{"id":19083,"date":"2019-06-05T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19083"},"modified":"2019-05-22T13:18:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T13:18:04","slug":"va-11-hall-a-switch-vita-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/05\/va-11-hall-a-switch-vita-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"VA-11 HALL-A (Switch, Vita, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a dystopian future where implanted nanobots and fearful law enforcement run everyone\u2019s lives, people seek ways to escape.\u00a0 Some devote themselves to their work, others just give up, and some just find answers at the bottom of a glass.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where you come in.\u00a0 In this game you are a bartender at a dive with a location number called VA-11 HALL-A.\u00a0 Since that\u2019s a mouthful and sounds like the room number of your college biology class, everyone just calls it Valhalla.\u00a0 Mix and serve drinks in this unique narrative adventure game.\u00a0 It\u2019s available for Switch, Vita, and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.<\/p>\n

In the game you play as Jill, a bartender.\u00a0 You start off the game in your apartment and can do things like check your cell phone for news articles to enhance the story, shop for items for your apartment, and save and load your game.\u00a0 The only time you can save is when you are at your apartment and on breaks, but we\u2019ll get to that in a bit.\u00a0 When you are ready, you can go off to work for the day, and this is where the meat of the game begins.<\/p>\n

Once you get to work, you can pick songs to play on the jukebox and then customers will arrive.\u00a0 You\u2019ll listen to their stories and they\u2019ll order a drink.\u00a0 Sometimes they\u2019re specific in what they want, other times you must read what they want by clues in the text.\u00a0 After that, a recipe book will open and you can search for drink recipes by name, category, flavor, and more.<\/p>\n

On the right side of the screen is where you\u2019ll mix drinks.\u00a0 Follow the directions in the recipes and add ingredients and flavors as needed.\u00a0 You can even double an order if they want a big drink.\u00a0 Depending on the situation, you may want to add extra alcohol or none at all.\u00a0 You can also choose to age the ingredients or put them on the rocks.\u00a0 Some drinks are mixed, while others are blended.\u00a0 The Switch controllers will rumble more when drinks are blended, so that\u2019s a nice use of the rumble feature.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve made a successful drink, you can serve it to the customer.\u00a0 Depending on how well you make it, and if you put extra alcohol, their reactions may be different.\u00a0 The game has multiple endings with different outcomes depending on how you do, so you may want to have extra save files just in case.\u00a0 Just make sure you have enough money to pay the rent on your apartment.<\/p>\n

This game is really interesting and creative, but it has a few problems, too.\u00a0 You have to wade through a LOT of text, so if you don\u2019t like a lot of reading, you may want to steer clear of this one.\u00a0 Also, you can only save during breaks and when you are at home, which is annoying since other text heavy games like Phoenix Wright let you save mid-sentence.\u00a0 But if you want to play a game that\u2019s way out there, this is a good pick if you can get past those problems.\u00a0 I also like the late 80\u2019s\/early 90\u2019s style PC graphics.\u00a0 Kind of reminds me of Wing Commander in a way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

VA-11 HALL-A is rated M for Mature with ESRB descriptors of Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Use of Alcohol and Tobacco.\u00a0 Even though it\u2019s fictional, you do serve alcohol, and the rest of the descriptors are in the text only, although it does get pretty explicit.\u00a0 Simply stated, if you\u2019re too young to go a bar, you\u2019re too young for this game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a dystopian future where implanted nanobots and fearful law enforcement run everyone\u2019s lives, people seek ways to escape.\u00a0 Some devote themselves to their work, others just give up, and some just find answers at the bottom of a glass.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where you come in.\u00a0 In this game you are a bartender at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19083"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19085,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions\/19085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}