Hi!
Feels like it’s been forever since the last update with me having been away for a bit in May!! I am doing Alright, and I hope you are too!
There’s a lot to cover so I’ll try to be concise 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
TL;DR
Finished: INDIKA, Hellblade II, Still Wakes the Deep, a million first looks
Ongoing: Hades II, Metal Gear Solid 2
Next Up: Alan Wake II Night Springs DLC, Baldur’s Gate 3
Finished Stuff
INDIKA: It's the weird nun game - you know the one 🤣 I like bizarre, novel things, and this game definitely had weird stuff in spades alongside surrealist humour and interesting cinematography. It does have things to say about religion, faith, and more taboo/sensitive topics, so I can see it stepping on toes.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II: Compared to 1 they’ve really honed in on distilling this into a cinematic experience with zero video gamey button prompts, streamlined combat to ensure smooth animations, etc. It’s very nice to see Senua continue her journey and grow even more, although I think it’s difficult to re-capture that groundbreaking feel of the first game.
Still Wakes the Deep: A spooky narrative game of Scottish oil rig workers disturbing underwater horrors. The story is engaging and doesn’t overstay, but I don’t think its hyperlinear gameplay will be for people looking to be scared scared. It’s creepy and atmospheric, but I could handle playing it at night no prob.
We had first looks of:
1000xRESIST: In a post-apocalyptic future, we are “Watcher” – one of the many sister clones of the Allmother, who holds immunity to an alien disease that has wiped out the rest of the humanity. Things start to change as Watcher learns more about this society.
This one is a real doozy. It’s a visual novel-esque sci-fi thriller mixed with an immigrant story, intergenerational trauma, and everything in between. It’s also just up my niche alley in general: there’s sapphic AND Hong Kong stuff (was this made for me???? l o l)
The first look was a slow start but I’ve seen very passionate & high praise for it from lots of narrative folk, so I’ve been sloowly, secretly continuing it. It does pick up & now I find the worldbuilding + storytelling very fascinating and engaging. I’ll probably continue the videos after I finish the game. (Might be a while as I have this on lower priority with how niche it is.)
Little Kitty, Big City: A cat goes around wreaking havoc in a city! Nothing crazy, but it’s good ol’ cute cat fun.
Another Crab’s Treasure: A Soulslike of a crab suffering the consequences of being poor and unable to pay taxes in a capitalistic underwater society. Fun tone and the difficulty seems lenient. I enjoyed the first bit, but it’s a tad long for me to commit to on a whim (~20 hours).
Nine Sols: A “Taopunk” metroidvania Soulslike based on the Sekiro parry mechanic, by Red Candle Games. This is a big departure from their previous games Detention and Devotion. The gameplay seems quite unforgiving; I died to the first a good few times. There are mysteries with the story but the unpolished localization was somewhat distracting (it’s in “it’s grammatically correct but I can tell this wasn’t written by a native speaker” territory, which TBF isn’t going to be something that bothers everyone.)
The Alters demo: Dude is stranded on a foreign planet and makes slightly differing copies of himself to have enough manpower to survive. The gameplay is like Death Stranding + Fallout Shelter with some Eurojanky feel to it (Polish devs). I’m very curious where they’re gonna go with all the copies communicating and us managing them like Sims people lol. I’m looking forward to the full release.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn demo: A “Soulslite” by the Ashen devs where we must defeat the evil Gods leaking things into our lands, destroying our people. I didn’t find the narrative nor the open world design super gripping, but the gun + melee gameplay was enjoyable.
Closer the Distance demo: By the devs of Orwell - Life is Strange meets the Sims in a quaint village where everyone knows each other. These people encounter a tragedy that ripple-affects everyone’s relationships and starts tearing the group apart. Looking forward to the full release of this one too.
Current Stuff
Hades II early access: It’s Supergiant, and it’s Hades, so we already know it’s quality. Not sure of my full plans for this yet but the early access saves carry over into the full release, so I’ll likely play to Some Point, pick it up again when major patches roll around or so, and finish up the story when it comes out with the full release.
Metal Gear Solid 2: It’s Kojima, and it’s Metal Gear, so it was going to be entertaining no matter what lol. I think MGS1 was okay with the simpler mechanics but in 2 I find myself wishing Konami had put effort into modernizing/adding proper KB+M controls. I like the core things about the game, but the controls have been a point of friction. I think I’m past the halfway through atm.
Non-Let’s Play Stuff
If you missed it: I started doing some shorter videos where I give some thoughts on game trailers and upcoming games. I figure it’s nice to have some “casual” content that doesn’t require dozens of hours of commitment like with LPs!
Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Initial reveal / Gameplay reveal
Life is Strange: Double Exposure: Initial reveal / Gameplay reveal + more details
People seem to be enjoying these so I’ll keep this format in mind whenever I come across stuff that interests me. (If you have suggestions feel free to shoot! E.g. I got a few asks for Lost Records: Bloom & Rage so far)
Upcoming Stuff
We’ll have Alan Wake II Night Springs DLC next, which should be a short three-parter. After that, we’ll start Baldur’s Gate 3! It might won’t be at a breakneck pace, but a start’s a start - looking forward to digging into it finally! (ps. I’ve been watching some beginner videos to get some D&D/BG3 background & terminology, feel free to send over any nice resources you have.)
That’s it for now!!!!!! Thanks for sticking around, feel free to let me know any comments/suggestions, and and enjoy the start of your summer (or winter for Australians)🍸
Welonz