Mini Review: Twelve Minutes (PS5) - Weird Twist Spoils an Otherwise Intriguing Story

The problem is trying to convey how much I absolutely hated everything to do with this without spoilers. There’s about 4 or 5 plot points in the game which are both distasteful and handled horribly. It’s ok to make games about controversial themes but you really have to give those themes the care and attention they deserve rather than half arsing it.

I know it’s not reviewed particularly well (including here, clearly) but I still want this game. Not sure why exactly, but I really do!

This thing feels like such an oddity that I'll probably pick it up on a deep discount one day.

I think it's fair to say that the ending isn't for everyone, but I genuinely thought the gameplay loop was brilliant. I'm the type of person who usually hates time-loop themes in media, but this game handled it very well. One thing this review doesn't bring up is that as you progress though the game, you will gain shortcuts on a frequent basis so that you don't have to repeat everything you've done to reach that point. It's not even that long of a game, it's roughly 4-5 hours long and I managed to finish it in one afternoon, which surprised me since I rarely finish games in one go but this one really captivated me. I've even seen people finish it in only 2-3 hours if you're lucky enough to do all the right things on your first try. So I'd definitely recommend giving it a go.

I felt Daisy Ridley and James McAvoy were completely wasted given the characters all have American accents.

@RadioHedgeFund Devs finally hire good British voice talent and they give them American accents!

Would this game be getting the attention it did without the cast? I thought it was going to be a lot better than it was. Serves me right for not reading reviews I guess. At least I played on Game Pass.

I’m curious for this game but never for 25€.
As ps+ title it would be fine.

One of the few games I actively hated while playing it but was determined to finish so it didnt haunt me ..

This game really reminds me of the Last of Us part 2

@ShogunRok what kind of defoe performance can I expect? Boondocks Defoe or Lighthouse Defoe?

@Danloaded Mr Bean's Holiday.

Don’t know if I can handle any more loopy business it ruined my enjoyment of Deathloop. Starting to strike me as a cheap and potentially confusing way of recycling few areas in a vain attempt to flesh a game out

@Danloaded I haven't played it, but I've heard Defoe is quite entertaining. That said, I don't think people like his character very much (which isn't really his fault, but...).

@Enigk yeah I reckon so ...least the initial buzz around it. This game was shown on like 3 E3's I think...and always had people wanting to play it. The premise is good. But too ambitious for one guy. And falls into the trap of trail and error thats difficult to work around when you're dealing with a narrative driven time loop game.

@Grimwood There’s so much wrong with the game other than the ending. A game that physically requires you to act out domestic abuse in order to progress is just not fun.

@nessisonett I'm glad that out of all of the senseless acts of violence and murder we commit in video games domestic abuse is where we draw the line. Thanks for clearing that up

@Tchunga Do you not draw the line at domestic abuse? I’d perhaps have a word with any potential partner about that.

@Tchunga What if I tell you both are absolutely abhorrent? I couldn’t imagine finding any sort of enjoyment in killing or hurting innocents in a game unless I was a complete sociopath.

@nessisonett Well I got bad news for you pal, nearly the entire medium of video games revolves around killing people in some shape or fashion. So unless you play exclusively visual novels or farming simulator you might want to find a new hobby

@Tchunga The key word is innocents. Take Deathloop, every single person in it is out to kill you. If it revolved around gaslighting and torturing innocent people then of course it wouldn’t be fun in the slightest.

@nessisonett Best fun I've ever had in any GTA game was driving around creating random carnage... I dare say I've picked up several hookers and killed them till my little psychopathic heart desired. Mowed down countless innocent NPC's who never did anything to me, or my character...they were simply there. Never once felt any ounce of guilt about it. Let's not pretend you've not found enjoyment at some point in doing the same. Tell me different and I'll show you a liar. C'mon mate. You get the point he's making. Let's not get on our moral high horse about it now.

@Bleachedsmiles He's operating under the delusion that because his argument is the "morally superior" one that it somehow makes it the better argument

It doesn't. It's a logical fallacy

@nessisonett Most of my enjoyment in GTA and Saints Row is causing havoc and killing random civilians in a game. Want to know why? Cause its a game, they're NPCs, pixels, code, etc. They don't exist.

