickly, but Late Shift is impressively seamless, whichever route you take.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a slick production. From the introduction you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking the whole story will play out in the underground car park \u2013 a contained, controllable environment to set the game \u2013 but soon you\u2019re cruising around London in beautiful cars to all sorts of locations, day and night. The scope is a significant step up from <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/bunker\">The Bunker<\/a><\/strong>, a recent FMV title published by Wales Interactive.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89296\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89296\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Arguably, it\u2019s this scope that necessitates the removal of puzzle elements common to the genre. There are no keys to manually collect or documents to comb through for hidden passwords here. Pleasantly, this means there\u2019s no awkward backtracking or looping dialogue either. By jettisoning environmental puzzles entirely, no laborious keycode puzzle can disturb the narrative\u2019s breakneck pace.<\/p>\n<p>Cast performances are universally strong and it\u2019s quite possible to sit back and simply let the movie play out without your input \u2013 the writing and production values are solid enough to entertain on their own. It\u2019s snappily edited, too, with no unnatural pauses or jumps in the soundtrack. The countdown timer keeps things moving consistently.<\/p>\n<p>Late Shift looks great on the TV, and thanks to the simplicity of the controls \u2013 the left stick and a button \u2013 you don\u2019t feel disadvantaged playing on the telly. Touch controls work perfectly in handheld mode but the cinematic presentation feels at home on the bigger screen. One practicality to consider is the size of the download \u2013 indie eShop release this may be, but all that high-quality video takes up a whopping 6.9GB on your hard drive.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89291\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89291\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Late Shift Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Your progress is saved every chapter and upon completing the game you\u2019re presented with a screen showing how many decisions you made, how many chapters you\u2019ve unlocked and how many of the thirteen endings you\u2019ve witnessed. You\u2019re unlikely to replay the game <em>thirteen<\/em> times, but you\u2019ll certainly want to see how the narrative changes with different decisions. Pleasingly, there\u2019s a wealth of content that you\u2019ll necessarily sacrifice on the way, so the game begs at least one replay. Watching someone else play is an entertaining alternative and, as with any decent film, it\u2019s a fun communal experience.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Late Shift succeeds on its own terms by knowing exactly what it is and executing on its goals. It\u2019s a tight, movie-length, choose-your-own-adventure that doesn\u2019t let ill-fitting puzzle elements slow it down or dampen the tension it creates so well. While player agency is limited to the core branching system, its scale eclipses other FMV productions and, although it\u2019s resolutely on-rails, it\u2019s a far more seamless and satisfying &#8216;interactive entertainment&#8217; experience as a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That grandiose term \u2018interactive entertainment\u2019 has been bandied around for decades, usually rolled out when the word \u2018game\u2019 feels too throwaway or restrictive. Sure, it\u2019s highfalutin, but sometimes it\u2019s simply a more accurate descriptor. FMV release Late Shift is a case in point \u2013 it\u2019s likely to garner criticism with people asking, &#8220;well, where\u2019s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}