Grocery Store Work in the Time of Covid-19

I've seen dozens of articles either directly from front line workers or interviews of them, during the time of Covid-19.  Only a handful from the second front.  This is a post for historical record.  

In late 2019 and early 2020, I was in a weird spot in my life.  I built up a friend group dependent on a local bar, that happened to close in December of 2019.  That friend group gradually fell apart although remnants of it still exist to this day.  The group was weirdly dependent on one popular dude who left town now but he was attached to too much tragedy.  (A friend of ours fell off his balcony and died.  That friend was the only one not drinking that night.)

But that local bar was TIGHT.  They had karaoke 5 times a week, I had first picks and the staff was super rad.  I was there on the last night when all booze must go and my tips were refused.  I don't think I spent a dollar that night.  (Also a friend of mine was walking past one day after and the owner knew that SHE knew ME so I got 24 free beers to take home.  Apparently we didn't drink the bar dry).  My times at that bar will go down in history as the best times of someone who needed good times.  

After our bar died, I sat in this stupid other bar across the street.  It was surprisingly fast how this bar hated me.  I did things.  Illegal things.  I bought an escort but you know whatever forget about that.  Living my best life right?  Hated this bar but it was the only other bar apparently. 

...Anyway. 

Here I was, sitting in this dumb bar across the street from the bar I loved that closed down, in the middle of the afternoon hoping to meet up with friends later.  I'm scrolling through twitter and reading 2 different tweets over and over.  I'm reading that Covid-19 has forced Italy to close nearly everything except grocery stores, a thing I work at.  And 2, the US is trailing Italy by two weeks.  I'm slowly realizing that the truth of Italy is going to be my truth in two weeks.  I didn't have the heart to tell anybody in the bar because I have a fight coming.  A fight, nobody would understand.  

BTW, this is the last time (2nd to last now.  I went once in the summer of 2020 and was weird about it the whole time), I've been to a bar/restaurant/etc.  I've only done takeout and delivery since then.  It has been 9 months.  (Now 11 months, this post has taken forever for me to write).

I used to go out all the time.  It was what I did.  But...

A part of my personality is just, missing now.  Because I can't....

....not after what I've seen.  

Part 1:  The Early Days of Covid-19 in a Grocery Store.

You know how a lot of zombie movies show grocery stores with mostly empty shelves?  They never show how they got that way.  I lived it.  

I will never forget walking in for a shift and seeing the store mostly empty.  Then, stocking my departments' shelves that day, with the new shipment, but with not nearly enough.  It felt like a joke stocking my empty shelves of hummus during a crisis.  Also, here is some pizza dough, lol.  

I will never forget that first week after the toilet paper shortage and seeing every person after the store opened go immediately to that aisle for the 50 packages that came off the truck.  (We would be sold out of toilet paper again after 15 minutes of opening).  People rushed the toilet paper aisle like a crowd rushing to see a Beatles reunion in their prime.  Several of my fellow coworkers and I just stood at the back of the aisle and watched with equal parts amusement and sadness.  We weren't sure if we should laugh at them or form a Macedonian Phalanx to stop the horde.  

I will never forget an employee over the intercom tell other employees to get first dibs on toilet paper 15 minutes before we opened.  We realized quickly that we had a privileged position on...sigh...toilet paper, and I will never forget my neighbor just taking a bunch of cheap office space toilet paper from work because it was suddenly useless.  (Great system Capitalism is).  I will never forget a regular customer who came in all the time berating me about being out of toilet paper 30 minutes after opening.  I told him, "Only so much stuff fits on a truck", in which he replied angrily, "You should have more than one truck!".  I replied, "....we do."  (Also, like, I'm not in charge of that.  Also, I haven't seen him in months now so...There is a non-zero chance an old man is dead having never gotten his toilet paper.  I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry).    

I will never forget my 85 year old landlord BRIBING me to hoard her sanitizer, gloves, masks, etc. because she knew I could get in when the store was closed. This was the environment I worked in.  I was a hero, an entitled prick, a soldier, an elitist (??), a savior, and a hoarder, somehow.  When I didn't bring my landlord anything she was pissed off, despite the fact she rarely left her apartment BEFORE the pandemic.  When I did bring her stuff, she forcefully would give me 10 to 20 dollars in dirty cash despite what I bought (or stole) being worth 2 dollars on average.  Am I Robin Hood or being taken advantage of?  I don't know.  

It got worse.  

Every day Colorado closed a new group of things.  In pre-Covid times, the busiest day of the year in a grocery store was the day before Thanksgiving.  During these early days, NEARLY EVERY DAY was the busiest of the year.  I'm a manager of my department so it was super weird to see previous days sales as 265%!!!!*  My department is the most expensive food department, the deli, and even our shelves were mostly bare.  General grocery was at like 390%.  Produce at an unthinkable 885%.  The one department flat.....Pharmacy (great system our healthcare is).  

*Guess how much of a raise we got!  Just kidding.  My departments hours GOT CUT!!!   I will never stop exploiting every fucking loophole to get my employees the hours they need to pay rent.  Absolute cruelty and greed that they tried to make life harder on us after this.**

**UPDATE:  Corporate has found out the loopholes and it is only a matter of time before I get fired or quit.  I guess it's a who breaks first thing.  

Then Colorado closed all non-essential businesses, including liquor stores and weed shops for roughly 2 hours, while I was watching TV in the breakroom and said to my coworkers, "We are about to get fuckin ROCKED." and yup.  Absolute worst decision ever for 2 hours.  That day can go fuck itself and honestly, fuck Mayor Hancock for trying to get us killed.  Liberal garbage.  Vote progressive.  

Side note:  I left work on time that day partially because I was exhausted from 7 days in a row of "Day Before Thanksgiving" style rushes but also because corporate was panicking at the absurd amounts of overtime pay they were dishing out.  Anyway, on my walk home from work, which is just 6 blocks, I pass several liquor stores and one weed shop.  On that day, ALL OF THEM had lines out the door 20 people long.  Politicians live in a separate reality than us.  Closing all non-essential stuff and taking peoples vices away when they are stuck at home was so disastrous I'm sure people died.  The decision only lasted 2 hours.  Two hours!  I worked about an hour and a half of it.  Walked home, saw the lines, got home, then checked twitter to see the mayor exempting liquor stores and weed shops.  It was fucking surreal. I'm not okay.

Anyway...

ALL OF THIS was before any mask mandate.  We closed everything and thousands of people came into the store because nobody gave an ever loving shit about social distancing.  Or, at least, they considered grocery store workers as mere robots, zombies, whatever.  Anything but humans that you should ALSO social distance from.  

I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER just throwing shit on the shelves, even where they didn't belong, virtually emptying the walk-in cooler behind the counter, pulling random grocery stuff and EMPTYING the back room to give everybody something to buy even if it's pointless while being constantly surrounded by people.  I looked over at another department manager with roughly 20 people around me milling about, all within 6 feet of me several weeks after it was announced that social distancing is a thing and I said...

"We, are going, to die."

I...CANNOT BE ANGRY ENOUGH ABOUT THIS.  

Because....

I was right.

Part 2:  The Casualties of the 2nd Front.

It's been under-reported but a lot of people died so we can eat.  We had a meat shortage for two weeks because the people who package it died.  Now, it's close to back to normal.....I don't feel right about this.  Especially because my own coworkers died.

I don't know the official numbers because my employment got fascist with it, but at least 13 people got Covid-19.  It could be as high as 50!!!! We don't know.  WHAT I do know, is 2 of them never came back.  My union was, and still is, furious about this.*

*UPDATE: It took me so long to write this we had a second outbreak.  At least, 44 confirmed cases.  The real number is probably over 100.

I knew the 2 coworkers who didn't make it back.  They were good people.  Yeah, they had pre-existing conditions, TREATABLE ONES.  Covid-19 made it impossible.  Nobody dies from asthma alone. 

2 of my coworkers are dead and corporate has record profits.  

After that fateful day of reading Twitter about Italy in a bar, I said something that a lot of Twitter was jokingly referencing, but super serious.  "We are soldiers in a fight we never asked for".  The Grocery store is the forgotten 2nd front in the war versus Covid-19, the first being hospitals.   

Every news report about grocery store workers or hospital workers read similarly.  We are forgotten now.  I don't envy the 1st line.  Not one bit.  We can relate a lot, catering to a public that has largely forgotten us.  We both keep society running although the risks are much higher on the health care worker front.  But, the healthcare workers typically interviewed in media outlets have several advantages grocery store workers don't.  ICU workers know which patients have Covid-19 and I'd wager a guess but probably most of the hospital staff knows who does too.  They also have better protective equipment, and they should, but grocery stores were irresponsibly slow to provide their employees anything, yet, we have NO IDEA who has Covid-19.  It could be anybody.   

