Dead Man's Shift

In preparation for an open house day on a school that we have a maintenance contract for, we spent a night burning weeds on the parking lot. This had to be done at night so that there would be the least amount of parked cars around. Last year we were done by 2 o' clock, as we had done some burning in the days beforehand and the weather happened to be on our side until the very last second. This year it took all night, because after a very hot day, in which by the way we'd already worked full hours already, it began storming something fierce.

That kept up to within an hour or so of when we started burning, and which meant that the

weeds were still very much saturated and rather more resistant to flame than they otherwise would have been. Best laid plans and all that.

And so the night ended up being cold and clammy, and pretty much never-ending.

I have a very large amount of footage, most of it blurry and low quality, but enough of it is good enough to share.

 Most of the videos were recorded with my smartphone, but I did also have along a camera for some high(er) definition sparks.

Some of us were more bad-ass than others: dual-wielding flamers, like some sort of hoodie-wearing Terminator (Warhammer, that is, not Schwarzenegger).

Others were a mix of bad-ass and silly.

No prizes for guessing who.

As per usual...

Early on there was a lot of optimism and fun to be had. Burning at night is very beautiful because you can trace pretty much every spark. Because of the darkness surrounding you, there's little outside distraction, and so the world becomes a very small place; and all of it is fire and flaming comets.

The hours while away to Imagine Dragons, Kasabian, Big Black Delta, Prof and other assorted feel-good music.

But later on at night, somewhere beyond half past 2, everyone goes into zombie mode.

 Slow shuffling steps and constrained movements speaking of tiredness in every limb. It's already been a long day, and the burning has not progressed as well as hoped. Some of us had been under the impression that it would've been done by now. From feel-good and uplifting music I graduate to the metal madness of the Doom soundtrack; BFG Division, Rip and Tear, Mastermind and more.

Olivia's Doom comes on and I am creeped right the fuck out.

That song, especially at this time of night, tired as I am, just isn't right. It is a discordant hell, a clamour of sounds, and not even close to being music at all. The voices are scary, but there's a sick delight in seeing what they offer.

What can I say? Sometimes you walk a tight-rope and manage to keep your balance. You don't read too much into it.

Then comes the Dead Hour; The hour in which people sleep the deepest, and where the ill slip from dream into oblivion.

This is the quietest time of the night. The world around is asleep and there must be some sort of bleed-over from this as, in the utter quiet, with thousands dreaming within shouting distance, the mind goes very small, maybe seeking to go to the same place as where the dreamers go. It wants to hide itself away, it wants to shut down, and it partially does. It flickers and the world goes dream-like.

The cars that pass on the road beyond the treeline are symptomatic of something off with the world. There must be something wrong with their drivers, their occupants. A sickness in the soul, in the mind. They shouldn't be here, they're lost in every way. They're unmoored, homeless, and profoundly alone.

The mood shifts and we all feel it.

For a while nobody speaks, and everyone tightens up, hunches in on themselves. Keeping themselves close.

There are some desultory efforts to reach out, to connect, to feel less alone.

Some succeed and keep the darkness at bay. It is the old saying; "Inching towards daylight," and that's a hell of a lot easier with someone by your side.

But not me. I'm not one of them.

For a short while, I am removed.

 No footage here.

 Unnoticed, the time passes and then all of a sudden the night comes to an end.

And still we go on. 

But the darkness lifts with the coming of true light, and as the end comes in sight, optimism makes a welcome reappearance. Because even if this doesn't get done, soon we get go home.

At this point there's a spring in everyone's step.

Pleased with the night's progress, the First Lady is already up to her usual antics.

But still, despite appearances, the night has taken its toll and everyone is pretty much tapped out.

But then, under a steadily brightening sky, come the final moments, and it is done.

At this point my status is 'Fucking tired'.

Quite happy it's done and even a little satisfied, even though the occasional missed patches of green contrast quite clearly with the recently scorched areas. Someone's going to have to come back later today to do some spot-checking.

Not me though.

I did what I needed to, and rather a bit more than that.

 Time to go home.

