Plus Universal Basic Income has been repeatedly proven to be a net positive for society!

"The luxury they were accustomed to"
Game, I've been to Byzantium. It's a shithole unfit for habitation.

There are some non-marketing paintings here and there, there's been a log of a guy writing "I, Redcoat" fanfiction. We never get to actually see "Zane & Buddy Science Adventures", so it's unclear, but they seem like just regular pulp fiction that is maybe used for Earth Directorate propaganda too

Thank you for the performance! I'm glad that the Emotion Spark Studio's first game and Owlcat's first published game came out that good!

I'd actually argue that Cowboy Bebop uses Noir aesthetics a lot more than it does Western. Its aesthetics are Bebop, its plots are Cowboy (being overwhelmingly based on existing Western films).

TOW2 being a space western is just kind of confusing. It's a setting where the long-lasting iron grip of a high-tech mind-controlling communist state has just been broken, and a turbo-capitalist biotech megacorporation is invading their planets.
Why are we in a space western? This is not a frontier!

The big twist of Dispatch is going to be that Shroud is exactly who we know him to be, instead of a sudden betrayal by Blonde Blazer.

And Protectorate, being space communists instead of space nazis as OP claims, doesn't evoke Russian sci-fi of the last century because TOW2 is made by Americans, so that fails too.

Strong theme is super important actually. Bloodlines 2 sparked joy, because I'm a massive VtM fan, even though Bloodlines 2 is technically worse than TOW2.
The aspects of TOW2 I'd want - weird science sci-fi, are a minor part of TOW2, and so it doesn't really grip me.

Avowed is ass and is worse than TOW2 in just about every way.
TOW2 is technically competent. It doesn't spark joy for me, because space westerns are gay, and its attempts at satire hurt the setting more than help. But I am having medium amount of fun playing TOW2, where as Avowed just bored me.

It has repeatedly proven to be the opposite. It's not a new model - these are literally ex-TellTale people, they worked this format for 13 years now.
And how it works is that you watch your youtuber play the game, think "I'd do a different choice here", and then go buy the game yourself and do that.

Invisigal and Malevola keep confusingly describing Robert as having a "dad bod". The standards are so warped. It's "Jason Momoa has a dad bod" and "Henry Cavill is an incel" all over again.

I recorded a full let's play (~27 hours). Very mixed feelings. Overall I'd say I loved it more than I didn't, but being a VtM superfan played a large role in that.

youtu.be/EfWjPq7GChw?...

Safia is always faking being heavily into you

I'm curious. You played a Tremere, right? Do they ever tell the Nomad that the Pyramid fell? Is there any reaction?

But I'm thinking back to BL2, a game I finished yesterday, and I can barely remember any of them. The Primogen... exist. That's about all I can say. I'm not sure I would give a damn about Mrs. Thorn if I wasn't inherently pro-Tremere. I'd struggle to even name any character traits for half of them.

Side content is a huge weakness in the game, IMO. When I think of Bloodlines 1, I can easily remember side characters. Gimble, Knox, Pisca, Heather. Even small characters are quite memorable.