Part Three:  The Public and Masks

I cannot stress how much it pains me to see people without a mask, or not wearing one properly, walk into the lions den of my work and not give any shit.  There are at least two dozen people who came to the store every day, who I don't see anymore. There are a few I STILL SEE EVERY DAY, even before the pandemic, who are the most entitled people who has ever walked this Earth. 

In my neighborhood there are two demographics least likely to wear a mask in my store;

1.  Old people.

2.  Tweakers.

What the fuck does that say about old people?  

They might as well all be on meth.  99% of customers wear masks so it's easy to pinpoint the ones who don't and generalize the minority being either drug addicts or old people.  In the early days of Covid, zoomers joked that Covid was the "Boomer Remover".  They are kind of right.  Boomers stare into a gun pointed at their face and say, "shoot me" hoping to intimidate the person holding the gun.  They take this same attitude against Covid which is stupidly tragic.  You can't intimidate a virus.

Corporate bosses have been all over the map about enforcing mask rules.  Some enforce it or let us enforce it, others don't and will reprimand us on the stupidest "customer is always right" rule of all goddamn time.  Also, corporate bosses have shown their full ass in not knowing what is going on, telling traumatized workers we need to return back to normal.  

Boss:  "Why are you out of roast beef?"

Me:  "Do....do you not follow the news?  The meat packing plant had to close down cause workers are dying from Covid-19 you stupid piece of shit.  Why the fuck do you care if I have roast beef in my department for two weeks when people are dying you absolute shit stain of human garbage.  Why don't you ask the families of the dead why I don't have roast beef.  You should be on trial for crimes against humanity.  Have fun 69-ing Ronald Reagan in hell.  You can taste his taints trickle down economics.

Me  (What I actually said):  "...Because the warehouse is out."

Boss:  "Why are you out of this other thing?"

Fucking joke right?  For a job where I am the highest member of my department, where a promotion means leaving the union and becoming a corporate fucking tool, I have to constantly be middle man between keeping corporate fuck sticks happy and reality.   But, I can't show my hand too far in any direction.  Being too corporate is against my morals and I'm not a shitty person, but being too pro my staff means they can get away with things that hurt the rest of my staff.  This fucking sucks....

...what is this post about?  How capitalism is the great evil of our time?  Oh wait, no, it's about Covid-19.  My mistake.  

We just now, Feburary 1st, fucking 2021, installed free mask dispensers at our doors.  Only 11 months and 400,000 dead late.

You know what else is sad? 

I've saved up money now, for the first time in my life, because I worked nonstop with virus bullets screaming past my head.  Like, this is normal.  

Why is it, that for the first time in my life, I have a fucking savings account only because I risked my life feeding a city?  I know more people who have died from Covid-19 than most people have friends.  Why didn't you all stay home and only visit me when you needed too, geared to the teeth with protective equipment?  It's already weird as hell that some people go to the grocery store everyday in normal times.  It's goddamn sociopathic to do so during a pandemic.  Fucking lunatics.  

For the first month or so of the pandemic, it was super nice to see chalk writing on the sidewalk thanking grocery store workers.  It was nice to see random post it notes on the counters thanking us for "our sacrifice".  It felt good to take pride in doing something necessary for society and risking our lives and wait, what was that last part?  Our sacrifice?  

The public doesn't give a shit about us.  We didn't slow way down for weeks because two of my coworkers died.  We slowed down because the CDC declared us a hot spot, and WE WERE A HOT SPOT, and we were all over the news.  How did my bosses handle this?  "Well, your sales are down.  Why do you think this is?"

I think a sub-conscience thought popped into my head about unemployment during a recession that stopped me from walking out that day.  

As I write this, just yesterday, my coworker had to remind somebody to pull their mask up as if the 20 customers and 10 employees wearing masks around them didn't send a fucking clue.  They were NOT a anti-masker.  I repeat.  NOT AN ANTI-MASKER.  They just...didn't care.  

There is not one but two viral videos of people refusing to wear masks in the store I work where the cop on duty* finally decides to intervene.  One is obviously on drugs.  The other, is an actual anti-masker and seemed to play it up for viral video clout.  The old people that don't wear one** are never on video.

*Yes.  We have police officers on site all day now.  This started before Covid because of our high level of theft.  Their lack of enforcing masks however is infuriating.  (Also one wears a thin blue line mask which is creepy, he is the least friendly cop, and not even a white guy.  He's Hispanic.  What the fuck?)

**I'm not kidding when I say the number of old people that refuse to wear masks is dropping.  Like, they are dying.  A few now wear full protective gear when they refused to wear masks before.  Almost like the old folks home across the street from us only learned after a few of them died.  Yes that is a thing.  I buried this point because there is just soooo much.  We fucking warned them though and they didn't listen.  How am I supposed to feel when they carelessly endangered our lives?  Is it wrong of me to think, "Fuck em". Is it?  They don't give one shit about my life.  And we warned them.   What is morality here?  Am I going crazy???

The public no longer cares about grocery store workers and to some extent, healthcare workers.  We went from the heroes of society who keep things going to "15 dollars an hour?  I don't want prices of stuff to rise!"  Yes, I make more than 15 dollars an hour but barely what is considered a real living wage.  I live on a cliffs edge.  The employees under me do not (I don't do the hiring in my own department but I'm responsible for firing them????????) and coworkers in other departments can ONLY make minimum wage.  The minimum wage debate is a product of what I've seen first hand.

Thank you FOR YOUR SACRIFICE.  Like refusing 15 dollars an hour, should be at least 20 now, is noble.  Thank you for your sacrifice, essential worker.  

Remember that?  If the person who wrote that post it note, who put that on our counter top reads this blogpost, I want to ask you something.  What did you sacrifice writing that note?  You never thought of us as heroes.  You thought of us as tools.  The last ones giving you your comfortable lives in a time nobody's lives should be comfortable.  The same person who wrote that note probably posted buff Mueller memes on twitter, used covfefe in small talk as a joke, and is glad trump is gone because brunch can again be about your black house cleaner you have a crush on and can debate among your friends if that's racist or not.  

Part Whatever:  The Government

I argued that y'all should be paid every goddamn week to do nothing.  I needed to still work, I fucking feed you, but if y'all had money I wouldn't be at such high risk.  

A lot of what happened in grocery stores was due to uncertainty even though the supply chain would eventually catch up and for the most part has.  What we did learn is we easily keep spending a fuck ton on the military while 500,000 people die.   Nobody asks where this money is coming from but one person brings up Medicare for All and suddenly it's a debate.

Trump failed spectacularly, which is obvious, but democrats didn't really do anything to help.  They just saw this a political firepower to win an election.    The government failed to protect its citizens during its biggest crisis in decades and it's clear now, if it wasn't already, that democrats propose only doing things slightly better.  Oh wait sorry, I misspoke, democrats promise slightly better things only for it to be a lie and then make it worse by doing something still a little better than Trump but not nearly as good as what was promised.  

Anyway.  Biden owes me money.  

Part 5:  Real Shit

I met up with my former wife, my best friend, the only time i've been to a restaurant since covid-19.  And I unloaded all my shit I've seen.  

She...didn't know who I was.  

She was partially proud of me and a little scared of me.  What she did say is this, after a few drinks and smoking a cigarette, "Yeah of course, you've felt trauma."

It's weird to admit that I've been traumatized by this.  I live in a world that seems like everyone has been traumatized but not me.  I have to admit that now.  AND I STILL WORK THERE.

How much of a fucking cruel joke is it that I can work in a grocery store during a fucking pandemic and feel abandoned by customers, corporate, my union (yeah), friends, and even my own family.  They knew I stayed away to keep my mom alive (She got a vaccine shot recently thank god) and were nervous around me.  

It is irritating knowing how risky my job has been though all of this while seeing posts and videos about how everyone who now works from home is depressed.  I'm envious of the many, many, many tweets I read about working from home or being isolated because that wasn't an option for me unless I quit my job.  I should not feel that way.  Many people did it right.  Yet, here I am, mourning fallen comrades at work, as well as those who got sick but seem different now, thinking y'all have no right to feel depressed.  

And I know, I know my thoughts on that are a lie.  Of course you may feel depressed and isolated.  I agree that your emotions are valid.  

And I also know, that trauma effects the way you think.  I feel like a soldier who has seen war and can't relate to the problems of the public anymore.  

Who, the fuck, am I?

