Gametrodon

Category: maxeditpls

  • A Rant about Comics p2. – Grump Week

    Hey, so this post is a bit of a bummer, so maybe read Part 1, where I talk about a bunch of cool comics you should read first?

    I’ve been trying to figure out for the better part of a decade why I kinda quietly loathe most American comics, and I’ve gone through a variety of theories, ranging from reasonable to something an incel might hear and go “Hey buddy, maybe tone that one down a bit”. I’m gonna go through them here, and mention why I’ve discarded them over the years, including the most recent theory.

    Things I thought in high school

    Theory #1 – Japan is just better at comics.

    Yes, this was a thing I actually believed at one point. Look, I was probably 14. I don’t think this anymore mostly because despite how I sound about this sort of stuff, I’m not a weeb. Nationalism doesn’t really explain it.

    Theory #2 – The disconnect between artist and writer makes garbage.

    Another Highschool theory, but one I still reflect on a fair amount. The comic that made me discard this was Death Note. After all, if Japan could turn out something like that via a writer/artist collab, clearly the problem wasn’t not having the artist write the comic.

    Theory #3 – Endless reboots, weird numbering, and other stuff make it effectively impossible to actually READ a comic.

    It’s at this point I start looking inward, trying to figure out if perhaps the problem isn’t with the comics themselves, but with my consumption of them. These days if I want to read something, I know where to find it, but prior to me really understanding the internet, if I wanted to read comics, I had to actually go find them.

    Like, physically in the world.

    So, my theory was the fact that it was hard for me to ever finish a run of an American comic, given how meandering they were, as opposed to something straightforward an easy to read like One Piece, where each numbered chapter just went into the next, that this was the cause of my dislike.

    Unlike the other theories above, I think this one actually WAS true, at least at some point. But it’s not true for me as an adult.

    Theory #4 – While both Japanese manga artists and American comic book creators work in an industry that demands too much work for too little pay, the nature of ownership of a comic being different is some sort of motivating factor in quality.

    So, I moved onto kinda just blaming capitalism. It would be nice if this is the real problem… but here’s the thing: I still don’t think it is, mostly because the shit that manga artists put themselves through is not the sort of stuff you do if you “just want the money”. You gotta start by having some sort of passion for art if you’re gonna work 12 hour days for 6 days a week year in, year out, and even then, you can just fail.

    Things I’ve thought as an adult

    Theory #5 – I am an immature child, and cannot appreciate comics made for adults

    Again, another attempt at turning inwards. Perhaps, I thought, as someone raised primarily on Shonen Jump, I simply lack the maturity to read stories that aren’t intended for 14 year old boys. Perhaps I’m just not cool enough for shit like Rick & Morty, or Game of Thrones.

    Anyway, I spent part of this weekend reading all of Something Is Killing the Children, and yknow what? Nah. Fuck you. It is fact not my fault that I don’t like your slaughterhouse bullshit where we have kids and their families getting butchered by shadow monsters.

    Also, I think some of it is also that we have enough awful shit in the real world like Epstein and the protestors killed by ICE that I simply don’t have the tolerance to be pulled by the heartstrings about this fictional shit. We have real organizations that should care more about children then they actually do, and allow evil things to harm them. They’re called the Florida prosecutors office.

    And lest you think I sample unfairly: This is the shit that’s winning the Eisner for best writer.

    So no, I don’t think it’s my lack of maturity that’s preventing me from appreciating your fine writing, I think it’s the fact that I’m tired of watching kids being shredded like tissue paper in service of a narrative that doesn’t seem to do very much.

    Theory #6 – Anything I read from japan was good enough to get a translation/localization, even if it’s a shit one, so SOMEONE liked it enough, while the same is not true of American comics.

    This is one I came up with earlier this year, and I was convinced that I had finally figured it out. See, any Japanese manga I read had to be popular enough to be localized, or good enough that some fan group decided to translate it.

    This then meant that when I read manga, I was only ever reading the cream of the crop, the finest cultural exports of soft power sampled and sifted before being passed across to me. Whereas for any given American comic I picked up, I was sifting through a pile of detritus that could just as equally be someones magnum opus as it could be their way of paying rent that month.

    And, then I read a bunch of modern popular American comics like Absolute Batman, and DC KO, and there just wasn’t a single one I didn’t look at and find myself somewhat annoyed by.

    Theory #7 – Format differences mean that purely as a matter of the practical physical medium, American comic book artists and writers are working with FAR less pages then Japanese manga creators, and as a result, end up creating an accelerated (and poorer) product.

