SaysWho?

That was official ages ago.

I'm finally getting around to reading articles on WaPo and indieWire on this game soon after it came out. The WaPo one on the deleted scenes is damned interesting. The first one sounded great, but the reasoning for its removal makes a lot of sense. Some ideas sound great on paper and could be great if the story were different/told differently, but the effectiveness of it may well have been limited.

Didn't show up the first time. I think I got it to work:

Added some more of the closely watched ones. I'll fill more in as more primaries are held and decided. Georgia (general election): Along with a special election for the other Senate seat, Georgia is holding an election for this one as well. Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist and media executive, is the Democratic nominee to face Republican Senator David Perdue (first cousin to former Georgia governor and Democrat-turned-Republican Sonny Perdue). Ossoff campaigned and lost in an unusually expensive and extremely competitive and close special election for a Georgia House seat in 2017. Despite being a safe seat for Republicans in recent history (it was in Republican hands, many times unopposed, since at least 2000, and easily voted Republican in 2016), the New York Times reported that in that race, Ossoff drove the strongest Democratic turnout in an off-year election in at least a decade. Side note: although Ossoff lost the race to Republican Karen Handel, Democrat Lucy McBath was able to defeat her in 2018. vs North Carolina: Current Republican Senator Thom Tillis beat former Democratic Senator Kay Hagan in a close race in 2014, a big Republican year. He's a vulnerable incumbent in a state that is still Republican-leaning nationally but has been more competitive since 2008, plus has a Democratic governor who won in 2016. He faces Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham, a former member of the North Carolina State Senate and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. vs South Carolina: Former Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Jaime Harrison, faced on primary opposition. He wants to unseat Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham. He's raised $20 million, not much less than Graham's $22 million. Harrison is casting Graham as an out-of-touch Washington insider who has ignored South Carolina's problems and instead played politics for years. vs

Kanye's presidential run was so short that even my penis was longer. Wait, shit.

Yeah, I put that as a placeholder and then never edited. But it's fixed.

Here are some of the races getting national attention: Alabama: Former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville wins his primary against former Alabama Senator and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He'll face Democrat Doug Jones in a race that Jones is an underdog despite being an incumbent. vs Arizona: Gun control activist and former astronaut Mark Kelly is running unopposed in his primary and is the likely nominee to face Republican incumbent Martha McSally. vs Colorado: Former Democratic governor John Hickenlooper wins his primary and faces Republican incumbent Cory Gardner. vs Iowa: Farmer and businesswoman Theresa Greenfield won her primary to face incumbent Republican Senator Joni Ernst. vs Kentucky: Former marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath won a competitive Democratic primary race to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. vs Maine: Democrat and Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon wins her primary to challenge incumbent Senator Susan Collins vs Montana: Current Democratic governor and former Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock easily won his primary. He faces incumbent Senator Steve Daines in the battle for Steven Supremacy. vs Texas: Former air force pilot MJ Hegar wins her race in the Democratic primaryto run against Republican Senator John Cornyn vs

I've been saying this for ages to Republicans here in Florida who live in a bubble. Here, DeSantis was one of the few whose approval rating dropped when this started. Of course, it also doesn't help when you yell at reporters who questioned your decisions, yelling "herp derp that surge in cases never happened" trying to impress your orange and religious cult buddies in the West Wing, then go on Fox News to take a fucking victory lap, and then things start to close again because you suck.

Hey guys, I've edited the OP to show the head-to-head races, and I've also added links so it's easier to find the information. Basically, I've bitched about official threads because it's hard to find info, so where possible, I've linked to the information either in the thread or on the web so it's easier to reference. Let me know what you think of some of the changes to the OP pretty please.

Also, I saw this take: I do feel Beto and Stacey Abrams had real shots in state races considering their great performances in 2018. I get the other side -- potentially losing two races in a row is a death knell nowadays (ask Scott Brown). I dunno if Ed Gillespie would consider running again in Virginia after losing his Senate race in a Republican year of 2014 and his governor's race in a Democratic year in 2017.