Part Final

One year later and 95% of the people who worked in my store are no longer there.  Store management has changed hands several times over.  Most employees have gone on to other stores* or have quit.  All the coworkers that I stood by watching the rush down the toilet paper aisle are gone.  Entire departments have turned over.  Even our regular customers are different than they were a year ago, aside from a handful.  

*Our store was notorious for being a Covid hotspot and being all over the news.  Then, we made the news a lot more, including the front page of the Sunday Denver Post, that we sold in the store (lol), when several employees went to the press about the companies slowness in protecting its staff.  Every employee that went to the press no longer works there.  I question how much of that was disgruntled employees quitting versus the company forcing them out.  

And now, I'm faced with bullshit.  The hardest part of this blogpost, I've re-written maybe 20 times.  

I recently got my 2nd vaccine shot.  I'm good against Covid.  

The trauma?  I'm not so good on.  

Be well you idiots.  

31 Thoughts: Gaming Edition

If you're reading this, there's a decent chance you know who StephHouse is. If you don't, find out because he's an awesome dude who loves almost all the right things and is a certified Haver of Good Opinions.

Anyway, SH dropped this picture on me and gave me some food for thought. It was pitched as a fun podcast idea, which could be awesome, but I'm not sure our hockey listeners would love a gaming-only podcast answering a ridiculous 31 questions.

So I'm stealing the 31 Thoughts title from the Fridge Lord himself and answering them in text format. Don't be mad, Steph. Also I'm cleaning up the spelling because I'm not a savage and don't put useless letters in my words like a "u" in favorite. Get ahold of yourself, list-maker.

1. Favorite Game - Mass Effect 2

If you know me, this is no surprise. I have a Mass Effect tattoo and I always make reference to the series when I can. ME2 was the pinnacle of my favorite franchise outside of Mario. It's a masterpiece of a game with fun and varied combat, great character development, and a killer storyline. Very few things beat the joy of rolling into the Omega 4 Relay knowing what's coming. It's a thrill ride from beginning to end. Disagreement on this one is unacceptable.


2. Worst Game - Resident Evil 6

This probably isn't the worst game I've ever played but it's the one that left me the most confused, the angriest, the most...letdown. I know there's a "disappointing sequel" on this list but I have another game for that one. RE6 continued my complicated relationship with the RE franchise. I didn't really like the original survival horror stuff because it just wasn't up my alley. I respected that they were well-crafted but they just weren't particularly fun for me. Then RE4 rolled around and it was perfection on the Wii. And RE5 came and I went to Tennessee to visit my best friend for its release. I played 5 million times, on both PC and the PS3. It was a BLAST.

So naturally, RE6 dropped and my BFF and I were very excited to rock the online co-op...and it had four storylines? Uh fuck yeah? And then...we started playing it. What. The. Fuck. Happened. Some of the core mechanics felt just fine, like the movement and the overall gunplay FELT good. Except, you know, when you headshot zombies they didn't die? What? The second player in each of the co-op stories was regularly left to do these bizarre side quests by themselves and kind of felt like they were just carrying the first player's water. It was weird more than anything else.

Then the story. God, the story. It was cool in concept to have the stories intersect but they did it in such a fucked up way. You ended up seeing several of the same scenes throughout the game, replaying sections where the various characters meet up, and on and on. It artificially lengthened the game simply so they could say "It takes 40 hours to beat this!" Beyond that, it was a buggy fiasco and its save points were ridiculous. You die and you have to go back over an hour worth of gameplay? What is this, 1992?

Dumb. Frustrating. Very few games made me as miserable to play as RE6. What a fucking mess.

3. On the Wish List - The Entire Switch Library

I haven't gotten around to buying a Nintendo Switch yet but I'm dying to. As a huge Mario fan, Odyssey has been in the wild for far too long without me getting down with it. I will have it as my Christmas present to myself. It must happen. New Fire Emblem and Smash Bros. only enhance the demand for me to get this system. I'm also getting ready to travel with the Avs a lot more so having it on the road would be amazing entertainment when I don't want to be social or explore cities like...Minneapolis. Or Dallas.

4. Worst Franchise - Call of Duty

I hate the CoD franchise so much. It was fun back in the day. Then the Activision model kicked in where they demanded one be released every year and that really killed my interest in the franchise. I want good games, not frequent games. The games just declined in quality in my eyes and every time I see a big-money ad buy to show me another trailer for a CoD I just roll my eyes to hell and back. Hard pass. Fuck those games.


5. Most Disappointing Sequel - Mass Effect: Andromeda

Ugh. As usual, this was an ME game that came out at a great time in my life. My girlfriend and I had just broken up and my heart was shattered into a billion pieces and I was extremely unhappy and everything around me was terrible. Then Mass Effect came out and oh my god I had something to pour ALL of my heart into to try and forget about my shit going on.

And it was just such a fucking mess. It was like Mass Effect mixed with Animal Crossing because all I did was run fucking errands for 65 hours. Holy shit was it a buggy disaster along the way, too. The story was kind of cool, and it took some cool turns towards the end but it was very clearly developed to be the beginning of something bigger. But because it was so poorly made, with so many poor design choices, the fans predictably melted down and Bioware essentially put the franchise on the shelf. When you take a money-making monster and do such a terrible job with it that the company benches the entire franchise, you've absolutely failed in spectacular fashion. Way to fuck it up, morons.

6. Favorite Console - Nintendo 64

I can't really choose PC here otherwise I'd pick that. But an actual console, it's my N64. Nintendo is the undisputed king of making amazing games and largely responsible for my love of games. From Super Mario 64 (an absolute masterpiece) to Perfect Dark (which had the effect on my friend group that Goldeneye had on so many others to Conker's Bad Fur Day (just go play it if you haven't), the console had mega hits on top of mega hits. It was the system that really sucked me into gaming and I get all kinds of nostalgic when I think about the days spent playing various games at friends houses.


7. Favorite protagonist - Commander Shepard

Obviously. My Shepard was the best Shep because it was the one I related to the most. A mixture of Paragon goodness and Renegade rebel, my Shep was as close as I've ever gotten to imprinting my own personality on the games I'm playing.  My favorite Shep moment was the sniping contest with Garrus in ME3. It was beautiful.


8. Worst Protagonist - Geralt

I just didn't like The Witcher games. Sorry.


9. First Console - NES

True story: I still have mine in one of the unpacked boxes in my house. I have my original slate of games that I grew up on and everything. It was a brutal introduction to gaming because games back then didn't have shit like tutorials or much in the way of save points. You needed to write down passwords to get back to certain levels and I remember my brother and I actually writing our own full guide for Dragon Warrior. Stuff like that just doesn't exist anymore when you have, you know, Google.

10. Guilty Pleasure Game - The NBA 2K series

It's funny that I began my gaming life with a primary focus on sports games (especially Madden) but as I've gotten older, that's become less and less true. One of the most frequent conversations I have with Avs fans is "Do you play NHL? I'd love to play online sometime" but I'm just not a fan of the games. On the flip side, I absolutely love playing video game basketball. Creating my own baller and watching him chuck 3's at increasing success rates over several years until Steph Curry is jelly as hell of my skills? All day, baby.

11. Latest Game Purchase - Battlefield 1

EA is selling BF1 and all of it's DLC for $5 bucks so I bought it tonight and fired it up. The campaign is super cool and for five bucks I feel like I'm straight stealing.

12. Favorite Genre - Platforming

I mentioned my Mario love, right? Platforming just resonates with me in so many ways. I adore the challenge of figuring out the timing and enemy patterns. It can be a total grind but a game like BattleBlock Theater really exemplifies what I love about the genre: speed, creativity, challenge, and the ultimate sense of accomplishment. Very few games bring me the level of satisfaction upon beating that platformers do. 

13. Saddest Scene - Mass Effect 3. You know the one.

The opening scene from The Last of Us absolutely tore me up. I can't imagine it didn't do something similar to all of you who played it. But as has already been demonstrated just 13 questions into this thing, Mass Effect is my jam, homies. And that meant Mass Effect 3, for all its flaws, was still going to bring about some painful moments.

None more so than this:

I remember the first time I saw it, I pushed my chair back away from my desk and just started crying. Video games, man.

14. Favorite Antagonist - Kefka, FF6

This is actually a tough call. There are SO many great villains in games, from GLaDOS to Andrew Ryan and Vaas Montenegro, Albert Wesker, and Sarah Kerrigan. But for me, it's all about Kefka. He was legitimately evil, poisoning a town's water supply and reveled in the screams of the dying. He forced Terra to burn soldiers alive just to make sure his slavery crown was working properly. And that's all before he ascends to a literal god and must be defeated. His theme song was chaotic and terrifying and they wrote him as evil as possible. He was such a great villain, I never felt good defeating him at the end of the game. I was just exhausted from going through the chaos.

