Weekend Review: Aug 24th & 25th

Every weekend there are new sights, sounds, and taste to consume. There are other sensory inputs that tickle my brain too, but saying there is stuff to feel sounds creepy. This is a weekly journal of my weekend endeavors. Enjoy!

Theft of Swords (redux)
I wrote briefly about this series (The Riyria Revelations) back in 2012. I finished book one and was a bit underwhelmed by it. I'm pretty green when it comes to fantasy novels. I spent high school reading classics for class and John Grisham for me. A bit of Redwall in 6th grade, but when I actually picked them up I started with ASoIaF and then Name of the Wind. Heavy ass hitters in the genre. So my expectations were fairly high. Seen through that lens ToS feels more like a dungeon master turning his pen and paper game into a novel. I gave up on reading book two on my kindle, but recent saw the series on sale at Audible and picked it up. This time I approached it by taking it for what it is, not what I wanted it to be, which was Rothfuss or Martin's next work. I enjoyed it. The characters are too black and white and the plot leaves nothing to the imagination, but it is great motivation for my own pen and paper planning (Dungeon World).

Spark Master Tape
Spark Master Tape is an enigma. He's dropped two fantastic mixtapes (Syrup Splash  & Swoup Serengeti) in the past year and no knows who he is.  He rhymes over really grimy beats with vocals that are chopped and screwed into anonymity. I've been listening to both tapes for going on three weeks now and Swoup is right up there with Run the Jewels for mixtape of the year. Give it a listen.

Plants vs Zombies 2
When I wrapped up the original PvZ I was a bit surprised at how abruptly it ended. It felt like it was just becoming a challenge and I expected and wanted it to go on for 2-3 more hours. That was three years ago and for three years I've operated under the assumption that I wanted more plants and zombies. In that time though I've played some stellar tower defense games (e.g. Kingdom Rush) and got slightly burnt out on the genre. So when PvZ 2 dropped last week and was almost entirely the same game play wrapped in new aesthetics I was disappointed. I don't want to start from the beginning of the difficulty curve and build my way up again. I have a skill set that makes these early levels tedious and joyless. No thanks.