God Of War (2018)

 

Before I begin discussing 2018's God of War game, I want to spend some time to discuss my experience with the entire God of War game series. There isn't actually much to discuss, which makes my positive impression of this game so interesting. The God of War series first appeared on the Playstation 2, and has been a popular game series on every Playstation console since. Because of its popularity, the games have been on my radar, but I've never been too interested in them, to be honest. The first reason is the title. When the game first came out on Playstation 2, I actually thought it was about Christianity's God. I finally learned that it was about Gods from Greek mythology, but I've never been too interested in Greek mythology, and so I was turned off from the series partially because of the title. The other reason why I was never too interested in this series was because of the hack and slash nature of the gameplay and its gory depiction of violence. I was aware of the game series from the beginning, but never payed too much attention to the games because of these reasons.

Fast forward to 2022, when God of War: Ragnarok was released. As discussed on this blog, around the start of the pandemic I started watching the movies that made up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thor: Ragnarok is one of my favorite MCU movies, so of course the God of War game about Ragnarok caught my attention. The Thor MCU movie introduced me to Norse mythology. Despite never finding Greek mythology too interesting, I found Norse mythology appealing due to its depiction in the MCU.  With Playstation Plus, 2018's God of War was available for me to play as part of my subscription. I decided to give the game a chance, anticipating that I would play Ragnarok if I liked the 2018 game available on Playstation Plus. The game did not disappoint.

Where to begin with this game? I guess I'll start with the negatives (for me). It features mostly hack and slash gameplay action which I'm not a huge fan of. The violence didn't bother me too much, because my enemies were either already dead or made up Norse myths, and their blood was orange, so I was OK with what occurred on screen. The "finish him" scenes where Kratos violently ripped an enemy's skull in half with his ax were a bit much. However, the flip side to this was it was so, so satisfying to defeat an enemy by throwing Kratos' ax at them, and even more so when the ax hit them on its return to Kratos. This is the only thing I kind of disliked about this game. Everything else was just awesome.

The storytelling in this game is fantastic and is the best part of the game. I came into the game knowing nothing about Kratos or his past. It is reveled early that he has a questionable past. Your tasked with spreading your wife's ashes off the tallest peak in the realms, and your son Atreus goes with you on the journey. This is the first game in the series that takes place in a Norse mythology setting. The previous games all take place in Greek mythology. Seeing the World Serpent in Midgard, or the mist surrounding the mountains of Midgard, or the bifrost, or any of the other realms is just jaw dropping in their appearance. On your journey, you meet a witch in the woods, who turns out to be Freya. Early on you are attacked by the stranger, who turns out to be Baldur, son of Freya (or possibly Frigg, and Odin). Baldur was "blessed" by Freya to be invincible, but is mad at his mother for making him unable to feel anything. 

Once Kratos and Atreus reach the tallest peak in Midgard, they meet Mimir. Mimir is known for his wisdom, but has been tied to a tree by Odin and cannot escape. Mimir informs Kratos that the tallest peak in the realms is actually in Jotunheim, land of the giants. Kratos and Atreus head for Jotunheim, but first decapitate Mimir in order to take his head with them for his wisdom. 

Kratos and Atreus eventually reach the peak in Jotunheim, where they are able to spread Kratos' wife's ashes. Along the way, Atreus learns that Kratos is a Greek God and that his mom is actually a giant from Jotunheim. She and the other giants referred to Atreus as "Loki". Oh, and Kratos and Atreus also kill Magni and Modi, Thor's sons. After spreading her ashes, Midgard experiences an unusual winter, and Thor shows up to Kratos' house to begin Ragnarok.

The entire world of realms where this story takes place, the characters and their over the top abilities, the enemies from the Ogres to the Giants, is just absolutely amazing. Anything goes with this type of story telling. An enemy or character cannot be too big, or too powerful, or too over the top. But it all ties together in a way where the setting, gameplay, and story are just fantastic. I was thinking back to my favorite games since 2017's Breath of the Wild (which is one of my all time favorite games), which includes both Playstation 4 and 5 games, as well as Switch games. The 2018 God of War game is my favorite game since Breath of the Wild. Close seconds (tie) are Jedi: Fallen Order, Red Dead Redemption II, and Horizon Zero Dawn. I'm assuming Ragnarok starts right where God of War stopped, with the unusual winter in Midgard and the beginning of Ragnarok. I cannot wait to play it.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

 

The nation of Wakanda is mourning the loss of the Black Panther one year later. Meanwhile, the United States is searching for vibranium in the ocean, using a machine developed by a 19 year old Cambridge University student. This alarms a mysterious and previous unknown race of underwater people, led by Namor, who rely on vibranium to power their city. They are scared that the United States will find their civilization with their vibranium location device, and go on a series of attacks against the military operations looking for vibranium. The United States blames Wakanda for the attacks, setting up a conflict between the 3 nations. Wakanda and Namor's people go head-to-head fighting for their secrecy and vibranium, leaving the US scrambling to figure out who is responsible. 

