September 2020 Channel Update – A Small Break + Poll

Hi all,

Some boilerplate here about it being September already, 2020 sucking, hope you are all safe, etc etc :^). Haha seriously I had a look back at the previous posts and I feel like that’s how I start most of them!! I do hope you’re well though.

Over here in North America’s west coast we’ve recently had some forest fires (thankfully none directly where I am) and the skies have been smokey and the air quality awful. I hope none of you are also affected by this.

Anyway, there’s been lots of exciting gaming-related announcements in the past week: the new Xbox, PlayStation, graphics cards, etc. Are you looking forward to any of these? I’m most interested in upgrading my graphics card. I’m personally not a huge stickler for graphics/framerates, but lately I’ve been feeling the limits of my current card (GTX 1070) in recording more intensive games. I want to make sure nothing goes wrong for stuff like Cyberpunk later. If I do upgrade, it’d be because of your support that this can happen - thank you!

I’m gonna open a poll very soon - scroll down for more info.

TL;DR

• Finished: Ghost of Tsushima, Alan Wake, Control: AWE, Tell Me Why
• Ongoing:  n o t h i n g 
• Upcoming: POLL

Games Finished Since Last Update

Ghost of Tsushima (50 parts): Third person open world samurai hacky slashy. It’s very technically polished and mechanically fun to play. Story-wise: the main narrative is engaging enough but IMO the highlight is in the side character missions. Some of the other misc side missions feel weirdly “gamey” and not narratively immersive, but I don’t think it took away from the overall product. Great swan song for the PS4.

Alan Wake (18 parts): Third person shooty shooty. Revisiting this again, it felt like early sections drag on a bit with repetitive gameplay & environments, but it’s still a solid story. The game’s age shows in some spots (the sometimes poor audio quality and low-res cutscenes) but overall it still plays well 10 years later.

Control’s AWE expansion (7 parts): It’s good old Control: lots of spooky documents & extensive worldbuilding… but now crossed over with Alan Wake! Exciting to see Alan Wake stuff here but I feel like the DLC might not connect well for people without that investment. This is largely a set up for future Control/Alan Wake content.

Tell Me Why (18 parts): The latest choose-your-own-adventure title from DONTNOD. It being three episodes instead of the standard five give off the impression that some parts were rushed, but it’s a short & sweet story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. I liked it a lot!

I also did a first look of:

Paradise Killer: A first-person/visual novel hybrid detective game where you get to freely explore an island to find (or not find) the clues you need to solve a murder mystery. This is an interesting one as I got the impression it doesn’t handhold. A lot of detective games do the thing where it’ll nudge you in the right direction with hints, but I haven’t seen much of that even in places where you’d normally expect them. One potentially divisive thing: its vaporwave aesthetic and overall artistic vision might not be for everyone.

Progress on Current Stuff

…. There are no games being played as of publishing this post! Cancel this Patreon!!!  

(I’ve just finished a bunch of games back-to-back so I’m writing this in the middle of a small break. I’ll start some small things soon while waiting for the poll mentioned below to finish!)

Upcoming Stuff

I don’t see much releasing until the obvious giant Cyberpunk 2077 in mid-November (and MAYBE Amnesia: Rebirth in late October…...) I’m gonna open a poll in a day or two with the following options:

• Celeste (13 hrs)
• Dishonored 1 DLC + Dishonored 2 (10 + 23 hrs)
• Hollow Knight (38 hrs)
• The Longest Journey (21 hrs)
• Resident Evil 1 HD Remaster (14 hrs) - side note: or RE0? Not sure of the "proper" start point
• Subnautica (45 hrs)
• Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (29 hrs)

This time I’m mainly looking at longish (< 45 hrs) games since it’s not often that there’s a bigger block of release-free time. If you have suggestions along the above vein feel free to suggest – I’ll be starting the poll very soon to get a game underway ASAP though.

That’s it for this time! Have a great rest of September,
Welonz

PS. I haven’t forgotten the Q&A, really! But I wasn’t kidding when I said that it might take a while for a video to materialize lol. I couldn’t find time at all to sort through the questions when I was playing a bunch of games, but now that they’ve finished that should change. Expect it.... Soon™