June 2023 Channel Update – Getting My Bearings Back

Hi everyoneeee,

I’m back from vacation! I hope you’ve been well!!

I had a nice 2 weeks away from the PC and whew did I need that “detox” lol. In doing the whole channel thing, it’s so easy to fall into the hamster wheel routine and lose sight of all else. However I did find myself constantly thinking about what to play next lol, so I’m glad to get back into it again!

There’ve been about 5 million finished series & first looks since the last update post so this’ll be a long one!

TL;DR

• Finished: Resident Evil 4 Remake, Dragon Age 2, Horizon Burning Shores
• Ongoing: DREDGE
• Upcoming: Miles Morales? Dragon Age Inquisition should be soon-ish too. The rest of the year looks so packed I don’t even know where to start

Finished Stuff Since Last Update

Resident Evil 4 Remake (26 parts): Fantastic beginning to end! The older game design threw me in for a loop at first but by the end it was really fun. One thing I found interesting was how RE4R has some extremely gamey aspects (e.g. stick gems into decorations to sell for money) in a era where we generally hold realism & immersion in high regard, but it didn’t detract from the experience. I’ll be keeping tabs on future RE remakes & older REs I haven’t played for sure. (I think I def enjoyed this because outside of one area it wasn’t really that scary though lol, don’t come asking me about RE7 😂)

Dragon Age 2 (70 parts): Yes it’s obvious many corners have been cut in production, but overall I still found Hawke’s story plenty engaging. TBH it’s a miracle how this game was made in 18 months. More on the timing for Dragon Age Inquisition below!

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores DLC (16 parts): Graphically fantastic as always & it’s a nice chance to get to use more endgame abilities from the base game. Story-wise it was also enjoyable if not a bit by the book. There are some interesting (spoilery) implications for both Aloy’s growth and the overall narrative that probably make this a must-play before Horizon 3.

We also had first looks of:

The Last Case of Benedict Fox: A side-scrolling platformer metroidvania of a detective solving one last murder case. The Tim Burton-esque art style looks great but I think the narrative needs some work. I don’t think the story setup is well conveyed without having read the Steam store blurb beforehand.

The Invincible (demo): A (loose?) adaptation of the novel of the same name by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. We play as an amnesiac astrobiologist, awaking on an alien planet and Really Weird Things are happening with the others in her crew. Kind of like a sci-fi Firewatch! Intriguing although it could use some optimization (the game felt very “heavy” and just not nice to control).

Redfall: A first-person, vampire-themed looter shooter with immersive sim elements. I checked out this to see what all the reviews were on about and yeah it’s unfortunately not very memorable. It feels like an attempt at mass appeal while Arkane’s strengths and talents lie elsewhere. But I also get their signature stuff (Prey, Dishonored) haven’t been commercial hits, and that’s maybe why they needed to change things up. It’s a tough spot to be in and I can only hope they find their footing.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: DON’T NOD’s newest visual novel-esque title with a woman with the ability to peek into the future, caught between her own world and a dream world called Reverie. This has an interesting branching storyline system that takes a while to get the hang of (and wasn’t shown off completely in my first look) – basically you can see far into the story branches to see what the possible end outcomes of your actions are, but in getting there, you may end up 1) having to take less preferred options for more immediate choices and 2) misunderstanding what you REALLY needed to do to get to where you want to be, and end up down another path entirely.

I’m not 100% sold on this system – I think it’s supposed to convey that despite knowing the possible futures we still can’t predict what’ll really happen. In order to get this effect though, you need to consciously strategize out and commit to your future outcomes, whereas I’m more inclined to just pick my favourite immediate option and take whatever consequences that entails.

System Shock (2023): An odd remake of the 1994 original immersive sim. To be blunt: it’s just come out, but the dated mechanics make it immediately feel old. I’m somewhat interested in continuing this to experience a classic, but the (intentional?) lack of QOL upgrades seems like it’ll get tedious - some have mentioned System Shock not being handholdy with mission objectives, which I’m ok with if it’s part of the experience, but pure mechanical tedium like having to manually sort inventory/vaporize junk seems like it would get frustrating quick.

Shadows of Doubt: A procedurally generated sandbox detective sim. There are A LOT of gameplay mechanics linking together into what is essentially a logic puzzle where we search through surveillance camera footage, emails, fingerprints, shoe sizes, blood types, to fully implicate culprits. AFAIK you really can enter every room in every building on the map which is super impressive. There are some optimization issues in early access right now but the proof of concept is very promising – will be keeping tabs on this!

Amnesia: The Bunker: it’s scary ok byeeeee! (For real though: this time there’s a timed resource management layer which makes the whole thing sooo damn stressful even just playing for an hour 😭)

Current Stuff

DREDGE: A wholesome fishing adventure where absolutely nothing goes wrong 🤡 I can see the gameplay loop getting monotonous because the limited ship space means trips to & from ports need to be veeery frequent, but so far it’s been a fun time with eerie Lovecraftian under (over?) tones.

Upcoming Stuff

I know a lot of people’s first question is gonna be Dragon Age Inquisition. I’m eager to get to it too, but it’s definitely gonna be a 100+ parter so I want to fit in shorter things first. Aside from DREDGE I was thinking of Miles Morales since I’d really like to get to that before Spider-Man 2 in autumn. (I do expect to start DAI sometime this summer, so it won’t be a multiyear wait or anything.)

Other stuff I’m paying attention to in the next bit:

June:

• 22nd - Final Fantasy XVI
• 30th - Ghost Trick

July:

• 12th - Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
• 27th - The Expanse: A Telltale Series

Autumn onward is even more crazy packed – just off the top of my head there’s Alan Wake 2, MGS Master Collection, Spider-Man 2… exciting times, but also wondering when cloning technology is going to catch up so I can play all of these for sure!!!

Feel free to let me know any questions/suggestions/comments/what you’re up to lately (in games, or just real life)!! Thanks for sticking around, and have a great start to your summer ☀️

Welonz