I'm very happy I didn't have to drive as everything occasionally went a little wobbly.

We also had been given a bunch of pizza around midnight or so, but as my dietary habits have profoundly changed recently, the few pieces I had weighed too heavily on my stomach and Ruben ended up being the one to take them home.

After this I went to bed and slept for four hours. I would've wanted to sleep a lot more, as I definitely needed it, but the biological clock is an asshole, and so were the workers outside my front door. And let's not forget about the demon birds, with their unholy cravings.

So instead of being able to do the healthy thing, unable to catch up on sleep, I ended up just watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and other random crap on the internet. Later in the day I slept a little on a fold-out chair next to the pool.

Tired and aching,

but there's worse ways to spend your day.

Red Country

Red Country is the sixth chronological novel in Joe Abercrombie's First Law world.
I had read all the earlier ones previously, some years ago now, and I had read them pretty close together. Naturally, first I read the trilogy, which I thought was pretty passable,

Mainly I was annoyed with that ending, what? Bite me. I do not like literal cliffhangers, Especially after 1800 pages of what should be a closed story... Ask me again in ten years, And I will be able to concede that this shit was honestly pretty damn epic and had an ending that was poetically perfect... But not right now.

but then, like an idiot, I read The Heroes and only afterwards I read the novel I should've read earlier; the stunningly fun Best Served Cold.
The reason why Red Country didn't get read any sooner, was primarily because I wasn't keen on yet another unsatisfying romance, one ending with a whimper or a shrug.

Looking back on Best Served Cold I can easily see why I enjoyed that one so much: I tend to if not root for a novel's romance, then I'm definitely always riveted by it, and Abercrombie has a nasty habit of giving you something to root for, only to then deflate the living fuck out of it at the novel's ending. But with Best Served Cold, as I'd already read the novel after it, I already knew how Cold's romance would go and I just ended up enjoying the rest of the story... yes, and the style and the humour, because Abercrombie is actually really very good.

Red Country then was a long delayed read that I started on impulse after reading Gail Simone's Red Sonja, which for some reason made me feel like reading a western, of all things.
It turned out pretty well in its story department, even if at times it felt as if Abercrombie had taken a step down.

Shy has left her violent past behind her, and together with her adopted grandfather Lamb and her siblings, has settled down on a small farm to make a more honest living.

But when they return from a trip to town to discover the burnt-out remains of her second chance at life, and when she finds that her brother and sister are missing, she and Lamb are forced in pursuit.

Shy South is no stranger to violence, and though the tracks around the farm suggest a great group of men, she is sure that when they catch up with them she will think of something.

But she's worried about Lamb: The big hulking Northman, though horribly scarred, is some kind of coward, always backing away from a fight, never looking anyone in the eye. You'd think a man would stand up for himself, especially in lands such as these.

With only him to help her in the chase from the Near to the Far Country to find her family, what hope does she have?

And the land out there is wild and inhospitable, it is the last stop for those desperate to make their fortune, as it is for those who prey on them.

A land for those looking for gold or for blood.

And some times, men will want for both.

Nicomo Cosca, famous soldier of fortune, has taken on a commission to root out the seed of rebellion from the Country's disparate townships, and he and the company of the Gracious Hand trek west in pursuit of rumour, of rebels, and more importantly of course; in search of gold.

The second most important man in the company, Temple, has had his doubts about this particular commission, if he's honest. But he's always taken the easy way, and it's certainly easier to go along with the press of  common greed than to follow the jabs of his own conscience.

But this time, he's about to do what's right. And he'll regret it.
 Because  this place is a Red Country, without justice, without meaning.

and a conscience is the last thing that'll help a man.

