After their successful Kickstartercampaign, Lighthouse Pictures will be releasing their video game documentary on January 1th, 2015.
World 1-1: The Pioneers covers the early days of video gaming, when arcades happily munched on the week’s allowances. Film makers Jeanette Garcia and Daryl Rodriguez interview some of the biggest names of the era, such as Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, Dona Bailey, Warren Robinett, David Crane, Howard Scott Warshaw, Owen Rubin, Joe Decuir, Franz Lanzinger, and Steve Mayer.
World 1-1: The Pioneers will be released digitally on January 15th, 2015. No word what distribution services will be carrying the film and how much copies will cost. Learn more about the film at the official World 1-1 website.
The magical girl genre is something that many anime fans are familiar with. Anime fans who grew up in the 1990s in particular will almost definitely have seen at least one certain influential magical girl series. Even so, recent series in the genre do not garner the same amount of attention as they used to. Some manage to become mainstream viewing within the western anime community, but others remain obscure and known only to a small group of anime fans. Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya is one such series and therefore less likely to become as popular as a shounen series, but at the same time, it is a spin-off of the increasingly popular Fate/Stay Night series. Does this magical girl series have enough going for it to warrant a purchase, or is this series best left as a title for only dedicated fans of the Fate series to collect?
Story
Illyasviel von Einzbern is a fifth-grader who wonders what it would be like to be a magical girl. Somehow hearing her talk about this, the magical Kaleidostick Ruby becomes interested in her and eventually convinces Illya to become her master after leaving the mage Rin Tousaka. Illya agrees to help Rin find the five Class Cards that still need to be found, after some inappropriate name calling, and the Kaleidostick Sapphire shows up with Miyu as her master soon after leaving the mage Luviagelita Edelfelt. Miyu then transfers into Illya’s class at school and just happens to move into a mansion that suddenly appears across from Illya’s house. This is only the beginning of this series’ bizarreness.
This series is extremely problematic at times. It depicts a group of fifth-grade students who for some reason have knowledge of sexual themes, and Illya is depicted as having an inappropriate sexual lust for her brother. Throughout the majority of these episodes, they are mostly presented as innocent characters who embody the sweet, adorable nature that children in real life have. There is also a lot of clean humour present in scenes set in the classroom; any scene involving Illya’s friend Tatsuko being nonsensical yet absolutely hilarious. However, class 5-1 teacher Taiga has some very clear anger management issues, another problematic element of this supposedly cute series and one that is played up in the dub.
Illya’s cuteness not only serves as a way of showing her innocent nature but as a foil to Miyu’s shy and seemingly cold nature. Miyu’s past is not discussed much in this season, and only towards the end of it are even the smallest of details about her actually mentioned. What is revealed about her is that she had no place to stay, suggesting that something happened to her parents in the past. Losing one’s parents would cause any child to feel lonely and find it difficult to open up to anyone, but Illya’s kind-hearted nature helps Miyu become close to her. This is one of the few things this series does well; it shows the power of friendship without coming across as overly contrived for dramatic purposes.
Visuals
Silver Link has clearly put a great deal of effort into the animation of this series. The character designs are easy to distinguish, and many scenes are beautifully animated and great at showing off the cuteness of the characters. The backgrounds are relatively average, but the design of the mirror world is effective at evoking a sense of darkness and danger, a sense that Illya so clearly feels as the series progresses.
What is disappointing with the visuals are the scenes in which the cuteness is replaced by extremely inappropriate content. Illya is shown naked, albeit with hair and a bath toy acting as censorship. Some such scenes occur in the bath, although at one point she takes her top off and jumps on Miyu in her bedroom for no good reason. This scene could be interpreted in two different ways. It may simply be a representation of a child’s innocence causing them to be unaware of the issue with what they are doing, or it may be a deliberately perverted act. Either way, its presence in an anime is disturbing and calls into question just how cute and innocent these characters really are.