@Medic_Alert True, and fair to a extent. But there has to be a detachment there...otherwise you get into the conversation of games make you violent - which any already normal stable person knows how weak an argument this is. And also why we have game ratings to protect impressionable minds....just like every other media.
Attaching a personality to an NPC is of course going to affect more than random countless clone npc walking around GTA. But still, a game is a game. And if you're having the stance of 'i would never hurt an innocent in game..if you take pleasure in that you're a psychopath'...well, you're simply not being honest.
At the end of the day the important thing to remember is that you're playing a character in a game...not yourself. Acceptance in that then there really is no argument that you feeling zero guilt over actions a video game character makes through your input means you're going to actively take pleasure in repeating those said actions in real life. That didn't hold up in the 90's...it certainly doesn't hold up now.

@Medic_Alert The laughable thing is the point of GTA is not to kill civilians. That gives zero benefit and you face repercussions for doing so. Completely different from a forced encounter to beat the game.

i actually loved this game , its really different from anything else. i can easily see why some people wouldn't like it though. its one of those types of games that isn't for every one , and that's okay.

@Medic_Alert I feel like this conversation is getting a little long in the tooth, that wasn't my intention but nevertheless there are a few things I want to clear up.

I want to start off by saying that I agree with you on most points. You can absolutely feel attachment to a piece of fiction. Like you said that is often the author or creators intent.

However, it is a logical fallacy to think that murder in a video game is justified in some cases and not others. This isn't real life, This is a video game. It's polygons and pixels. Violence in fiction lacks a lot of the nuance that it does in the real world. I'm not saying you can't feel a type of way about stabbing your wife in 12 Minutes, you absolutely can. But what I am saying however is that if you yourself have ever committed acts of violence in a game before then it is hypocritical at best to think that you have any sort of moral high ground in feeling so.

I didn't enjoy a lot of the things I had to do in 12 minutes. Does that mean I regret doing any of those things? No. Does that make me a bad person? Call me biased but no, I don't think it does. You can think that 12 Minutes goes too far. I never argued otherwise. All that I ask is your reasoning in thinking so is consistent

@Medic_Alert totally. I've no problem with someone thinking a game, a movie, a book ect handles a subject matter badly.

@nessisonett I swear I don't get the hate lol
There are a bunch of books and stuff with the same plot points! It's not that bad... I actually thought it was an interesting twist lol

But yeah, I couldn't finish this game without a guide. Some of the solutions are really counter intuitive! And repeating the same things over and over with SLIGHT variations that end up giving you nothing is also tedious...
I thought the plot was not the worst part of the game at all.

I'm not going to read this as you've already sullied the game for good with that title. Telling someone that a piece of contant (film, story, game) has a twist in it is about as big a spolier as you can give. Even if all you say is it has the twist.
I will never play this game as I'd be constantly waiting for the twist.
fgs did you really have to. Couldn't you just have said "Some of the story telling is bizarre". Still a nice headline grabber for you but you manage not to spoil the game for every reader.

@AFCC I think part of the difference there is that films, TV, books, they're all stuff that you consume passively, while video games are interactive, and so give you agency over what's being done on-screen. It's one thing so watch or read about someone doing things you find abhorrent, and another entirely to be the one directing those actions.

@Grimwood It’s a suspense-driven game, it kind of puts all it’s chips on the twist and ending.
The trial and error gameplay is frustrating too, where you know what you can do trigger the next event but you have to watch the whole 12 minutes play out for a retry or a failure to get the result.

There’s a lot of good ideas here but the execution was terrible, and yes a good twist/ending would have forgiven most of it’s flaws.

@lindos It’s a suspense-driven story game paying obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock and has a time loop mechanic ... you didn’t think there’d be a twist? Good grief.

@AFCC That’s my main gripe too. Having the solution in hand but having to go through multiple loops to “set” it was very annoying. It plays like a sandbox but seems there’s only one way to trigger the right sequence.

@Medic_Alert I love the points you make. I think this is all part of the medium maturing. Movies had indie and art house long before the medium went into homes. Video games started as mainstream and the independent voices came later.
I think there are some expectations that, like mainstream Hollywood, the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and the the good guys win if you play/watch to the end — just by the fact how of the hobby started. This, exacerbated by the fact that we are rewarded online for complaining and outrage and not incentivized to take responsibility for our own consumption, you have this kind of backlash.

Aside (sort of): I will never understand the call for “safe spaces” when we’ve had this thing called fiction the whole time with which to do exactly that, and the irony that fiction needs to be protected often from people who feel that way.

Played the Xbone version for a little while and feel the control scheme - for consoles at the very least - should have just mapped movement to the analogue stick.

Sauntering against a ticking clock with the point and click makes for an unnecessary chore.