'Knock Knock.' 'Who's There?' 'Europe.'
I've finished the first episode of Life Is Strange 2!
A nice detail I forgot to mention in my last entry: if you turn on the music player in Sean's room, Sean will quietly sing along at points.
Life Is Strange 2 continues to be INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL. How am I supposed to look after these boys? Are you sure you need to eat and drink and sleep? We don't have the budget for all three of those things.
I particularly agonised over the 'buying things at the petrol station' sequence. What do you buy with a limited budget when you're on the run?
(Sean should do furry art commissions, come to think of it. He's a great artist, there's always money in those, and it's already in his area of expertise!)
I ended up getting bread, a sleeping bag (cost most of my money, but probably lasting and useful), and a chocolate bar (frivolous, but I'd promised Daniel!). I almost bought bottled water, but I thought 'I'll see whether there's anywhere I can fill my bottle up from a tap,' and fortunately there was.
A small power cut meant I ended up having to play through the petrol station sequence again, which was frustrating but did lead to an interesting observation. The first time, I talked to the station attendant about why we were in the area before I spoke to Daniel about the puppy. The second time, I didn't talk to her until afterwards. The attendant felt much more hostile during the dog conversation if I hadn't spoken to her first.
(I didn't find the bathroom until we came out of the shop. If I'd cleaned up before going in, I wonder whether the attendant would have been friendlier from the start.)
I vaguely remembered that there were two bearded guys in the episode's trailer and one of them was bad news, but I couldn't remember which one, so I was very wary of the journalist and was taken by surprise when the attendant's husband showed up and turned out to be the arsehole instead. He locked me up and took my bread! I was outraged! I'd been so careful to be law-abiding! I'M GOING TO TAKE YOUR STUPID HAND-WHITTLED BEAR KEYCHAIN OFF MY BAG, DUDE, TAKE THAT. Poor Sean.
('This is why we need that wall,' holy crap. This game is not at all afraid to get political. Which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise, given that it's set around the 2016 US election and it's all kicked off by a police shooting.)
I'm still a little wary of Brody, the Nicest Man in the World, but perhaps he actually is just the nicest man in the world.
I went 'WE CAN'T KEEP A DOG' when it turned out that Daniel had taken the puppy with him, but I was secretly hoping the game would make us keep the dog anyway, so I'm glad it did! Even if I have no idea how we're supposed to keep her fed. (A reason to be glad for the power cut: my first time around the shop, I missed the fact that there was a 'pet the puppy' option. That's very important.)
I'm really feeling the clash of priorities in this game. The crucial question is 'can we survive?'; we have to prioritise that as far as we can. The other questions we're facing are 'can we be good?' and 'can we be happy?' Was it the right decision to buy Daniel that chocolate bar? It was two dollars we can't really afford - it might clash with the question of whether we can survive later down the line - but it gave him a bit of brightness in a dark situation. I didn't steal the camping equipment, but I was definitely tempted. Can we be good? Can we sleep comfortably tonight? We can't do both.
Overlooking Arcadia Bay, Brody asked Sean what had happened in the shooting incident, and the game gave me the option to blame myself or blame the police. Who do I blame, as the player? The cop, naturally; Sean couldn't have anticipated or prevented what happened. Who does Sean blame when I'm playing him? Himself, just as naturally; I'm fond of this kid, which means there's no way I'm going to pass up the opportunity to send him into a spiral of self-loathing. His breakdown was heartrending.
(I got slight chills when we drove away from Arcadia Bay and the theme of the first game played.)
Also heartrending: Sean crying on the phone to Lyla. And his sketch of her sitting there sadly! And it's unbearable that he watches a family video on his phone before forcing himself to throw it away. (He presses his hand over his face at points while he's watching, and it just shatters my heart.)
I was going 'okay, no good can come of concealing the awful truth from Daniel, let's tell him at the first opportunity,' and then the first opportunity came along and the game went, 'Okay! Are you going to tell your little brother the horrible truth, or are you going to take up his invitation to have a sibling dance party?' Goddammit, game, that's not a fair choice!
I danced with him. Of course I did. No regrets. I was simultaneously laughing and sobbing during the dancing scene. (I was pretty much sobbing from that point onwards, actually.)
Sean pushing through the telekinetic tornado to hug Daniel after he learns the truth! My heart, my heart. (Daniel pulling Sean's arm around him on the bus was also extremely rough on my heart.)
It'll be interesting to see how Daniel's behaviour and the brothers' relationship change in future episodes, now that Daniel knows we're not just on a weird unplanned camping trip.
Seeing the choice statistics at the end was interesting. Almost everyone (91%) made Sean hug his dad, I'm pleased to note. I'm interested and surprised to see that almost everyone promised never to lie to Daniel again: 92%. I thought more people would hedge on that!
(I was amongst that 92%, so I'm going to have to be careful to keep that promise in future episodes. No lying to Daniel. I'll be strong, unless I'm again presented with the choice 'do you want to tell the truth or do you want to have a DANCE PARTY?')
I felt awful when I saw one of my stats was 'Daniel didn't eat enough' (47%). I'm the worst big brother!
On a slightly more positive note, though: apparently Daniel stole something from Brody in 62% of playthroughs, and he didn't in mine! I suppose I set a good example by never stealing anything myself. So maybe I'm not entirely the worst big brother.
I'm already looking forward to the second episode. I know I was probably inevitably going to love a game about brothers on the run, but I'm enjoying this enormously, despite the phenomenal amounts of stress it's imposing on me.
