12 Minutes is an adventure game that bills itself as an interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop and it definitely something.
A couple of side notes before I get into things. I played on Xbox with a controller and it was a bit clunky, PC is should be a better experience control wise. Also It's not a graphically intense game so I could see this showing up on mobile eventually where I think touch controls would be decent.
12 Minutes starts with your character returning home to an apartment that you share with your wife, eventually a cop shows up accusing your wife of murder and after some shit goes down you return to 12 minutes into the past just as you just entered the apartment. From there you can relive that 12 minute sequence, changing your actions, dialog etc. to uncover the mystery of what is going on.
The game, the opening sequence is nice with some great music and visuals evoking a prestige drama. I found the initial loops and that discovery phase to be very exciting. Even though your confined to a small apartment it’s a blast finding items, uncovering small bits of information and those eureka moments when you find out big pieces of the puzzle are a blast.
Unfortunately as time passes 12 minutes starts to lose its luster, the story gets a bit weird and is not helped by having to deal with some adventure game logic. The general repetition of the time loops also exposing some clunky dialog and animations. The experience starts to unravel.
The central mystery is a bit contrived and odd due to the setting but uncovering what going on and finding out why this cop is accusing your wife of murder is compelling. You end up being able to do some questionable stuff but it’s a time loop so you got to do what you got to do. However as more details come to light things get quite uncomfortable and veer into some pretty bizarre territory. I could get on board with the initial mystery, it’s a bit weird but I could let things slide for the most part. However by the end of the game your lobbed this one final twist that’s so strange so bizarre that it kind of ruins the experience.
After finishing the game, seeing some of the other endings and dwelling on it for a bit my main thought was why have the final twist. This game had been in development for a long time, ended up with the backing from Annapurna Interactive and got quite the star studded cast. I wonder if it was always made with that final twist in mind or if it came later. If the writer intended this sort of reaction then congrats I guess it's an ending that makes you think.
Anyway I found 12 minutes to be an interesting experience that started out great but really collapsed on itself by the end. I played this through game pass so technically did not directly pay for it, not sure if I recommend it at full price but if your still curious and have game pass or can find it cheap than it might worth checking out but be warned it does not stick the landing.