Audio
The audio is the best element of this series overall. Every last piece of background music composed by Tatsuya Katou is fantastic and perfectly suited to the series. The opening song, “Starlog” by ChouCho, is one of the best anime songs in recent years, as is the insert song from episode nine, “Kagami” (“Mirror”), also by ChouCho. Both “Prism Sympathy” and “Tsunagu Kizuna – Tsutsumu Kodoku” by StylipS are average pop songs, however.
The English dubbed version is almost perfect, a pleasant surprise given the amount of terrible or average English dubs out there. Cynthia Martinez gives a standout performance as Illya, managing to capture her supposed innocence, cuteness, sweetness and fear perfectly. Brittney Karbowski also puts a lot of energy and effort into her performance as Illya’s classmate Tatsuko, a hyperactive girl who spouts random nonsense whenever she appears. As is typical with English dubs, Japanese names are consistently mispronounced. However, all other names, including the long names that some characters have, are pronounced without any apparent issues.
Extras
This release comes with a few on-disc extras that are worth checking out. As well as the textless opening animation sequence and the three textless ending animation sequences, the OVA episode “Sports Day” is included. As is expected with OVAs, this episode does not exist for plot purposes. It simply allows viewers to see the characters they like having a good time doing something mostly harmless, with emphasis on ‘mostly’.
The episode follows Illya and her friends as they prepare for their upcoming sports day, and in particular as they train for the dancing component of it. Unfortunately, more of the series’ disturbing ‘humour’ returns here as Illya’s friends discuss the sexual connotations of the word ‘meat’. The supposed innocence of the fifth-graders is one of the better elements of this series, making their knowledge of such a thing seem unrealistic and clearly contrived by a person with a perverted sense of humour. If nothing else, fans of the hyperactive Tatsuko will enjoy the slightly increased screen-time she receives in this OVA.
Overall
Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya is about a sweet child who wants to be a magical girl, only to discover that being one actually requires an immense amount of energy, concentration, bravery and resolve. It delivers important messages about what friendship means and how one should treat their friends. The one major strike against it is the sexual themes, and the inappropriate sexual behaviour of Illya, which is most prominently featured in episodes one, seven and ten. All of this unfortunately makes it impossible to be able to genuinely recommend that it be watched by anyone. The sexualisation of the young characters is simply too disturbing. Furthermore, it is jarring compared to the otherwise cute nature of the show, and it will likely only get worse from here.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Author’s Note: The original score provided for this review was incorrect, and has been updated by the author to reflect Capsule Computers’ ongoing commitment to providing reliable reviews for its readers.
An opening animation video has been released for the upcoming action role playing game God Eater 2 Rage Burst. The video was uploaded to the official Bandai Namco Games YouTube channel and can be seen below.
The video is accompanied by a rock music track and displays a host of characters that we can expect to play as when the game is released.
God Eater 2 Rage Burst is not strictly a new game, but rather an enhanced edition of the original game God Eater 2. The enhanced edition will introduce a new chapter to the story, titled Rage Burst, as well as a new game mechanic which will expose a new set of buffs to be used in combat. Another interesting addition to note is that the game will utilise the DualShock 4 controller speakers for NPC audio.
God Eater 2 Rage Burst will be released in Japan next month on February 19th, available for the PlayStation 4 and Vita platforms.
Anyone that tried to play any of their PlayStation consoles online over Christmas Day and Boxing Day might have experienced that they couldn’t log in, rendering all online games and online required services (such as Foxtel Play) completely useless. Sony is feeling a bit generous after the holiday break and has decided to offer some compensation for those affected.
First up, anyone that held an active PS Plus subscription or trial on December 25th will get an extra 5 days added to their subscription. It will be applied automatically and you will still get it if your subscription expires before the extension is released by Sony.
Secondly, everyone that has a PSN account will receive a one use 10% off discount code to use on anything in the PlayStation store. This voucher will take 10% off your total cart purchase as opposed to just one item so it’s a pretty neat offer. Further details on both the one use discount code and when the PS Plus extension will be applied are expected later this month.