15. Worst Antagonist - Your Friends

Nothing tests the limits of friendship quite like Mario Party. It's a fun game to blast through as clever minigames test a wide array of classic gaming skills and a lot of times it just doesn't even matter. Why? Because you go rolling around that godforsaken game board in Mario Party and a bad roll means you just have your power stars stripped from you and given elsewhere. What the fuck? And while it can be fun to make alliances with another person when in need, at the end of the day that shit is more cutthroat than Survivor ever was. There were actual raw feelings to go along with bloody palms and broken joysticks after some epic Mario Party, er, parties.

16. What Are You Playing Now?

This question sucks. I play lots of games and rotate them frequently. Right now, Battlefield 1 and most of the Blizzard library, especially Diablo 3 and Heroes of the Storm.

17. Favorite Franchise - Mario

I've already written plenty about Mass Effect in this thing. Let's give Mario some love, too. That lil plumber and the wide array of brilliant games attached to his name has brought me endless amounts of joy. Now just make a god damn Mario Hockey and we will be SET. 

18. Best Soundtrack - Mass Effect!

And we're back. The original Mass Effect soundtrack still stops me in my tracks if I hear it. The music in ME3 was pretty brilliant, too. It's strange how ME2 is a masterpiece and of the series, it has the weakest soundtrack. But the original ME has by far the most incredible soundtrack of any game I've played. That said, special shoutout to Bioshock for what I believe is the best use of sound in a game. Amazing atmosphere.

19. Worst Soundtrack - All the games who don't have one

What are you doing not making a game with dope music? Fuck off with that noise. Or lack of noise, I guess. Lame.

20. First Game - Super Mario Bros.

I guess this counts as the first one. DuckTales was also on this list. I played a shitload of that game as a kid. DuckTales and SMB got me hooked onto platformers. Life would never be the same.

21. Hardest Game - Battletoads

If you've ever played, you know what's up. If you haven't, you haven't gone through puberty yet. Trust.

22. Best Developers - Nintendo

This isn't even close. Nobody else puts the time, effort, and care into their products like the big N. Between Mario and Zelda alone, you have two of the most innovative franchises in gaming history that consistently produce the highest quality of games in their genres. And in the case of Mario, switching back and forth between 2D platforming and 3D gaming, two genres. And Breath of the Wild could legitimately be the greatest game ever made. The company is just on a completely different planet. They understand that games are about fun, creativity, and imagination. No other game developer can play the hits like these guys.

Special props to Naughty Dog and Rockstar for also being killer devs. They also produce masterpieces.

23. Favorite Couples - Maria & Dom, Gears of War

The first Gears of War game is pretty awesome. It's a rough and tumble "Us versus the world" story. But for me, the real heart of the game was Dom's search for his lost wife, Maria. The small moments he steals to look at the picture he carries of her resonate throughout the game.

And when he finally finds her in Gears of War 2, it's insanely heartbreaking. It's outrageously painful to watch as he discovers her soulless husk has left her without a clue who he is. It's a testament to their true love that he did right by her, even when it tore him up inside to do so.

So why is this my favorite couple? Few love stories in video games exist, let alone the kind of emotion their story does. It's a tragic tale but once upon a time in that fictional universe, Dom and Maria had the most intense romance of them all. True soulmates.

24. Worst Couple - Mario and Peach

Bro, if she gets captured that many times, she wants to be with that dude. She's hot for that dinosaur dick. Just let her go. We've all grown tired of bailing her out of some silly nonsense only for her to reward you with some peck on the cheek. She's not getting down. Stop forcing it.

25. Most Valuable Games -

What the hell does this even mean?

26. Latest Console - 

Also this. PC for life.

27. Best Voice Acting - Mass Effect

Obviously. They hired a top-notch cast of established actors/actresses and they crushed it.

28. Most Underrated Games - Valkyria Chronicles

Just the numbered iterations. Don't play any of the others. I love the fusion of turn-based combat with modern graphics and combat principles. This series combines those elements with beautiful artwork, an interesting story, and quality voice-acting. It's like playing through a comic book. The games are well-received critically but I rarely interact with people who have played them. Like the X-COM revivals but without the incredibly frustrating 3% chance to get completely screwed that seems to trigger 50% of the time.


29. Most Annoying Character - Baby Mario, Yoshi's Island

Just fucking trust me on this, okay? If you're familiar, you already know what's up. If you're not, stay that way. It was one of the most annoying design choices of any video game ever made. Other strong contenders were the god damn dog from Duck Hunt and Slippy from Star Fox. No, YOU knock it off, you god damn annoying ass frog. Fuck.


30. Worst Console - 

Another dumb question. If you don't like a console, don't fuckin play it. 

31. Most Played Game - Guild Wars

My chosen MMO poison, we all have 'that' game that sucks an enormous portion of our lives. Guild Wars 1 was that for me, as I registered just a little over 6,000 hours played. For reference, there are 8, 544 hours in a standard non-leap year. I've spent just a little over 250 full days of my life playing that video game. It meant a lot to me and I made great friends during those days. Memories!

Avengers: Infinity War reaction (spoilers)

As I sit in the movie theater waiting for the usual end of credits scenes that Marvel likes to put in their movies I sit in shock at what I just watched, unable to really think straight all I can this is wow. Marvel pulled out all the stops in this the latest Avengers Movie. The best possible scenario played out for thanos, not only were the Avengers completely separated they weren't even on speaking terms making picking them apart that much easier.

From Iron man's unwillingness to make a phone call to his unwillingness to go home regroup and gameplan... Obviously if they did this in the first place there would be no need for two movies and I wouldn't be writing this post but I digress.

Thanos got everything he could ask for, the avengers all separated, easy access to the infinity stones(though the soul stone kicked him where it hurts) and no one who could really stop him, like all his wishes came true... Not cool... Really glad Thor got a badass axe and the use of both eyes, if only he could've finished of Thanos but alas.

Oh the questions so many questions... What happens next? How? Why? Are the guardians really gone along with Spiderman, Wanda, vision, black panther, Bucky, Dr. Strange, falcon, and even Loki??? Marvel can't just kill them all like that can they? I mean they just did but will they really stay dead?? How is there supposed to be a Spiderman sequel with no Spiderman?? How does marvel continue screw with us like this??

Obvious answer is just wait for the next installment of infinity war and everything will work itself out. How they'll do it? It's marvel it'll be fucking amazing!

Man do I love super hero movies, marvel did yet another amazing job putting this thing together and deserve all the credit they always get... I can't wait to see what happens in the next one but first we get another fun adventure with everyone favourite non hero Deadpool which I'm super excited for, oh and that gap between marvel and DC is just getting wider.

Dishonored 2 Review

Slight spoilers for the first Dishonored.

Dishonored is a mostly good game with some deep flaws.  For a game that at its core is a stealth assassin game with non-lethal options, even for your main assassination targets, Dishonored's non-lethal play was largely dull as you had few toys to play with.  It was also a game with very deep lore and world building, but characters that didn't seem to change with anything happening around them.  Only assassination targets got more than basic characterization which is a problem because a major twist in Dishonored is having most of your co-conspirators turning against you, killing many loyal to you, and doing so for painfully obvious reasons.  All these rich guys are loyal to the true heir and recruit you because you're the empresses secret father....yeah something doesn't sit right there.

Dishonored 2 attempts to fix these mistakes.  It leads to a game that is better than the original, and probably the best out of the 5 I've played from this old blogpost from forever ago (haven't played two of them yet), but still falls short of being an all time great.  

The Dishonored team cares about its narrative but only to a point.  In D2, the main plot is pretty similar to the first game.  The empire is overthrown by a coup, only this time the empress isn't killed as she is the optional player character.  A woman named Delilah comes out of nowhere with the Duke of Serkonos claiming she is Empress Emily's long lost Aunt.  She usurps the throne even as Corvo, protagonist of the first game, stabs her in the chest.  She survives with powers, and turns to stone whoever you decide not to play as.  (I decided to play as Emily as I thought the story would be better suited to that character).  You then need to escape the imperial capital city of Dunwall by fleeing to Serkonos where the coup plot was hatched.

I'd say Emily is "Antifa as fuck", but that collar.  Oh and being an Empress. 

