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This is a post about food. dealwithit.jpg

I have a small holiday dip sampler sitting in my kitchen, containing perhaps the strangest variety of semiliquids I’ve seen in a while. I’ve had them since visiting my parents over the holidays, and while they’re not in any danger whatsoever of expiring, I’ve been trying (with no luck) to figure out what to do with them. You’d think this would be easy. “Dip stuff in them, Tam, obviously,” but these dips defy simple use.

One of them is fairly straightforward. It’s “Raspberry Honey Mustard Pretzel Dip”, which is pretty obvious as far as use-case. It’s still sealed, because I haven’t gone out to find pretzel sticks appropriate for dipping, but I’m still kind of side-eyeing the “raspberry” part of the experience. I’m not entirely sure where the association between “raspberry” and “mustard” came from, or if it even makes sense. I like both things, but I haven’t quite worked up the wherewithal to dip a finger in and taste it. Having now realized how silly that sounds, I’ve now opened the jar and, welp, it tastes unsurprisingly like raspberries and honey mustard. It’s going to take a particular kind of pretzel to make this work, and I’m now kind of glad I didn’t just pick up some random pretzels to try. It’s good, just… weird, especially with the mustard seeds and what look like bits of raspberry mixed in.

Also in the “good but weird” category is the Chocolate S’mores Dip. This one I have dipped a finger in to try at least once or twice or maybe a few times. It’s about the consistency of a thick aioli or warm Nutella, a bit too watery to spread on bread but a bit too thick to dip cookies in easily. I have no idea what is even supposed to be dipped in here, and the jar is not really helpful in this regard. It does taste a lot like s’mores, though, with a marshmallow and graham cracker hint alongside the chocolate. Having discussed this particular dip with Ashgar, I think he’s right and that while nothing I dip into it will be “appropriate”, pretty much whatever I dip into it is going to be delicious. Spoilers, I’m probably dipping pretzels in this.

The next weird jar is “Roasted Pineapple and Habanero Dip”, which seems to suggest that both things are roasted. I’m not really opposed to it, but it’s a bit strange. It’s about the consistency of the strawberry drizzle you get on some cheesecakes, making it fairly unsuitable for any kind of dipping whatsoever. It’s also way too sweet, cloying, and rich to be a sauce, though I entertained the idea of marinating some chicken in it until I tasted it. As an aside, I kind of love the combination of pineapple and hot peppers, so while I would otherwise write this off as a wasted jar, I’m going to find some use for it. Pretzels? Pretzels.

The last jar is labelled “Chocolate Caramel & Sea Salt Sauce”. I’m vaguely hoping there’s a missing comma in there, and while I’m used to salted caramel, I rarely see them separated. Also, this is apparently a “sauce”, not a “dip”, and since all of these jars are from the same company, I feel like I could use the differences between this one and the s’mores dip to figure out what they think the difference is. Opening the jar, it’s about the consistency of thick ganache or maybe wet fondant, so, much thicker than any of the contents of the other jars by far. It also tastes like the label suggests– chocolate caramels with some sea salt. It’s frankly pretty weird, and I’m not sure how to dip pretzels into it, so I might have to get creative.

It’s finals week, I’ve been writing almost the entire day, and I’ve just dropped a little more than six hundred and fifty words about jars in my kitchen and their contents, as well as my current odd pretzel craving. It might be time for bed.

Video games are pretty heavily predicated on giving you some kind of opponent to clash with. Whether that’s another player, AI-controlled opponents, the game world itself, or the gameplay mechanics, games basically set you up with an opponent to see if you or they/it can achieve victory.

A discussion we had about The Division over the weekend got me thinking about enemies that appeal vs don’t. Ashgar mentioned that he didn’t like that the Division pitted you, a squishy human, against other squishy humans with realistic guns. We went into a bit of depth on the podcast this week, how The Division is an excellent game as long as you don’t think about what you’re actually doing too hard.

That being said, The Division offers me enemies I find compelling, far more than, say, Warframe or Destiny. I want to face opponents with motivations I can at least understand, who aren’t mustache-twirling evil for the sake of being evil. It’s a big part of the reason I don’t go in much for games about aliens or monsters; unless there’s some kind of sentience that can be communicated with, there’s not really much to understand other than “it’s trying to hurt me, I must stop it,” which feels shallow. I do wish that in The Division as well as other games, there were more nuanced ways of dealing with enemies– we talked about nonlethal takedowns and it’s one of my favorite parts of games like Deus Ex and Dishonored.

I remember playing Turok: Dinosaur Hunter quite a while back and finding it boring. Sure, the enemies were varied and behaved differently, but they were mostly dinosaurs and wild beasts. There didn’t feel like there was any depth there or any possible interaction other than “well, hope I don’t run into one of these because it’ll try to eat me”. Even when interactions have broken down to the point where the primary interaction is violence, I still like to know I’m dealing with opponents who are (presumably) making their own decisions, even if those decisions put us in conflict.

It’s why I don’t like the whole zombie craze. It’s just dinosaurs with a different skin, another mindless opponent that is little more than a strength and endurance test. I prefer to be tested on my agility or intellect– I have more fun when I’m proving I’m faster or smarter than my opponents, not bigger or tougher. Opponents that test neither agility nor intellect are boring to me, and a lot of games that pit you against non-human-equivalent enemies will have foes that are FAR more agile than you are, if they’re agile at all, or big, slow, lumbering bosses that aren’t so much an agility test as a timing test.

One of the reasons I like Warframe so much is because I play light, agile frames that move faster and more adeptly than my enemies. Even in big, tanky frames I’m more agile and more maneuverable than a majority of enemies, which is very satisfying.

At a narrative level, I like games that pit me against foes that make me think about my own motivations (and, ideally, let me act upon those thoughts). In Dishonored and Deus Ex, it quickly became apparent that the average guard or thug was just someone doing their job, not intrinsically tied to whatever awful thing I was trying to stop. They’re basically innocents, doing what they need to for a paycheck or because they’ve been misled into believing they’re right. Those games let me discover that, and then avoid harming innocents. Hitman, a game literally about assassination, actually puts a lot of focus and reward on being nonviolent, because you’re often in public places or otherwise surrounded by innocents who aren’t connected to your target; hurting them is unjustifiable.

I prefer to see my opponents in games as people, rather than just targets, but that comes with the additional demand that I be able to treat them in a way that feels sensible, even if that does mean open violence with the knowledge that the organization or ideology I represent is less harmful than the one they represent. If a game is going to make me question the group or philosophy I’m ostensibly linked to, I’d like to be able to act on that uncertainty. My biggest frustration with The Division is that it makes me question the group I’m a part of, but doesn’t give me any space to act on that.