The PlayStation Network and Xbox Live were both down during the Christmas break, reportedly in a deliberate DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack by a group named Lizard Squad who admitted the attack was mostly for fun but also to show the weakness of the online infrastructures that these major corporations run despite receiving huge profits from their customers. A man linked to the hacking group was recently arrested on related Cyber fraud charges. What do you think about their actions or Sony’s compensation for the outages? Let us know in the comments below.
Subscribers of the Elder Scrolls Online will now notice that they can no longer purchase 6 month subscriptions. Bethesda decided to alter the subscription options on its site without any forewarning to existing players. Subscription periods are now limited to 30 day and 90 day subscriptions as a result of this change.
Although there is no comment from official channels, a moderator on the French forums for the game has explained the change was due to players preferring the shorter subscription options.
As a result of this change there are now, understandably, rumours that the game will soon adapt to the free to play model. There has been a history of popular MMO titles in the past that have changed to a free to play model, only after removing the longest subscription periods. Developers choose this method because it limits the number of agitated players who have paid a significant sum of money for a longer subscription. Players will not be too happy if they have several months of subscription left when the game they are paying for chooses the free to play route.
For those who have yet to try the Elder Scrolls in an MMO environment, the game is available through Steam.
Studio Ghibli is one of the most famous animation studios in the world, producing many films that continue to amaze and inspire people today. Although Hayao Miyazaki himself states that he prefers creating films for children, many adults can list at least one film by Studio Ghibli that they enjoy. Is this documentary therefore something that everyone can enjoy, or is it best watched by only those who consider themselves dedicated fans of Studio Ghibli’s works?
Content
Mami Sunada was allowed access to Studio Ghibli in order to observe Hayao Miyazaki as he worked on his final film, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises), and producer Toshio Suzuki as he handled many different tasks. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is not solely a behind-the-scenes documentary of the film, however, nor does it focus entirely on the history of Studio Ghibli. It provides an insight into the mind of one of the world’s greatest creative geniuses and into the workplace of Studio Ghibli. For example, we see Hayao Miyazaki and many Ghibli employees doing the popular Japanese radio calisthenics known as Rajio Taisou. We see the interactions between Hayao Miyazaki and both those he works with and his friends. We get an insight into how the production was coming along with Isao Takahata’s film Kaguya-Hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya) while this was being filmed. We witness an interview between Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro Miyazaki and a producer in which we find out just how Goro feels about being a director and why he directed two films for Studio Ghibli. Mami Sunada here has managed to pack an immense amount of content into her documentary without causing it to drag on or feel too short.
Throughout the documentary, we witness the lives that the people at Ghibli lead, the interactions they have with each other and Hayao Miyazaki’s philosophies about various things. We also get to see old footage and photographs of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki as they met and worked together on films in the past. This documentary does not simply provide an insight into how Hayao Miyazaki works and what goes on at Studio Ghibli; it manages to get across many important messages about work and life and even shows us the relaxed life of Ushiko, the cat considered to be an ‘unofficial’ resident of Studio Ghibli.
Where this documentary truly succeeds is in its presentation of the various aspects of Hayao Miyazaki’s life. We watch him creating storyboards and we listen to him talking about Isao Takahata, his father, his friends and Hideaki Anno, among others. We also hear some of his political opinions and his opinion on otaku, and we see his daily routine as well. He shows up to work at the same time each morning and leaves at the same time each night as well. During the day, he finds time to wave to the children at the on-site kindergarten and he never fails to keep up his daily schedule. We are given the privilege of seeing his home when he heads home at night and what he does with his spare time, such as making a photo album with pictures of ordinary things he took when actually setting out to document the impact of the Great Depression of 2008. This documentary gives us a rare and fascinating look at nearly every aspect of Hayao Miyazaki’s life.
Visuals
The visuals here are flawless. Not all posters seen throughout the documentary are subtitled, however notices in the building are, as well as the ending song of Kaze Tachinu, which can be heard on multiple occasions. There are no issues with the subtitles themselves, as expected from Studio Ghibli. End credits are left in their original Japanese with only a few credits translated into English in the subtitles. This is unfortunate, but not unusual. The shots of Hayao Miyazaki working, the rooftop of Studio Ghibli and the cat Ushiko for example are all fantastic with no issues whatsoever existing with the camerawork. The only downside to Madman’s release is that it is DVD only, so anyone wishing to own a Blu-ray of the documentary may wish to purchase the region-free and English-subtitled Japanese release, available for 5,800 yen outside Japan.
