1979 Revolution: Black Friday- Review

1979 Revolution: Black Friday was originally released on PC in 2016 and has now made its way over to console. The game caught my eye mainly due to the historical factors associated with the game, I love my history and having the chance to learn more is always an opportunity that I jump at.

In the game you play photo journalist Reza Shriazi, who has just come back to Iran from a trip abroad. When he returns he finds people demonstrating in the streets against The Shah. The camera he has with him will be key to the game. Taking pictures of the events that unfold around you will shape the game and show how an important historical event happened.



The first thing that I will say about the game is how well the story telling for the game has been done. The tense moments within the game drag you in, the emotional will have you feeling for the characters and bring a sense of what it would have been like to live in that that time while the revolution was going on.

There was one moment that was quite eye opening, and it’s when you head back to the Reza’s family home and you explore around, you come across some home videos that have been left and they show how life was before the revolution, how beautiful the country was, how happy the people were. The country was so different before the revolution happened and these document that fantastically, it also shows a different side to things and brings into play the larger scale of what was currently happening in the game. A wonderful, yet daunting contrast.



In terms of how the game is visually, it isn’t the best looking game, and it isn’t the worst, it’s quite an artistic way and visually manages to catch the city of Tehran wonderfully. The audio within the game has also been brilliantly done and some of the sounds were strong and quite powerful.

Gameplay wise the game plays out pretty much like a Telltale game, you have options to select from with dialect which will affect how the rest of the story will play out, and there are also actions that you have to do within the game, such as timed presses of buttons or a directional movement of the thumbstick. In a way the gameplay doesn’t bring anything new to the table and it’s more of a tried and test model that they went for when developing the game. Which I have to be honest about, I think the more important thing here for the developers is that the story is what people concentrate on.



Overall the game is a powerful one, from a story and historical standpoint 1979 Revolution: Black Friday will have you emotionally invested in the characters right throughout, from a technical aspect it is pretty much more of the same, and the developers have clearly gone for a tried and tested model to help bring their story to life.