Having the main plot being another coup is probably a by product of making (the now adult) Emily a playable character along with Corvo.  There has to be a reason for the empress to go around stealth assassinating people after all.  That said, it is a little odd that this developer treats their narrative so basic while giving the world of Dishonored so much detail.  More about the technology is expanded upon this time, plus a lot more about the geography and even some about the far off Pandyssian Continent.  It was obvious these islands are not on Earth in the previous game so more detail on just where the hell we are is much appreciated.  Also, there is far more about the supernatural elements of the world.  Witches are a common enemy later in the game and have powers similar to yours.  There is more about the void and a lot more about the Outsider too (more on him later).

The fuck is with the collars in this game?

Emily being a playable character and Delilah being the main villain is a good step in the right direction from a common criticism of the first game, in that Dishonored's treatment of women in the first game was trash.  Sorry if I'm going super SJW on you for a second, but it's ridiculously true.

Women in the previous game are just sort of there.  They get very little characterization, including pre-teen Emily who is the rightful heir, and the ones that get some characterization are given just a handful of personality traits tops.  For example, we know two things about Callista, one of your co-conspirators.  She tutors Emily and you can spy on her taking a bath.  Actually, you can barge in, jump into the bath with her still in it and get a unique Game Over screen as the developers knew players would try this.  Kinda weird to put into the game to begin with.  But that is NOTHING compared to Lady Boyle's non-lethal assassination, which has you knocking her out and handing her over to some creeper who has loved her forever.  Dude is going to take her far away and he is going to teach her to love him.  Ah yes.  The moral high ground of not killing her by giving her away to the most obvious rapist ever.*

*There's also a degree of slut shaming here as the only reason she is even an assassination target in the first place is because she banged the wrong dudes.  Trash.

There is nothing like that in Dishonored 2.  There are two women assassination targets other than Delilah and they get a good amount of characterization.  There is also a main secondary character, Meagan Foster, who is with you through the whole game and gets a great deal of pathos.  You gradually learn more about her as the game goes on and you eventually learn why she is so distant with you.  Even the dudes get better characterization as your inner circle is much smaller this time.  The only returning secondary character is Anton Sokolov, and don't worry, his inclusion isn't really a spoiler.  Shouldn't be that surprising as he was the most fleshed out character in the first game other than maybe Daud.  Other old secondary characters are just given brief notes about their whereabouts only found in letters in the game world.  The developers knew the old characters were bunk.

Delilah has a permanent scowl.  

Emily could have used more though. Most of her dialogue is making statements or asking questions the player is likely to do anyway.  Early in the game, she makes observations on every damn thing you interact with, so much so that I was ready to mute her.  I mean, yes Emily, I know what a Globe is. Luckily this only really happens in the first mission and it's more natural through the rest of the game.  Plus, a lot of her dialogue seems to be focused on self reflection on the lethal vs non-lethal paths to progress the game and at least that stuff was well done.

Dishonored is known for tying its narrative to your playstyle with a chaos mechanic.  Kill a bunch of people, high chaos, don't kill many (or any), low chaos.  In the first game, low chaos was the only way to get the good ending, although I don't know how not killing people would cure the rat plague.  In Dishonored 2, chaos only really effects the ruthlessness of the ending. Spoilers:  Kill a lot of people and you return to the throne to rule with an iron fist.  Don't kill people and you rule as a benevolent leader who suddenly seems open to listen to other leaders...? However, other than the ending, plus a handful of dialogue and Sokolov's painting, your playstyle doesn't really effect anything else.  This isn't so much of a criticism as wishing more games would rip off MSGV here.

Non-lethal play is better in this game but still not quite as fun as lethal play.*  Sleep darts are still here but you also get a dart that makes enemies forget they saw you, stun mines as a non-lethal wire mine, and a non-lethal takedown while in combat !!!!!!!......that kind of sucks.  You can only do it while parrying.  If you are being shot at, just stick to the tried and true "run and hide" or you are fucked (you can upgrade your parry to block bullets but it is possible to deflect a bullet back, getting a kill and screwing a non-lethal playstyle).  You also get some new powers that help with stealth and non-lethal takedowns but they are still outweighed by the many more lethal powers and weapons.  Overall, it's more balanced than the first game, but not equal yet.

The clockwork soldiers have eyes on the back of their heads.  Had to get creative to stay stealthy.

*Perhaps stupidly, I did my lethal runthrough second.  Since I knew my way around now, I was better able to stay in stealth mode as I was spotted far less.  I uh, I felt like a serial killer.  However, it was nice to stand and fight the few times I did get spotted and could actually take down multiple enemies.  It is damn near impossible to do a non-lethal takedown in combat with more than one enemy on you.  The 2 seconds it takes to choke a guard out is long enough for the other guard to attack you and there is no counter except throwing the guard you're choking into the other guard....usually right into the other guards firing gun, leading to a death.  Fucking bullshit.

Unlike other games that offer non-lethal play, I do kind of like Dishonored's morality system in a narrative sense.  The vast majority of enemies are just city guards, doing their jobs for a paycheck.  They don't care who sits on the throne.....buuuuuuut, if they spot you and kill you, they talk mad shit.  Like, yeah, I probably shouldn't be killing these people who are my subjects, but they aren't exactly loyal either.  Hmmmmm....

This is my favorite part of Dishonored 2 (along with the great stealth action gameplay and fantastic level design rivaling the last Deus Ex).  How do you treat those who work in the system but may not really have a stake in it?  Do you fight back against the coup by executing literally everyone even remotely involved in it?  How do you secure a better future?  With brute force and an iron fist, or with leniency and forgiveness?

Too bad it's still more fun to be evil.

It's my favorite part while also being sloppy in execution.  The non-lethal options are better this time with assassination targets, a couple are quite sympathetic and can be saved, though most non-lethal options are arguably just as bad as killing them.  One you brainwash into a incoherent, jabbering, idiot.  One you have imprisoned for a completely false charge.  Delilah Spoiler:  You trap her in a magical dimension where she thinks she has won...and that one might not be so bad actually, even if it isn't real.  She literally no longer exists in reality cause magic.

I also don't understand what the coup and assassinations had to do with The Outsider (I told you I'd come back to him).  For those that don't know, he is a....dude in the void who gives you your powers.  Later on, you learn Delilah also has these powers.  In the first game, The Outsider is kind of a trickster God who doesn't seem to care that much about what Corvo is doing, instead, giving him powers mostly out of entertainment and getting more people to worship him.  He definitely likes it better when you go the lethal route in the first game, but is mostly indifferent as long as people find out he exists.  In Dishonored 2, he has a stake.  He says Delilah has "a part of him" and he is definitely rooting for you this time. You also kiiiiiiind of get to learn about his origin buuuuuut....hey what's the name of the first DLC?

Hold on.  Googling. 

....Motherfucker!

On a game design point, I want to mention two excellent missions.  One has you either siding with some gangsters or some religious nutjobs who are fighting one another (NOT the religion of the Outsider but one that is similar to Christianity only with more Sun worship.  People who worship the Outsider are considered heretics).  You can side with one or the other, OR you can side with neither and kill both leaders, OR take a non-lethal approach to get rid of them, OR you can ignore them entirely if you figure out a riddle to open a door to your destination in that mission.  Who you side with effects the ending along with what you do on the mission to assassinate the Duke.  Who rules Karnaca (the Capital of Serkonos) at the end of the game depends on these actions.  There are like 9 outcomes here and it's great.

The other excellent mission, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, has a great time travel mechanic.  The mansion you go to in present day is falling apart, has many dead ends, the guy you need to talk to is bonkers, and there are corridors with bloodflies*.  The answers you need are in the past when the mansion was in a better state but filled with guards.  The Outsider actually intervenes here and gives you a time travel machine with a lense that lets you look at one timeline, while being in the other, and it's really, really cool.  You can be in the dilapidated mansion, walk around with the lense up, and see guard movements in real time.  It's so fucking cool.  It's also cheap because if a guard spots you you can instantly warp to the present timeline like nothing happened.  Not sure why the guards are not freaked out by somebody vanishing in thin air all the time but hey, cool nonetheless.

It's so cheap.

*Bloodflies is this games version of the rat plague from the first game. Unlike the first game, they barely relate to the main narrative this time.  They are almost treated like an environmental puzzle side-route in a lot of missions.

I should also mention, certain decisions in the time travel mission will change small things about the present, especially with Meagan Foster.  I have....MANY questions about the narrative here but I will let it slide for such a cool mission.

Dishonored 2 is close to my favorite game I played last year.  It's really good, but not great, and it's hard to explain why.  D2 is basically just Dishonored again, a game I liked, only with improved characterization, improved non-lethal play, and improved level design with fun gimmicks.  But its story is a little worse than Dishonored despite having a near identical plot.  Dishonored doesn't even have that good of a story but it least it had a cool plot twist when your co-conspirators turn on you.  D2 doesn't have that.  Not really.  You could make the argument that some of the revelations about Delilah are this games "plot twist" but one occurs too early (and I'm not sure if it is true)*, and the other is obvious.  I don't really care how she got her powers and the fact that she got her powers practically the same way Corvo and Emily did is...yawn.  Also, some of that seemed to be held off for DLC and I'm not pleased about that.  Not.  Pleased.

