Could Noragami be heading towards the god-tier of anime? Pardon the pun, but Noragami is just so damn good that its hard not to ponder how this series can get any better. Every single week, Noragami tops the last.
The alchemy of the series is made up of a multitude of other anime classics. However that combination is then stirred with the deftest of accuracy resulting in something truly fresh. It is the excellence of execution that makes Noragami arguably the best anime of this season.
This weeks episode of Noragami is undoubtedly the best episode yet. It throws some new elements into the mix and shakes the very foundations that the series has been built upon up until this point. With the introduction of the God of Misfortune and her regalia, we get some great comedic relief but there is a dark undertone to the proceedings of this episode and it only feels appropriate that this episode focuses on misfortune.
As I predicted last week, there is something dark underneath the surface with our friendly neighbourhood Stray God Yato. This is confirmed when the God of Misfortune reveals Yato’s dark past and his former dark-past regalia continues to make her presence felt. My interpretation of all this is quite simple really, Yato was once a God of War, however a horrific event caused him to change his ways, thus rejecting his regalia and taking on the mantle of ‘Delivery God’ with the aim of helping people as his own penance. It is a classic story for Noragami to pull, one straight out of Rurouni Kenshin might I add, but Noragami has so far stuck the landing with every single plot point to date and I see no reason why this will be any different.
Yato’s backstory is of course only given a glance, but it underscores an overall gleeful episode with plenty of hilarious moments. Perhaps the biggest laugh comes from a suicide attempt of all things. A man leaps to his death (with an accidental push from Yato no less) and proceeds to fall for an incredibly long time while exchanging pleasantries with Yato and going deep into his own personal backstory that led him to this point. Yukine hilariously comments continuously about how ridiculous the fall is and how long it is taking. Its probably one of Noragami’s best comedic moments to date in fact.
Our heroes of course save the young man’s life, but not before we learn of his connection to the God of Misfortune and the very real misfortune that she brought him. She makes for an interesting contrast to Yato. While she brings misfortune to those around her, Yato aims to help those around him. One does have to ask the question though, is Yato really any different from her? How long until Yato’s very own misfortune begins to poison the well and reach those around him?
Ultimately I must commend Noragami on another excellent episode. The intrigue was turned up to 11 and the laughs were bountiful in this 23 minutes of anime. The world of Noragami continues to expand and as the pieces are moving into place and the meaning behind each comes to light, I can’t help but find myself more and more intrigued by this complex world that lies between the Near and Far Shore.
While no real major antagonist has shown their face as of yet, with the half-way point in sight, Noragami looks to wrap up the preliminaries and get ready for the main exam. Will it pass the test or will all its promise prove for naught? If it can keep on pulling off episodes like this, I think Yato and pals will be getting straight A’s.
DINOBOTS! Article end… well, that’s literally all I have to say; Transformers fans need nothing else in order to get hyped for Paramount Pictures‘ Transformers: Age of Extinction. The Super Bowl spot for the fourth entry in the Michael Bay-directed film series has everyone excited (although little hope remains for any character development on the human side). And yes, that’s Optimus Prime riding Grimlock above.
You can check out the 30-second trailer embedded at the bottom of this article. Along with the Dinobot leader, what appears to be a two-headed version of Swoop (the pteranodon) is shown, as is the parachuting Crosshairs – the 2014 C7 Corvette Stingray – and our villain, a possible re-imagining of Galvatron (the long gun-barrel is reminiscent of his weaponised form). What’s interesting to note here is that there was an incarnation of Galvatron, who is essentially an upgraded Megatron, which could transform into a double-headed dragon in Transformers: Robots in Disguise. In this state, he was referred to as GigaDragon in Japan. So maybe our assumptions are wrong and we’ve incorrectly identified Swoop.
What do you guys think? Is this the 10-changer Galvatron? If so, will he turn into a hand like he did in the cartoon?!
