Saturday, July 25, 2020

Sekiro Screenshots

Sometime when I'm searching through video game screenshots, looking for that perfect video thumbnail, a game's portfolio is all so completely striking as a whole, it stands out from the crowd as an artful best in class.



Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is one of those games who's art direction is so striking, it deserves a special mention.  I don't even think there's more than one or two shots here from any of the bosses.  No, the fact that Sekiro looks this good outside of the set pieces says something.  And that something is "Take a closer look; you won't be disappointed."


















Friday, July 24, 2020

Jedi: Fallen Order - half-way through

15 hours in:


20 hours in:


This game is so good.


Adventures in Plastic; my journey through FunkoLand

Two years ago, my first Funko Pop purchase was a 10 unit "blind buy" package.  A blind buy is when you buy a collectible but have no idea which one you're getting.  The set of 10 I bought on Amazon was at a great price, something like $40.  Considering these things have a MSRP of $10.99 each, getting 10 at $4 each is a steal.  When you buy a set as large as this blind, the only promise is that there'll be no duplicates, other than that, you could get anything.

This same deal is currently $42.99 on Amazon (with a MSRP of $129.99).

I think I got a good deal.  I thought five of the 10 were pretty great and even in the lower half, there were only two that I had no interest in.

The five good ones were: Riddler, the Predator Hound, a Gremlin, Bev Marsh from "It," and Amphibian Man from "The Shape of Water."







The five I wasn't so crazy about were Adam Bomb, Phillip, Fin Balor, Newt Scamander and Frodo Baggins.  None of these figures were terrible but except for Frodo, I simply didn't know who any of them were.







After that first blind buy, the gloves were off and I was completely in love with these things but whenever I looked up any specific ones from my favorite shows or films, they were prohibitively expensive.  Prices for figures from Sherlock, Twin Peaks, Hannibal and Buffy were through the roof so I approached Amazon from a more strategic angle, I simply bought all the ones I liked that were less than $7.

This was my new mission; despite their $10.99 MRSP, I refused to pay more than $6.99 for any 4" Pop.  

And in looking through my past purchases, I am more than pleased to see how many of my figures have increased in price since I bought them.

Despite that, the bottom line must be that you should buy whatever makes you happy.  Trying to guess what'll increase in value, well good luck with that.  Myself, I just buy my favorite things and actors that fall below a certain price threshold.  Sorry, but I'm just not willing to pay more than $7 for these stupid things.  Unless they're really, really special.

So after that first blind buy, I bought one or two, here and there.  Most of the Marvel figures I loved were way too expensive out of the gate but I grabbed what I could.

Over the course of a year, I picked up:










My favorite out of all of those is "Casual Thanos."  Him looking so weak and feeble reminds me of the most powerful scene from "Endgame."  Owning the weak Thanos is also a great compliment to my next round of purchases, the super, uber 6-inchers!

Just because of how cheap it was, Eitri from "Infinity War" caught my eye from the moment I saw it.  Besides the low price, it was a character played by Peter Dinklage, who was the single best character from the entire run of Game of Thrones.  

The appeal of Eitri continues; he was one of the best visual gags in "Infinity War" (casting Dinklage as the one giant in the film... well, that's funny).

Besides how inexpensive he was ($6-something instead of the $24.99 MRSP), when I actually received this and saw how big the packaging was compared to the normies, I was smitten.


I immediately went back to the Amazon site and looked up all the other 6" Pops they offered.

Because I already had Josh Baskin on the toy piano, I couldn't resist Zoltare for only $10:


And because I'm such a Marvel fanboy, just seeing these extra-large figures selling for so much less than their MRSP, I didn't think twice before I threw these into my shopping basket:




After the big boys, we're almost up to date.  There's the three Wonder Woman.  I bought these without looking at the individual names or boxes too closely, just the fact that they were Wonder Woman and under $7 was good enough for me.  When I got them and saw that they're all from the new upcoming sequel, that was just sweet icing on the cake:






...and the cast of "Us:"







Jedi: Fallen Order

Enjoying the eff out of Jedi: Fallen Order on my new gaming PC.  While I can't upload video footage from the game fast enough, here's a few screenshots from the recent new level Kashyyyk which is, of course, Chewbacca's home planet.

Check out my YouTube channel for footage and stay tuned here for the best screenshots.