Blog Plans for 2022

 

There is no reason for this screenshot to be here other than its hilarity.

So this blog started back in 2013 as a medium to post my creative projects, mainly my music and writings. Since then, it's evolved somewhat, becoming sort of a Something Awful front page lite in 2015, and then recently turning into more of a video game review site. My output has waned from my highpoint in 2015, when I manged 163 posts, but I'm a lot busier nowadays, and sometimes instead of writing I'd rather zone out and play video games. I'd like to keep this project going, however, and I don't want to see my output peter out like it did in 2017, when I only posted 60 times. Therefore, I'm setting some goals for this blog in an effort to give it a little more time and respect. Here are the main ones.

-post 10 times a month.

-include one piece of new music per month.

-continue some of my long-running series, like the Conan Brothers, Farmer's Only Profiles, and Batman and Robin's Political Debates.

-post a game review per month.

-include an excerpt from whatever novel I'm working on (hah).

-keep that bad poetry flowing.

-do a weightlifting post per month.

-try to keep this fun.

I'd love to bring back the Pointless Podcast, a podcast so pointless and vulgar that we had to discontinue it; however, I doubt that I have the time, and that I'd be able to find willing participants, and there's always the specter of saying something unfortunate that is preserved forever on the net. So that's what you, dear reader, can look forward to this coming year. May it be a better year than the last two.

Cyberpunk 2077 Impressions

 

The character models are insanely detailed in this game.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a Bethesda game with a better story and cast of characters. Just like the Elder Scrolls and Fallout, there are plenty of glitches and jank. If you park your car in the middle of the street, a half-mile traffic jam will form. If you have a hostile interaction with one character in an alley, any nearby NPCs might crouch down and cover their heads in mass like someone just told them to duck and cover. You can steal any car without any consequences. Combat is awkward and consists of pumping bullet after bullet into spongy enemies that don't seem to have much in the way of AI. But I'll be damned if this game doesn't have an incredible presentation. Conversations proceed in a natural way instead of the freeze-frame weirdness of Fallout or Skyrim. The environments look to be pulled from Blade Runner, and the artistry is so impressive that I can't help but to be pulled into the world. Jackie is perhaps the most likeable gangsta buddy in video game history. Johnny Silverhand is a douche, but I want to know why he forswore the rock star life to become a terrorist. In short, if you give the game a chance and become a willful participant in the illusion, Cyberpunk is as engrossing an experience as you'll find in computer entertainment. If you lift up its skirt and try to break the illusion, however, you'll come away disappointed. Despite its reputation as a system-melter, I've found Cyberpunk to run pretty well. Using Digital Foundry's optimized settings (found here) my Ryzen 7 3700x, 5700 xt power PC runs it around 60 frames per second at 1440p. Obviously a year of optimizations have almost certainly made Cyberpunk a better experience now than on launch. If you have a decent system or a next gen console, don't be afraid. Just don't expect the second coming of Half-Life or Deus Ex.

Screenshots below:

Pointless Venture's Games of the Year

Despite the continuation of the pandemic, 2021 was a great year for games. It was a perfect year to catch up on some great titles of the recent past (Red Dead Redemption 2; Shadow of the Tomb Raider; Hades) as well as enjoying a few excellent new releases (Forza Horizon 5; Resident Evil Village). Before I give my picks, I'm going to list every single title I played this year.

What I played (An asterisk signifies to completion)

Amid Evil*

Shadow of the Tomb Raider*

Resident Evil 3 Remake*

Doom Eternal Ancient Gods Part 2*

Red Dead Redemption 2*

Control*

Crysis Remastered*

Resident Evil Village*

Hades

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Iron Fury

Quake Remastered

Deathloop*

Master Chief Collection

Halo 4*

Forza Horizon 5

Halo Infinite*

That's seventeen titles, and probably a record for me, with only six titles not played to completion. Of those six games I didn't beat, I spent almost twenty hours or more on each of them with the exceptions of Quake and Iron Fury, so it's not like I just launched them for fifteen minutes and then never played them again. So yeah, my 2021 was spent playing a lot of video games, for what it's worth. Anyway, here are my top titles.

Game of the Year: Red Dead Redemption 2

A gorgeous, ninety-hour epic Western, Red Dead 2 is unlike any game I've ever played. I'm glad that I waited until I had a decent enough system to play it in its full glory. Probably the best single player game I've ever played, as far as atmosphere and story go, as it dethroned the Witcher 3 in my personal ranking. Definitely give it a shot if you're into Westerns or simulated third-person action adventures.