*I've played this game twice and still don't know if Delilah is lying about being Emily's Step-Aunt.  (I wouldn't even consider it a lie if Emily didn't openly question it several times). This is a problem with "immersive sims" in general like Bioshock, Prey, and even Deus Ex.  They often hide story critical information on some letter or audio log you have to find somewhere.  Now don't get me wrong, I like this mechanic in these games.  I even like seeing important information on these items but there is a line.  Something crucial like the villain's motive should probably not need to be found.  Weirdly, Deus Ex Mankind Divided made the same mistake with its main villain. 

The story is the only thing holding Dishonored back from being great.  It's closest relatable game is Deus Ex which has a much better story.  The story of Deus Ex is much larger than Adam Jensen. Dishonored has a more personal story despite great world building, and there is nothing wrong with that in general, it's just that THIS personal story is about an Empress reclaiming her throne.  Not exactly the most relatable thing.  Also, pretty hard sell in this political climate.  Game of Thrones at least has a worldwide threat to overshadow the many wars for the Iron Throne.  Dishonored 2 has a bloodfly infestation that doesn't relate to anything except for being proof that the Duke of Serkonos is a bad leader...I guess?  How?  The bloodflies are only local to Serkonos anyway.  The throne is in Dunwall.

Story aside, Dishonored 2 is really solid.  I'd like to see a potential Dishonored 3 fix the flaws of D2 the same way D2 did of the original.  Maybe then we can finally get a Dishonored game that can really use the great world it's built and not be about the very, very tired trope of "the rightful heir reclaiming their throne."

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Follow me on Twitter where my header has been Dishonored 2 for like 2 years.  

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Review. (Light Spoilers)

Note:  This review is going to assume you already played the first Life is Strange since this prequel relies heavily on the player knowing who many of the characters already are.  So with that in mind, I will be spoiling the first Life is Strange to some degree.  I will also lightly spoil this game, mainly about what the game leaves out.

Prequels are almost never that good.  It's hard to tell a compelling story when A. the outcome is already known and B. the plot is forced onto a path that follows the original story's backstory.  Life is Strange: Before the Storm (referred to as BtS from now on because I am not writing that full title out every time) however is pretty good, not quite "really good", but pretty good.  The reason for this is that the game largely ignores much of A. and B.

BtS is squared on Chloe meeting and befriending Rachel Amber.  The game does cover Chloe's grief about her fathers death (WHOO BOY, more on that later), her relationship to David and her mom who he is currently dating, her relationships with Blackwell Academy students and the school itself, and her relationship with Frank.  All of this is....ehhhh it's fine, but I found myself wanting to get through it just to get back to the games core, Chloe and Rachel.  And because that is the core of this game, I was initially apprehensive of even playing it.

The safety of playing as Max is far out of town.

This is for two reasons.  Firstly, you get to play as Chloe who is the most fleshed out character of the original game, even more so than Max since she has to double as the player avatar.  Max has soft personality traits like being geeky, but not TOO geeky, and being an artsy hipster, but not TOO much so that players aren't put off and can feel free to make choices.  Chloe has hard personality traits established like being a "punky bitch" who flirts with varying degrees of criminality and whose sharp edge is dulled by a hidden softer side.  Giving the player choices on her actions could easily derail her into somebody she isn't.  To my surprise, that largely doesn't happen.  I did find myself trying to "play the character" a lot more than I usually do in these kinds of games, "what would CHLOE do" so to speak, but it works out.  Typically choices look like something Chloe would do or say, with maybe a rare part being out of character.

The other reason is because Rachel Amber is a primary character who is a unicorn.  She is too perfect in the first game.  Everybody loves her except Victoria who viewed her as a rival, she has straight A's, she is good at everything she does, and is largely NOT a character.  She is a plot device in the first game, basically a MacGuffin.  Yeah, the player discovers a hidden dark side that even Chloe didn't know about, mainly Rachel's hidden relationship with Frank, but it's played off as "wild child" stuff to make her fit in with Chloe better.  Why would a perfect super popular girl be friends with Chloe in the first place?

Well, in BtS Rachel's mythos is safe because the game actually does a good job of humanizing her.  The most obvious way was to give her flaws which the game pulls off without completely destroying her character traits in the first game.  It's honestly the most impressive aspect of the entire game in my opinion.  I went from, "I'm not sure I want to see Rachel Amber the character," to after the first episode, "....I have a crush on Rachel Amber."  That is quite a turn around.  Respect to the developers.

Damn your charm!

While BtS is not as good as the first game it makes some solid improvements.  It amplifies the strengths of the first game, character development and relationships, while excluding its weaknesses, the supernatural stuff and video gamey-ness.  Obviously Chloe does not have time travel powers so that game mechanic is replaced with a "talk back" feature.  It basically allows Chloe to insult someone into giving her what she wants via sick burns.  BtS also has better presentation.  The animations are noticeably improved and facial expressions are much better.  The game does not have to lean on writing and voice acting* as much as the previous game but these too are really good.  I was surprised to see that the developers used motion capture for the animations considering the probably small-ish game budget, but the use of them made everything so much more natural combined with the previously great parts.

*It's a shame that Ashly Burch couldn't reprise her role due to the strike, which is apparently the longest in history, but she is coming back for a bonus episode featuring Chloe and Max.  The new actress did a great job despite the voice sounding a little off at first and also for being a SCAB (It's union lingo).  You get used to her though.

The game also largely avoids awkward video gamey-ness by keeping the mechanics simple.  It's mostly talking to people and exploring stuff in a space with some light puzzles.  The puzzles are mostly just go get a thing to unlock this other thing.  They work just fine in a grounded real world game.  There are no utterly bizarre stealth sections here.

En fuego utero.  

Where the game really deviates is with its plot.  There almost isn't one for the first two episodes.  Every story needs conflict of course, but the conflict here is so low stakes that it is at once a breath of fresh air and feeling lacking at the same time.  Then, in episode 3, the tension is ramped up out of nowhere to life and death stakes.  It's a bit jarring even if it isn't all that surprising since the first two episodes feature so little "action".  The first two episodes play more like a teenage drama with some sitcom thrown in there.

The game largely ignores a lot of backstory to focus on the backstory the player is more likely to care about, Chloe and Rachel.  Things like, Rachel and Frank's future relationship is (almost) completely ignored, to the point where it seems like a....what's the term for a prequel ret-con?  Is it pret-con?  Ew.....anyway.  There are certain aspects of Rachel that the player will know, but Chloe does not until discovered in the first Life is Strange, making the future narrative VERY bittersweet and not just because Rachel is murdered. 

Since you play as Chloe, it wouldn't make sense to see Rachel getting involved with Frank, Nathan, and especially Jefferson since he isn't even in this game.  Chloe does not know about any of this at this time.  Yet, the player knows these relationships happen later, leaving us to assume this happens after this game.  And the ending is so goddamn bright, excluding one after credit scene confirming Rachel's future doom*, that it is no wonder Chloe gets so upset when she learns about Rachel and Frank's relationship in the first game.  I mean yeah, playing as Chloe, I'd feel betrayed too.  What happens between them after this game considering how strong their friendship/romance is at the end of it?  What leads Rachel into the secrets she keeps from Chloe?

*Unless you are one of the 10% of players (on PC at least) where Rachel meets her mother.  That replaces the dark room scene.  Also, it's fucking horse shit how you get her to meet her mother.  Fucking nobody saw that relationship as "not a romance".  Of course I picked the kiss option in ep 2.  The only way Rachel meets her mother is if you choose the bracelet, which you give to her mother (then I guess FUCKING FRANK gets?  HOW?).  Stupid.

I get the impression that the developers didn't want to go there.  I think they knew that a prequel featuring them would be bittersweet enough so they made a game where a player could almost head canon/fan-fic a completely different future.  Chloe and Rachel live happily ever after if you so choose.  But more importantly the developers wanted to capture a specific time, a friendship/romance between two girls, fate be damned. 

I mean, look at em.  Cliche?  Yes.  Badass?  Fuck yes.

