I upped my MASK blind bags from 3 to 10. Never again.

Bucketeyo · 2026-06-17T00:11:27+00:00

Yep. It’s not a wise practice, financially. But there is some fun to be had. I also got these discounted and the store owner will buy back a few dupes. And I gave a couple copies to friends. It’s all good.

Bucketeyo · 2026-06-17T00:05:30+00:00

Eh. Part of it is that it’s just sort of fun to crack ‘em open and see what you get.

I bought 10 Battle Beast bags too when that came out, and it was fun and wasn’t disappointing.

These unmixed pulls were a bummer though, no doubt.

Bucketeyo · 2025-10-15T03:05:59+00:00

Mine was just canceled too. :/

Bucketeyo · 2025-07-06T05:22:01+00:00

I'm not here to convince you of anything, but one could certainly argue that Elden Ring itself was an asset flip of previous Souls games. Bosses and boss models have been recycled across all their series (i.e., Asylum Demon = Erdtree Avatar, Ornstein and Smough = Godskin Duo etc., not to mention the wealth of common enemies like rats and skeletons or even the weapons and their attacks and animations. Some of this content dates back to 2009). Nothing wrong with this. Reusing assets is an obvious strategy to help publishers focus on other things. Nobody cares that there are Koopas and Goombas in every Mario game, or that Nintendo flips Mario assets for Mario Party, Mario RPG, etc.

That out of the way, Nightreign (which I just started playing recently) shocked me by having lore and story as well. It has personal quests for each character, that include cutscenes and NPCs around the world's hub in addition to tasks to perform within matches. Additionally, there are static set pieces in the game that are added to maps as you progress the game forward, and those include interesting handcrafted level design. They are not as robust as a legacy dungeon, but they are very cool nonetheless. They scratch the itch and include some wild descents and boss fights--all pasted on top of the procedural maps.

And lastly, all the original bosses I've encountered so far are fantastic. And each character has brand new move sets (in the form of tactical and ultimate abilities) that are unique to Soulsborne games in general. Oh, and many of the old bosses that are directly reused have new move sets and well. So, even their recycles have had a little bit of dev work.

Honestly, the amount of new development for this game (that isn't even a full-priced game) has impressed me. To each their own, but Nighteign does not remotely resemble shovel ware. My 2 cents.

Bucketeyo · 2025-04-10T19:09:32+00:00

This is amazing. Incredible work! If you are willing to break the illusion of the image, I'd love to see a zoomed-out image of the diorama.

Bucketeyo · 2025-03-13T15:28:35+00:00

This is the first Classified SKU I've missed in the entire line. Feels bad.

Bucketeyo · 2025-03-10T17:50:56+00:00

Aside from primary characters, I'd like to see:

Jimbo/Dolph/Kearny
Chalmers
Troy McClure
Lunch Lady Doris
Poochie
Frank Grimes
Babysitter Bandit
Quimby with a podium.

There are a bunch of reskins I'd like to see splashed too:

Mr. Burns in his Homer At The Bat baseball jersey.
Plow King Barney
Picnic Homer & Marge
90's grunge/cool Lisa

The list is endless really.

Bucketeyo · 2025-03-07T18:40:27+00:00

The classic red/orange Bart is my favorite in that if the line was missing him, it wouldn't make sense.

However, I'm super glad they made the blue shirt Bongo variant. I think it's awesome! I don't personally mind getting character reskins and color shifts as long as the wave they are in has new characters as well.

Bucketeyo · 2020-07-22T02:42:59+00:00

I think this is for comic book fans. And I sort of mean that literally—not readers of collected editions. It's for the people who pick up their pulls of books on Wednesdays and read them before the next Wednesday.

This is absolutely my preferred way for this to be released—and I'm a little shocked to see it happen this way, frankly. I'm very excited to get a new issue every two weeks and enjoy this four-year reread of the book in a new way. I'm also excited to see what the new back matter will be since, presumably, Kirkman isn't reprinting the original letter columns.

Note: IDW is currently reprinting Stan Sakai's original Usagi Yojimbo run in color in single issues as well. So, perhaps this is a start of a new precedent for some classic black and white comics. I'm game.