Best shooter: Halo Infinite

Halo's campaign isn't the strongest in the series, but it's a return to form after Halo 4 (and 5, apparently, though I still haven't played it). 343 finally nailed the sandbox combat that forms Halo's gameplay loop, and the grappling hook and open world are excellent additions. However, the end of the game suffers from repeating Forerunner sections, as though 343 were referencing Halo CE. The multiplayer is the most fun I've had in years. An arena shooter with a diverse array of guns and gametypes (although fewer than previous Halos), there's nothing like dominating in a game of tactical Slayer. The only game on this list I'll undoubtedly still be playing next year.

Best Atmosphere: Resident Evil Village

An incredibly spooky tour de force of the genre's classic milieu, Resident Evil Village has a story that descends into incomprehensibility for anyone not heavily invested in the long running series. That didn't keep me from enjoying the hell out of its mishmash of high-brow artistry and low-brow horror schlock. Also worth mentioning that this is an amazing looking game that runs excellently.

Best Game I didn't Finish: Tie between Hades and Forza Horizon 5

I got to Hades himself, but by that time I had tired of the repetitive format of the rougelite genre. Still, I boot Hades up from time to time, still somewhat committed to finishing off the king of hell. As for Forza, I plan on returning to it after running through Halo Infinite on Legendary difficulty. It's such a huge game that I'll probably take a while.

So that's it for 2021. As for 2022, Elden Ring is the only thing on my radar at the moment, so we'll see that next year brings.

 

 

Halo Infinite Review

 

Infinite is a beautiful game. Unfortunately, that beauty comes at a cost.

Halo Infinite is this year's Doom Eternal. It's an unexpected revival of a great gaming series, and like last year's Doom, Master Chief is powered by a litany of specialized weapons and a grappling hook. Infinite's big idea is an open world Halo; thankfully, 343 didn't copy Ubisoft and litter the map with collectables and trivial fights. There are marines to rescue and bases to capture, but they're scattered amongst your main objectives. The main inspiration seems to be the Silent Cartographer level from Halo CE. You'll spend this game trudging through mountain forests and Forerunner Dungeons, although I can say the level design is better than CE, thankfully. Since I didn't play Halo 5, I'm only vaguely aware of the plot, but apparently a lot went on in-between games. Spoiler: Cortana is dead, and the Chief's new companion is called the Weapon, who's basically Cortana, but naive and optimistic. I did appreciate the new dynamic between Chief and the Weapon, which is more father-daughter than whatever the hell was going on in between him and Cortana in Halo 4. Anyway, new bad guys the Banished are basically just the Covenant. They are composed of the same grunts, jackals, elites, and brutes, and they're just as fun to fight as in previous games. New to the series are multiple boss fights, and although many of these guys are bullet sponges, I had a good time hunting them down in the open world. Master Chief's abilities are well-implemented, and I ended up using the grapple and shield wall frequently. The arsenal is pretty awesome; my favorites were the shock rifle, which stuns enemies and can arc electricity between nearby foes, and the Skewer, a brute version of the Spartan Laser that impales your foes. All told, the campaign is good fun, and one of the longer Halo games. My only complaint comes from the technical side of things. The engine that powers Infinite doesn't seem particularly scalable; on my 3700x and 5700 xt powered system, which happens to be the recommended rig, I frequently encountered stutters and frame drops, especially in the open world. Messing with settings, I was able to keep my framerate around 60 fps at 1440p by keeping most settings at High but dropping Geometry, Shadows, and Effects to Medium. Running the game on the  Series S, I noticed some pretty bad resolution scaling, as the game struggled to hit 60 at 1080p. Turning on resolution scaling is more noticeable on PC, in my opinion, so I'd recommend not playing with it on, especially since it's bugged and only works when you lock the frame rate to your refresh rate and use the in game vysnc. I can't play without Freesync; anything else just feels stuttery. So anyways, if you're a fan of FPS games, subscribe to Gamepass and give Infinite a try. It's my game of the year.

New Music: Sell Me A Dream

 

I wrote this song a couple of years back. It's a jaunty, almost swing-like piano piece with a crooning vocal, and it has always reminded me of a show-tune, but now that I've recorded it, I don't know what to make of it. Definitely not a typical TPM song, which is why it's special. As for the arrangement, it is composed of a drum loop, piano, mellow keys, and an upright bass, all done in Reason Essentials. Easily one of the best pieces of software I've ever purchased, and if I did more electronic music, I'd splurge for the full product.