I was fully prepared to make fun of Namor as a villain. His outfit, consisting of booty shorts and tiny little ankle wings was a bit ridiculous, and reminded me of Kid Icarus. However, upon doing some research, I learned the character was developed back in 1939 and was one of the top comic characters of the day, as well as possibly the first comic antihero. I will give the movie some credit for  utilizing such a historic character.

It's understandable that the nation of Wakanda is mourning the death of the Black Panther, but this leaves a Black Panther movie without - you guessed it - a Black Panther. Not until the very end of the movie was T'Challa's sister Shuri named the new Black Panther. She was the obvious choice, but unfortunately we didn't get to see her in action as the Panther until the final climactic scene. Presumably her character will factor into future MCU storylines. At the end of the movie, we learned T'Challa has a son who is the prince of Wakanda, making him heir to the kingdom. It will be interesting to see where his story goes as well.

Severance (Season 1)

 

The medical procedure known as Severance separates one's work memories from their home memories, effectively creating two people from one. On the surface, this may sound like an ideal situation for some. Being able to go home in the evenings and weekends without the stress and anxiety created by work would be great. However, the flip side to this advantage is that the work version of you would not know any life outside of work, effectively creating a second and isolated version of yourself. Exploring the ethical ramifications of the Severance procedure are an ongoing theme in season 1. This is especially true considering the unclear motivation of Lumon Industries, the company that created the Severance procedure. What the employees of the Macrodata Refinement department are actually doing is unknown. Sarah pointed out that the show is a bit like Lost, in that you don't fully know what is going on at Lumon, but you know something isn't right. As the season progresses, little details here and there are revealed. At times, especially in the first half of the season, the plot progresses pretty slowly. I think the season could have been an episode shorter because of this. By the final few episodes, the pace picks up quite a bit and the season ends on a good enough cliff hanger to keep me interested in season 2. This show is the proverbial dangling carrot, always asking more questions than it answers.

I've really enjoyed the ambience of this show. While the "outies" appear to live in modern day, the office where the "innies" work appears to be from the 1970s, giving off a great mid-century modern vibe. The music is also very well done, with an eerie piano giving off a vaguely Radiohead vibe. The acting is quite good as well. Despite a somewhat thin plot (mostly because there is just so much we don't know), I found myself caring for the characters and their well-being. This show provided just enough intrigue to keep me interested in what happens in season 2.

Lego: McLaren F1 Car & A Flying DeLorean

 

Several years ago we started developing a Christmas village made of Lego sets. We started with a train that circled the tree. It even has an engine allowing for movement! We then added several buildings, including a train and fire station, some stores, etc. At this point we have enough buildings to have an actual village. It's been a cool tradition and a neat way to get back into Lego building as an adult. Along the way I've periodically picked up sets for myself. The most recent one was the McLaren F1 car.

Most of the Christmas village sets we've built have been in the 1200-1800 piece range. This car was right in that neighborhood at 1434 pieces. While average in terms of number of pieces, it is not average in terms of physical size. This car is absolutely massive. It measures over 2 feet long (25.5 inches)! It is plenty big to place on a shelf for display and is easily the largest Lego set I've built in terms of actual size.

This car was also unique to me in that it is a Technic set. Instead of using traditional Lego bricks, the pieces on this car are held together by rods and pins that connect pieces with holes in them. This is the first Technic set I've built since I was a kid, when I had a dirt bike. Generally speaking, I'd prefer to build using the traditional bricks. Connecting the pieces with the Technic connectors can be a bit cumbersome. However, using this method allows for some options in terms of movement that you can't get with regular Lego bricks. This car, for instance, has front wheels that move when the steering wheel moves, pistons that move when the rear wheels move, and an active suspension hidden within the body of the car for the front and rear wheels. None of this would be available with traditional bricks. The Technic connectors also allow for curves and shapes, something else that wouldn't be available with traditional bricks, where you're mostly limited to 90 degree angles. The Technic connectors absolutely make sense for this set, despite being a bit of a pain.

