its also good for comics (the readcomiconline source has quite the collection)
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Legally, Iām not sure there is a better online comics deal than Shonen Jump. $2 a month for full libraries of manga from Shonen Jump and other Shueisha comic magazines, published mostly simultaneously with the Japanese releases. The only restriction is that you have a limit of 100 free chapters a day, which for most people will not be issue. The manga selection skews younger though, predominantly targeting that Shonen Jump middle-school age range.
Manga Plus is another Shueisha app with free access to manga from their magazines. Thereās a lot of cross-over with Shonen Jump, but the collection there skews a little older to the high-school demographic. Everything chapter there is free, but as physical volumes get released, those chapters get removed from the library. So some manga will only have the first dozen or so chapter and latest dozen or so chapters available. But thereās a lot of manga on there that have their entire libraries for now.
There are other manga apps out there like Mangamo, AlphaManga, Azuki, Crunchyroll, and MyAnimeList that are either licensing manga for distribution or publishing manga from their parent company. The value to content ratio canāt match Shonen Jump though, and the release cadences of series donāt seem as quick or reliable. Thereās a lot a lot of crossover between their catalogues as well since as Kodansha seem eager to spread their content around to any app that wants it. But they each have their own personalities defined by the kinds of content theyāre licensing.
Iāve been using Mangamo to read through Jin, an older medical drama that until now only had an official translation available through the authorās own Patreon, which he setup for the purpose of publishing and distributing an official English translation of his work. I donāt know that itās actually that good, but I sure am reading a lot of it.
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so @Father.Torque, now that youāve caught up on the whole last generation of AAA stuff and indie darlings, any insights?
Eh I wouldnāt say I caught up on last genās AAA. Havenāt played God of War, or RDR2, or Last of Us 2, or I dunno probably a bunch of other tentpole games one is supposed to have a played to have a general opinion on these things. If I have any insight itās only play things you really have an interest in and abandon the pretense that you can be well-read enough to declare medium-wide insights.
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hey @thecatamites is it fair to assume drill killer was inspired by hypercard stuff, was there anything specific? also is it based on the movie driller killer
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more accessories questions:
is there a good gaming headset (comfortable, good sound, easy to stream with) that is crossplatform? iāve been reading up on different possibilities all night and this morning and the answer seems to be that they are all kind of unreliable in some capacity or extremely limited in their usage
an addendum - what is the deal with dolby atmos as an app when used with a stereo headset? does it simulate surround?
edit: headsets iāve looked at include
Steel Series - the 9X seems cool but doesnāt work crossplatform. the 7X does work on everything, but the sound quality takes a hit, it seems, and it is also out of stock everywhere and more expensive than the 9X
HyperX Cloud Alpha - these seem kind of ideal, but they arenāt wireless (not the end of the world) and are only stereo (this is why i asked about Atmos)
and then thereās MSās Xbox Wireless Headset, which looks kind of perfect for something at about $100, but it apparently has horrible latency issues
so iām stuck
I have a first generation HyperX Cloud from back when it was like, by far the best cheap option, and Iām glad I got it then, because I gather the space has gotten muddier since. I really like it, itās comfortable, I like that it came with both a regular headphone cord and its own decent USB DAC (Iām told the new USB DACs they ship them with are worse), I pretty much use that or Portapros or Airpod Pros depending on what Iām doing
if it helps, one thing I can tell you is that really good cross-platform wireless audio does not exist, because of the limitations of Bluetooth, and I definitely get higher fidelity, lower latency sound from the HyperX than I do off of my airpods, even though I really like the airpods and use them a lot of the time for other stuff.
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and āreally goodā in this context means, better than the equivalent of being resampled to 192khz AAC with 80ms latency. thatās good enough to make up for its shortcomings with really good isolation and strong mids, which the Airpod Pros have, but I think weāre still a couple major Bluetooth revisions away from me wanting to invest in the equivalent wireless Sennheiser over-ear product for gaming and everything else.