Forza Horizon 5: Halo Infinite Multiplayer

I've never been a car guy. For a decade, I drove a PT Cruiser for chrissakes. However, that doesn't mean that I'm immune to that particularly American fantasy, that of wide open roads meant to be traveled by gleaming hot rods capable of blistering speed. Forza Horizon 5 brings that fantasy to life, albeit through an idealized recreation of Mexico. You'll amass cars by random chance (earn enough accolade points and you literally spin a wheel to win some dream machine nobody anywhere close to my income bracket could ever hope to drive), barn finds, and prizes earned by winning races. There's a whole mini-game featuring car tweaking which I haven't touched, not being a gear head, but the sim aspects are light enough that you can literally just drive and have a good time. The game looks phenomenal, other than a few low res textures, and it really is the best low-stress time you can have with a game pad. I don't have a whole lot to say about Forza Horizon 5 other than just play it and have a good time.

Halo Infinite's free to play multiplayer is the most fun I've had with a multiplayer game since, well, Halo 3. 343 have brought back the feeling of classic Bungie Halo, and I've had a hell of a time reacquainting myself with the Needler, Battle Rifle, and Ghost. There aren't a lot of maps yet, but they are well-designed, with Live Fire and Behemoth being my favorites so far. It also runs like a dream at 1440p and High settings. The whole Battlepass controversy doesn't matter much to me; I don't really care about customizing my Spartan beyond changing the color of my armor. That being said, the choice to launch without a way of picking your gametype is pretty lame. Oddball is fun every so often, but I want to play Slayer, damn it! Crazy to think way back in 1999 I could boot up Unreal Tournament or Quake and not only pick my gametype, but also chose my map and the server. This post-matchmaking world we live in isn't too friendly to gamer choice. All the same, I'm loving the multiplayer and can't wait for the campaign to drop this week.

My Ten Favorite Songs from the Grunge Era

 Just a bunch of cool dudes hanging out.

Here's the more positive companion to my least favorite songs of the grunge era piece. 

1) Aneurysm by Nirvana. Quite possibly the greatest encapsulation of what Nirvana was about. Aneurysm starts with a dissonant chromatic guitar run that culminates in a hard hitting monster riff before starting it all over again, Helter Skelter-style. The verse transitions to a typical hard-soft dynamic that so many other Nirvana tunes use; Kurt's deceptively simple lyrics, yelled with all the throat-shredding sarcasm he could muster, sound as though they were cribbed from a 50's rocker. Come on over and do the twist. Over do it, and have a fit. The chorus returns to the Sabbathesque riff, only now Cobain is shouting Beat me outta me while his bandmates add Beat it, Beat it! with such faux-machismo that it's hard not to take them seriously. I love this song. Every time Smells Like Teenspirit kicks on the radio, I wish that Aneurysm was playing instead.

2) Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden. An almost atonal mess of heavy riffing, Jesus Christ Pose is a dis of people who portray themselves as a persecuted deity, I dunno, maybe like your typical rock star. Regardless of its subject matter, it's an awesome song, with an almost helicopter-like intensity to its guitar riffs, and Cornell could sing the phone book and I'd probably listen to it. Badmotorfinger, the album from which this song was taken, is one of my all time favorites and a great play while you are pumping iron like a madman in your dilapidated basement dungeon.

3) Everlong by the Foo Fighters. One of the great characteristics of Grunge and Alt-rock of the nineties was the frequent mishmash of the dissonant with the melodic. Everlong starts with a major seven chord that transitions to two suspended chords, resulting in a perfect blend of the aforementioned harsh and sweet. Add in some chunky distortion, followed by Grohl's murmured, hushed lyrics, and you have a hypnotic recipe. The bridge and chorus are pure arena rock, erupting from the chugging verse in triumphant intensity. Just a great heavy rock song.

4) You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire by Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah, I know this song was released in 2000, but it's a throwback in the best sense of the word. Similar to how Aneurysm displayed the best of Nirvana, Millionaire defines QOTSA's raison d'etre in its verse. Heavy metal, soft at the core. Sure, the core might be soft and sweet like a tootsie pop, but I'll be damned if this sucker doesn't punch you in the face. 

5) Yuri G by PJ Harvey. A primal cavewoman stomp with lyrics depicting a lovesick figure descending into madness, rape, or perhaps narcotics. Who knows? What I do know is this is what I ask from my rock'n'roll. Steve Albini's stark production gives this song a claustrophobic feel. He was the guy you went to in the nineties if you wanted your record to sound raw.