So yeah. I quite enjoyed it... In retrospect.
At the time I was going through some stuff, and the book was good enough to let me forget about that for a few hours. Abercrombie has a knack for getting you on board and rooting for his characters.
But after a few of his books you know those characters are probably not going to end up anywhere nice, but his style and humour pull you along regardless.
But it's actually the reverse here: The style is quite a step down from the previous novels, and the story, its resolution, didn't make me feel bad or dissatisfied at all. Very odd, really.
So for the most part I was reading the novel with the idea, that everyone was going to end up fucked, or with everyone fucking each other over, which naturally put a bit of a damper on the whole thing.
And that didn't happen... well it did... but not as a central conceit, and without impacting my enjoyment of the whole thing. It felt right, like a punctuation, and, to a certain degree, quite pleasant. It was kind of a happy ending, as these things go.
It's a shame then that the quality wasn't quite as good as in previous iterations.
Abercrombie has an occasionally clipped style because, I presume, every other chapter follows along a different character, so that the subtle changes reflect the character of the moment. But, for me at least, these changes detract from the experience, rather than heighten it. They're just not up to snuff, really. They became a little irksome. There were some other things that bothered me, but I've already left it way too long and things have gotten very vague.

I'm of two minds here, then. Pretty great, but shoddy maybe.
Ah well, they can't all be fucking winners. A man's got the be realistic about these things.

-----

Pain demands vengeance.

Better to be a coward, than to be

awash in a river of blood.

But then again, the colours are

so pretty, and to give in is to

be in the moment. Unconstrained,

in power, and unstoppable.

The easy way, and the right way.

Easy every time, until you can't anymore.

Until friendship lies bleeding in the dust,

senseless and choking on its own

sad sense of making the world

a better place.

So take up the mantle, and discard

the previously trodden path.

Money and greed, a happy life

if you can learn not to care.

Narcissism, or a complete lack of

self-awareness, either will do

a man just fine.

Cosca, Lamb or Temple,

but it is Shy you'd want to be.

Nevertheless, a life of violence,

crime, and a conscience beaten

to within an inch of its life.

For all of these. Well...

Maybe not for Cosca.

Connection and comfort,

sundered by cowardice.

The easy way, giving in to

your weakest side.

Cowardice sundered by the

lust for old desires; the smell of

fresh blood leads to the breaking

of men, and an unholy glee.

The easy way, giving in to your

darkest side.

Welcome back, old friend.
It is good to see you again.

------

Yeah, I'll probably start adding selected bits from the currently reading side-bar.
It started feeling a bit stupid to just keep deleting those outright.

The Great, but local, Outdoors

I'm generally uninterested in going to new places, eating out, doing new things or even going out of my door in general, but in the interest of positive self-improvement I've taken to saying yes to some things recently, preferably something new each day, and so I went along with my brother and his girlfriend on their walk in a local reserve.

It was alright.
I even took some pictures. Because I'll be damned if I don't have proof that I did something supremely boring that I had absolutely no interest in.
No, you know, that's not fair; it wasn't boring...
It was alright.

Self-reflection time.

What is it you really want?

"I would really like to, maybe, 1 time, (that on a) one day

if it was possible..."

Here's Ruben trying to connect with a young colt, only seconds before he jolted himself on the electric wire. 

Edit: this is actually not the first picture mirrored but another one taken from the other side, when we were on the way back.

The walk was actually so that these two hippies could gather Elderflowers to use in their hippy stuff.

Eh... what I'm saying is that it's nice when people have a passion.

That was all.

Goodbyeee.

Blackadder for the win!

Little-itty-bitty book in the post

After I finished Final Fantasy 12 and its mile-long train of mythologically inspired bosses, silly or otherwise, I looked into getting some literature on one of the more memorable ones, with a name that has resounded in many another game and work of fiction: a name of power; Gilgamesh.

As I tend to be thorough, I quickly stumbled on the Penguin Epics, a smallish collection of about 20 works, which had the epic of Gilgamesh under its many well-known titles (of which I'd only read Exodus).

I thought the series' artwork was striking, and my interest was piqued pretty quickly when I saw how Gilgamesh in particular looked.

I didn't wait long to order it.

Second-hand of course, as these are generally out of stock, though the pricing seems to be rather reasonable.

And when it arrived I found out exactly why so reasonable.

It is pretty with reflective gold spotting, but if you can't tell from the picture above, it wasn't exactly what I expected. When I opened the mail box and saw the package I genuinely didn't have a clue what could be in it, it was that tiny.

