What I Bought 8/29/2026 - Part 2

I bought Outlast off the Playstation store several months ago. Fortunately when it was on sale, because I didn't get very far before I concluded it wasn't for me. I expected it to be tense, but I didn't realize how frustrated I'd get with the gameplay. I know I don't love first-person perspective for stealth games, but I guess Thief and Dishonored at least giving the option to defend yourself if you blow it blunted the dissatisfaction more than I thought. Not a choice with Outlast. All you can do is run, or hide, and it's just too tense. 

Vampyrates! #2, by Fred van Lente (writer), Luca Pizzari (artist), Adam Guzowski (colorist) Jodie Troutman (letterer) - Kind of wish the bats were forming into the jolly roger, or vice versa.

This issue is mostly former Empress Nira figuring out her current situation. She's on a pirate ship, with a captain (Akeyo) who knows Nira is who she claims to be, and not just some nut. Akeyo has no interest in letting Nira leave, to say nothing of following her commands. That Nira can't place Akeyo - meaning, she doesn't realize Akeyo was serving as a privateer for Nira, who got listed as an enemy because nobody told Akeyo the war was over - probably isn't helping. Or maybe it is. Akeyo could want the person she's angry with to actually remember her, and understand why, before taking revenge.

End result, Nira is part of the crew now. Specifically, part of a gunnery crew, with a little blonde vamp called Longlocks. And she's getting some practice in a hurry, because they attack a ship carrying tithes. Which is to say walking blood bags, aka, humans. There's also an area locked off, but it seems to be full, not of gold, but "rotters." Which I guess are vampires that are dead and mindless? Zombie vampires. Seems like they'd be easier to kill, lacking much in the way of thought or coordination, but still messy.

Fight scenes are brief, mostly implied by a panel of Nira looking on in shock as blood flies. That page is the only one where Pizzari's panels aren't square or rectangular, with the sides parallel to the edges of the page. They're slanted or angled instead, as maybe being this up-close to pirate warfare is unsettling to a coddled royal, even one that's good with a blade.

But Nira ends up saving one of the crew, and took care of the rotters by setting the ship ablaze (to destroy all the bounty posters with her picture on them that she found), so she's made some friends. Now if she can only figure out what Akeyo stands to gain by letting the humans slip away at night in a longboat.

So van Lente's throwing a lot of stuff in, and not necessarily stopping to explain all of it. Which makes sense. Odds are most of Akeyo's crew has seen all this before, and they aren't the types to stop and explain to the "crazy" newbie. But yeah, a lot of place names, a lot of concepts where I'm not totally sure of the context.