materwelonz
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July 2021 Channel Update – Every Game is Space Aliens
🕑 Added 2021-07-24 22:31:04 +0000 UTCHey hey,
How have you been!!! I hope you’re well!! 🙂
Over in west coast NA, we’ve recently had a historic heat wave, and big changes are happening at my IRL workplace too – the whole org moved to a new computer system and you can guess how well this went lol. I’ve been feeling a tad spent cause of all that, but working on the channel has always felt like a nice steady constant! (…for better or worse????? LOOOL don’tworryiamnotdepressedthisisjustajoke…….!!)
TL;DR
- Finished: ME1, Before Your Eyes
- Ongoing: ME2, Subnautica Below Zero
- Upcoming: Psychonauts 2 & other stuff (see below)
Games Finished Since Last Update
Mass Effect 1 Legendary Edition (40 parts): Even over a decade later there are few games as fascinating and lore-rich like Mass Effect. Enjoyed this tons, although if I’m judging it by the remaster’s technical quality, there are probably points that can be improved (ie. stuttering in the mako sections).
Before Your Eyes (1 part): A first-person story that makes use of the player’s blinking (detected by webcam) to advance time. Probably THE most novel narrative experience I’ve had this year despite its short length. I 100% recommend playing it yourself first before looking stuff up and/or watching videos.
I also took a first look at:
Claire de Lune: A first-person puzzler (think Portal) of a father seeking out his daughter after both are stranded on a foreign planet. I can tell it’s an arduous labour of love, although story-wise it could be a hit or miss (there’s some tone dissonance with a very cheery & chatty AI all the while we’re looking for our daughter). I would’ve liked to play this one more though, time permitting.
Death’s Door: An isometric metroidvania with a grim reaper crow working to get back a stolen soul. The combat is not unbearably hard, but also not super forgiving. In the first hour-ish I spent with it, I didn’t get the impression the narrative is a strong focus, although this game reviewed very well for its dungeon crawling & combat.
Progress on Current Stuff
We’re focusing on two completely different games atm but in the end they are really both about space aliens lol. (Last Stop may be too, after I play more…???)
Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition: Directly continuing from ME1!
Channel management tidbit: For previous long games, I tended to do slower video schedules (e.g. every other day), but this time I’m consciously testing going faster. I feel like this’ll be overall better for channel health.
Subnautica Below Zero: I’m still in the early hours but already feel there are some design philosophy changes deviating from the first Subnautica. It’s still good ol’ underwater exploration, but will have to dig deeper to see how I feel about these differences.
Last Stop: A cinematic experience along the lines of Telltale (much like the devs’ first game Virginia). The QTE and walking around gameplay is not likely to be the highlight, but I am pretty intrigued to see where the story’ll go after the mysteries in the first hour.
Upcoming Stuff
My main focus will likely still be ME2 and Subnautica for the next bit, but there are still a ton of August releases I’m paying attention to:
- 16th – Road 96
- 19th – Twelve Minutes
- 24th – Kena: Bridge of Spirits
- 25th – Psychonauts 2
Psychonauts 2 I’m particularly interested in a full series of (the first was one of the earliest LPs I’ve done!). Everything else I may have to play by ear seeing as how they’re all squished in the second half of the month. Lots of interesting stuff here!
I feel like I want to do a poll sometime too but I’ll have to wrap up pre-existing stuff first. Thanks for your support as always, let me know your thoughts in the comments and take care!
Welonz
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Comments
Materwelonz
I really liked it too and I'm personally super duper interested in continuing but have been hesitating because of that dev request :(. I've reached out to their PR people just before the weekend to see if there's any leeway in it (maybe it's okay if I wait a few weeks, or maybe if I put a big "SPOILER WARNING" in the video title, etc) - hoping to hear positive news this coming week but I wouldn't be overly optimistic.
mat3
The first look of The Forgotten City seems to have a great reception (I really enjoyed it too). So please consider playing the 6-7 hours when there's a smaller "Upcoming" stack sometime in the next year? Or include it in future polls, although it probably won't have a chance against the heavy-weights? Edit: I just read that the developers request LetsPlays/streamers to only play up to a certain point :(
Materwelonz
Hahah yes that was very painful, but (trying to avoid spoilers...) I really love what the game did!
Amar
I played Before Your Eyes based on your recommendation at the start of your LP. You must realize that many of your viewers also feel the need to experience all of the dialog and scenes that a game has to offer. And you recommended... the one game that compels you to physically torture yourself for trying to do that and mentally tortures you for failing. I see what you did there, Welonz. (enjoyed the recommendation and your content!)
Bradley
I'm looking forward for the Psychonauts 2 playthrough, your first Psychonauts playthrough was how I first found the channel.
Materwelonz
Nice! I don't have a basement so I literally had to put an ice pack on myself to make it through the night 💀
Brad Jung
Assuming we're thinking of the same one, the heatwave a few weeks ago was absolutely brutal. I had to sleep in the basement to maintain some degree of normalcy. Aside from that, hope you're doing well!
Materwelonz
Yes I've heard of it! Co-op is sort of difficult - the people I'm interested in playing with are not people I'd trust to finish a game with me lol - but it's definitely on my list if the right opportunity comes up. Thanks for the recommendation!
Blue72
Every game is space aliens... and that's OK! 😃I've been so engrossed in every game you've been playing. I can't overstate how much entertainment you've provided by sharing a bit of your time and talent. Thanks as always. Somewhat surprisingly (to me) your Subnautica let's plays have become some of my favorites. They've been so much fun!
pietro
I just finished playing "It Takes Two" and... it's just phenomenal. The story and the gameplay are the best I've seen in a game this year. Have you heard of it? The game is *only* co-op, but if you could make it work it would be an awesome addition to the channel!
polarbark
You rock - Keep your chin up! ME1 was a reay fun journey!
Materwelonz
Cheers Ryan, here's to many more hours of video games :)
Materwelonz
Oh I had totally forgotten about that! I feel like Jin's story was pretty concluded in the base game already so I think I'll wait and see what reviews say first.
Lord Atrexia
Mass Effect was such a great addition to the channel, for the longest time I’d hoped so much we’d see you play it, and it was super fun 🙏 Mass Effect 2 so far has been fantastic too, really looking forward to seeing how you find it going forward ^^ Take care of yourself Welonz 🙏💙 As a quick final thing, I just wanted to give you a massive thank you. A couple of years back I completely lost my vision, and finding your channel really kept gaming alive for me, despite not having the ability to play much myself. I really appreciate you bringing these games to life, thank you again ^^
Gaby Dona
There is an expansion for Ghost of Tsushima coming out, I am honestly not sure if one can only buy the expansion without this PS5 version, but were you thinking of playing that? I was thinking of getting it because I sold my old version to a friend.
