Tony Hawks is back. Game review

Since Tony Hawks 1&2 is replicating the neck breaking, face planting experience of skateboarding. It should come as no surprise that the game is built around what people are capable of doing on a wheeled plank of wood. But the fun comes from the acceptable breaks from reality. Such as essentially driving up a hill and curving with the pool while in the air, and the over the top ability to grind without wearing out the board.

Tony Hawk has had a lot of ups and downs after they made more than two games. Let's face the music through, the first and the second game in the franchise is by far the best ones. This remaster includes all the original levels and they have all been spruced up. Essentially everything has had an graphical overhaul to bring it in line with modern games, while retaining the original layout. They also removed the pesky floating money, which I freaking love that they did.

Since it is now a modern game I can adjust settings, such as the camera proximity and field of view. Yes I can finally see more, but I can say that 90 Fov is a bit overkill in this case. A couple of slice of life improvements has been added to the option menu as well. Originally codes had to be manually inputted to cheat. Now they are a couple of clicks away, however they did not include the jetpack mode. So the infinite balance, manual and no bail, does not help me completing all the stage goals. After all I still have to reach the out of place V symbols that has been added to the levels and the secret tapes.

On that note, it seem that I no longer has to complete the game 100% with each skater to unlock all the characters. I truly thank the developers for that, but they did include a couple of secret unlocks that requires a fair bit of combing to squash out. Naturally this means a couple of the original inclusions where cut, such as all the various licenced skaters such as Gene Simmens and Private Carrera. All the movies the secret tapes contained are gone as well, so I can no longer watch actual skateboard videos in game. Luckily I have YouTube for that. Officer Dick is still here though, but he could be mistaken for Jack Black, or is he actually Jack Black?

The most disappointing feature is most likely the custom character editor, sure its novel to make woman with a beard, but the selection of faces and body types are non existent. Not quite, just very, very limited. So I wonder why I cant craft  myself a morbidly obese skater, or a muscular one. After all there was a cheat code for making skaters bloat up until the polygons burst from inputting it too many times. Face sliders is non existent and all additional outfits has to be bought from the in-game store.

The level editor allows me to build a magnificent skate park from the ground up and share it with the world for better or worse. But there is just one problem with the setup, first of all it comes with a complexity limit, even on pc. This is just irritating and stupid, I'm not playing Tony Hawks on the original
PlayStation after all. Then there is the fact that the spike pit is nowhere to be seen, yes they removed obstacles that can reset the player when they fall into it. Removed features also includes the runny blood soaked letters when face planting hard. A real shame really, once the bail animation is done, the skater just glitches back onto the board.

All the awesome and not so awesome soundtracks are back and they are fantastic, especially from a pesky nostalgia perspective.
It all I wanted from a remaster of a game I grew up on.

https://youtu.be/jxzbGk8bujc

Zaceron signing out

Jawbreakers the worst grift ever

Lo and behold the biggest grift in the face of the internet, well it is a grift Accoarding to industry professionals and twitter twerps.  Introducing  one of the most successful crowdfunded independent comics this decade, despite marvel and DC dying a slow and agonizing death along with the direct market. A  business model that has been dying since year 2000, despite people protesting otherwise. I have seen it myelf. Once upon a time there were a plethora of unique comics produced, translated, and published here in Norway. Now, well, now there is a handful of newspaper strips and some independent stuff that tries to market itself. Yes the direct market where a company hires people, sends the product to a press, then have it published and sold at a store. Oh right I was supposed to talk about Jawbreakers. A fairly okay comic about an expendable team of specialist dealing with a giant gorilla and some sort of nearly omnipotent being.

Yes this comic I can hold in my hands and store on my shelf is apparently a grift. Now let's take a look at wha the dictionary has to say about this very bad and bland insult.

noun

(sometimes used with a plural verb) a group of methods for obtaining money falsely through the use of swindles, frauds, dishonest gambling, etc.

Money obtained from such practices.

verb (used without object)

to profit by the use of grift:
Ethan Vansciver, a man known to have grifted for many years.

verb (used with object)

To obtain (money or other profit) by grift.

It is essential an untrue statement full of bile and venom, which is about as impactful as the term soiboy. For some insane reason people believe that soy makes men more feminine. A unfounded claim so far. Now back to the very real comic book I got for money  I spent on a crowdfunding campaign.