Dear reader, ask yourself this question.  "What do you care about more in your stories?  Theme and evoking emotions, or narrative consistency?"*  Preferably you'd want both but that isn't always possible, and with a Life is Strange prequel, it's pretty impossible.  The only thing that would be interesting in a prequel is Rachel Amber and specifically her relationship to Chloe, and this game nails that.  A prequel could include more darker stuff but instead BtS went with a lower stakes game and more down to earth theme, excluding a specific scene in episode 3.  The game is better off for it.  If you want literally every backstory explained in a prequel, try Star Wars.  It's a cautionary tale.

*Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a decent example but this idea is amplified to a million with a certain movie I saw on the SAME DAY as finishing this game.  Wanna watch it a 2nd time before writing about it.  I also know every, EVERY, argument against it now and the vast majority are...nerds are fucking stupid.  Stooooopid.**

**I'm talking about Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

BtS is a good game, pretty great as prequels are concerned, and a decent lesson for all future prequels.  Do you have to tell the backstory exactly as told in the original or can certain things be left out without it feeling unfaithful?  Did the game have to tell the story of Frank and Rachel?  I don't think so.  I like that people are finally challenging the idea that canon is sacrosanct.  We get stories worth talking about.  Media and art that can provoke an emotion, and/or is more concerned with its theme, is sometimes better than a great logical story.  Logic is helpful but not always REAL.  Life is Strange: Before the Storm is good emotional storytelling even if it's logic doesn't always make sense.

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So I mentioned a thing I'd talk about later with a WHOO BOY.....here is that thing.

DEEP BREATH.......My Dad passed away in early November.  Episode 1 spends a good amount of time dealing with the death of Chloe's father and while I played this before he passed, he was in the hospital at this time.  My life was a roller coaster while he was in the hospital for a month straight so Chloe's scenes dealing with her grief of her father left me with such varying emotions I can't even begin to describe them. 

My experience isn't that relatable to Chloe on the details.  Her dad died in a car accident when she was a teenager.  My Dad died at 80 years old, while I'm in my 30's, because he was a badass.  Buuuuuut, my dad did die from a fall*, something that you beat yourself up over about not preventing, and yeah.  Even acknowledging that a teenager losing her father due to an accident is going to result in significantly different emotions and changes as opposed to a father who lived a long life, this game gave me something to relate too even if it isn't that close.  The "event" may be wildly different, but at least some of the emotions are similar.

  I even had a bizarre dream with my Dad in it too.

*The fall was the spark really.  He died from smoking, drinking, and especially Parkinson's Disease, which caused him to fall in the first place.  But still, with all that stacked against him, he lived to almost 81 (his birthday is in December).  Not too shabby old man.

This game, along with a certain movie that I hope to write about in January, helped me with the grieving process.  (I'm leaving the name of the movie blank as a teaser BTW.  I haven't quite gotten to the point that I can write about that movie and my dad, but I am getting closer.  I've wanted to write it for ages.)

I was hesitant to play episode 2 of BtS just because of how much Chloe's father was present in the first.  But...her father is barely in episode 2 and 3.  It was weirdly reassuring.  He was still there, but not.  It's very hard to explain.  The death of a parent.  I'll let you know if I ever understand these emotions.

Chloe is one of the most actualized teenage characters I have ever seen in media and having her grieve with me as the game was coming out was...thank you.  This makes my whole review look biased as hell but thank you to the developers for making this game, and out of pure serendipity, at the right time.  Hell I'm still sort of critical of the narrative, but I changed man.  I changed.

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Full Spoiler Section.  Additional thoughts that didn't fit into the post.

1.  I'm not sure if I like ep.1 or 2 more but ep.3 is certainly the weakest.  All anybody wanted to do was spend more time with Chloe and Rachel but ep.3 stabs Rachel and puts her in the hospital, effectively removing her from the story.  I get the idea of having Chloe be the hero in the climax but it felt lacking that Rachel wouldn't be involved.  Only one half of the core is present when it should be the two of them tackling the climax together. 

2.  That final showdown with Damon is weird.  Also, Frank killed a guy.  I guess he could get out of it with a "self-defense/defense of innocents" thing but whoa.

3.  How fucking bananas is it now that Frank knows Rachel's mom.  The relationship between him and Rachel just keeps getting grosser and grosser. 

4.  As I hinted at in the post, that future relationship isn't completely ignored.  Frank checks Rachel out in the junkyard in ep.3 and she seems embarrassed.  That's it.  That is the only aspect of that thread visible. 

5.  I gotta stop talking about Rachel and Frank.  I sound like a jealous girlfriend.....

6.  The train scene is probably my favorite, other than maybe the post Tempest play scene for obvious reasons.  Also, how awkward would it have been if Chloe doesn't share her earbuds with Rachel on the train?  Almost nobody picked the option to not share.  What would Rachel do?  Just sit there?

One of the few times I let the whole song play in one of these games. 

7.  Finally, I'd like to discuss the symbolism in these games.  The doe in the first game is obviously Rachel, while the raven in this game is Chloe's father.  The doe watches Max and at times, aides her in the first game.  The raven is present in dream sequences where Chloe's father gives her advice.  While the animal choices seem kind of random, I do like their usage.  The use of fire is a little more vague though.  The motif is certainly a combination of "fire is pretty but destructive" and "the truth hides in darkness, the light can bring it out".  I can't tell if this is in relation to the truth about Rachel's mom or a larger metaphor about the two girls relationship being like a fire that burns bright at first but will eventually burn out.  Or hell, even both. 

There is also The Tempest.  This motif is probably meant to be more than surface level as both ep.2 Brave New World, and ep.3 Hell is Empty, are both in famous lines from the play.  (Ep.1 Awake could be anything though).  I'm curious if it's more connected to the game than I know.  I'm not gonna sit here and claim to know a lot about Shakespeare but from what little I looked up....maybe.  Chloe and Rachel's relationship isn't very similar to Prospero and Ariel, the two characters they perform in the play, unless you take a very broad approach as "When Rachel dies she sets Chloe free".  That doesn't feel accurate at all.  Nor would relating the two girls to Ferdinand and Miranda so....I dunno.  I look forward to seeing possible fan theories about this. 

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Getting ready for my Star Wars: The Last Jedi fight.

Doki Doki Literature Club Review (SPOILERS).

Sigh.

Note:  I know.  It's weird enough that I played this game and felt compelled to write about it.  If you know nothing about this game, the title alone is probably making you think, "Jason?  You okay man?"  No, I don't know what "Doki Doki" means, (according to Google, it's a term meaning a quickening heart rate due to being close to someone you wanna bone down with) and dating sims are about as realistic as shrugging off a bullet wound in an FPS.  However....

After so much word of mouth, the Internet version anyway, seeing this game on several "best of 2017" lists, and seeing it listed in Youtube recommendations, I had to see what the big deal is.  

This game is very interesting and pretty damn cool.  I'm not sure if it's a good game, read below to learn more, but it's unique.  I'm going to spoil the shit out of this game in this review.  I recommend playing it, (IT'S FREE), if you don't mind playing a Japanese style dating sim with a horrifying twist.  That...probably only convinced 0.01% of you to play it but hey.  MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.  

Also, personal stuff got in the way of updating this blog regularly but I want to get back to writing more.  I'm planing on posting about that personal stuff soon because not one but TWO pieces of media I've enjoyed this year relate to my personal stuff.  It's gonna come up.  Oh, and a Dishonored 2 review I've been had mostly done for 3 months.  

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Last Spoiler Warning!!!!!

Game of Thrones Season 7 Review (Spoilers Obviously).

Game of Thrones has always been a show that rarely had its constituent parts meet.  It was easy in the past to write a season review split into different sections by geography as I did in my season 5 review (and had I written it quicker, season 6 too).  Season 7 however has essentially re-formatted the show.  It no longer has the slow drip of information, planning, strategizing, character development, and especially travel.  Everything happens very quickly, creating a different feel for a show that never used to be this conventional.

The largest reason for this is because this season was only 7 episodes long.  Crucial information is delivered in two scenes max and at minimum, even a single line of dialogue.  This means there is a lot to soak in between set pieces and more rewinding for a "what did he say?" than I ever have done before.*  Likewise, it's very noticeable that the writers are working off an outline rather than completed books, thank you very much George RR "slowest writer ever" Martin.  Plot detail is scant, leading to a season that feels more like a Marvel movie than a Game of Thrones season.

*Also, I've never straight up paused so many times to absorb, what would be, 15 minutes worth of information in previous seasons that here is unleashed in, like, 5 minutes.

Not that everything needed more detail.  

Travel is also absurdly fast now.  Dany, in one season, is in; Dragonstone, Kings Landing, north of The Wall briefly, and somewhere on the road between Highgarden and Kings Landing (Granted, she flew alone for one of those locations).  Army movements are unrealistically fast based on this shows rules, ravens are getting information around faster than in the past (except for all that crucial information Bran knows cause he's a weirdo now),  and yet the White Walkers still take all season to reach The Wall.