Audio
The audio with this release, as with the visuals, leaves nothing to be desired. Hideaki Anno is shown providing a sample of his voice after Hayao Miyazaki opens up to the idea of hiring him to be the voice of Kaze Tachinu’s protagonist Jiro Horikoshi. It is a ‘weird’ voice that Hayao Miyazaki himself stated would take some getting used to, but it seems to work. The music throughout the documentary, composed by Masakatsu Takagi, is excellent and perfectly suited to the shots it accompanies, even if it is not at the same level as Joe Hisaishi’s music is.
Extras
This release comes with some fascinating on-disc extras. In addition to the theatrical trailer and a two-minute digest video, a 32-minute mini-documentary called ‘Ushiko Investigates!’ is included. While technically an extra, this can easily be seen as an extension of the documentary itself as it shows more of the production process. The main difference from the main feature is that it is told from the point-of-view of Ushiko via subtitles. This extra will undoubtedly be enjoyed by any fan wishing to see more of the behind-the-scenes work on Kaze Tachinu, which includes a discussion between Hayao Miyazaki and legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, as well as a live recording of one of the pieces of music he composed for the film.
Overall
The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is an engaging documentary about not only the production of Kaze Tachinu, but also about many different aspects of Hayao Miyazaki’s life and how he and Isao Takahata met. It provides an in-depth insight into the mind of the person who has created so many masterpieces that stand the test of time and discussions about Isao Takahata, a person who does not actually appear at the main building of Studio Ghibli very often. Anyone wanting to find out how a film is produced at Studio Ghibli or wanting to learn more about Hayao Miyazaki will not be disappointed with this documentary.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
If you are one of the millions of people worldwide who are dying to get stuck into Master Chief’s next outing (then lets be honest you are probably playing the Halo 5 Beta right now instead of reading this) then you will be excited to hear that Microsoft and EB Games have announced a special, very limited collector’s edition for the upcoming Halo 5 – Guardians.
For the rrp of $329.95, players can get a copy of the game and a limited, collector’s numbered statue of a certain character from the game. Although we don’t know much else at this point, I am already excited (and I don’t even play Halo). These are sure to go fast, so make sure you put in your pre-order ASAP.
Will you be gunning down aliens in the next Halo installment next year, and if so will you be picking up this sweet collector’s edition? Let us know in the comments below and make sue you stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the Halo news as it becomes available.
Indie developer Spiderweb Software is set to release a new RPG, Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. Spiderweb has stated that the game will feature over 40 hours of new content, furthering the story from Avernum: Escape from the Pit. However, the story is self-contained, and players new to the series will not be missing out if they haven’t played prior games.
Avernum 2 will bring over 100 new towns and dungeons, as well as a large underworld brimming with nations and cultures. There will be 3 main story quests, and players will be able to choose to do just one, or all three. Loot and magic are also a huge part of the game, with a generous number of spells and combat styles, as well as character perks and progression. Combat is turn-based, rather than active, and characters move on a grid-system. The sprite graphical design and isometric viewpoint bring to mind games like the older Fallout Series, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights.
The Avernum games are notable for being independently made, yet offering just as much depth as any of the Baldur’s Gate type of games. The series is notable for having unique races and settings compared to many other adventure & RPG fantasy series.
Avernum 2: Crystal Souls will be available on PC and Mac January 2015. It will also see an iPad release sometime in early 2015. Bookmark their store page, and keep an eye out on Steam and the iOS store.
Today a new trailer was released for Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance and unlike past snippets, this one contains nearly six minutes of gameplay footage that focuses mostly on the combat aspect of the game and the various characters and techniques that we will be using once the game is released in Japan as well as in the West by NIS America.
