It's a sort of Visual Novel/Puzzle Game. Half the time you'll be reading cut scenes (fully voiced) and the other half your solving puzzles.
The main premise is based off the concept of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Basically, say two criminals have been caught for a crime and are held up in two separate secluded cells. Now a detective comes to each cell and tells each one ,"I'm gonna give you a chance here. If both you and your friend (in another cell) tell me where you've stashed the goods, then you both only have to stay here for 10 years. But if you both choose not to say anything, then you both only have to stay 2 years. Well what if you don't say anything, but your friend does? Well if he rats you out, then he gets one year while you have to do 15. And vice versa. So if you tell us where it is but he chooses to trust you and not to say anything, then you only have to do one year here while he gets 15. So it's your call on whether you wanna trust him or not."
The game is based on this concept, where you'r constantly having to decide whether to trust and ally or not trust and betray your game partners in the Nonary Game, where 9 random people have been shoved into this giant secluded building and are forced to play the game or die until someone has earned the right to escape.
It's really really cool and worth playing because of its absolutely fantastically written story and super well done puzzles.
But the other thing that makes it awesome (and why I fell in love with it) is that it has this concept where each time you make a major choice in the game (i.e. partner up with this person, betray that person, etc), reality splits into two or more universes. For example, say I choose to betray my partner one round; well now reality has split in two. One where I betray my partner (the universe I'm in) and the other where I allied with my partner. As the game goes on, so many different universes/realities start branching out of each other that you can get a total of 22 different endings.
But it's also really cool because the endings tie together. Each one is sort of like a puzzle piece to the grand picture the game is trying to get you to see. And one of the best moments in the game is when it finally clicks; (its different for each player) but eventually you finally figure out what's really going on and it just blows your mind. It's so freakin cool!
One more really cool thing though. The game doesn't just randomly have a bunch of endings, it actually ties the grand concept into the narrative of the story. So eventually you realize that as you keep using this flowchart to jump around to realities you missed, you find out that it's not just a game concept to allow you to have different endings. Rather, the whole concept of shifting realities and such ties into the story of the game and its just so cool the way they pull it off.
Sorry for the long post, but I really can't recommend this game enough. I haven't enjoyed a game this much in a very long time, and I really really hope you guys would try it out!
p.s. don't worry, it may seem like i put alot of spoilers in here, but it's not, dont worry.
Here's IGN's review:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/24/zero-escape-virtues-last-reward-review
