Editing Has Finished On Action Button Reviews PAC-MAN!

Hello! I have finished editing Action Button Reviews PAC-MAN. The runtime is . . . well, it's in six separate sequences that need to be stitched together before exporting, so I don't know the exact length. I think it's a tiny bit under three hours, this time--sorry!--though purists can rest assured that the epilogue will push it over the line.

As you can tell from the cover, this one presents a slightly narrower range in its selection of stories, however it is nonetheless as beefy and weirdly edited as you might have come to expect from these videos. Thinking on it after finishing my cut (I might have worked a couple back-to-back 20-hour days over here, which is basically like watching this thing 27 times), I'm glad to have it in my collection. That's how I've come to suddenly think of my YouTube channel: it's a "collection." If I may attempt to say so as unpretentiously as possible, I think of it more as a curated "gallery" than as, uh, whatever the Typical YouTuber (is there even a "Typical" YouTuber, these days?) uses their own channel for. There is to be no dumping on my YouTube channel. Every piece is a complete, polished thing. This means that if, at some point in the future I find it unbearable for a video to continue existing in its present form on the channel, I can export a fixed version and reupload it, back into its slot in the collection. If the view count resets, what of it? I don't care about the view count.

"I don't care about the view count." Every time I say that, no one believes me. I swear, it's true. Recently I experienced a not-insignificant influx of viewers, most of them flocking in upon an emphatic recommendation contained within a YouTube-uploaded clip from the podcast Castle Super Beast--a clip I dare not watch, because listening to people talk about me is almost as bad as talking about myself (maybe someday you'll realize how much I actually don't like talking about myself). I'm grateful for the expanded audience, though I must observe that I can always tell when an external source has inflated my viewership: because, for a couple of days, all anyone in the comments wants to talk about is how few views and subscribers I have. Buddy! Just let it ride. Let's all relish obscurity. Everybody I personally ever liked was obscure. All of the best people I've ever known weren't celebrities.

In other news, here's a twist: Action Button Reviews TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL is also nearing the end of its production. 

I employed a different process on this one--I tackled the playing, the capture, the research, the logging, and the writing from a slightly tilted angle versus the first couple videos. Again, for the sake of the collection: I want these things to each feel a little unique in tone and structure. As it turns out, the Tokimeki Memorial piece might be the biggest review yet. Look, I know a lot of you expressed disappointment in my Patreon message inbox when I announced I was reviewing a game that's not even in English, though I promise you this review is completely wild. Much as I cherish the notion of this PAC-MAN piece ascending into The Collection, this Tokimeki Memorial . . . thing is going to blow it away. You absolutely need to know about this game. Everyone does.

Expect an announcement about the Tokimeki Memorial review shortly after the premiere of the PAC-MAN one. 

For now, let me say of the Tokimeki Memorial video that it has been filmed--once again in scenic South Bend, Indiana. This time, prior to our meticulous filming in front of the fancy Hobbit Camera, I filmed my own rehearsal cut at home, over which I laid all the necessary footage in preparation. This means that the editing of the final cut of this video might just be the smoothest video editing process I'll ever endure. I figured, why not pack a pound of prevention? My cure grows heavy for the vintage.

In a further twist, I've also captured footage and written scripts for two more reviews. One of these I began the instant my industry insider contact hinted to me that Cyberpunk 2077 might be getting delayed. My contact was right! So it pays to know people. What are the other two reviews? We'll find out soon.

Though also, as you'll find out via a few subtle clues in the PAC-MAN video, I now previse the gradation of Action Button videos into "seasons." Cyberpunk 2077 clearly must mark the end of season one. After that begins season two--the first two reviews of which I've already begun researching. Spoilers: they're basically just two games I want to play, so I'm stealing this excuse.

I don't like to declare myself as "deserving" of any or other thing, though I've had a bad year, with this virus and such. We all have. All I want to do is play The Witcher 3 on my 77" LG CX OLD TV in 120 frames per second out of this EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming I just got. And I don't want to review The Witcher 3. I just want to play it. Those other two games, though, yes, I want to both play them and review them. Hence: season two.

