Jessica O’Neil’s Hard News by StoperArt
Jessica O’Neil’s Hard News is one of those games that annoys me a bit because it took me so long to get to! Not only had I had it on my list for ages, but I also downloaded it and
still didn’t get round to playing it for a good long time. When I did though, I really liked it. It looks great, it has attractive characters, hot (and varied) lewd scenes, and some pretty decent story elements stitching it all together.
There are a lot of options in this game, giving the player a pretty good amount of freedom to pick and choose the direction the story goes in – or rather, how the scenes of the story play out, I suppose. There are scenes that may be missed because of choices made (either in the moment, or previously), but the actual main narrative can only be influenced, rather than changed. I do like how the main story is separate from any of the romantic or sexual parts of the story though, so it isn’t just there to take us from one sex scene to the next.
That story itself is quite simple, but quite interesting. The FMC is a rookie journalist, and we follow her as she investigates leads for a main story, and conducts research and interviews for other stories, many of which feel like they might have some areas of crossover. The obvious path for a game like this to take would be to trade sexual favours for information for these stories, and there’s an element of that, of course. I like how it’s not the only option though, as sometimes it’s money changing hands, or even a non-sexual quid pro quo.
Depending on choices made, the relationships can start to become their own story as well. I really like how, if certain choices are taken, you can really see the relationship between the FMC and her boyfriend starting to become strained. It’s not just when this is directly referenced in conversation as well, but there are little differences like whether the couple greet each other with a “Hi babe” and a kiss or just a “Hi” and a wave, or whether or not they sit or walk with their arms around each other, etc. I really thought this was a well-done aspect, with some of those parts of it being quite subtle.
The choices themselves can be a little frustrating though. I did find that sometimes scenes are blocked because of choices made previously, but when you consider who and what is involved, it doesn’t seem like they
should be blocked. Sometimes there can be a lot of progression with a certain character, but because of one choice made on day 4 (for instance), certain parts of a scene on day 17 still won’t happen. Although it can be said for many games, there are also some scenes where it’s essentially a choice between one LI and another, but you feel that there should be an option to fit both into the day without stretching believability.
I said the scenes are varied and hot, and I like how that variation covers lots of different acts with both male and female (and sometimes both) LIs. There are a couple of characters (one male, one female) who get the majority of the scenes, other than the boyfriend, but there are a decent number of other characters who are “lewdable” as well. Sadly, some of the most attractive characters are either not “lewdable”, or are only minimally so, up to the point of the latest update (0.65) at least. Within the scenes, I did also find that the animations were really well done. Sometimes the quality of the animations can be a real drawback, but that’s definitely not the case here.
A random note that I just remembered when adding the character cards below: I really like that we have a game here where the FMC wears glasses. I don't remember seeing that much elsewhere.
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