6) Basket Case by Green Day. Punk-pop in all its infectious glory. I like how Billie Joe sneaks in a reference to visiting a male hooker. Ooh, edgy, Billie boy! Green Day sure could write a great pop song.

7) Jane Says by Jane's Addiction. I can't fucking stand Perry Farrell, but this song is basically a nineties version of Led Zeppelin's Ramble On. Instead of singing about hobbitses, Perry tells a tale of a junkie girl friend that is both sad and stirring. She can hit, man, but she don't mean nothing.

8) I Wanna Be Adored By the Stone Roses. Here's some britpop for you. A wonderfully hypnotic song with a pulsing Merseybeat. I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me. That's a pretty metal lyric for a band that drew influence from the Beatles and the Byrds. Perfect for a late night drive. (Editor: Okay, so this song actually as released in 1989, and was therefore too old to be consider Britpop.)

9) Closer by Nine Inch Nails. Certainly one of the greatest fucked-up music videos of all time, Closer is a sexy disco/synthpop tour de force. I hope Trent doesn't let his kids watch this one. "Daddy, why is Severus Snape being whipped while blindfold in a haunted house filled with pig's heads and sides of beef?" I would really love to hear the answer.

10) Santeria by Sublime. Just a great guitar song featuring one of my favorite guitar solos. The lyrics are full of violent machismo, but somehow it all feels good.

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Dune

 

Denis Villeneuve's Dune is a beautifully imagined film, full of stunning imagery and excellent special effects. Unfortunately, it's also boring, something the Critic can't say for the Dune novel, which he's in the middle of rereading. Somehow, Frank Herbert's magnum opus continues for hundreds of pages, often discussing the politics, philosophy, and religion of his world without losing the reader's attention. It's almost as though without the internal monologues of its characters such as the Baron Harkonnen or Liet Kynes, Dune is just another sci-fi messiah story. Villenueve certainly gives us the most book-accurate depiction of Dune yet (although the flying Baron seems to be a carryover from the it's-so-bad-it's-good David Lynch flick) but somehow, it's just not enough. The film suffers from a few miscastings and character deviations. Josh Brolin would seem to be a great pick for the warrior poet Gurney Halleck, yet despite a few verbatim quotations from the novel, he lacks the charm of the novel's character. This is a serious movie, overly grim and humorless. The Baron is changed from a gleeful, gluttonous monster to a straight-up mismash of two Marlon Brando characters (Kurtz from Apocalypse Now and Dr. Moreau from The Island of Dr. Moreau). Anyways, the main problem with Dune might be that it suffers from the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope. Would there be Star Wars without Dune? Lucas cribbed a desert planet (Tatooine is Arrakis), stillsuited warriors (Tusken raiders are Fremen), magical powers of compulsion (the Jedi mind trick is the Voice), and the overall story line (a boy hero gains supernatural power to overthrow an evil Empire). So yes, we finally have our big-budget, faithful adaptation of Dune in 2021, over fifty years after it was written. Is it too late? Can you build a new franchise out of something that has influenced science fiction for half a century? Or are the elements that make Dune special restricted to the literary format? The Critic doesn't have a clue, but he must admit that he was ready to leave the theater before the movie was over. 

Weightlifting: Modified 5/3/1

 

I just had the most successful training block I've experienced this year, so I thought I'd share what I did and why I think it works. For most of the year, I've lifted three to four days a week, concentrating on one main lift a day, which is a new approach for me. In the past, the only lift that's moved upward on a once a week schedule was the deadlift. Last Sunday I benched 265 for 4 reps, a five pound PR, as well as deadlifted 425 for 4 reps, a ten pound PR. Today I pressed 165 for 5, which was five pounds off of a PR, and had I known that at the time, I probably would've been able to grind out another rep. So what I've done for the last six weeks is basically 5/3/1 but with custom percentages for the different lifts. Instead of whipping out my calculator and punching in the numbers, I just picked weights that I thought would pyramid nicely. For my fives week on the Bench, I did 185 for 5, 205 for 5, and then 225 for nine, with 200 for 3 sets of 5 as my back off sets. For the threes week, I did 205 for 3, 230 for 3, and then 245 for seven, followed by 205 for three sets of five as my assistance. For the 5/3/1 week, I did 225 for 5, 240 for 3, and 260 for 4, concluding with 215 for 3 sets of five. Assuming a 290 training, those percentage are the following: 64%, 71%, 77%, and 69% for the fives week; 71%, 79%, 84%, and 70% for the threes; and 77%, 83%, 90%, and 74% for the 5/3/1 week. So yeah, those percentages aren't very far removed from regular 5/3/1. However, I went heavier on the press and a bit lighter on the squat and deadlift. Without figuring out every percentage, here are some observations that can hopefully serve as a guide.