Also revealed are a number of new classes and monsters that will be included in Disgaea 5. This includes a Sage, shown above, that focuses on attacking many enemies at once, dealing extra damage the more she target also revealed is a Wrestler that specializes in throws. Some of the new monsters include a Hare, a two headed Dragon, and a Rider that looks similar to a headless horseman.
Habitat is a quirky physics based strategy game from 4gency and Versus Evil (The Banner Saga). The game is currently in Early Access alpha and was funded with the help of a Kickstarter campaign held earlier in the year. Players are given a randomly generated patch of space junk and some engineers to create a habitat that will help them survive.
After a quick tutorial, players are given an initial space station to serve at the core of their new space station. There are four main resources to manage: Omni for ammunition and purchases, electricity, fuel, and population for engineers. Some parts can be ordered for a small fee of Omni, but most of the building materials used in construction will be scavenged from the nearby junk field. Attached space junk will help generate resources over time. Some have special abilities that will interact with the world, such as weapons, rockets, and robot arms, at a cost of resources.
Players cobble together their space ships with the junk floating around in space by having their engineers weld in attachment points. Each piece of junk has a few pre-determined attachment points. Once an item has been selected and brought close enough to a valid attachment point, the game will automatically orient the object in the closest valid configuration. Further configuration can rotate the module in exactly the angle you desire. I did notice that it is not always clear why a module cannot be placed at a certain angle, especially when the model on the screen looks clear of any interference. A small error message in the chat box would be appreciated here.
Once the first ship is configured to the player’s liking, a small number of simple quests can be started at the nearest space station. At this point in time, the quests do not provide much in story. Quests range from peaceful activities likes picking up and dropping off pieces of junk and clearing out enemies. Players can earn a small rewards for completing quests.
Habitat relies heavily on its physics engine. All of the junk seems to have its own mass that will affect how each space station handles. Stack too many pieces on one side of the station and it will need more thrusters attached to that side to move the station forward. Shoot an object with a missile and it will bounce away from the force of the explosion. Some of the hit boxes are a little off. A few seem to be smaller than the actual model itself. The physics engine is really what makes the gameplay shine. It is entertaining to just watch your insane creation interact with the world.
The premise of Habitat is an absolute riot. It sort of reminds me of the monstrous Lego creations I would make as a child, cobbling different sets of Lego together into a strange Star Wars/Indiana Jones hybrid. There is something hilarious about flying a space shuttle armed with a tank, a burger shack, and enough rockets to send it all to kingdom come if someone lit a match in the wrong place.
The controls are simple to learn. The camera is moved around using the WASD/mouse layout and several ability icons line the bottom left corner of the screen. For the most part, the game intelligently chooses idle engineers for the task. Once in a while, the player may opt to send a specific engineer to complete a task. Sending single ones is easy if zoomed in close enough; however, there is no way to assign groups of engineers to a single task, like disassembling an enemy ship.
Steam Workshop has been integrated into Habitat. Currently, gamers can use the in game tool to import .fbx files from popular 3D modelling software like 3ds Max, Maya, and Blender and then skin them with .PNG files. Once the files are imported into the game, players just need to assign a health and mass value and are ready to go. The mod tools lets players share their creations with just a click of a button. The less creative among us can use Steam Workshop to download new junk to add to their world. Adding mods to my world was just as painless as creating the junk. I just needed to select which items I wanted to download through Steam Workshop, then go into the modded junk menu and tick off which ones I wanted to appear in my world.
Habitat is looking pretty slick so far. It is not the most beautiful game of the year, but the sheer variety of junk available makes up for it. The UI is simple and works well. The music and sound effects are descent, though the real surprise is the high quality voice acting for the engineers. There are several sets of voices, which reinforces the individuality of each uniquely named engineer.
Habitat is a quirky sandbox game with a bright future. The quirky premise is great fun and will appeal to the kid in all of us. The simple to use mod tools is the icing on the cake. There are still some minor bugs and some hit box oddities that could be ironed out, but the game is surprisingly well polished, considering it only at v0.5 at the time of writing.