 I mean look at how small it is to a modern day epic novel.

Quality over size, I hear you whisper, and that might be the case, but I'm not here to compare the two in what's between the covers. This is just to illustrate how small the book is.

I'm very happy though. It's beautiful, and oh so tiny.

I just can't stress how adorable it is, it's just ridiculous.

It's actually a little bit larger than a standard mass market paperback, but because of its small page count, it just seems slighter.

-----

I've also already read a chapter and though there seems to be occasional repetition, the style is familiar enough to be comforting to this old Bible-reading soul.

I'm not chomping at the bit to read it through in a sitting, but am interested enough to read some pages in the idle moments. Its length is quite inviting too. Short but indeed; epic. They don't write 'em like this anymore.

Northlanders

I've been reading some Northlanders and eh...

it's rather good.

The above is one of the covers from omnibus 2's Icelandic Saga, which isn't even the best of the Northlanders stories, and to be honest one of the least engaging arcs in the series, and apparently the readership and Vertigo thought so as well, because it lead to Northlanders' eventual cancellation; but well... you can probably see why I wanted to share it:

Blood and gloom coupled with the contrast of the title, makes this particular piece quite the stand-out.

Try as I might, I just couldn't get decent enough scans of some pages, so you'll just have to do with some enhanced photographs instead. I do think I did it ok, though.

Written by Brian Wood and illustrated by a host of different artists, Northlanders' 50 issues follow around various characters and families in 14 separate arcs during the age of viking exploration and expansion.

If you want to, you could probably slot the Black road comic under Northlanders as well,

as it's certainly similar in most respects; subject matter, approach to violence, introspection and even the art style.

Come to think of it, Black Road has a crazy amount of similarities to the Cross and the Hammer arc.

It's Brian Wood slipping one under the radar maybe, by going to Image, but certain names had to changed to make that possible I'm guessing. There's certainly some dudes called Magnus in both of these.

Here's how all that looks on the shelf, by the way.

For the purposes of the picture the volumes are snugly nestled between my Matthew Woodring Stover stuff and what is still a pretty cool-looking bottle, even if it was a gin one.

Anyway, back to why we're here: The Northlanders arcs are largely unconnected and generally can be read on their own, except of course for the absolute King of these arcs, which has a one-shot closing out the saga in another omnibus:

The Saga of Sven The Returned.

Sven the Returned stands head and shoulders above the rest of Northlanders.

It is the tale of a warrior returning to his homeland in search of his hereditary wealth.

Naturally the current holder of that wealth doesn't much like this forgotten relic coming back out of hiding to undermine his authority, and so, plans are forged to get rid of 'little Sven'.

Problem is though that ever since his leave-taking of his home and culture 'little Sven' has not had an easy life, and through ups and downs, this has made of him a member of Constantinople's Varangian guard, and a warrior without peer.

And so. Violence ensues.

A lot of violence.

 But that's not all of the appeal here, because besides the violence entrenched in some readily approachable art, there's also quite an engaging and against-the-grain story, and on top of that it's got a main character liberally endowed with Brian Wood's penchant for melancholy introspection.

It's pretty much what I generally want in any swords and blood comic.

And the ending, both the one of the Sven the Returned arc, and the one of the addendum to the story in omnibus 2, are also quite good. No downer endings these, unlike a lot of the rest of the Northlanders arcs (omnibus 2 in particular).

The rest of the Northlanders arcs are mostly hit, though frequently too short to be of much consequence. I do like all of them, apart from the Icelandic saga, which is just a little too incoherent, though well researched.

Yeah, this post is mainly just to showcase that first piece and the Sven story.

Somebody else might've just shared that and moved on without comment but I just couldn't just leave it like that.

I've not read Omibus 3 yet though I'll get around to it...

With titles like 'Metal' and ' the Viking art of single combat', there's still some definite promise here.

There's even an arc of similar length to the Sven saga.

Hmmm, better get round to that soon-ish, I think.

