Asura Review

Asura is one of the lowest states of rebirth in Buddhism; an existence of violence and force. It’s also the name of a Manga banned for most of its run for its graphic depiction of violence and cannibalism. It’s now been adapted into a fantastic movie.

The movie is set in 15th century Japan, and famine, drought and hardships are the setting for this story. It gets to a very strong start with a very malnourished and dehydrated pregnant woman giving birth in an old temple then resorting to cannibalism to survive and then trying to eat her own baby before realizing what she’s about to do and running away, leaving the baby there to fend for itself. Not one for the kids. Continue reading Asura Review

009 RE: CYBORG Review

Cyborg 009 is a manga by Shotaro Ishinomori, creator of other works such as Skull Man and the various Tokusatsu superhero shows in Japanese television, such as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai (aka Power Rangers).

Cyborg 009 tells the story of a group of people abducted and transformed into Cyborgs by the international arms-dealing organization Black Ghost to sell as weapons. The cyborgs escape and take the fight to their creators and try to save the world from them.

The manga has been adapted numerous times, as TV series and films, the latest of which I just saw yesterday. 009 RE: Cyborg, which I thought was going to be a revival but turned out to be jumbled mess of a farewell. Continue reading 009 RE: CYBORG Review

Man of Steel Review

Let’s get something out of the way: I’m not a Superman fan. I loved to hate him, finding him bland and uninteresting. At least until the New 52 reboot and the “new” Superman who’s exponentially more interesting and human and surprisingly relatable.

With that said, you’ll understand how glad I am to say this: Man of Steel fucking rocks! It has to be the best Superman movie ever made. Move aside Chris Reeve, you’ve been dethroned; and Tom Welling, you might still hold the title for best Clark Kent, having played the guy for 10 years, but Henry Cavill is at least snapping at your heels if not completely overtaken you. Continue reading Man of Steel Review

Stuff I like

Aside from Gaming and Writing and complaining about my crappy weeks, I have other things I enjoy, and I wanted to show my support to them by talking to you all about them.

Miracle of Sound: One of my obsessions lately. Miracle of Sound is one of the many and varied and highly entertaining stuff the Escapist Magazine has to offer.

Gavin Dunne aka Miracle of Sound composes and performs (mostly) videogame inspired songs, with cool videos using gameplay, promotional or in-game cinematic footage from the source material.
Gav’s music is fantastic, from a multitude of games and movies to original songs (by which I mean not inspired by anything but his own spark of insanity), and in pretty much every genre and style you can imagine, from the strangely alluring “Khajiit Like to Sneak” from Skyrim (the first song I heard actually) to the classic rock “My Iron Skin” inspired by Iron Man 3. Gavin isn’t afraid to mix things up and take risks, such as mixing native chants in with his Assassin’s Creed 3 songs, or collaborating with other singers on his Bioshock Infinite song, to switching musical styles and tones on the fly on the same piece, the aforementioned Bioshock Infinite song being a perfect example. Continue reading Stuff I like

Ys Series Review

In the past few months I’ve discovered a new game series which I may have mentioned a dozen times by now. They’re not new games; in fact they go way back to the 80s.

Ys

Developed by Nihon Falcom, Ys is a long series of eight games released and re-released in the span of 20+ years. While most games in the series never made it out of Japan, thanks to the good fellas at XSEED Games, we’re slowly getting most of them on this side of the pond.

I first found out about the series not through gaming sites or any such media, but through Steam Specials and Sales, and saw The Oath in Felghana on sale. At the moment I didn’t buy it, I was so broke I couldn’t even afford this relatively inexpensive game. Then Ys Origin released and at another sale I nabbed them both. I decided to give Origin a try. I loved it. I’ll get into details later on. I was about to go into Felghana when I found out it was a remake/reimagining/epic-scale-upping of Ys III. I had a dilemma, how could I play this game without I & II? Luckily for me, Ys I & II Chronicles+ released on steam a few months later, so I bought it at once and started playing through it. I finished Felghana and Ys II a couple of months ago, so I’ll review them while my mind is fresh with the memories of hours spent addicted to the mechanics and story and characters.

