A bit of a short one as I get back into the swing of things. Been trying to work through my backlog and I realized all the games I’m trying to play are large open world games. Kind of hard to make progress when I have the compulsion to try and see everything in a game.

So I’ve decided to do some narrative first games for a bit to see how far I can make it. I’m also trying to not go for the perfect ending where everything works out. I remember when I was younger, I would just play the game and be done. But now, with limited time and not wanting to waste money on a game, I feel like I need to get everything out of a game. That means I usually burn out or get fed up with a game. So I picked back up The Expanse: A TellTale Series in the hopes I can complete it.

So far I’m only on Chapter 2 and I just realized I missed a collectible, so I’m fighting the urge to go back and replay it. Thankfully the gameplay loop isn’t that engaging so I don’t feel like trying again. It’s a narrative first game, so really gameplay is walking around space wrecks right now, doing small chats with my crew and gathering salvage. It’s not bad, but not something I’m willing to go back and run through again.

But any ways, I’m not big on the whole Expanse series, even though maybe I should be. I read the first book and while it didn’t fully grab me, I liked the attempt at grounding the science fiction wherever they could. In this game, what that means is that your non-earth born character comments on the silliness of pictures of sports teams or boats. One that grabbed me was her thoughts on how silly it is that the Mars or Earth based ships made an effort to make sure their kitchens had coffee machines in them. I liked the cultural aspect of how foreign coffee would be or how things latching memories to a planet she’s never known seem silly to her.

While I’m hoping I can stick with the game, the voice acting has been a bit rough and it keeps pulling me out. I do wonder if that’s just a quirk of the character though, I hope so.