Welcome to the new year, readers! I hope you’ve been the same fabulous you doing your usual great thing or making headway on being a new, even more fabulous you doing some new great things! Oh, me? I’ve been busy keeping up with one of the most awesome things, This Month in Let’s Plays!
The cool kids at Cool Ghosts have been doing a fun Let’s Play of Invisible Inc., a game you, like me, might have forgotten how much you loved until you watched Matt and Quinns have a blast with it.
In related Let’s Plays of fun people having fun, Todd Harper and Kitty Stoholski played some Bayonetta, bringing a lot of good humor and knowledge about fighting games to this slightly older gem.
Chris Franklin over at Errant Signal did a fantastic video on The Beginner’s Guide, comparing the work of media critics to the character arc of the game version (or real version?) of Davey Wreden.
Lena LeRay creates a personal analysis of the moving That Dragon, Cancer, showing how the game’s very specific subject matter nevertheless applies to so many of our lives.
In a deeper dive, Heather Alexandra delves into Fallout 4, turning a critical eye to a game you’re probably all still playing. In particular, she compares it to previous entries in the Fallout series in order to get at what it does both right and wrong.
Exploring another open world roleplaying game, History Respawned turned an eye to Red Dead Redemption, exploring both the historical West and the way it has changed in the American imagination over the years throughout fiction and film.
The scarily smart folks at PBS Idea Channel looked at videogames in a recent episode by asking whether or not Undertale is the most violent game of the year.
Jason Vega made a live Let’s Play (Let’s Attend?) of New York’s Game Devs of Color expo, which brought together an array of talented developers and awesome games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDUzqEQBI4
Nelson over at Video Games and the Bible looked at what maturity means through the lens of Doom and Lovely Planet, exploring how both games present themselves through their image, mechanics, and the cultures surrounding them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DHe_4EImfs
Kent Sheely has undertaken a fascinating pacifist run of Call of Duty, finding ways to subvert a game that expects you to shoot things by… well, mostly letting all those things shoot each other, but still.
Lastly, Joshua Trevett (one of my many talented colleagues at Haywire Magazine) brings us a New Year’s episode of Talk Simulator, a unique take on the radio talk show to the stylings of Euro Truck Simulator 2. Expect lively talk of videogames, books, and more!
And that’ll do it for this month! Don’t forget to submit your favorite February Let’s Plays to us on Twitter using the hashtag #LetsPlayCD or via email! Also, please consider supporting Critical-Distance through Patreon or Recurrency.