As I mentioned earlier before going of on a tangent. Jawbreakers is a team of mercenaries with various powers and guns. Which is hired by a scantily clad tribal woman with a spear. She needs them to take care of a humongous gorilla that is stimoing through the lands. The Jawbreakers does do just that. The comic comes in full colour, with great artwork that look like is has been taken straight out of the nineties. Both the good and the bad. The story has a sense of scale and an some actual healthful moments. The last of the three stories ends on a cliffhanger though, for better or worse.

Theere are however a couple of problems I have with the Jawbreakers. Sometimes the transitions are non existent or very poorly defined. Sure the cast is varied and have various powers they use in creative ways during combat. The design is annoying bland and non descriptive. Essentially it can be very hard to tell them apart, let alone get invested in the cast. Ironically the cast is very diverse and a lot more representative than anything the progressive crowd on social media is capable of comming up with.
One of them is prettymuch blind. One is black. Then there is the man without arms and I kinda forgot about the rest. They use various super powers to bypass these limitations though.
The overall presentation is fantastic, I just cant bring myself to get Gøkning to see how the Jawbreakers end up. It has th4 same issue I have with most superhero comics I've picked up over the years. I can't really get hooked on the story at all. But do not let that stop you from embracing the future of western comics. Direct to consumer, no middle man needed.

Zaceron Signing out

Why so serious? It is just a Joker

 

We all have a character or two from popular media we just simply loathe, dislike, hate or what not. Essentially one we have gotten tired of. In my case I simply can't stand the Joker from Batman, this pesky clownprince of crime shows up all over the media landscape. There is not a movies or a series within the fanshise this pasty faced lunatic doesn't show up in. For all intentive purposes he is a generic human male, which can be easily brought down by bullets, or one of Batman's patented and proven coma punches. Yes as far as I know the crazy clown does not even wear kevlar in a town overrun with Tommy guns and gangsters. All it would take is a stray bullet and he would be dead or severely injured, something that rarely if ever happens. The handful of times he does get seriously injured he often walks it off like a champ, or it gets conveniently retconned in the next story. For marketing purposes and due to popularity the joker will aways be there, or his abused henchman sidekick Harley Quinn. That does not make them any more interesting or tolerable to me. Keep in mind though, this is my personal opinion, feel free to disagree.

Batman has a lot of great villains. Hell, DC in general has more crooks than I can recollect. However a lot of these never shows up in live action at all.

To mention a couple I can recall from the movies, we have had Two-face, the Penguin, Freeze, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Joker, Rasha Ghoul, Bane, Scarecrow, Riddler and a few more I've most likely forgot.

Back to my questionably constricted point though. The villains I have just mentioned does have some screen time and presence. Compared to a mentally deranged man with a big smile, they might as well ntl exist at all. It feels to me that no matter whom the main villai is, the clown keeps stealing the show. Sometimes I think the better solution would be to just focus one villain and make the movie into a detective drama, where the Bat has to actually play the part of being the worlds best detective. Having him play a cat and mouse game with Gorilla Grod could be a highly entertaining romp to watch. Now whether or not Hollywood is capable of writing and producing such a story is an entirely different story. To top it all of I might as well mention Batman's boring back story yet again. Or not, because that seem to be the important thing every time a new Batman story comes out.

Cheers

Zaceron

Wheelchair warriors!

Foolish, foolish mortals and your obsessive need for representation, it can get so bad it hurts. Worry not dear reader, for in the world of fantasy, where at least I go to escape reality, even a wheelchair bound person can become a lean, mean, murder machine. With a couple of simple steps even you can become a bona fide killer. I have realized that people are stuck with what they are, instead of what they could be. Take Dungeon & Dragons for example, a world of imagination, adventure and debatable rules to live and die by. In most cases a cleric can heal pesky things like non functional feet and useless limbs. Miracles, gods and wishes are very much real. Unless your stuck in Dark Sun, then you're most likely dead before you begin.

First of all let's take a closer loom at a wheel chair. It is a lightweight chair, attached to two big wheels and at least two small wheels for turning. Which allow a person to use their arms to push the contraption forward. A modern one is either electric, or made a light weight as possible. However in more primitive settings, it will most likely be made of wood, especially the wheels, thus it becomes quite heavy in the long run. Though that also depends on skill of the artisan crafting the chair.. The lack of rubber and inflated wheels will also make it very uncomfortable to move around. On top of that, getting around dungeons is going to be very hard indeed. Especially when the terrain gets bad. Unless you get really creative, or embrace cyberpunk Caterpillar style threads are out of the question. Not to mention the lack of an engine to propel the contraption in any direction.

