Telling Lies Reviews
Telling Lies is an absolute masterpiece. It offers some brilliant writing and acting that drive us to passionately discover all of its secrets through its very simple but effective mechanics.
Review in French | Read full review
Without a sense of feedback or progress, the rambling, leisurely narrative of Telling Lies comes across as unfocused.
Whether you call it an interactive movie game or desktop thriller, Telling Lies is a gratifying and authentic-feeling fly-on-the-wall experience. For the most part. Exceptional performances and an intriguing, topical story are undercut by a jarring gameplay choice that forces you out of the game when you least want it.
Some people will absolutely love Telling Lies. The type of person who can watch five minutes of a movie and then has to watch the entire thing will surely be absorbed into this game's mystifying world. However, for other people, sifting through hours of footage and being forced to jigsaw a narrative out of it will just feel like a chore, even if the characters are well depicted. It's up to you to decide which category you're most likely to fall under.
On paper, searching a large database of phone-filmed video clips doesn't sound too exciting, but Telling Lies offers an exhilarating few hours of detective work thanks to clever construction, strong performances and exceptional polish. Given that the game takes place almost entirely in windows on a virtual desktop computer screen (and would therefore seem 'at home' on PC), it survives the transition to Switch entirely intact. While there's not much incentive to reopen the investigation once it reaches its climax, uncovering Telling Lies' web of relationships and intrigue is a case definitely worth taking on.
Sam Barlow is pioneering new ways to bring interactivity to FMV media, blending film, games, and the human experience in ways that shouldn’t be missed.
Telling Lies on the Nintendo Switch brings a new life to the world of story-based games that make use of an FMV presentation. With its compelling plot and simple but capturing gameplay, a very good performance by its actors and a sharp use of the Nintendo Switch touch screen, Telling Lies will be more than enjoyed by players who will gladly keep a close focus on long video scenes to follow the story and make necessary choices based on what they just watched and heard.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
In sum, Telling Lies represents a niche genre that explores interactive storytelling in a very unique way.
Telling Lies is a weak interactive film in screencast format that tries to become relevant at the expense of the left-wing agenda. The keyword search system still looks fresh and together with the player's imagination should have created the magic of immersion, but the lack of convenient rewind system, ability to conduct an investigation and match several videos finished off an interesting concept.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Telling Lies is a flawless piece of work. This is Sam Barlow perfecting what he was able to achieve with Her Story and bolstering it with a bigger story and being supported by four powerhouse performances. Telling Lies offered me five incredible hours and everyone should experience this masterpiece with their own eyes.
Telling Lies is one of the best experiences to make use of FMV on PS4, telling a fascinating narrative that'll have you guessing what revelation will come your way next. What's more, the star-studded cast of characters does an excellent job of bringing the script to life, but it is held back by a perplexing rewind function. Had it been implemented better, the game would be on the cusp of greatness. Although, in its current state, Telling Lies is still a very safe recommendation for fans of the genre.
When compared to other games, Telling Lies is a massive accomplishment, bringing unheard of levels of talent.
While untangling a web of lies players are tantalisingly close to the characters in this believable world created by Sam Barlow
Sam Barlow's BAFTA-snaffling Her Story was a fabulously tight and taut whodunwhat as you pieced together the tale of a mysterious young woman from a jumbled collection of police interview clips.
The question of whether Telling Lies is voyeuristic or not doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on the quality of the game — I do, in fact, think it’s good and enjoyed it. But the idea that it isn’t voyeuristic is some laugh.
And while I can appreciate this new art form, this story wasn't quite as dramatic as I had hoped for, or at least the sequence in which I saw the events wasn't as satisfying. It's not as long as I thought it might be. With the pluses and minuses here, I see this as an evolving new medium but not one that has yet reached its highest form.
Telling Lies expands on the concept Sam Barlow created with Her Story, with a web of intriguing characters and mysteries, but the more overblown aspects of its plot detract from the personal drama.
I won't tell any lies here, Telling Lies is another excellent piece of narrative game design from Sam Barlow and I sincerely hope there's more to come
Everything is well-written with strong performances to match.
I can't stress enough how much Telling Lies might not be for you. Most of it is literally spent watching people talk to a screen, to the point where the puzzle angle, no matter how impressive it might be, might wear down its welcome in minutes. For everyone else, especially avid followers of character-driven art forms, these are performances you can really sink your teeth into while you try to make sense of it all.