Update: Glasses, Health, assorted writing and reading

Alright. Today I finally got my glasses exactly as they should be... I think.
They should've been in order 2 weeks ago, but the people who work on these things had screwed up somewhere so instead I've been walking around with every day another variation of the same headache, alternating between an older set of glasses and the new proscription shades, which were fine and pleasant to walk around with. Pleasant, as besides dampening outside stimuli and so calming me down a little, they somehow also boost confidence or something, making it feel as if there's more of a remove between me and the world, as if the soul behind the eyes can remain hidden and less naked to whosoever takes a look at my face. The observer unobserved.

But, again, the new ones are back and as they're the main attraction I should go and get used to them.  It should be okay now... I think...

*Strains*

Ugh. Okay, more time needed to settle in, really hope I don't need to go back for this stuff again.

Also... the frame is... brown?

Well. Fuck.

Let this be a lesson to you: If you intend to go for a new frame for your glasses, do make sure you can actually see whatever the fuck you're buying. Preferably pick 'em out before the lenses themselves are busted, as that might help.

-----

I've been exercising more. Eating a whole lot less. 

I'm overdoing it on both of those, and it is exhausting me, But I can't stop because it's the only way that I can look at myself and feel as if I'm going forward. Although I'm starting to eat more again.

The mental issues are still very present, and there is not a day that they don't take their toll.

So, the exhaustion works on that as well, enabling it when I can't fight it. But as I am aware of it, there's no help for it and it all ends up making me feel pretty bad.

And then you have the visual dissonance with the whole glasses thing, and then you find that the world has indeed become a very undesirable place to be in.

Mental and physical exhaustion, headaches, visual impairment.

It's a cocktail that's doing a whole lot of damage for the moment.

But. You know how it goes. Day by day, you go on.

-----

For the rest, what have I been doing?

In the comic reading department I've been finishing off comics left and right; Northlanders, Gail Simone's Red Sonja, Loki, God Country, and some smaller stuff too which isn't in the picture and mostly anthology stuff (and which generally just isn't good at all...)

And most of the above merit some attention, and I've at least written some stuff on Northlanders because I wanted to share a scan of a particularly bad-ass drawing so that's up next, but I won't be talking about the rest so much.

Dark ark has also been read and though I thought it was very interesting, the story definitely isn't done and will have a continuation so I will have to be coming back to this one in a while when  it's actually done.

As for book write-ups; the main things on my mind now are the Time and the Gods posts, 2 of those,

 and which have lain fallow for too long now, as I've had to wait until I could get some more background for the venerable Lord Dunsany. But that has arrived now and though it's been less helpful than expected, I'll just have to plow on ahead without too much facts and imbue the post with some healthy dose of bias instead. Which, as it is a Fantasy Masterworks post, makes me nervous and hesitant.

and the Gormenghast trilogy post, which is quite a hassle, because there's so much to talk about and yet... also so little.

You could go on and on about the prose but I'm only so descriptive and not fond of hyperbole.

The story is... not so much of a story as it is a slice of life out of the goings-on of a stagnated and insular society built on ritual and veneration. There's a plot, though it's bare, and a drive ends up establishing itself, but if your main character at the end of the first novel is a 1 year old, you already know this is going to be a little different to talk about.

I've almost nothing but kind words about the first two novels though. They're unlike anything I've read and I've fallen in love with them.

But of course, then there's that third novel...

And don't get me wrong here, it's by no means bad, in my opinion. It's just rather different. Wildly different. And as this one was meant to be a bridging novel between the initial duology and whatever Peake had planned next, there's no clean satisfying resolution. Or rather, there is a resolution, but one that is also a promise, an open-endedness that needed a continuation, making Titus Alone a story that, for it to matter, needed to be built on. And that never happened.

It's also a novel where there's more going on behind the plot of 'Titus adrift in the world'; it's a novel with darker themes than its predecessors. A story where madness and identity, and a search for the self a la Sartre, vie with naked sexuality and violence.

There were smatterings of these before, but they feel more close here, more intimate and more rough, less polished and less impressive.