    This is the closest I have to a current theory, though realistically, it’s probably a combo of a few of the above. Something like Absolute Batman is working with 24 pages a month. One Piece (okay not all the time) gets 16 pages a week, meaning they get more then double the physical space to work with, admittedly on shorter deadlines.

    Surely then, this is the reason that stuff like Jujutsu Kaisen can spend 64 pages (4 WHOLE CHAPTERS!) on a side showdown between a literal joke character and the secondary villain, whereas DC KO can’t even spend a full 10 pages on having Superman fight Darkseid.

    One Other Quick Rant

    Theres a trope in American super hero comics that I saw crop up multiple times in my binge read over the weekend that all feel incredibly hollow these days, and I’m going to devote a small portion of this write-up to shit talking it

    The Truth will save the day!

    In short, the idea that if you can just show everyone a video of the Bad Guys doing The Bad Thing, you have won. And just.

    No.

    No it fucking won’t. It probably hasn’t had the ability to do this since 2016. Maybe earlier.

    It’s not just comic books that do this, Disclosure Day by Spielberg also has a similar ending, and The Expanse does this once or twice as well.

    It rings hollow in our age of misinformation, and it’s harder to suspend disbelief for then it is the latex skin-suits and tighty whities.

    This narrative needs to die.

    In Conclusion

    A lot of popular American comics kinda suck ass. There is no magic bullet to save the world. You should read Guts County, Hilda the 13th, Nothing Doing, and Wrestleheist.

    I’m going to go jump in some freezing water, and then play Mina the Hollower.

  • Path of Exile 2 – The (Beta) Campaign

    The Path of Exile 2 beta is out. I got a demo a few months ago, but now that I’ve fully played through it, I have even more thoughts. I’m going breaking down my thoughts on it into two writeups, one on the campaign, and one the endgame. Technically, they are the same game, but mechanically they are very different experiences.

    Now, before I get into that, there’s some brief background that is necessary. Path of Exile 2 is a sequel to my 2nd most played game of all time, Path of Exile. (about 3000+ hours?) My thoughts are going to be at least somewhat in comparison to it’s predecessor.

    As a brief filter, I offer the following phrases:
    “juicing maps”
    “6L”
    “Farming blood adqueducts for a Tab”

    If you know what any of these mean, just click here to skip ahead. If you don’t, you are likely to find the following background information helpful.

    ARPG’s in Brief

    Path of Exile 2, hereby abreviated to PoE 2, is a isometric ARPG from Grinding Gear Games.

    For those who might not know, ARPG stands for “Action Role-Playing Game.” ARPG’s are defined by having virtually no roleplaying elements, and the action parts dominated by spamming your abilities every second you have the mana/rage/potato points to do so.

    Here’s a less cynical definition: ARPG’s are traditionally top-down or isometric real time action games defined by extensive skill trees, character customization and itemization. Combat generally has two modes, fighting against trash mobs, which are pinatas for stacks of loot, and fighting against bosses, which are also pinatas, except this time they have a baseball bat.

    Trash mobs are fairly brainless and just rush the player, while bosses tend to be more correographed experiences, closer to something from a Bullet Hell, or Hades.

    The first Path of Exile differentiated itself from other ARPG’s by making everything into game an item, and making those items tradable. Skills are items, (skill gems) which got socketed into other items you wore, and those sockets had colors determining which gems could be socketed.

    The ability to refund skills points was an item. To enter endgame areas, specific items were needed. Same to fight endgame bosses. To buy items from vendors, it was necessary to have more items to trade them.

    It’s other big differentiator was a skill tree so massive that one of my favorite things to do is pop it out as a joke, just to mess with people, who did not believe it was real.

    Finally, there was the gem system. Gems could be supported by other gems. Take a fireball, link it to a multiple projectile gem, and now it shoots three fireballs. Link it to a piercing projectiles gem, and now they penetrate. Link it to a faster cast speed, make a few more tweaks, and now your character is a Fourth of July fireworks display.

    Changes between PoE and Poe 2

    PoE 2 makes a lot of changes to the above underlying systems, most of which serve to make the campaign much less punishing for inexperienced players. Gold exists as a flat currency to use with vendor NPC’s. This makes getting leveling gear a much easier process.

    Gold can also be used to refund skill points. This is possibly the biggest change between the two games, because in PoE, a badly built skill tree would softlock a character. This would make it impossible to get the items needed to respec, and pretty much force the player to make a new character.