HOWEVER, I personally don't care that much about the timelines of troop movements in this show at this time.  Fans complaining about this seems to me like nitpicky CinemaSins garbage.  If, instead, Dany spent as much time in Dragonstone as she did in Meereen, I would light myself on fire before her dragons could.  I mean what is the alternative?  Do these fans want more of the excellent Dorne subplot?  You wanna drag that out a little longer?  How about we have a few scenes in Essos checking in with whatever Daario is doing in Meereen to pad things out or maybe the Iron Bank banker doing paperwork in Braavos?  I don't even remember his name.  Did they even give him a name?

You don't know his name either Khalessi.

The sped up nature of the season works well for the battles and holy hell does the Battle of Blackwater Bay seem dumb now.  Way back in season 2, it was rumored but never confirmed that that battle was the most expensive single episode in TV history.  There is no way that is remotely true now as the production value is sky high.  The battle scenes were all great this time around.  No muddy ugliness of the Battle of the Bastards with an inexplicable wall of bodies.  The chaos of the....Battle of the Loot Train?  Really?  Okay....even that battle through all it's fiery smoke was easier to watch.  The Unsullied taking Casterly Rock with a montage* was weird but whatever.

*Is it just me or did this season LOVE montages.

What didn't work so well with this sped up season is with interpersonal stories and character development.  Much of the early episodes seem to be questioning if Dany has a little of the Mad King in her with Tyrion being the only one who can keep her from going nutty.  The answer is to have Dany listen to him and this kind of works?  She listens to his initial invasion plan and to his plan to bring a zombie to Cersei, but she doesn't listen to him when she flies north to rescue Jon and pals.  So I guess it's a wash?  Also, her romance to Jon is weird in multiple ways.  Obviously the incest, which could have been prevented with a raven Bran you asshole, and also that the chemistry isn't really there.  The romance just kinda happens from staring longingly at each other.  It's like a teenager wrote this.

There is also the Sansa, Arya, Littlefinger trifecta of what the fuck?  Even after the finale, I'm still unsure if they were playing Littlefinger all season long.  And if they were, WHY?  Did they need time to make sure the Vale would be okay with this?  This is the timeline I'm confused about.  Also, what was the point in Arya threatening to kill Sansa in episode 6 if it doesn't matter?  Just to trick the audience so that the twist would have more of an effect?  That is horse shit.  If they are tricking Littlefinger, well, the episode didn't show him spying on them.  Are we left to assume he was spying on them OFF SCREEN?  I am so confused.*

*Apparently there is a deleted scene that explains this.  Terrible editing decision.

There are a ton of first meeting and reuniting characters this season, many given one quick scene.  Obviously Jon, Dany, and Tyrion were going to get a lot of time together and so were the Stark kids, but others could have used more.  Tyrion meeting with Bronn, Podrick, and even Jamie felt like they needed more time.  Jamie and Tyrion actually get two scenes with one another (alone at least) and it felt rushed.  Tyrion and Cersei was fine with just one scene though because multiple would have lead me to question how one hasn't killed the other yet (That scene was actually REALLY good, even if it didn't make narrative sense.  I'll always go for a great emotional scene over a good logical one).  Other first meetings like virtually everyone on the expedition north could have used a little more.  I think they were going for a motley crew type feel but it would have been better with the characters interacting with each other more before the battle at the frozen lake.  The Hound saving Tormund should have been more impactful than, "oh, they talked about Brienne once."  Maybe Jorah could have accepted Longclaw (Jon Snow's sword) then given it back with more time.  Maybe Gendry....could.....uh.

He uses a hammer cause he's a blacksmith get it AHAHAHA

Okay.  Why bring Gendry back for that?  His main contribution is running back to Eastwatch exceptionally fast.  Also, they don't show him being there in the finale so Gendry is missing, yet again.  I assume Tormund and Beric died at The Wall (if they survived that, you have got to be kidding me) but maybe Gendry too.  It would almost be fitting if they killed Gendry without giving him one final scene.  Watch him magically turn up at Winterfell next season.

Great set pieces and muddy character development.  Yeah.  This season is a Marvel movie.  But, and this is important, I didn't hate it.  I liked a shitload of it.  I don't mind that the show became more traditional since it is completely out of source material to borrow from.  Plus, the story is wrapping up.  It is ending.  Of course it's going to speed up with little to go off of.  The details are missing and it would be really, really, really weird to throw in tiny character details the author has not yet decided on.  Game of Thrones has always worked closely with George RR Martin.  It would be weird to go too far off the outline.

Most importantly, it was still entertaining as hell.  To be honest, most of my bitching came after the fact.  I didn't notice how stupid the Arya threatening to kill Sansa scene was until thinking about it later.  Instead...lets talk about how Dany fucked her nephew.....

Actually lets not.

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Random thoughts that don't fit into the post.

1.  So....how, exactly, were the White Walkers planning to get past the wall without the zombie dragon?  I assume the Night King has Bran powers since he always sees Bran spying on him and maybe knew a dragon would come to him some day?  But Bran can't see the future, just past and present via warg, so ??????

2.  Despite the sped up season, it still found time for padding with Sam at the Citadel.  He finds only two pieces of information.  The first is that Dragonstone is sitting on a ton of Dragonglass.  Other people pointed out that he must have forgotten this because Stannis tells him this in Season 4.  Oops.  Secondly, he learns about Rheagar Targaryean's annulment which you may notice as having nothing to do with how to stop the White Walkers.  Shockingly, Bran doesn't know this because reasons.  Sam did cure Jorah though so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

3.  Speaking of Sam, remember when he met with his father and they hated each other so then he stole his fathers sword?  Remember how that seemed to foreshadow that they would meet again but instead his dad gets roasted by a dragon?  Yyyyyyyyeah.  I guess that was just to get Sam a Valeryin steel sword?

4.  In the Jon Snow is a terrible military commander department, what did he plan to do at the frozen lake after Dany comes to save him?  Just rush up that hill and kill the Night King with a few thousand soldiers around him?  Why does he keep charging ARMIES by himself?

5.  The trial and execution of Littlefinger genuinely took me by surprise and was a great scene but I'm left with questions.  What was Littlefinger......doing?  Like, what was his plan?  Just getting into HIS head for a sec, but I always thought he was trying to maneuver some sort of massive power grab.  Was it all he ever really wanted was to be with Sansa?  Cause I mean, what?  Wow is he stupid.  Selling her off to Ramsey would lead to him being with Sansa, how?  Getting Sansa to execute Arya would lead to, what?  And if convincing Arya that Sansa may have betrayed the family, like what I assume he did letting her find the scroll, what if Arya gets Sansa executed?  What in the holy hell was his endgame?  Did he even have one?

6.  I am unsure about Jamie's character arc.  The threat of the army of the dead is what broke the camels back?  This might be controversial, but I always thought of Jamie as the abused in an abusive relationship (I'll explain).  Thinking of it like that would explain why he holds on to her despite her psychosis.  Now, there is that completely out of character rape scene in season 5 that the show runners decided to change (this is in the books apparently but it is consensual) for no reason.  Jamie needed to go into villain territory more?  WHY?!?!  That one scene destroyed his character arc and his possible redemption will always look tainted.  Game of Thrones wants me to root for a rapist apparently.  Fuck this show.

Yet....Cersei has all the power.  That GREAT scene with Tyrion in the finale tries to reel her back in but it's way too late for that.  One of her major character attributes is she cares about family A LOT.  Her biggest hang up from going full evil is her unborn child.  So uh...and you can tell the people in charge of this show are men...why are her choices so illogical in that regard?  Jamie is right that the victor of the north is going to kill them all.  I sense some "pregnant women are emotional lunatics" in this writing and it is stupid and sexist.

7.  What is with the Theon side quest?  He's the person who plays a video game, only does the side quests and maybe accidentally does a main story quest.  He probably has one more major story event happen but whyyyyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAHJKGFAJGJHIO ???????????  Nobody cares about Theon.  It's dull as hell.  Literally everyone is concerned about the war in the north, and Cersei backstabbing, but then hey....how about the Iron Isles?  Who gives a shit?

8.  Having a romantic incest scene while ALSO having narration about Jon's true parents was very weird.  I....just wrote that sentence.

9.  Finally....this is a prediction but I have a weird feeling Daario is gonna save Dany and company from the Golden Company.  Like, him ruling Meeren will lead to him learning about it and, yeah.  Especially for this show, if he hasn't even been hinted at being killed, he isn't out of it yet.

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