Virginia Reviews
Virignia is an experimental title that blends cinema and videogame in an unique mixture. The story is rich in mistery and requires a lot of ability in reading between the lines but the experience is worth the challenge.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Virginia is an experience able to catch the player's attention thanks to its thriller style and its narrative resources. A good videogame with an outstanding OST recorded by the Prage Philarmonic Orchestra. One of the best indie projects on its genre.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
As a whole Virginia is wonderfully cinematic, and a fantastic story to inhabit as it unfolds.
Like all of the best first-person adventure games, or "walking sims", Virginia works better than its movie inspirations because of the inherent interactivity that comes with telling a story in this medium. It goes all in on delivering a surreal, Lynchian narrative and hits that nail of unreality on the head, all the way down to leaving you wondering what exactly you just witnessed.
While its basic mechanics and emphasis on story over gameplay won’t be for everyone, it’s a unique ride that mature and intelligent gamers should take, especially if they happen to be a fan of The X-Files or Twin Peaks.
It is easy to come away from Virginia inspired and reeling from the vision that the team at Variable state have conjured; it is impossible to come away unchanged.
Virginia is astounding in many ways. The way it conveys its meaning through visuals, character tics, a few hundred written words and one incredible score without uttering a single line of dialogue is remarkable. Confident and measured use of editing lends a sense of style, but Variable State's swagger turns to over-confidence in the final stretch and leaves Virginia on a befuddling rather than satisfying note.
Virginia achieves a level of complex and thrilling storytelling that is difficult to achieve without any words.
An interactive experience unlike any other
Virginia won't be for everyone due to its lack of interactivity, but its compelling storytelling, artistic direction and sound make for an original and immersive cinematic experience.
While extremely confusing at times, Virginia manages to keep players glued to their screens thanks to the wonderful scenery and camera work, mixed with a wonderful story that is to some degree up to those at the helm to interpret. While to some it might be rather annoying to be trapped in silence, never getting a true grasp of what is happening, the pay-off of this style of storytelling allows the adventure to make up for that. Few games manage to capture the mood as well as this one, and some of the surrealistic segments are truly disturbing, making people question the line between reality and imagination, and even whether or not there is actually one to begin with. Virginia is a game that is easy to recommend to anyone who wants to experience something that is truly outside of the ordinary in the industry and truly flexes its creative muscles.
I liked my time with this one for my Virginia review. Playing it a second time after having gone through it all actually allowed me to notice some details here and there that I missed the first time around – or perhaps it was that I didn’t know what they meant in the game’s story. If you’re looking for a different type of “walking simulator” then I recommend that you play Virginia on PS4. It offers an interesting and bizarre story with plenty of weird things to experience in a short package.
The overarching tale of 'Virginia' is more than just about a missing persons investigation. It doesn't take long for the player to tumble their way down through conspiracy and moral conundrums under the guise of rookie FBI agent Anne Tarver. While the plot leads the way and keeps the player on the edge of their seat, the gameplay itself is incredibly minimal with little ways to explore.
Virginia is a Rubik’s cube for your senses. The game masterfully provides you with a constant desire to explore and investigate, but can make you feel claustrophobic with its imposing soundtrack and jarring jump cuts. This is a game that takes its potentially biggest weakness and turns it into its greatest strength.
Virginia is a really intriguing story, one that I just couldn’t put down. Although I wasn’t sure on what was going on all of the time, the dramatic devices used within the game really made me want to find out the ending and what happened to the characters. Virginia’s play time of around two hours for £7.99/$9.99 is perfect, and it’s well worth a couple of hours out of your day.
Virginia represents the evolution that video game media represents over other entertainment products. The game lasts as much as movie (2 hours), its priced like a movie ($ 9.99) but different from a movie, it goes deeper as an experience, including you in this narrative as an integral part of it, allowing you to explore scenarios where the plot rolls, increasing and allowing an immersion that other media are unable to offer. The story is only one, but the nuances will be unique to every player, and just like a good movie with a divisive ending, Virginia is a product that deserves to be consumed and discussed.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Virginia shows what can happen when people with a passion for games, story telling and perhaps a touch of avant garde get together and let their collective subconscious flow. It is not too out of place to say this is an art house game… perhaps the more populist thing to call it would be an intellectual game… the important thing to know is that it has the capacity to make you think and feel and any game that can do that is certainly a worthy title to add to your collection. Virginia helps solidify the notion that games can be art!
With Virginia, Variable State has created a grounded piece of interactive narrative, free of the waffling conceit of the genre’s worst offenders, but not quite evocative enough to be a true classic.
It’s a good thing that Virginia is such a neatly-packed experience, because I definitely needed to run through it twice to get a firmer grip on the story being told. Clocking in at about two hours, it’s a good idea to run through once for the story, and a second time to explore more deeply into the minutiae and context clues that help fill in the gaps, once you have an idea of the overarching plot – and if you want to fill out your trophy list, to boot. Having a (relatively) firm grasp of the story, I’d be curious to learn more about the real-world FBI case it draws inspiration from. If you’ve been itching for another ‘thinker’ game, Virginia might just be right up your alley.
That said, I didn’t dislike Virginia. I was disappointed at the lack of definitiveness and resolution to the matters presented, but the atmosphere and style of the game, as well as it’s brief meditations on society in 1992, stayed with me for some time after I finished playing, and provided a lot to think about. This is far from everyone’s tastes, and I would recommend doing some investigation before parting with any money to consider whether this is going to hold your attention or repel it, but if sedate thrillers that offer more questions than answers are your thing then you’ll find a short but sweet package on offer from 505 Games here.