Program heavier for the press: Unless you're pressing four-hundred pounds, your press is going to be your lightest lift. Therefore, it makes sense to keep your lifts pretty close together. If you're about a 200 lbs presser like I am, it makes no sense to do reps under 135 lbs. For my back off sets, I used 135 lbs and added five pounds every week, taking a step back after the third week, and ending with 150 for 3 sets of 5.

Go lighter for the deadlift: I'm not a great deadlifter, but I can deadlift over five-hundred pounds. Doing multiple sets of heavy deads makes you dead. For my heaviest back off sets, I did 355 lbs for three sets of five, which is around seventy to seventy-five percent of my training max.

Do assistance work but don't kill yourself. Maybe it's because I'm old, but I don't have the time or energy to do endless workouts any more. I limit myself to about an hour, and I squeeze my accessory work in between sets. I didn't do much besides pressdowns, curls, rows, and pullups.

Percentages are just ballparks. You should have an idea of what is doable. There are no magic formulae.

Shoot for 9/7/5 for the PR sets. Any higher, and you're not training heavy enough. Any heavier, then you won't progress very far.

 

Halo CE Versus Halo 4

 

Halo CE Remastered

I've been half-assing the Master Chief Collection in order to prepare for the release of Halo Infinite in December, so I thought I'd share some observations regarding the first and last games of that series (Halo 5 isn't included on pc, so we shall pretend it doesn't exist).

Halo: Combat Evolved was an enormously influential title. It was a launch game for the Xbox, and had it not been a massive hit, it's likely that Microsoft would've abandoned the console space. It helped popularize first person shooters with a console audience, and it featured spacious outdoor environments and a brightly colored art style that contrasted pleasantly with other shooters of the time. Playing the remastered version in 2021, Halo: CE still feels and looks good. The heavy sound of Master Chief's pistol, the tight controls of a Warthog, the way Elites dive out of the way of a grenade toss--all of it holds up well. Play a couple missions in, however, and the warts start to pop up. The level design is probably the worst offender. Several of the Forerunner-based levels feature copy-and pasted rooms, and figuring out which way you're going can be difficult. The lack of enemy variety is also a problem. There are basically only five enemy types--grunts, jackals, elites, hunters, and Flood zombies. On Heroic (Hard) difficulty, it can be pretty tough, since in addition to his recharging shield, the Master Chief has a health bar that doesn't regenerate. Still, it's fun, especially if you have the patience for the quirks of older shooters.

Halo 4 was the first non-Bungie Halo title. Graphically, it still looks great in many levels, especially when you consider that it was released for the Xbox 360. Artistically, it's a little different--the jackals and elites have a more reptilian appearance, and the lighting is darker and a tad more realistic. The shooting feels solid, and the first few missions are pretty good, if not particularly memorable. The new Promethean enemies are not as fun to fight as the Covenant, unfortunately. Knights resembles large robotic crabs that can teleport, and there are smaller, more agile enemies called Crawlers that explode rather easily. The Forerunner weapons are really just high-tech versions of the basic military guns Halo already had, e.g., there's a shotgun equivalent, a faster-firing assault rife, et cetera. All in all, it's an okay experience, but I'm not particularly compelled to finish it. Hopefully Halo Infinite will be a return to form (Halo 5 also had a mixed reception).

Writer's Block: Creeping Doom

 I think of every tree

every insect

every flower blowing in the wind

drying up

as the heat pours from a shrouded sun

while we drive

and fly

and spout our toxic fumes

high into the atmosphere

in pursuit of profit

comfort

and ease.

Fear of loss

is fear of death.

Dying is more managable

if there is something 

left

behind.

Who knows what the future

will bring?

Maybe there's hope

somewhere.

I want my children

to have what I had.

I want life

to prosper.

I want people

to live like people

and not commodified

instruments of production.

Fuck all the barons of wealth

The tech bros

The politicians.

In the next life

They'll be intestinal worms

or fungi growing on an apple.

There's no way to fix everything

I am but

one 

man.

Lay down the burden

Accept that 

All things must pass.