 Friends, countrymen, I return to you in the greatest hour of need, the year of our lord 2024, to talk about, what else but American Arcadia. Because now and then comes a narrative game that will glue me to the screen. 2023 was excellent at offering me those. In all of them different experiences, from the survival narrative of the pale beyond to the fantastic saga of Baldur's Gate 3 to the meta-narrative mind-bending horror of Alan Wake 2. I've played through more unforgettable narrative experiences in the last half year than across the two years prior. American Arcadia was the last game I played in 2023 and the first game I finished in 2024. I couldn't have wished for a better ending or a better beginning. This narrative-driven story is told in such a delectable way. Dual narratives, office-style cuts to the main characters and villains, comments as they tell their story, plenty of humor and a graphic style that prioritizes clarity and colour. While also being damn stylish, I am enamoured with the character models, whether in motion or across cutscenes. They're adorable and the lack of noses gives them such a unique identity. I love the farming. I love the framing even more. This idea that everything going on the screen is the visualisation of Angela and Trevor's interweaving story of escape in the face of surveillance from hell. That's right. Arcadia is the worst thing in the universe. The next step and evolution of reality television. The dome city that keeps everyone in a perpetual version of America's 70s. Every single moment of every single person's life always caught on camera. And there's our loved Trevor, the most normal, ordinary person in all of Arcadia. He isn't one for drama. He's not endlessly popular, doesn't have an innate charisma, well, outside of being voiced by Yuri Lowenthal and isn't a magnet for, as I said, drama. Trevor's nice, he's relatable, maybe because both him and I are 28 years old and his jokes have the energy of dad jokes to be all he's missing is the kid. It's not his fault he's grown up in an atmosphere that encourages the most toxic traits imaginable. We all know what version of reality reality shows sell, as different as Arcadia is marketed as being from other corporate products meant to entertain by packaging and selling of a horrible version of reality. That's one of the game's messages. Entertainment is driven by the same standards in this fictional version of America as it is in our own world. And those standards, I'm sorry to say, are about as glamorous as a gilded shite. Trevor's life isn't interesting. He's no one anyone would care to watch. His life is defined by a rich interiority, which does not have the sex appeal of a melodramatic human crash pandas existence. He knows who I'm talking about. So when a series of incidents start to break the ordered nature of his life, that spooks Trevor. When management calls him up and asks him to come up to the executive suit of his boss, that spooks him more. And when an unfamiliar voice tells him he's about to be made to disappear, that sets him off on a running spree that won't soon see an end. The voice in his ear? That is Angela. An activist working at Walton Media, the very corporation that does in charge of American Arcadia. The in-world show that follows the lives of all these poor, unsuspecting people living in their gilded cage. Angela is the best, using her position as an executive assistant to try and save the life of our lad, Trevor, as she aids the anti-Arcadia organization breakout, Angela's fun, chaotic and certified fresh. Her game sections are in the 2.5D of Trevor's runny nonsense but puzzle solvers in the first person, reminiscent in their control, though certainly not in atmosphere, of something like Call of the Sea. I give the latter game an arbitrary mention because American Arcadia sees reunited voice actors Yuri Lowenthal and Sissy Jones. Yuri Jones plays host Vivian Walton, a media personality with Teet. My fellow citizens, we have a new Edge Travel Grant winner. His name is Trevor Hills, a 28-year-old account manager with no friends and a boring life that nobody gives two shits about. I'm sorry, I just can't help myself. I know the rules, all grant winners must be publicly announced, blah blah blah, but honestly I don't see the point in it. Who cares about this guy? Anyway, let's take five and we'll record it in one go, okay? Especially behind closed doors, developer Out of the Blue has given Jones lightens for fun, her line delivery a thing of beauty. I love baddies with an attitude. Those characters that never lack in more than a mischievous spark or two, those who dominate a scene with at least a hint of gleeful malevolence. The secondary antagonists are the various Walton media security employees, both agents who make sure no native citizen of Arcadia gets anywhere they shouldn't, and the more fearsome interceptors in their tight sci-fi costumes. I couldn't believe it. Until then, interceptors were an urban legend, a high tech security force in Arcadia with a really cool sci-fi codename. It all started with the infamous leaked Arcadia 6 picture, you know? That one that Walton media has always denied to be true, the guy in the back was believed to be an interceptor. Most people just refer to him as the Tackleberry, because he looked like that guy from the police academy movies, you know, helmet, sunglasses, leather jacket and all that. Anyway, I had worked in Walton media for eight years and I never saw or heard a thing about those guys. Those lads really don't leave much to their imagination, do they? The chief of security, Marcus, gives a particularly memorable appearance. His arc culminates in such a fantastic twist that I was genuinely shocked into a laughter of disbelief. He makes for one of the most memorable sections in the entire game. You're sharing Angel's perspective, while Trevor is on your monitor, controlled by you, trying to hide from a gaggle of 70s-styled security people, blending into crowds, hiding behind timed fountains, and voltage boxes, cars and the like. You also have to respond to a series of drilling questions by Marcus. In effect, the game forces you to split your attention between the two scenes, between the two sections, the two ways of playing. American Arcadia. Each question by Marcus, each new member of Arcadia security looking for Trevor, they are to the tension in a masterful way. I felt a few times here, as well as elsewhere, the most frustrating moment I experienced across the entire game is owed entirely to my own impatience and thick-headedness. The game itself really did me no wrong. The other memorable scenes of the game include an impromptu house visit from Angel's vexing boss Kendra, as well as an incredible psychedelic sequence. Everything about the ending is pitch-perfect. I'd say more about it, but truthfully, Yatik Kroshaw said everything there is to say about why American Arcadia worked in a recent episode of semi-rumblematic, titled The Importance of an Ending. That's the video that persuaded me to pick up the game in the first place, and I can tell you how happy I am to have listened to Yatik's recommendation. Walton Media is a clear stand-in for Disney. Although its creator has a by and large cleaner historical record, then does all Walt. There's a mickey substitute, and Arcadia started out as a sort of Disneyland before the original Mr. Walton passed away, and his nasty businessman of a brother kicked to the curb. The ideology-driven scientist who made Arcadia a household name. So, clearly, this is inspired by the Truman Show, maybe even a pinch of The Running Man. Just based on the main activity Trevor's doing and ends on some interesting revelations later on, here in I speak of the Stephen King novel as opposed to the action film with Schwarzenegger. The slow introduction of Trevor to the truth behind the world he has always known is crafted with care, and feeds into a sense of disquiet that explodes as soon as Angelo directly contacts him. The friendship between the two comes by naturally across the course of the game, and is born of beautiful sentiment. Angelo is trying to undo, or at least undermine, the dystopian horror that Walton and Arcadia stand for, all while selling themselves as wholesome family entertainment. Trevor, he just wants to lead a normal life, to return to the kind of life he always believed he had, in fact. Their journey together and apart is going to leave a mark in my mind as one of the most charming stories of friendship and drives for liberation that I have encountered yet. Don't be a fool, play this game. It's one of the most enjoyable works of fiction in the medium I've come across, in recent memory at least, and its short length invites you to jump in without a moment's hesitation. You can be done with American Arcadia in anywhere between four and six hours. It's the length of two to three good movies, or a single Martin score, say the Irishman. Treat yourselves. A good time is awaiting. And if you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to smash that like button, subscribe, share the video with your friends on your socials, and so on and so forth. We'll have to see it. Meanwhile, I'm Philip Magnus, and I will see you again next time for more goodness as I review some of my favorite games from 2023, and prepare for another year in gaming, in books, and in many other sources of entertainment really. See you next time. Bye!