Blink and You’ll Miss It: A Student’s Review of “Before Your Eyes”

Written by Khang Dang

Life, what is it?

What do we strive for when it comes to our own lives? What achievements do we set for ourselves? What challenges must we overcome?

What is life? How do we all define it?

You could argue – life is about making a mark on the world because even when you’ve gone and died you’ve made an accomplishment so substantial to the world that everyone will remember you.

Life could be about making a good living, having enough money to live a comfortable life and to serve yourself, and, perhaps, a potential family; thinking about the future and being able to provide for someone other than yourself.

Life might be about challenging yourself to be the best you can be, improving in areas you know you can do better. Life is never a solid ten, always an eight or nine because there’s always room for improvement.

That’s life, isn’t it? Life is about what you accomplish and the feats that you can proudly display whether you’re alive or not. It’s about the way people can boast about you even when you’re gone. It’s about the future that you make for yourself, and it’s about all the highest achievements you know you can set forward.

But is it really? Is that what life really is?

Have you really lived if you’ve spent your life worrying and crying about every single thing that is to come your way in the near future?

Does your life really feel as fulfilling?

That’s the biggest question we ask when we experience the Great Life of Benjamin Brynn in the game, “Before Your Eyes.” Our protagonist, Ben, starts off his journey a little after birth. At the stage of an infant, we get to see how his life unfolds near the beginning. All the way until it reaches the end where life throws him curveballs he could not predict.

We get to see all the accomplishments our esteemed character has achieved. We get to understand why he is the way he is. We can see all the joys and challenges in his life. Watching him as a guardian as we decide what would be best for his life. But on top of it all, we were fully in control of how his life has turned out.

All the while, we all know it ends the same way.

This story is not about the present but one about delving back into the past.

We experience Ben’s life again, watching it flash before our eyes because we know that his time has finally come to a stop. We are greeted by a man known as the Ferryman, the collector of souls and an opportunist that gives these souls a chance to be accepted into the hands of the Gatekeeper: a prominent being that decides to accept or deter a soul from being integrated into the afterlife.

What the Ferryman wants is the truth. Everything that we can compile from our memories from when we were alive. Everything about the presence of our own life, not just the peaks of what made our life memorable. But instead, what made our life worth living.

After all, sometimes that’s what life really is. The greatest things in our lives are the ones that are in truly plain sight. The best memories are the ones right before your eyes.

Experience the life of Benjamin Brynn yourself. It is available on Steam for Mac and Windows users, VR for PlayStation users, and even on Netflix. An emotional first-person game which utilizes your camera to detect every moment you blink.

The concept of this is to understand that every time you close your eyes, a memory quickly passes by. We are so caught up in the anguish of the future and regret of the past, that we forget the moments that root us in the present. Every moment you blink, every time you close your eyes, and every memory that quickly distracts you, is one that leaves you absent from the next instant.

I enjoyed this game. I don’t know if I can say I adored this game, but I really, really enjoyed the concept. Being able to see through the eyes of Ben and getting to see the most important people in his life through their ups and downs was an experience. I felt like I was experiencing his life together as if we were one person. I had to put the game down twice to take a little break because of how much it throws at you and almost a third time.

It makes you really think about your life. It makes you think twice before you decide to do something so major, you forget about all the smaller details that make you, you. A memorable quote that resonated through the entirety of the game was one that meant little in the beginning, but so much more towards the end.

“Amazing what one little difference can make a change in how a person feels.”

So again, I ask you this:

What is life?

Featured Image: GoodbyeWorld Games