Yesterday we did an epic marathon stream r long stream of Life is Strange: Before The Storm, which started at 12:30 PM Eastern and ended at 12:20 AM Eastern... so nearly 12 hours. We covered all three episodes with 100% completion and the bonus episode entitled Farewell, which had no achievements, but we covered it pretty thoroughly. Clearly we got a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to present a breakdown of each episode in the form of a Summary and then general thoughts. So this will be an incoherent mess!
Episode 1: Awake: We play As Chloe as she is heading off to a concert at a seedy old mill, and it's established that Chloe's power is her big mouth as she will confront and bully her way past people to get what she wants, and this is where she meets Rachel Amber who rescues her from an ugly situation. The next day, Rachel grabs Chloe to ditch school where Rachel's mood swings start being noticeable when they spot her father kissing a woman who is not her mother and where she starts a massive forest fire.
In terms of how it relates to how Chloe is established in Life is Strange, Episode 1 certainly shows Chloe being rebellious not just towards David, but also to folks at Blackwell as the episode basically documents her last day at the school. The chance meeting with Rachel certainly makes Chloe as someone easily infatuated as she's more than willing to hang with Chloe, but considering Chloe feels she has something missing in her life it certainly makes her an easy pawn for Rachel, who kind of exploits that to get what she wants. There is also the question of if Rachel has any powers considering how fast the fire she starts spreads considering how it ties to her screams of rage. Perhaps the most memorably thing about this episode is Chloe's optional involvement with Steph and Mikey in a Dungeons & Dragons type game.
Episode 2: Brave New Worlds: Taking place the very next day, Rachel and Chloe are in Principal Wells office with their parents, where Chloe faces suspension or expulsion (depending on choices made) and David makes it know he is moving in, making Chloe rather upset. Chloe gets roped in by Frank Bowers into retrieving some owed money from Mikey's brother's Drew which leads to a major choice regarding what Chloe does with the money before getting roped in by Rachel to being involved in a Blackwell production of The Tempest. Episode ends with Chloe having dinner with Rachel's Family and Rachel's father revealing that the woman they saw him with was actually her mother.
Episode 2 crams a fuck ton into it, with it basically showing how Rachel gets thrown out of Blackwell, how she gets her pick-up truck, her association with Frank Bowers as well as expanding on how liked or disliked she is when it comes to other students. The choice of either staying in Drew North's dorm room when he's confronted by Damon Merrick or stepping out to give him the money does play a major impact on the North family, since Drew has a full-ride scholarship based on his skills as a football player. If you don't give the money to Damon, Drew's knees are destroyed and it basically makes life impossible for his brother Mikey and their struggling father, so the best choice is to give Damon the money and have Mikey suffer a broken arm. (I'll explain more on this for Episode 3). The big thing most people remember about this episode is Chloe being apart of the Tempest as Ariel, and how it could lead to Chloe asking for a kiss from Rachel, which basically feeds into Chloe's desperation to find Rachel in the original Life is Strange game. The ending twist of Rachel learning that her mother is someone she never met was impactful on the episodes original release.
Episode 3: Hell is Empty: Rachel is determined to meet her mother, and because of it she and Chloe end up in a very dangerous situation with Damon Merrick who nearly kills Rachel. Chloe learns Rachel's father hired Merrick to keep her real mother away from her and goes to save her, with surprised help from Frank Bowers. Chloe has a choice of either to tell Rachel the truth about her father or to hide it to let her have a happy life.
Episode 3 comes across as rushed because of how it focuses a lot on dealing with Sera (Rachel's Mother), and quite frankly it's not all that interesting, especially if you can get Chloe into good graces with Rachel's father when it comes to looking out for her. The best part about this episode is if you played the DnD game with Steph and Mikey in episode 1 and gave the money to Merrick in episode 2, you get to continue the DnD game in episode 3 that sees Drew wanting to get involved in playing it and thus making his bond with his younger brother stronger plus making them along with Steph a pretty cool trio. The choice of either to tell Rachel the truth or to hide it is basically inconsequential because Rachel does end up in the Dark Room. You do get a montage of Chloe and Rachel hanging out doing stuff like getting tattoos and so forth, but no real explanation as to how Mark Jefferson lured her into the Dark Room in the first place.
Bonus Episode: Farewell: Max struggles to tell Chloe she is moving away to Seattle on a day that ends up being the worse in Chloe's life.
This mini-episode takes place on the same day Chloe's father is killed, making it the earliest point in the Life is Strange timeline, and it does establish something that is very clear if you pay attention to Chloe's SMS messages in Before the Storm and Max's test message in Life is Strange... and that's Max stopped maxing an effort to stay in contact with Chloe. This episode basically cements the fact Chloe basically had her world ripped apart and just how bad it actually was.
Twitch Clip Links
- It's Totally Not A....
- Genius Is...
- Had to think about that one
- Ain't nothing like the real thing baby....
- So it's a thing that makes things do things!
- Don't Worry You'll Be The Love Interest In True Colors
- Under the street light
- I don't think he's going to be okay after that one
- Sure Steph...
- And this is where it ties to the first game
Believe me when I said, I had probably 50 clips from last night that I filtered down to just these select few which I thought were the best moments of the night, and I deleted the ones I didn't like as much.
Big thanks to MarvelMaven (twitch.tv/marvelmaven) who raided the stream after playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Marvel often streams mid-days and she is awesome!
Following the stream we raided Phoenix_face (twitch.tv/phoenix_face) who was playing A Plague Tale: Innocence, which looks like it would be a really great game! Phoenix tends to stream in the late evenings!
Life is Strange: Before The Storm Achievements
- Recreational Vandalism: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 1: Awake
- I See U Saw: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 1: Awake
- The Last Unicorn: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 1: Awake
- Home Unimprovement: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 1: Awake
- Rock Idol: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 1: Awake
- Dramatis Personae: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 1: Awake
- Mulligan Stew: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 1: Awake
- Pioneer Spirit: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 1: Awake
- Face Your Anger: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 1: Awake
- Lucid Writing: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 1: Awake
- Awake, Dear Heart: Complete Episode 1: Awake
- Stagehandwriting: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Radical Piratical: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Feels on Wheels: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Canon Wall: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Wishlist: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Tread Harshly: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Friendly Forest Friends: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Permanent Record: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Vanity Fare: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- Creature Feature: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 2: Brave New World
- O, Wonder!: Complete Episode 2: Brave New World
- Extra Credit: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- American Graffiti: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Peer Review: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Monthly Masterpiece: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Spit Take: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Hello Nurse: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Venting Machine: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- A Penned Appendage: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Drunk Drawer: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Messed Up: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
- Before the Storm: Complete Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3 of Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- All the Devils are Here: Complete Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
Whew... that was a lot of ground to cover, I can't remember the last time I did a stream that long, I think maybe I had a few Twitch Sings streams come close to the 10 hour mark... but nothing close to breaking the 12 hour barrier in like maybe two years.
Didn't do any Season 30 ranked matches for Overwatch yesterday because of the marathon nature of the stream.
Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn 419 kcal. The exercises for today was Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1.
Because of work tonight's stream will not start at 6:30 PM Eastern time, it's looking like possibly an 8 PM or 9 PM Eastern start time, depending on work. We'll more than likely are going to mess around with Street Fighter V to doing some character story stuff (the mini-arcade modes) that the game has. I'll also have to check to see if I'm going to have to adjust my schedule if there is more work in the early evenings going forward than my normal after noon shifts, since some side stuff I was doing has also dried up.
Anyway we'll see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!