The other set I built back in the summer of '22 was the DeLorean time machine from Back To The Future. This car uses traditional Lego bricks, and thus isn't quite as complex as the McLaren F1 car. With that being said, it has a complex suspension set that allows it to switch between the land-based and flying versions of the car from the various movies. It looks great, and comes with a Lego Doc Brown and Marty, and of course the car has a flux capacitor! If only the F1 car came with a Lego Lando.

Twitter, What A Dumpster Fire

 

Social media is constantly getting scrutinized, and probably for good reason. I don't get too involved with the conversation, as I don't routinely participate on social media platforms. The major exception to this is Twitter, however. I routinely check Twitter. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, RSS was developed and gained popularity, and there was a time when I utilized RSS as a way to bring news to me, rather than going to retrieve it. At some point RSS use and popularity faded and Twitter was developed and became popular. I started to use Twitter essentially as an RSS replacement, as a way to get news items I care about to me quickly and efficiently. 

As my Twitter utilization increased, I started to realize how terrible their native app was. It was littered with unwanted ads, retweets, and awful timeline jumps. I eventually jumped to a third party app called Tweetbot, and have been mostly happy since. However, Twitter recently announced that third party apps would no longer be supported, essentially shutting down Tweetbot and forcing users to use the native app, and it is terrible. At times it can make Twitter almost unusable. Case in point, the "show more tweets" button. If you go more than about 20 hours without looking at your timeline, it will want to jump your timeline until about an hour in the past. I usually only access Twitter once per night, so every night I have to press the "show more tweets" button several times in order to see Tweets about the days events. Last night when I did it, the button disappeared and my timeline jumped from 23 hours ago to 11 minutes ago, with no way to access or view the tweets that happened the entire day prior.

I've already thought about quitting Twitter altogether because of this development, but it isn't that simple. I actually rely on Twitter for news, for both professional and personal interests. At the moment I don't have anything that would adequately replace the service. If the app continues to perform like this, however, I will search a bit harder for a replacement. If one doesn't exist currently, I suspect another company has one in development already.

Finding My Favorite IPA

 This post is many years in the making. At some several years ago, I discovered craft beer, which changed my viewpoint on beer. I had always been a light beer drinker, specifically Miller Lite. I rarely deviated from Miller Lite, and when I did, I often didn't like what I found. With the craft beer explosion that happened in the 2010s, it became much easier to experience different beer types. Previously you would have to commit to a 6-pack at the least, and alternate beer types were not as readily available at restaurants like they are today. Additionally, since a lot of these breweries are working on a smaller scale compared to larger breweries, it gives them a chance to experiment more. A co-worker and I received a craft beer brewery tour as a gift from work one year, and that is when I really began to enjoy and appreciate the craft beers and types other than light beer. On that trip, the breweries only had their own beers, so there was no choice to drink anything other than light beer. 

Of all the new beer types I had been exposed to, the IPA was my favorite. It became a goal of mine to try as many IPAs as I could. I wanted to discover which one I liked the best. For a period of time, when I would go to a liquor store I would purposely buy one I had not tried before. I would do the same thing at restaurants, picking a new one in an effort to find my favorite. Along the way I came across the Untapped app, which allows you to rank beers and document which ones you've tried as well as when and where. It got to a point where it became difficult to remember which ones I had tried, so the app is very useful for documentation purposes. I still use it today.

New beers are always coming to the market, so I would never say that I've tried them all. However, after a couple of years of searching, it got to a point where I had tried most of the IPAs that are readily available in the stores and local restaurants. After all the searching, I have landed on a go-to IPA. There are some IPAs that I like more than others, and several that I like a lot. However, the one that I consistently buy is Bell's Two Hearted. Despite the ugly packaging, it has a flavor that I like a lot, and is readily available in stores and restaurants.

One of the interesting aspects of the craft beer boom is the regional nature of the beers. While I am not nearly as adventurous at the store as I once was, I really enjoy trying new beers when I travel. Of course I document these in my Untapped app so that I don't forget them, and it adds an extra layer of excitement to eating out while on the road. One of the other interesting aspects of the craft beer boom is learning about different beer styles, and stats like ABV and IBU. This will always be a moving target, but for me Bell's Two Hearted IPA reigns as my favorite IPA.