A progressive Democrat will have a rematch with Republican Michael McCaul in Texas' 10th https://www.tpr.org/post/mike-siegel-will-again-challenge-us-rep-michael-mccaul-seat-spans-houston-austin

Controls weren't really a mainstream criticism? Everything felt pretty damn good, though if you're coming from the originals, it takes a little bit to get used to controlling.

My SaysWho? username was said by Cohen in August 2016 after that campaign shakeup, too.

That's what I do. But I don't consider that naked.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891586790/the-magic-school-bus-series-author-joanna-cole-has-died

This reminds me: I think GOW4 makes GOW3's Kratos better in this sense:

Also: Cory Barlog had some inspiration from the new Tomb Raiders' wide-linear approach, but I feel Shadow of the Colossus was a big influence on him as far as exploration in general. I timestamped the link at around 7:32 and it goes to 8:07. He says he wanted it to feel similar to SOTC in the sense that you were free to explore without a thousand different icons on the map. I've loved plenty of games with the icons, but I get his reasoning, and it worked out very well.

I didn't know the Alabama Democratic Party had it in them. But it's a reminder that Democrats in ruby red states are underrated in how much fight they can give.

Agreed on the originals, but the new one is more Combat-Puzzles-Exploration instead of Combat-Puzzles-Platforming. And for a world that's not huge, I was really impressed with how big it felt based on the exploration and discovery aspect. I loved getting the, "Secret Area Discovered," pop-up, and I especially loved looking at the map and going, "Huh, is that a beach? Can I go there?" and yo, I can! What is this place?! Holy shit, it has a chest with what is now my favorite Runic Attack in the game! Good shit. Can't go wrong with each of Barlog's or Jaffe's original.

That's easy enough when the new one has no platforming. I did love the puzzles in it, though I'd still argue that 1 had the most ambitious ones of the trilogy.

I had the Legacy Collection on PS3 and played through all of them for the first time. The only one I had played before was 2. Twas a great experience! The handhelds were remastered for PS3, so if there's an Origins Collection on PS Now, those would be the games. Not essential, but they're fun. Chains of Olympus really feels like a handheld game, though, while Ghost of Sparta feels more like a PS2 game. I think they're worth playing. I've revisited them from time to time for fun factor, and GOW2 was directed by Barlog, who did the new God of War. Unsurprisingly, those are the two best imo. In a year filled with Mass Effect and Halo 3, God of War 2 still stood out on its own on an old console.

Oh, and you don't have to play the handheld versions (though Ghost of Sparta is pretty good) to understand anything in the new God of War. You also don't need to play Ascension. Even though it came out the same gen as 3, Ascension was the only one I couldn't finish; I didn't like the gameplay changes. I also missed out on the multiplayer.

A lot to unpack here, but I'll do my best as a guy who has played even the handheld versions (remastered on PS3 tho): You can go into the PS4 God of War without having played the previous games. You can enjoy it tremendously on its own since it does a good job hinting, implying, or explaining the previous games, though there are some moments that will hit harder having played the previous games. Since they are good games in their own right, I suggest playing them, but the difference between the new game and the older ones is it's easy to get burned out playing the old GOW games one after another, whereas I went to plat the new God of War. Playing something small in between might be a good idea, but YMMV. They're not long games. The old God of War games are more of the era of linear action-adventure games. You can beat them in 8 - 10 hours. They add more to the combat and bosses with each game. I'd say the first has the best puzzles (Pandora's Temple is wonderful level design), the second has the best combination of puzzles and bosses and is the best paced, while the third has the best bosses/combat but simpler puzzles. 3 also doesn't have much in terms of swerves or plot development as the first two; it's a straight revenge story, but it's always cool seeing the lore. God of War PS4 is more a "wide-linear" game. I wouldn't go as far as to say open-world since the areas are structured more similarly to a Souls game than a straight open-world like Crackdown or Horizon. While the original games are linear, the new game encourages exploration yet always makes it easy to get back into the main story. So even if you play GOW1 or 2 and feel like you need a bit of a break from the bombast, it'll be easy to jump into God of War PS4 imo.