The best thing about Man of Medan is for a person watching another play the game, it looks like a movie with a thin plot. And despite all the graphical advances the video game industry has made, I really got thinking that photorealistic graphics doesn't equal realistic presentation. Video games can make character models look like a human, but movement and animations always set the difference between a CGI movie and a video game model. But Man of Medan really takes a step further by having movement animations so realistic you won't realise when the cutscene is over and you are in control of your character. That doesn't equate to accurate and responsive movement though, as getting inside doorways might be a little irritating as your character might feel slow or wait for an animation to kick in, but just watching all the 5 characters move around the screen in the most authentic way possible was a welcome surprise.
The game lets you control characters and make choices for them, or have 5 different players control a character each and play when their time comes. Because the movie-like treatment doesn't just end at movement, but screenplay as well. Every character, or a few of them, have their own screen time when the others are out of view. So if different people are controlling different characters, you will have to wait for your turn. It is for this reason that you have to use the same controller and pass it around to the active player. A weird way to have couch co-op as to this day I always thought of a co-op game as one where you are active all the time. Still, I do not take this as a negative as you have the option of playing the whole thing by yourself, and waiting for your turn didn't seem all that bad for me anyway. What does get on my nerves is that despite how you play the game, and how many wise choices you make, and how much you explore the levels to find secrets that might help you in making the "correct decisions", the most important part of the game are QTEs which will make or break your narrative depending on whether you could press the right button at the right time, or could mash one enough times to have the event complete successfully. I am not against QTEs altogether, but having them do the majority work of important moments seem unrewarding as the game saves after each decision or major plot point, so if you were engrossed in whatever was happening on-screen and failed to hit a button on time, it could be the end of your character for good, with no option of going back.
Wrapping up, a very unique cinematic presentation of a story we have probably all seen is a major win for this game, especially the on-screen unfolding of events, even if there are major holes in the narration. The game rewards exploration, whatever little it offers, and a pretty solid atmosphere and good level design keep the story going. Decision making is extremely important as there are multiple outs of a situation and all the endings are pretty unique. But the over-reliance on QTEs, plot holes and a mere 5-6 hour running time only make the game worth playing twice at the max.