In a lot of wats Life is Strange 2 is an improvement over the original game. The writing clearly matured a lot, and is way more confident in its social commentary. Still, it didn't hit for me as hard as the original did--definitely a time/place thing (I was in the middle of experiencing something very similar to Max when the game came out). LiS 2 is still really emotionally resonant, all the big character beats work and it sticks the landing brilliantly. Also somehow makes its time skips really work, which is often a tough line to walk. Like when I finished the original LiS it made me really look forward to the studio's next project and like LiS 2 I'm taking my sweet time getting around to Tell Me Why!

Really wish I could have actually gotten into this game but I played the campaign and a couple hours of multiplayer and just never clicked with it. Partially my fault because I'm really bad at flight sims! But also partially the devs fault because the campaign is honestly pretty boring--level design is just "destroy x enemy fighters, blow up bigger target, rinse and repeat" and the writing isn't great. I do love that this game exists though, I think weirder Star Wars games is the right way to go and even if I'm bad at it I cannot deny how cool it feels to pilot an X-Wing. When everything lines up I did have really great moments with this thing and I bet people more into flight sims than I am probably really dig it. Classic case of "really cool, wish I was into, but ultimately not for me."

I think this is probably my ninth or tenth full replay of Dishonored? I've been doing one a year around November/December every year since it came out, first on Xbox 360 and this year for the first time on PC. Hit me last night I had basically memorized the entirety of the Golden Cat mission (both routes) and knocked it out extremely quickly. It ends up feeling kind of quaint now (both because of knowing it in and out and because of improvements made in Dishonored 2) but still has a really special place in my heart as the first immersive sim I ever got super into. And it still just feels incredible to play, the sandboxes are limited by the hardware at the time but are really fun to move around in. Doubt this game will ever get old for me.

No amount of spoilers could really prepare me for how brilliant this campaign is. Way shorter than I expected (finished in under five hours) but every mission felt like a perfectly crafted fps level, and the gimmicks worked for me every single time. Would love to see Respawn really get the chance to build out a 10-15 hour campaign with the same bold level design that's present here. And even though the plot beats are really generic (bad guys have superweapon, go blow up superweapon) the world building and conflict going on the background is a really compelling anti-imperialist struggle. Again, would love to see more of that!