Godheval.com

I am taking a break from posting to Godheval.net due to a precipitous decline in the things I usually write about.  I’ve been trying to give my mind a break by detaching myself completely from “worldly” concerns and just enjoying myself.  Playing video games, reading fantasy novels, etc…

Video Games

I’ve put a lot of time into Infamous for Playstation 3 – which while it’s a solid open-world game with a comic-book feel, leaves much to be desired in terms of storyline.  After tackling the “heroic” path, I’ve been playing through the “infamous” path to see how the story changes.  So far there isn’t much of a difference, except for a few minor dialogue differences with Cole’s girlfriend and best friend.  I couldn’t care less about those two, anyway.  Sucker Punch could stand to take some lessons in branching storylines from Bioware.

Took a few looks at what was happening over at E3 and can finally say that the horizon looks bright for this generation of games.  God of War III tops the most anticipated list, followed by Heavy Rain, Assassin’s Creed 2, Mass Effect 2, and Uncharted 2.

And speaking of Uncharted 2, I’ve been dabbling in the Multiplayer Beta, which while fun only reinforces the fact that I am a total scrub in competitive play.  I do well enough in single-player games – I think – but put me online with a bunch of 13 year olds and they’ll kick my ass everytime.  The cooperative mode is interesting, but it’d be even better if the regular story mode had that co-op option as well.
(more…)

An Analysis of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

“American Gods”, a novel by Neil Gaiman, depicts a metaphorical war between the gods of the old world and the gods of the new. It begins as the main character, Shadow, is set to be paroled after three years in prison for assault. Tragically, only two days before his release, he learns that his wife and was killed in a car accident. Out of prison, and with no real home to return to, he is approached by a man calling himself “Mr. Wednesday”, who offers him a job as his assistant. Although apprehensive at first, Shadow takes the job, not realizing that he is setting in motion a complicated series of events which will determine the fate of the American consciousness.

For Gaiman, the gods themselves are born of human thought; they evolve through changes in telling and retelling of their stories. Some gods are the “offspring” of other gods, as opposed to evolutions, because a story retold and altered as it travels may remain the same where it originated, resulting in two separate but related forms of the same god – parents and children.

This concept of gods as creations – even extensions – of human consciousness is not a new one, and is in fact well established within the psychology of religion. For every person or society, the god or gods in some way embody their culture and the different aspects of their environment as they perceive it. In this way, the existence of gods is cyclical and somewhat paradoxical, sharing a self-same identity with those who believe. Even an almighty creator god itself stems from the minds of those it was said to have created. (more…)