Bryce's Pipe Bomb Survival Guide*

 There was a period of my life where I sank hundreds of hours into the fremium game, Warframe. In it, you pilot any of a number of high tech, armored suits, each with their own unique powers, and with a mix of guns and melee weapons, you hack and shoot your way across the solar system. Warframe does a lot of things very right, it has a very unique and consistent style, such that my friend and I took to calling it "wetsuit space ninjas". Each of the suits of armor, called Warframes have this really rubbery look to them, kind of like dolphin skin, and since none of them show any sign of an interior person, they all kind of half a marine mammal feel to them. Despite putting more than a hundred hours into it, I never really got very far in Warframe, because while it's possible to complete everything solo, it's really meant to be played with groups of 4 players, and I'm just too damned asocial to play with random people on the internet. So I was very interested when Go

 I don't think there's anyone out there reading this blog that doesn't know me personally, but if there is, here's the context: I lost one of my cats recently. Not just ONE of my three cats, but THE cat. I had him for eight or so years, and he was as much a part of me as anything.  Obviously, I'm sad, I'm depressed, I don't want to do things with my friends, and it takes a lot more effort to get out of bed and go to work in the morning. This is all expected, and natural. Some part of me still insists that I'm somehow weak because it's still so heavily affecting me, and it's almost been a whole week! Of course, this is the irrational asshole in my consciousness, if I could get them to shut up instantly with pure logic, I'd be a much different person. So I have to work through, and argue that bastard back. I'm so used to that process, that it doesn't seem weird anymore, here's the thing that I found weird. I'm gonna say... fifte

 Technically there's a new X-Men movie in theaters, it's also likely the last one that we'll see not under the banner of Disney's MCU. Initial reviews indicate that it's not very good, and it's had a troubled production history. It also features one of my favorite, possibly hands down favorite, X-characters, who is almost as iconic a member of the New Mutants as you can get. I'm talking about Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik. Now, before we get into Illyana and what makes her so great, I would like to draw your attention to a more prolific X-Man: This is of course, Piotr Rasputin, Colossus, and Magik's big brother. He's 6'6", 250 pounds of olympic class strongman. Whenever he wants to, he can turn himself into metal, and then he's 7'5", 500 lbs, and one of the physically strongest people on Earth. He's fought and held his own against the Hulk and the Juggernaut (He's also been beaten by them, but so has basically everyone). N

It's absolutely no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is predominantly white, male, and almost exclusively hetero. I'm not going to do too much of a deep dive into that, because as a hetero white male, I often feel like I lack the context, or voice, to really talk about it, other than to say: "Yes, of course there should be more diversity." It's hardly surprising that the MCU is in such a state, because it reflects the diversity of the Marvel comic universe and the people who make it. The comics are gradually showing a more diverse picture of life, perhaps too gradually, but we still haven't seen any of that hit the big screen. Superhero couples are kind of a weird thing. In the shared universes of the two biggest comics publishers, the editorial staff seems allergic to two things: change, and stability. As such, a superhero that is not created as a character in a relationship, is generally destined to not have much success forming new ones. Superheroes

 As my previous post stated, I played a marathon weekend of Death Stranding. It was an amazing experience, and I was talking to a friend about it, they asked if the product placements they'd heard were so in your face, took you out of the game at all? Let's be completely clear. The product placement in Death Stranding would be offensive in any game that I could actually take seriously. Whenever you stay in your private room, there are always six cans of Monster Energy Drink prominently displayed on a table. You can drink them to get a temporary bonus to your stamina the next time you venture out. The graphical fidelity of these cans can not be understated. I bought two cans of Monster to go with the marathon experience, since I'd been warned about it. The cans on the screen, looked somehow more real than the can I held in my hand. While you wander in the world, you carry a flask that you can drink from to recover your stamina. It is a flask full of Monster Energy Drink, eve

After waiting the better part of a year for the PC release, a friend and I got drunk last night and played Death Stranding for 6 straight hours, and I am delighted. This is the first game from Hideo Kojima after his messy break up with Konami and founding his own game development company. Not since Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain released in 2015, have we had any exposure to his particular brand of weirdness. So, in a weirdly small America, after some kind of global supernatural apocalypse, you're a very rare and special type of person that basically can't die, and doesn't age. As such, you work as a courier by loading hundreds of pounds of boxes on your back, and walking them from place to place. You can eventually get vehicles, but you're going to spend most of your time walking. The mechanics of just trying to keep your balance, and not falling over and damaging any of your precious cargo are fully engaging. Not only do you have shoulder straps on each side th

Against my better judgment, or perhaps more accurately, succumbing to my self-hate tendencies, I saw Cats last night in a theater. It was a discount theater, I paid $4 for my ticket, and they served beer, but no hard alcohol. I couldn't get drunk fast enough, and I kind of want my $4 back. I'll preface this by saying that I've never seen the stageplay, so I'll try and avoid criticizing what I think is the core conceipt, save this: Most musicals have a more traditionally told story, that threads song and dance scenes together. Cats has song and dance numbers, one right after another, for nearly two hours. If you there is ever more than two minutes of the movie between songs, I would be surprised. I don't think the original stage production would be for me either. Okay, so what's left of the movie to talk about? It feels like it's an entirely too faithful adaptation of the play. There are ways to frame a scene that make sense on a stage, but they don't

Supergiant Games makes absolutely brilliant and gorgeous games, that I just never really click with. They made Bastion, which took everyone's hearts at E3 one year, and it's a perfectly fine game, but for some reason just didn't click with me. They followed that up with Transistor, which I want to like so very badly, but it's kind of dauntingly complex really fast. I should try that again. Then they made Pyre, to which most people said "What the fuck?" It's a story heavy sports game... kind of? Supergiant is an independent studio, but they have way more polish and heart than I've come to expect from a lot of indie titles. All of their games are lavishly animated with sprites, fully and wonderfully voiceacted, and feature completely rocking soundtracks by the amazing Darren Korb (seriously, if you're not familiar, go listen to the Bastion Soundtrack). I think a big part of why I love their games, but don't actually enjoy playing them all