Glutton for Punishment

After a particularly stressful pre-Thanksgiving break week, I've found myself trying to engage in a mixed bag of coping mechanisms--some are healthy (rage deep cleaning my house...which desperately needs it) and some are not (I feel a strong urge to shop...at the most consumerist time of year with all those sweet, sweet deals...).  What does this have to do with gaming?  Well, my impulse buys tend to be largely gaming related.  So, last night I found myself grabbing the gold edition of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (*it's on sale, plus there's a promo code deal for up to 20% off) and then gawping at the 137G download (ouch....).  It's downloaded and just waiting for me to dive into a world of Viking fantasy.

Viking energy!

My feelings about Assassin's Creed are complicated and I've been warily side-eyeing the newest entry for a number of months.  I love the historical settings and attention to detail in the game world, but man oh man, have the newer iterations of the series become the poster children for open-world bloat.  I know myself and I'm a sucker for a map covered in all those beautiful symbols (and I can't resist my own completionist nature to COMPLETE EVERY GD ONE even though the logical part of my brain fully understands the futility of this task).  It's a weird relationship and I'd call myself a fan, but with some wishes for a more streamlined and meaningful experience (that isn't really Ubi's can o' worms...so it's a dream on kind of situation).

I've also been puttering around with Hades and I've finally managed to finish the "main" story and make it to the credits.  Man, is Hades a great game!  I do not feel like I've had a great amount of success, but it has kept me coming back to lead poor Zagreus to his untimely demise time and time again.  A few relationships have started to play out in an interesting way--apparently, you can "romance" several underworld denizens (namely Dusa, Megaera, or Thanatos).  100% team Megaera here...there's just something weirdly hot about Meg.  Maybe it's the voice?  Maybe it's having to frequently fight to the death?  Hell, maybe it's the whip and general "punishment" vibe she gives off (...okay, this is getting weird).  I'm interested to see how things will play out in the Zag/Meg dynamic.

I'm looking forward to spending my week off needlessly stabbing a lot of video game people in dark ages England (and maybe periodically trying to escape the underworld).  Happy Thanksgiving to all!