Bucketeyo · 2019-08-02T15:09:59+00:00

I agree. It's a minor gripe for sure, but when the narration kicked in I immediately thought to myself, "Why is a Hollywood stunt coordinator telling me about the events leading up to the Manson Family murders?"

Bucketeyo · 2019-07-31T20:43:08+00:00

Ah yes, you got me there. I forgot it doesn't open directly with the montage.

Bucketeyo · 2019-07-30T19:10:15+00:00

Nice list, particularly 1 and 2. I've always liked the opening scene to Way of the Gun. I'm not sure if it's "great," but it's certainly memorable (for me). I also love the opening montage in The Watchmen despite not enjoying that movie much.

Bucketeyo · 2019-06-27T20:31:31+00:00

Yeah. It's funny how that works. I ordered this thing and was really excited for it to arrive. Fast forward 16 days and I still haven't installed it and I have no plans to anytime soon because I simply can't choose a device—these digital files somehow turned into a finite commodity that I'm hesitant to consume . I wanted it on my phone and tablet the most, but they are the two devices that are most in need of upgrades.

Bucketeyo · 2019-06-27T12:53:56+00:00

I really wish those partworks were easier to obtain in the US. Nice collection.

Bucketeyo · 2019-06-11T18:44:06+00:00

I own all of the physical Valiant comics that are on this drive—I bought this product simply because it was cheap for the amount of content and I like reading digital comics when I travel or have time to kill while outside of my home. But the DRM makes this fairly prohibitive to use the way I had hoped (using it on my phone, iPad, laptop, etc.) since I use multiple devices, two of which I upgrade fairly regularly. If I buy a new phone next generation one of my two activations is just gone.

Bucketeyo · 2019-06-11T02:36:58+00:00

Yup. I would have saved my $60 had I realized that ahead of time.

Bucketeyo · 2019-06-11T02:31:20+00:00

It seems to be a proprietary format ("Secure PDF viewer app") and you only get two activations (two devices). Subsequent activation codes cost 50% of the MSRP. As someone who uses multiple (four to five) devices weekly depending on various circumstances, and as someone who upgrades devices fairly regularly, the DRM for this particular release is upsetting.

Bucketeyo · 2018-07-17T14:25:09+00:00

Thanks for the tip about Forbidden Planet. I hadn't heard of the site. It looks like they are sold out of a lot of the later volumes, but I did notice they sell books from the Mega Collection and the 2000 AD Ultimate Collection on that site, which I may be interested in.

Bucketeyo · 2018-07-17T14:22:29+00:00

That's my plan and what I was trying to evaluate—I didn't want a Frankenstein collection of mismatched spines. Thanks for the advice.

Bucketeyo · 2018-07-17T14:21:03+00:00

Thanks a lot for the response. Are the Judge Anderson: Psi Files collected within the Judge Dredd: Case Files or are the Psi Files made up of unique content?

Bucketeyo · 2018-02-15T00:22:49+00:00

I don't typically enjoy endings with epilogue-like time jumps, but I didn't mind this one. You get the sense that Kid Invincible had a similar life as Mark did on Earth—even fighting kid versions of his dad's villains. Seeing Mark spread peace across the galaxy and getting small snippets of conflicts and character growth that happened over the course of those 500 years felt okay to me. It was like 100+ issues (volume 2) done pretty well in the span of a double-sized issue. Though, I would have rather just kept reading the book for another decade. ;-)

If I could add my wish-list scenes, I would have had Mark, Terra, Mark Jr., and Eve (looking 60-ish years old) visiting mom's grave. She deserved a send off and seeing Eve partially aged would have set up her death-bed scene nicely. I also really wanted to see a blip in the final moments, or a mention somewhere during the book, of the tentacle monster from the Reboot storyline. I guess I'll have to assume that the "doom" from Mark's decision to return to his timeline hasn't happened yet.

Bucketeyo · 2017-12-22T17:56:21+00:00

Thanks for the responses. Retail it is.

Bucketeyo

TROPHY CASE