Let’s being with Ys I & II Chronicles+. Continue reading Ys Series Review

The Star Wars Prequels…and how to fix them…

It’s no secret everyone pretty much hates the Star Wars prequels. I personally like them, but I admit they’re flawed, in both minor and major stuff. I actually like everything that’s been done beyond the movies themselves, i.e. Expanded Universe, like the Clone Wars animated series for example. With the recent Disney acquisition of Lucas Inc., I’ve been mulling over the reason why I have certain issues with the backstory trilogy.

On the outset the Anakin-Trilogy wasn’t a bad idea. Darth Vader is THE iconic Star Wars character, and knowing where he came from was a fantastic project. Sadly, it was a very badly executed good idea. Let’s see why and how it could be fixed (If Lucas can make Greedo shoot first, they can alter the entire trilogy): Continue reading The Star Wars Prequels…and how to fix them…

In Defence of the Silent Protagonist

Silent heroes are a video game staple, from the days when there wasn’t really much of a choice to the modern days where their use is deliberate. Some silent heroes make sense while others don’t, and I’ll go through a few of them in this piece, as well as explain why the Silent Hero is such a good thing, why we need silent heroes in video games.

Silent Heroes such as Link, Gordon Freeman, Adol Christin and Crono from Chrono Trigger to mention a few have been used in the past to enhance the immersion of the player. Some characters aren’t completely mute; they react, like Link silently answering the question “What’s your name?” which makes him seem he’s telepathic or something. Same with Adol Christin from the Ys series, he never says anything, but when prompted, a text-box appears saying “Adol explained the situation and introduced himself” or something similar. You never get to see him actually saying things, but you know he’s saying them. In fact, Link could use that as well, give at least some indication the guy’s talking. Some others, like Crono, Freeman and the Marine from Doom, never say a single word and if they do (within the game world), you’re never given any indication it actually happens.

Continue reading In Defence of the Silent Protagonist

The word Tolerance…and Respect

If there’s a post that’ll cost me my low amount of readers, this is it! But what the hell, I live to write!

I had a random thought this morning (an especially dangerous event): Why do we use the word tolerant and tolerance when used with different lifestyles? Why not acceptance? Tolerance by definition means the ability to live with things you don’t approve of, and that’s the root of the problem, why don’t we just approve and move on?

(By the way I’m talking about our run-of-the-mill lifestyles like different religion, sexuality or political affiliation. If your lifestyle involves skinning people alive, you’ll find me really intolerant if not violent towards you.)

It’s not a hard thing to do, if you don’t accept it, there’s a high probability it’s because your God doesn’t like it. That or you’re just a dickhead. Or both, maybe you’re a dickhead and hide behind your god for justification, in which case I say unto thee, welcome Westboro Baptist Church members, have a look around, this site if filled with magic and wonder, or in your words, THE DEVIL!!!

With the obligatory inflaming Westboro comment out of the way, let’s resume. Continue reading The word Tolerance…and Respect

Extremis-t: My thoughts on Iron Man 3 (spoilers)

WARNING: Spoilers & Intelligent arguments, so if those aren’t exactly your cup of tea, now’s the time to jump ship!

I liked Iron Man 3, I thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said, I have some issues with it. Let me explain.

When I first read that the plot involved The Mandarin and Extremis, I was stoked. I’m a hard-core Iron Man fan, and the Extremis storyline is in my Top 10, as is The Mandarin on my villain list. I wasn’t entirely convinced on the idea of mixing the story arc with that villain, but I was willing to give it a shot.

I abstained from watching any trailer, as I didn’t want to get my hopes or expectations through the roof. I only saw the first, the reveal trailer and I like what I saw. The Mandarin appeared almost in darkness and you couldn’t make out his features, not precisely, so as far as I knew, he could be the Chinese guy I remembered.

What I saw tonight was both awesome and not so much. Continue reading Extremis-t: My thoughts on Iron Man 3 (spoilers)

Hardcore…

A week or so ago while working on the Dark Souls reviews I was reading up on sources, finding images and looking at videos. I found that “Hardcore game” was a common description for it and it got me thinking. Nowadays games aren’t only classified in genres or length or even good or bad, but also casual and hardcore, and gamers only go for Harcore games and wouldn’t touch a casual with a ten foot pole, maybe afraid of catching casualitis or something.

At which point in time did hardcore become synonymous with mature? When did Call of Duty become hardcore but Sonic, Mario or Zelda, or any other number of games did not? It seems that if there isn’t blood, guts and profanity then it’s not hardcore. Continue reading Hardcore…