Lake

The best way to describe Lake is that it's a game for people that don't really play games. The kind of people that play Candy Crush and spend their time watching rom-coms and the like. I say this, because as an actual "game", Lake falls VERY short. The lack of a compelling narrative doesn't help, either.

The gameplay is fine, but the gameplay loop is boring. The idea of driving around and delivering packages or mail isn't all that bad of a concept. The problem is the lack of variety. You'll be doing deliveries the same way everytime, with absolutely no challenge or obstacles to overcome. It's repetitive. Now, I'm not expecting action-packed set pieces, but I'm expecting some sort of constraint or at least some variety in the mission design. The game just isn't compelling to play.

The story, or lack thereof is another aspect of the game that just feels like it doesn't exist. The idea of a slice-of-life adventure game isn't a bad idea. In fact, a few graphic adventure games actually do some interesting things with the concept. But Lake goes nowhere with its story. You meet a diverse cast of uninteresting characters, with no compelling plot points to keep you invested. Characters and dialogue are really only here for the sake of it - even then, some of the writing isn't all that great.

Lastly, the presentation. The art direction is good, the environments are fairly well designed and the character models work for the aesthetic and tone. But that's all there is to the presentation, really. The technical performance (on PS5) is inconsistent and the rendering results in a lot of pop-in. The soundtrack is filled with repetitive singer-songwriter tunes that aren't bad, but the songs here lack variety. Also, some of the voice performances in this game either feel too animated or too robotic to be anything of positive note.

Lake is a gateway game. A game for people who being introduced to the world of interactive entertainment. There are many better graphic adventure games out there that are much more worth your time. I couldn't recommend Lake to the most hardcore of adventure game fans. There's just nothing here. Again, the gameplay is fine for the first hour and the art direction is good, but the game lacks variety and narrative intrigue.

I found Lake on Xbox gamepass. I finished playing something else and was just browsing what was available. I ran across Lake and decided to give it a shot.

There really isn't too much to the game. You are delivering packages and progressing the story. There is a romantic subplot with a couple different characters that you can choose to pursue.

The world itself is open and surprisingly big. It's not massive on the scale of a AAA open world game. But it will take you several minutes to drive across the map and there are several distinct areas to explore (downtown, woods, the lake itself, etc). Each day you are given a certain amount of packages to deliver, less than 10. There really isn't much to it, bring a package to it's location. Sometimes you get a cut scene, sometimes you don't depending on where you are delivering to.

My biggest complaint with the game is there are couple places, most notably inside buildings where shockingly low res textures are used. Seriously, the inside of the grocery store looks like it was made in 1996. Also the AI is really, not great. It didn't really effect my enjoyment of Lake.. But it was pretty easy to cause a traffic jam when delivering the mail and once you cause a traffic jam, that street will just have a line of cars sitting there until the game loads a new day. I don't want to hammer a small budget game too much for low res textures and bad AI, but it was noticeable.

I recommend it for people who are looking for a relaxed story based game with just enough gameplay to keep things interesting.

I will be interested in checking out future releases from this game.

Definitely need more games like this in my life. Such a relaxing, simple game where you play as a delivery driver who lives out a 2 week adventure in a beautiful Oregon town.

While the game will feel repetitive and maybe even boring to some high-octane gamers, people who appreciate subtlety and just vibing will definitely enjoy this game. It does have a lot of repetition, but to me, I didn't mind, as I was always down to revisit certain areas of the map. Plus, the game is story-driven with multiple choice dialogue options that can and will change how the game plays out. I ended up enjoying myself quite a bit and completed the game 100%, even checking out all 3 endings. 19+ hours later and I was finally saying goodbye to that beautiful lake indefinitely.

To people who appreciate games like this, make sure you check it out because it's an easy-going game that makes delivery driving seem relaxing (but we all know it probably isn't)

When I first saw the game i had to choose between this game and road 96 and i picked road 96 and forgot about this one. One year later i bought the game because i was bored and i loved it. The Visuals are pretty good. The story the side quests are gonna want more and you are going to be satisfied when you gonna get one of the many endings that this game is have to offer.

This game is a cozy relaxing game so theres not gonna be a huge plot twist. The only problem I noticed that theres very Basic animation on the characters witch gonna hurt your eyes in the begining but you will probably get used to it.