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yeah iām not even really married to the headphones being wireless (iād prefer it, but not a deal breaker if it means less latency issues), but even in the case of say, the SteelSeries 9X, the analog cable doesnāt carry the mic input.
this is what makes this tough; if i have to get something console specific, iād rather not spend a lot, but i also donāt want something that will hurt my ears after a short amount of usage or that sounds like total crap.
iām leaning HyperX because i guess if my main goal is to stream and chat in multiplayer with friends, i will probably not care so much about fully-immersive 3D audio and could just as easily use a good pair of headphones i already own if i wanna do that.
just seems bizarre to me that the landscape is soā¦incongruous.
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atmos is just software that simulates surround with the Doppler effect. very very few headsets do surround in hardware. licensing atmos for the OS, dongle, or game is standard. donāt get tripped up on it.
the landscape for console headsets sucks because of licensing for each console, hence everything is Xbox/PC or PlayStation/PC
I like the Sennheiser PC38X from Massdrop which I believe you can drive off of a controllerās 3.5mm jack.
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Looks like the only ones with planar drivers run $300 (sheesh!) so itāll be some time before thereās a real hardware shift in sound quality/clarity
I also really appreciate that the Sennheisers are open-back so Iām not isolated with them on, may be a benefit or drawback for you
We have a couple of HyperX sets in my family and theyāre fine but distinctly game accessory in build. Not a fan of the faux leather
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If youāre streaming, would you be sitting down at a desk? Mic arms arenāt that expensive, and a good quality microphone+studio monitor headphones will get you great audio quality coming and going.
I know this probably isnāt going to cover every case, like sitting down at a couch and playing online, but I use this at my desktop and Iām extremely happy with my setup. Everything else I just use a pair of decent quality wired earbuds with, although Iām scared the days of those are nearing their end.
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https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32809743166.html
re cheap wired earbuds, get these, you wonāt regret it
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actually hype for these thx
gaming on a couch, so not super easy to set up a mic without some effort. i could set it up on my dinner tray/table i guess haha. iād considered doing the mic thing a while back when i wanted to stream with friends, but if i have to wear headphones anyway to deal with noise and echoing, iād rather it be an all-in-one thing.
open back vs closed is kind of irrelevant to me. less outside noise is better to me, but my place isnāt too noisy to begin with, so it wonāt make much of a difference.
do the Sennheisers have an ability to control the audio mix of gameplay and chat?
they do not, sorry. theyāre just a very good ādumbā analog headset with a volume wheel and mic raise-to-mute
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the idea of not just having to twiddle with this in software on a game by game basis seems like a fantasy
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Iām no audiophile, but Iāve been pretty happy using Avantree aptx Bluetooth headphones with their USB aptx dongle. Theyāre fairly affordable, and the latency is imperceptible to me. But theyāre not perfect products, and theyāre fulfilled by Amazon (if that matters to you) even when ordering from Avantreeās website.
The first pair I had were about $80 Canadian, and they sounded good to me. They felt ok to wear. The battery suddenly dropped from ~20 to 0.5 hours playtime after 1.5 years and out of warranty, but I kept using the headphones wired for a year or two after that till the lining on the headband and ear cups started to come apart. This model is discontinued, as far as I can tell.
I now have the Audition Pro, which are $100 Canadian. They are super comfortable, and they sound really good to me. Iāve only had them a month or two, so no idea if Iāll encounter the same battery issue, but this time the warranty is 2 years.
The aptx Bluetooth dongle is a separate purchase. I think there are a few options. I have one that works with Switch, PC, and I think PlayStation and Xbox. Both models of headphone Iāve used tend to immediately disconnect and quickly reconnect to the dongle every time on startup, but otherwise the connection is reliable and the latency imperceptible to my eyes and ears.
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Bluetoothās latency issue is a bigger issue than quality but I also struggle to stop/start speaking quickly anyway
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thanks, all. so based off here and twitter friends, it mostly seems like the headset i really want only exists in my head, so i will mull over all the suggestions here and figure out which detail is least important in my equation.