However in Dungeons & Dragons, only an uninspired pheasant think about using wheels. Even though a cart is cheap to buy and almost free if stolen. Though in 5e a donkey is act actually cheaper than a cart, which it is most likely capable of pulling. If you really want to be pedantic, modify a wheelbarrow they're most likely worth less than five gold. However let's forget reality for a while, for what is fantasy? But a way to have a merry time and escape from the rules of our reality. Granted being a bad-ass in a wheelchair does have its merits, more on that later.

The most basic thing any sensible adventurer can do is to acquire a mount. Such as the donkey I mentioned earlier. From my personal experience, a donkey is a smooth ride on a stubborn equine, that has a low ground clearance and high carry capacity. Camels on the other hand, now those are absolutely terrible and that is me speaking from personal experience. Like I said, let's forgo reality for a while. Take a giant spider as an example, now there is an interesting mount. Especially for someone that want to strike fear into men and monsters, have decent defensive capabilities and being able to traverse rough terrain. With some creative rule abusing, it can probably be equipped with a chair, or a saddle, then attach zephyr horseshoes. Suddenly you've got yourself a flying spider. Granted a good mage can learn to fly through magic. Or just get a comfy flying broom with a seat on it. After all in Dungeons & Dragons walking is the least interesting way of locomotion. Personally I would get myself a hippogriff or another terrifying beast, that can actually fly. Even if it has to be fed half a cow every day. Essentially the creature is fast and ferocious and capable of defending itself. Which technically can either attack on it's own turn, or use one of riders actions instead. It depends on the rules really.

For the more refined gentle person there exist a more classy alternative exist. The portable chair with two poles attached, which has to be carried by two fateful servants. It is a simple medieval lord favorite, extra bonus points if it comes with a human footstool and a troubadour. A chariot is also a very valid example of a true and tested transport. Unlike a wagon it is small, fast and light weight. But it does leave the beast of burden exposed to attacks. A typical horse is unfortunately very easy to kill, due to low health and few ways to attack. Since most monsters are bloodthirsty killers out for blood. A life giving fluid most horses have a lot of. Unless the clever player dives in to Mordekaines emporium and dig up some fancy figurine that turn into a mount for a time.
Particularly evil characters will use skeletons and the reanimated dead to move them around the word. There is always the mind control option, thralls and various infernal beings.

Let us look at the generic wooden wheelchair, which is lighter than steel and cheaper than fancy lightweight material like mithril or admantium. It will be fairly heavy and rather uncomfortable to actually move around, plus oak wheel have terrible shock absorption. Essentially the user would feel every bump in the road and a pillow only absorbs so much of the impact. It might be fantasy, but gravity still exist. Combine this with armor and it will get even worse to push around, because a high armor class will make up for the lack of dexterity. Because using the arms a lot makes a person strong, unlike a sissy rouge skulking around in the shadows. For extended reach a polearm is an excellent choice, especially with attack of opportunity, then very few things can get behind the wheelchair warrior. An additional design feature that comes highly recommended most would not think of is some kind of rest for the weapon, when switching between moving and fighting.

 Since this build will be heavy and unwieldy, some sort of servant is needed to push the wheelchair. A human is a cheap and unreliable choice, but at the start of an adventure that is the most likely the only option. But a human is very weak and most likely very squishy. The more advanced and stubborn wheelchair bound adventurer will invest in a golem. A simple construct that follows basic commands and is good at manual labor, it can also crush smaller creatures and defend itself. A war forged one is a couple of steps above that and most likely a player character, which would lead to some amazing synergy. Essentially the wheelchair warrior wields a sharp pointy sick and a shield, while the golem pushes the player into into battle. Yes, I am imagining wheelchair jousting hero here and you're welcome.

Outside of Dungeons & Dragons, there is settings such as Mage the awakening. Where a friend of mine made a version of Xavier. A bald mage incapable of walking. In combat he floated around several swords and a shield for protection. But this fellow I a clever little munchkin and made the wheelchair capable of transforming into an exoskeleton. Suddenly the man could miraculously walk into battle, despite having no movement stat.

That is all I have for now, Zaceron signing out