My personal feeling at the moment is that The Bad Times At Planet Earth will continue well into the next year. I think anyone who's not a certifiable dope thinks that, so maybe I shouldn't have presented it as my original idea.

At any rate, once we hit Season Three of Action Button Reviews--the extensive research process of which should begin around October of 2021, I can finally stop talking about myself in front of a green screen and finally start talking about other people on location in faraway locales. My plan has always been to turn this into a travel show. Like I said on Twitter well before launching this Patreon--I said it apropos of my leaving Kotaku, if you recall--by making my life entirely about making videos about video games for three years, I'd neglected to have a life worth talking about in my videos about video games. I hinted in those farewell tweets that I wanted to leave that job so as to travel, and accumulate more of a self to talk about--hinting ever so quietly that I want to talk about myself better, in a more helpful way.

Suffice it to say the world played a bad joke and now I've been stuck indoors for the better part of a year. Last year at this time I was discussing my exit from Kotaku with corporate types in weird little meetings. At that time I had a chicken-scratched laundry list in my heads of places I'd disappear to for a couple weeks immediately after this was over. What a difference a virus makes!

Though I think I've used my indoor time well--in addition to making these videos, three of which you've seen and one of which you're about to see and three more of which you'll see before the end of the year--I've made plans to Go Places and See People in weird, luxurious locales immediately as soon as the nightmares let us. Every discussion and email exchange I have with these people possesses the same wild, childish energy: the world has turned all of us into elementary schoolers hungry for recess. From that electricity I palpate some ghost of hope that maybe something will be exciting again! 

So as we wait for that "again" to arrive, my TV stand just arrived. Tonight I will finally remove the 77" LG CX OLED from the mammoth cardboard box that has sat just outside the corner of my eye for all these 20-hour days over the last two endless months of landlord bureaucracy heck. Yes, I've watched all the YouTube videos about how to handle the base. We'll be fine.

We still don't have a coffee table! Though at this point--with month- or two-month-long waits for each splinter of furniture to deliver itself into here--we're more than willing to use a purple-handed Sterilite box full of approximately 24 video games for our coffee table for a couple weeks.

And maybe around Christmas, if all goes well, I'll be playing those two games I want to play on that big TV. (And also streaming Cyberpunk research.)

As you'll see from the PAC-MAN video, our moving process was hideously tumultuous. Far more than it should have reasonably been. Though with the arrival of this TV stand serendipitously on the day I lay the final "old-time radio" parametric equalizer on a clip to simulate myself watching my own video during an interludinous segment, I feel like finally we're about to stop moving and start living. 

Here again is where I promise imminent merch. Oh my god, the T-shirt we're designing is utterly phenomenal. I can't believe this thing. Crikey. Wait till you see it. I hope to have it out by Christmas.

Anyway, the PAC-MAN video will arrive soon. It just needs a good round of final checks and a long, horrible export, and a disgustingly grueling YouTube processing period. I'll post again when we know the launch time, though expect it definitely before the PlayStation 5 comes out . . .

Speaking of which, if anybody knows where I can buy a PlayStation 5, let me know. And an Xbox Series X as well. They sure don't seem to want everyone to have one of those, huh? And if anyone has an Analogue Super NT that they're wanting to sell off, I'd buy it from you. I'm gonna . . . need one soon for . . . something.

Come on by Discord Dot GG Slash Action Button and say hello to me. Or send me a DM if you wanna say hello there. I am sorry if I don't reply to all of those, by the way--every time I click on the inbox I accidentally click on like some ten-page long message from a guy telling me he's canceling his pledge because I don't make enough videos or whatever, and it makes me feel weird for like 40 different reasons and I don't need that kinda stress in the middle of an 18- or 20-hour workday so I reflexively close the tab.

Okay, if I don't stop, I'm just gonna keep typing in here. I'll be back soon to notify you about the Pac-Man video premiere date!