Catherine & Katherine

I have recently come into possession of a game I had long been wanting to play, but due to financial constraints, lacked the ability to do so. That game is Catherine and whilst I have yet to complete it, it's certainly been a hell of a trip so far. Catherine is a very unique game, both in style and substance. The game blends a story of fidelity and relationships, mostly being told from a bar, through cut scenes and a frantic puzzle based climbing game. The two seem starkly different, but the story manages to explain how the two intertwine beautifully.

The main story line follows the protagonist Vincent and his interactions between his long term girlfriend Katherine, and the flirtatious and much younger Catherine. Without spoiling to much lets just say things get very complicated in this love triangle.

For half of the game you will be climbing a tower made up from blocks. You can only climb one block at a time, so you must create stairs of blocks by pulling and pushing them into a desired place. Whilst this sounds straightforward enough, some of the blocks will fall apart under your feet and some are even traps which will kill you should you linger on them to long. All of this combined with the fact the floor falls away leads to some very frantic (not to mention frustrating) moments.

In between these floors you will come to a rest platform and meet 'sheep' who are also trying to climb this wall. You can choose to chat to your fellow sheep to learn techniques or encourage them to keep climbing, or should you choose belittle and discredit them. Also on each of these platforms you will be asked a question before you can proceed. For example one of the very early questions asked is "Is marriage the point where life begins or when it ends?" Once you have given your response you are presented with a graph showing responses from both men and women. Some of the responses are surprising and interesting to say the least!

The other half of the game is spent in the Stray Sheep bar chatting to your buddies, drinking beers and meeting the various patrons who enter the bar. Whilst exploring the bar you will receive text messages from either Katherine or Catherine, which you can reply to. Depending on how you reply and your interactions with various bar patrons, will effect a meter which will determine the outcome of the story. How this meter is affected is very vague, and as you play you will gradually come to understand how actions effect it.

If you're looking for something very unique with a mature story line I highly advise playing this, for anyone aged 21-35 the story of this game will speak to you on many levels. Great title, frantic fun game-play, can't recommend enough. One last thing, some of the bosses in this game are terrifying truly... horrendous.