PixlBit

So I just picked up Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes for the PS4. Normally, I'd be upset at the price tag for what's supposed to be a 2-3 hour game, but I'm a huge Metal Gear fanboy so doing such would pull me apart. I will play Metal Gear and I will play it ASAP.

Aside from that, I'd read that the side-missions can extend the gameplay time, and the results of your main gameplay save will carry over into The Phantom Pain, so Ground Zeroes isn't all for naught.

Can't wait to pop that puppy in later today.

Last night, I finished The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, a collection of short stories from Laird Barron. I hadn't heard anything about the author before got on a sudden existentialist horror kick last week and looked up what authors write in the genre, but after finishing the first story a few days ago, I was kicking myself pretty damn hard.

I'd recommend this to anyone looking to be unsettled. Seriously. The few stories in this collection all give the sensation of being slightly off. There's physical horror, the gore that one could expect in most horror, but the majority of it is TERROR. It's an attack on the mind, forcing it to confront the unusual and bizarre.

The stories are told in pretty sharp prose. Barron cuts to the very detail of what he's describing in an expert manner. Even Vastation, the story that reads like a transcription of a madman's science fictional diatribe about human history, has clear sentences that really focus the insanity of the tale.

(Of course, he also alludes to HP Lovecraft throughout, so that's gonna earn points with me.)

So if anyone wants to read some stories that inspire dread more than revulsion, totally check this out.