The departure from an almost medieval-like fantasy setting in the first two novels to a story that has helicopters, space travel, guns and cars and so on, is also rather odd.

Titus wanders through a world that is radically different from Gormenghast castle, questioning his past and upbringing, wondering if he's insane or if he's been dreaming, and it's actually quite unsettling to contemplate the dismissal of the beautifully crafted world of the first two novels.

It's a rather difficult novel to talk about without sufficient facts to back one up. Fascinating though.

Here's a link to David Louis Edelman's introduction to Titus Alone; it's an interesting read if you've just finished reading the book in question.

-----

Red Country also has a very short write-up coming up; one in which I'm still trying to find a middle ground so I don't over craft my write-ups so that I need to spend less time on them in general, and which is still very much an on-going progress.

-----

For novel reading I've picked up a book that I've had on my shelf for years and years, and which has been on the yearly To Be Read list for just as many years, and which I'm now comitted to as my next read.

Raymand Swanland!!

Glen Cook is a favourite, and though the start of this one is quite odd and a little hard yet to keep track of, it's already quite promising.
The Darkwar trilogy, made up out of Doomstalker, Warlock and Ceremony, was actually written to serve as a sort of prequel to one of Glen Cook's earlier short stories; Darkwar. Which can be found in this maybe-already-hard-to-get but pretty hardcover.

And moar Raymond Swanlaaaaand!

An entire trilogy written to justify a short story? That certainly warrants a read.
There are of course more stories in this one, none of which I've read so that'll be fun at the very least.

These also seem to be about more contemporary or urban fantasy rather than his Dread Empire or his Black Company universes and, they might not even contain *gasp* any fantasy at all.

-----

Everything's slowed down to a snail's pace because of the various problems but I'm at least interested in doing stuff again. I just wish the glasses wouldn't give me this much pain, as it would ease things a lot.

Maybe I just need to go in for contacts or something... might be less of a hassle, and less of an irritation to the eyes themselves.

Thank God... of War

Haha, I do apologize for that bad joke, and I admit it's in poor taste, but I still remember the time when I heard Yahtzee make it in one of his Zeropunctuation videos, and I still crack up whenever I think of it so...

So, yes I've been playing God of War quite a bit this past week and a half. It's helped a lot with the various problems I've gotten stuck on, in the way that time heals and diminishes the looming immediacy of various aches to plague heart and mind. Time, and escapism.

It might've been exactly what I needed: something to fill in the empty moments of the in-between time between relevancy and what is(/was)) relevant to my mind; a game so anticipated which proved to be so all-consuming, so new and interesting, so present and all-pervasive that I ended up dreaming of it: hours and hours of immersion a day will do that to anyone, I guess.

I played it a lot. Everything got shoved aside for this thing. And as is is usual for the things I enjoy, I took my time with it, getting every little thing on the road to the end.
It is done now though. And as an added benefit: I feel a lot better myself now.

So, if only for that, if not thanks to God of War, then definitely thanks to director Cory Barlog, who really did an amazing job.

-----

God of war (2018) takes place an undetermined time after the cataclysmic ending of God of War 3 and follows Kratos and his son, Atreus (but colloquially more known as; "Boy!") as they embark on a journey to scatter the ashes of Kratos's late wife on the highest mountain of all the realms.

The Greek mythology has been left behind, and as we are in northern realms now, it doesn't take long for the Norse mythology to come knocking on your door. And it knocks with arrogance and with violence, and swiftly manages to draw out our recalcitrant anti-hero into a new and interesting adventure.

And here's where I'd show you,
 but everything about this part is just perfect enough
 that I ended up deciding that I'm not going to spoil it at all.
That and the fact that because the scene is over 2 minutes enough, which means 
that I can't upload it here in its glorious entirety.

And I do mean adventure here, because where the previous God of War games were all about spectacle, sensationalism and brutal and shocking no-holds-barred violence, this one is pretty much a hero's journey: one where an all-time villain regains his humanity along the way, with the help from, and for, someone he loves.

