Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Mark's Box - November 2009

Quite a nice box again this month. A couple items from this box went right to the top of my stack and I've already read them. I haven't touched any of the featured items from last month yet. They are too huge to throw in my backpack for work, but I'll be trying to get them read soon.

Titles from this month that I have mentioned before: Freakangels vol 3, Whiteout vol 2, Runaways vol 9 & 10, Echo vol 3, 20th Century Boys vol 5, Sword vol 3. Lots of excellence there. And now the top three for the month...

Strangers In Paradise Omnibus by Terry Moore - This will surely be one of the top books of whatever year I read it. It is so huge. This is a limited edition, so if you want one you should go order it right now. If you like comics at all, this is for you. This comic has it all. I have read the first 2/5ths of this and I can't wait to sit and read the whole thing through. I think the only place to get this now is at Terry Moore's website.

A Distant Neighborhood, Volume 1 by Jiro Taniguchi - I have been anxiously awaiting this book for over a year. Jiro Taniguchi is one of my favorite manga creators. I heard about this book from the publisher at Comic-Con 2008 and it is finally here. This story is so right up my alley. A 48-year-old takes the wrong train and finds himself mysteriously transported back in time. He is 14-years-old but retains all the knowledge of how his life turned out. Check it out on Amazon.

Fell by Warren Ellis & Ben Templesmith - A few years back, I used to go to the comic book store every wednesday and buy individual issues of comics. I don't do that anymore. Now I buy the trade paperback collections because they are easier to read and store and are often cheaper. This is one of my favorite comics from those issues days, but I only read the first couple issues before I stopped going each week. So, I am really looking forward to more of this awesome book. Check it out on Amazon.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Pile Of Shame - Vampire Update


Weekend is over and I cleared something from my pile of shame! Yay me. I completed one play of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Too many words in that title, but what an amazing game! It is a pc game from 2004 that really should be talked about as one of the best RPGs ever. I wasn't expecting a long, engrossing, awesome game when I fired it up. I did the little 'answer these questions to select your character type' thing and jumped right in. Totally enjoyed almost every minute of it.

Why isn't this talked about as one of the best games? Well, it was super-buggy and then then the company went out of business. So, the internet did something right for a change. Over the years they have patched the game to make it super-playable. Thank you internet! I bought the game on sale for $5 from Direct2Drive and then patched the game with the latest fan patch from Tessmage.com. Ignore all the digital porn on that site and just download the VTMB patches. Took a bit of time to get all the patches installed and working, but it was totally worth the effort.

I played thru once and there are four other endings possible, so I will definitely be back. If a certain game containing dragons wasn't being released in two hours and forty-seven minutes, I would be playing VTMB right now.

Holy Shits! I just found a totally different mod that will make future playthroughs super excellent. The Companion mod will allow you to recruit and control other characters. Have them fight for you, hang out in your haven, etc. I definitely am glad I played it solo on the first game, but this should make future plays interesting in a whole new way.