Lifeline: Flatline +9

Like many people playing this game, I’m a big fan of the Lifeline series. In comparing Flatline to its cohorts, it improves in some areas, but displays new flaws that ultimately outweigh its innovations.
First of all, the character of Wynn is pretty great. Not as idiosyncratic and lovable as Taylor or Arika, but not as dry and dull as say V. Adams. She’s believable and engaging, but kind of unlikable in a few ways.
Secondly, the heart rate and its involvement in the game is a minor innovation that adds a good variable.
But the things that keep this one from a perfect score are its far too frequent pauses in the action. Part of what made the first several games so good were their pacing. A consistent, moderate amount of action in spurts. Flatline takes you out of the action for brief periods way too many times. While this does draw out the story more, it’s just ridiculous to wait five minutes while Wynn takes a sip of water or something.
Also, I’m not a huge fan of the Green story arc that ties these games together- it seems kind of slapdash and patched together, and so I wonder why it’s always the focal point of these games stories, but that’s honestly just a personal thing for me.

This is my second Lifeline game (I played the with Alex first), and it's an awesome, unique experience (even without an Apple Watch). The real-time nature of the narrative contributes to its engaging nature. I find myself actually caring what happens to Taylor, which is the same feeling I experienced when playing Lifeline: Crisis Line with Alex. I had to look up the order in which to play the other games, since 3 of them star Taylor. Right now I'm simultaneously playing Lifeline, Lifeline 2: Bloodline, Lifeline: Whiteout, and Lifeline: Flatline since they star characters other than Taylor, as I want to play the Taylor entries in order (Lifeline, then Lifeline: Silent Night, then Lifeline: Hallway to Infinity). These games are definitely worth playing. I'd love to see how the experience differs when playing with an Apple Watch. Regardless, I highly recommend all of the games in the series. They do have an overarching theme that ties them all together (the threat of the green-eyed woman and/or the odd, green alien tentacle blobs that can enter your body Wrath of Khan style). I like the fact that some of the games are sci-fi, one is fantasy/magic themed and one is basically survival horror, and all of them adhere to the overarching theme of the green mind-controlling alien creatures that you must either destroy or avoid at all costs. I highly recommend them.

The story is quite engaging. The suspense is very thick. You want to keep playing. But you can’t.
Wynn takes as long as she possibly can to do the simplest of tasks, like walk ten feet or process information. I feel like the writers couldn’t think of a long enough story so they put ridiculous pauses in even more ridiculous places. Some of these I understand, like sleeping or trying keys, but it is totally possible to walk and talk at the same. Multitasking is pretty great. It would have been better with a bit more backstory to replace some of the pauses.
And to be honest, at the beginning, I couldn’t get into the story. I get that Wynn woke up after some mysterious surgery and was terrified out of her mind, but even still, she came across as super whiny. But after a while, the story picked up, and I found myself caring what happened to her.
Overall, this game is one of my least favorite in the series, but to be fair, this series is super amazing, so even the worst game in it is pretty darn great. I loved how it tied the rest of the games together, and despite the egregious wait times and slow start, it’s totally worth a play through.