Hello!!
Hope you are doing spectacular in this summery season (winter for South Hem folks)!
I want to say it’s been a good July for me but oh, boy, IRL stuff has been really kicking my butt. My work has been crazy, I made a mistake with my taxes that needs me to write letters and fill out 5 different forms to fix 🙃🙃 and in general it feels like everyone around me wants something from me....... All that plus the heat has really been putting a damper on things. I am hopeful this’ll clear up soon I can focus more on the vidjas 😭
TL;DR
Finished: Metal Gear Solid 2, Alan Wake II Night Springs, Hades II (for now)
Ongoing: 1000xRESIST, Baldur’s Gate 3
Next Up: Nobody Wants to Die, Metal Gear Solid 3 soon-ish hopefully
Finished Stuff
Metal Gear Solid 2: Not much I didn’t already cover last update - fun times with themes that are eerily still relevant today, but really wish the controls were modernized. I’m def interested to get to 3, and maybe check out the Delta remake whenever it comes out too.
Alan Wake II Night Springs DLC: It’s a fun return to AW2, but feels somewhat undercooked with the short length. The last episode focusing on Shawn Ashmore’s character made me very curious about how Quantum Break fits into the Remedyverse though. I’m hoping I can slip that in some time (before the next AW2 DLC…?)
Stray Gods: Orpheus DLC: Similar situation to Night Springs with a undercooked-feeling DLC. What’s here is nice but the one-hour runtime doesn't give much room for my boy Orpheus to work with. There are apparently different songs dependent on your base game choices though, which is nice.
Hades II early access (for now): I’ve played about ~20 runs and it’s good ol’ Hades – high quality gameplay + engaging roguelite progression-based story. I’ve exhausted the major gameplay objectives for the moment but I think I’ll be back when a bigger narrative patch drops.
Current Stuff
1000xRESIST: You know how there are let’s plays that are like “Greek Mythology PhD Plays Hades And Gives 5000 Esoteric Facts About Random Greek Things”? This game kind of makes me feel a bit like that lool.
This game is clearly on a budget with the VN-style presentation but they do so much with what they have. The worldbuilding has been ridiculously engaging, and the story just keeps pushing past expectations. To be honest though - the reasons why I feel close to it also makes it difficult for me to commentate on... But anyway, even removing the real world context surrounding it (if that was somehow possible) it’s still a wonderful, heartfelt gem of a sci-fi story. Just two more chapters/one video until the end!
Baldur’s Gate 3: It’s here! I don’t think I really need to say too much about this 🤣 I’ve put 10+ hours into this but I still feel like I only have a basic grasp of the available systems and possibility space. But I also don’t feel like a player needs to understand the mechanisms to a T to enjoy it, and so enjoying it I have been. Story-wise: because all the D&D lore stuff is pre-existing it feels like I just got dropped in here with not much fanfare, but I’ve been enjoying reading the in-game stuff to “suss out” how Faerun/the Forgotten Realms works.
Upcoming Stuff
My focus atm is to keep BG3 running at a Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat schedule with minimal interruption. After 1000xRESIST wraps up, I’ll probably look around for some smaller things (hearing good things about Nobody Wants To Die), and of course, getting back to MGS3. Honestly I’ve been so swamped I haven’t looked into new releases much, so let me know if there's anything on your radar that should be on mine too!
Please feel free to share any suggestions/questions you have in the comments. Appreciate your support as always, and I’ll catch you in the next one 🍸
Welonz