Before playing the game I had my doubts about what it would be like, and if the franchise could make its way forward by making such a radical change in its combat mechanics. But I never even imagined how the storytelling would be changing along with it. I took the brutal god-slaying that the franchise had already established itself with as the be-all end all for my go-to story expectations; all I expected was just new and inventive ways of killing gods.

But damn. I never expected anything like this.

It honestly is incredibly amazing; the depth and complexity of character, the emotional resonance and how much it ends up being genuinely touching.

I've played all of the six God of War games before this one to platinum-completion so, and as of a few hours ago this one as well, so as you can imagine, I'm pretty invested in this series, and in the main character especially.

So every time Kratos shows the slightest bit of emotion I'm practically bawling: To see him evolve from unrepentant murderer and genocidal rage-monster to someone who actually cares, who reaches out, who pushes past massive emotional barriers in order to open up, is just... before now it was just inconceivable.

This doesn't mean that the sensational violence and brutality that the series earned its fame and notoriety for has gone away though, oh no; it's just been tempered and doled out pretty much only where it matters.

Though the combat system has changed, and though I still have my reservations, and an idle 'what-if?' whenever I wonder how this game would be if it had stuck closer to the earlier more cinematic button-mash-enabling formula, it has definitely grown on me and has managed to establish itself as a pretty damn good combat system all by itself.

I've kept all the gameplay within the first few hours or so, because I definitely couldn't show you any of the later game stuff due to spoilers. It means you get pretty much no story line information or any of the epic stuff that the game has hidden up its quite voluminous sleeve. Those things you can find on the internet quite easily if you take even a minute to look it up but I'm not the one who's going to go and spoil things.
I also don't have any footage of the game's many puzzles, because truth be told I've never been a fan of those, even if I can appreciate that they offer up a change of pace from the constant bloody carnage.

Long story short: If you're a fan of the franchise, you need to be playing this game already, and there's definitely some hair-raisingly good moments here for long-time fans, and of course provided you have a PS4.

If  you don't have a PS4?

Is it a system seller; is this the game to buy a Playstation for?

No, in my opinion, it isn't. The story, though very good, isn't closed enough to leave one with the kind of satisfaction that only the greatest stories give you. And though the story will continue, it's a little too soon to be celebrating this thing-yet-to-come.

But then, the 4 has Bloodborne, The Last of Us, Horizon, Uncharted and a host of other stuff, so there's enough to go around.

So yes, I've finished the main story now, and though I feel a little unsatisfied, I figure that's more of a result of this game being clearly part of a larger tapestry; one that we'll have to wait for a little while yet to continue to unfold, unfortunately.
But despite that niggle, the tale told in this game; and with that I mean the evolving relationship between father and son, and how they deal with the slow revealing and updating of the mythology most relevant to the fights leading up to and especially including the final jaw-dropping battle, which punctuates this particular gaming installment, is actually really well done. with clues and elements sneakily seeded in throughout the game in a very unobtrusive and organic way. Stuff and scenes that you'll look back on with awe-struck comprehension when that final confrontation has played out.

I've a recording of the last few minutes of that fight and the scenes that come directly after, and watching it again just now I'm struck with how impressive it is and how well the game has been building itself up for everything present in these scenes. Themes and intent coming into perfect clarity because of how well they've been strengthened beforehand.
There are layers of ideas and meaning here that are whole levels above anything the previous God of War games delivered.

I'm also sure that although there might be a little too much foreshadowing for what's coming next, or for how this journey will ultimately end, it'll be okay because this really makes it seem as if this story has been planned out beginning to end already.
The wait won't be as long between this one and the next one either, as the next games will continue on from the same system and same mechanics that were introduced here.

Did Barlog say there might be as much as 5 more coming in his particular vision???

In any case, they better come soon though, as some of those final hours and final questions and answers just need to be followed up on.

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Some Bonus clips: 

Rotunda waterfall.
Because the location is nice.

Introduction of an ally.

Headphones on.

Yeah also, this reminds me; here's a good tip: The game's music is beautiful but doesn't get enough time in the spotlight at all.

You're well served by changing the audio settings to its benefit.