    Sockets on items and their associated colors are also gone. Skill gems are socketed into a general skill gem menu. The types of support gems that can be used are limited by primary stats. There are even more small tweaks to make suggestions to players on what gems to use, and to prevent them from making choices that simply don’t work.

    The skill tree is still massive. There’s now a dodge roll. Movement is a much more flowy thing then it previously was.

    The general changes though result in much easier on-boarding experience with the games initial systems, instead of purely being thrown into the deep end, like the player was with the first Path of Exile.

    Does all of this mean the game is easier?

    Well, yes and no.

    The Campaign

    Generally I like the campaign. There are some incredibly sloggy bits, notably a single map in Act 2 that just goes on forever, and three or four of the Act 3 areas really tested my patience for just wanting to see the next few things.

    That said, outside of these, I really didn’t have many complaints. The bosses feel far more diverse and interesting then their PoE 1 counterparts, and also much harder. The final boss of Act 1 in particular killed me about 10-20 times before I finally defeated it. It’s worth noting that I actually killed it right as it killed me, but that still counts, so on I went.

    They’re also just much more fun as a general visual spectacle. My personal favorite is probably Crowbell, a giant crow-man thing that tries to beat the player to death with a bell. The fight isn’t particularly hard, but does have a fun transitions, with Crowbell running around, powering up, wrenching a bell off it’s stand, then using it as a bludgeon.

    The trash mobs… well, they’re ARPG trash mobs. The nicest thing I can say about them is that they did in fact contribute to my /deaths count.

    Finally, there’s the story elements. I generally quite liked these, even if the current content kinda ends on bit of a cliffhanger. I’m also the only person I know who cared about the lore of PoE, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. There are some callbacks to PoE, but I don’t think missing them will have any impact on your enjoyment.

    I will say that I personally experienced a moment of glee getting to fight a character whose only ever been hinted at in flavor text from PoE, but another friend of mine who played the game before me didn’t even realize he was a recurring character, and thought he was someone new.

    If you’re playing through the campaign without a build guide, or information about the game, I’d estimate it’ll take about 12-20 hours to play through? There’s a good chunk of game here. That said, the campaign does not currently conclude the story, as that’s planned for the games full release, so if you’re playing the game just for the campaign, I’d hold off.

    Overall Thoughts

    I like PoE 2. I have problems with the game, but they’re not present during the campaign. It changes a lot of esoteric bullshit that was required to play, made the boss fights more interesting, and is just generally more friendly, if not easier.

    Some parts are a bit of slog.

    That said, I think the main reason to currently play the campaign is to get to endgame. The campaign is not a finished game yet, with a complete story, and the beta is currently $30.

    If the full campaign maintains it’s current level of quality for the remaining acts on full release, Path of Exile 2 will be worth playing purely as a standalone ARPG just for that. But for players who aren’t in a rush, or want a new ARPG, I would say to wait.

  • How to Get the Lorcana Starter Decks for Cheap

    So, maybe you read the last post, and despite the fact that Lorcana boosters are currently going for a street value of $5 an ounce, (a ratio that really feels like it should be reserved for a different type of substance), you still want in?

    All right. It’s a pretty fun game. But instead of buying those starter decks at prices people are selling them, we’re instead going to use the power of the free market in our favorite for once.

    DeckSealed CostSingles Cost & TCG Player Link
    Amber & Amethyst$34-38$24
    Emerald & Ruby$23-25$16.28
    Sapphire & Steel$30-32$24.37

    Here’s how it works. First, click on one of the above links. This will bring you to TCG Players bulk entry page. It will look something like this.

    If this all looks good, click the add to cart button! And presto, we have a cart with all the cards in the starter deck!

    It’s also going to currently be costing you a lot more then the starter deck. No worries. We can fix that by clicking on the Optimize button in the lower left corner, right under the Paypal option.

    After this, TCG player will try to optimize for shipping and buying from the fewest number of sellers. If everything looks good, you can send your purchase though, and end up with your very own Lorcana starter deck for less than a retail video game.

    Ed Note: This writeup contains links to TCG Player, the management of which is a bunch of union busting corporate weasels. These aren’t affiliate links, (we don’t ever do that) and we don’t endorse their anti-competitive bullshit. That said, they’re owned by eBay, so it’s not like there’s a better place to go buy cheap singles that isn’t tainted by a desire to screw the employee.

    Ed Note 2: This was written when Lorcana was being CRAZY scalped. It’s possible that the prices have gone down to a sane range by the time you look at this writeup. Such is the internet, and writing about collectibles. The general approach to using TCG Player, and the optimize functionality for buying singles likely remains the same though.