A nice detail I forgot to mention in my last entry: if you turn on the music player in Sean's room, Sean will quietly sing along at points.
Life Is Strange 2 continues to be INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL. How am I supposed to look after these boys? Are you sure you need to eat and drink and sleep? We don't have the budget for all three of those things.
I particularly agonised over the 'buying things at the petrol station' sequence. What do you buy with a limited budget when you're on the run?
(Sean should do furry art commissions, come to think of it. He's a great artist, there's always money in those, and it's already in his area of expertise!)
I ended up getting bread, a sleeping bag (cost most of my money, but probably lasting and useful), and a chocolate bar (frivolous, but I'd promised Daniel!). I almost bought bottled water, but I thought 'I'll see whether there's anywhere I can fill my bottle up from a tap,' and fortunately there was.
A small power cut meant I ended up having to play through the petrol station sequence again, which was frustrating but did lead to an interesting observation. The first time, I talked to the station attendant about why we were in the area before I spoke to Daniel about the puppy. The second time, I didn't talk to her until afterwards. The attendant felt much more hostile during the dog conversation if I hadn't spoken to her first.
(I didn't find the bathroom until we came out of the shop. If I'd cleaned up before going in, I wonder whether the attendant would have been friendlier from the start.)
I vaguely remembered that there were two bearded guys in the episode's trailer and one of them was bad news, but I couldn't remember which one, so I was very wary of the journalist and was taken by surprise when the attendant's husband showed up and turned out to be the arsehole instead. He locked me up and took my bread! I was outraged! I'd been so careful to be law-abiding! I'M GOING TO TAKE YOUR STUPID HAND-WHITTLED BEAR KEYCHAIN OFF MY BAG, DUDE, TAKE THAT. Poor Sean.
('This is why we need that wall,' holy crap. This game is not at all afraid to get political. Which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise, given that it's set around the 2016 US election and it's all kicked off by a police shooting.)
I'm still a little wary of Brody, the Nicest Man in the World, but perhaps he actually is just the nicest man in the world.
I went 'WE CAN'T KEEP A DOG' when it turned out that Daniel had taken the puppy with him, but I was secretly hoping the game would make us keep the dog anyway, so I'm glad it did! Even if I have no idea how we're supposed to keep her fed. (A reason to be glad for the power cut: my first time around the shop, I missed the fact that there was a 'pet the puppy' option. That's very important.)
I'm really feeling the clash of priorities in this game. The crucial question is 'can we survive?'; we have to prioritise that as far as we can. The other questions we're facing are 'can we be good?' and 'can we be happy?' Was it the right decision to buy Daniel that chocolate bar? It was two dollars we can't really afford - it might clash with the question of whether we can survive later down the line - but it gave him a bit of brightness in a dark situation. I didn't steal the camping equipment, but I was definitely tempted. Can we be good? Can we sleep comfortably tonight? We can't do both.
Overlooking Arcadia Bay, Brody asked Sean what had happened in the shooting incident, and the game gave me the option to blame myself or blame the police. Who do I blame, as the player? The cop, naturally; Sean couldn't have anticipated or prevented what happened. Who does Sean blame when I'm playing him? Himself, just as naturally; I'm fond of this kid, which means there's no way I'm going to pass up the opportunity to send him into a spiral of self-loathing. His breakdown was heartrending.
(I got slight chills when we drove away from Arcadia Bay and the theme of the first game played.)
Also heartrending: Sean crying on the phone to Lyla. And his sketch of her sitting there sadly! And it's unbearable that he watches a family video on his phone before forcing himself to throw it away. (He presses his hand over his face at points while he's watching, and it just shatters my heart.)
I was going 'okay, no good can come of concealing the awful truth from Daniel, let's tell him at the first opportunity,' and then the first opportunity came along and the game went, 'Okay! Are you going to tell your little brother the horrible truth, or are you going to take up his invitation to have a sibling dance party?' Goddammit, game, that's not a fair choice!
I danced with him. Of course I did. No regrets. I was simultaneously laughing and sobbing during the dancing scene. (I was pretty much sobbing from that point onwards, actually.)
Sean pushing through the telekinetic tornado to hug Daniel after he learns the truth! My heart, my heart. (Daniel pulling Sean's arm around him on the bus was also extremely rough on my heart.)
It'll be interesting to see how Daniel's behaviour and the brothers' relationship change in future episodes, now that Daniel knows we're not just on a weird unplanned camping trip.
Seeing the choice statistics at the end was interesting. Almost everyone (91%) made Sean hug his dad, I'm pleased to note. I'm interested and surprised to see that almost everyone promised never to lie to Daniel again: 92%. I thought more people would hedge on that!
(I was amongst that 92%, so I'm going to have to be careful to keep that promise in future episodes. No lying to Daniel. I'll be strong, unless I'm again presented with the choice 'do you want to tell the truth or do you want to have a DANCE PARTY?')
I felt awful when I saw one of my stats was 'Daniel didn't eat enough' (47%). I'm the worst big brother!
On a slightly more positive note, though: apparently Daniel stole something from Brody in 62% of playthroughs, and he didn't in mine! I suppose I set a good example by never stealing anything myself. So maybe I'm not entirely the worst big brother.
I'm already looking forward to the second episode. I know I was probably inevitably going to love a game about brothers on the run, but I'm enjoying this enormously, despite the phenomenal amounts of stress it's imposing on me.