The good folks over at Hanabee Entertainment, an Australian Anime distribution company and good friends of us here at Capsule Computers, are extremely excited to reveal that a new member has just joined their team. He’s a man that goes by the name of Carl Ardron. His career expertise will aid Hanabee in a big way especially when it comes to their new venture which just so happens to be, as the title mentions, in-house authoring and encoding. Don’t take it from me though, here’s a quote from Mr Ardron himself:
“As video entertainment becomes increasingly accessible and the modes of access more numerous the challenges to successfully meet customer expectation require a company to be agile, innovative and ambitious. It is also important to have fun whilst doing it. Hanabee has all these qualities and more. I look forward to working with Hanabee immensely.”
The whole company as well as their affiliates are shaking in anticipation just thinking about all the good that Carl can bring to the company in his new position. Hanabee Entertainment President and CEO, Eric Cherry stated: “Carl’s near-obsession over quality is something inspiring to be around. One of Hanabee’s central purposes is to set the benchmark in this area and I’m simply thrilled this opportunity to work together has emerged.”, clearly this means big things for the company and. Seeing how much they’ve grown in only a few short years we can only imagine it become stronger than ever. Congratulations on your new employee, Hanabee Entertainment, all the best moving into the future! For more info and a full range of products head to the Official Hanabee website by clicking here.
Dreamworks is putting the pedal to the metal in promoting the Need for Speedmovie, aiming to get your heart racing with the Super Bowl spot “Pulse”. You can view the 30-second, adrenaline-fueled trailer embedded at the bottom of this article.
Its story may be derivative and uninspired – the source material isn’t exactly Shakespearean – but clearly the production is focused on real, authentic racing and stunt-driving, as opposed to the highly outlandish sequences found in the Fast & Furious franchise. Death Proof was lauded for staging possibly the best car-chase in film, because it wasn’t CGI’d and there was an air of true danger as stuntwoman Zoey Bell was being flung side to side on the hood of a speeding car. Need for Speed may not feature such an individual, stand-out moment, but in the case of racing flicks, I’d choose realism vs computer generated any day.
Check out the smash-edited spot below and let us know what you think. I love the quick cuts marked by the sounds of each supercar’s engine.
Screw the Seattle Seahawks, Marvel won the Super Bowl! Although Captain America: The First Avenger was a solid movie, it is still considered one of the weaker entries in the Marvel film catalogue. Lately, there’s been an industry buzz about its sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and if its Super Bowl spot and new, full-length trailer is any indication, the hype is justified.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier “Big Game Spot”
The “big game spot” directly above is more of a tease for the official trailer #2 embedded at the bottom of this article (no studio is going to pay $20 million for a two and a half minute commercial, after all). In it we see the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) in flight, the Winter Soldier – James “Bucky” Barnes – ripping steering wheels out through car roofs with his metal arm and, most intriguingly, the god Captain (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) standing over a covered-up corpse. Who is the deceased? Could it be Coulson’s body after the events of the Avengers? Or Nick Fury perhaps? The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been known to fake his demise in the comics, and we do see him in immediate danger at the mercy of the Winter Soldier.
Watch the trailer below and let us know what you think!
For all these years no Dragon ball Z fan has ever known Goku’s full origins, yes we were introduced to his father before his untimely death and, yes, we know that he had a Superman-esque departure from his planet as a baby but we were never aware of the woman who carried this powerful child for 9 months or however long Saiyans stay in the womb, some of us probably never even though about her. Series creator Akira Toriyama has finally come out in an interview and given us the name of Goku’s mother. I would now like to introduce you to…Gine, the mother of Goku, the greatest hero Earth has ever seen. Toriyama explained that Gine was, oddly enough, a fairly gentle Saiyan which is unheard of seeing as the Saiyan race are supposed to be full of mindless brutes.
She actually fought in the same squad as Bardock (Goku’s Father) and eventually fell for him once she saw how heroic a man he can be. Love also happens to be another odd feeling for Saiyans with the race only ever mating strictly for reproductive purposes, I suppose Goku gets his human-like features from his dead Mother. Gine eventually gave up the warriors way to instead work at a meat distribution centre on the planet. She, like he rest of the inhabitants of Planet Vegeta, died thanks to the royal looser Frieza. Her character design has yet to be released but it WILL be coming on the 4th of April when “Jaco The Galactic Patrolman” the full Manga collection gets a release. Her image will be present somewhere in that collection as an extra so keep your eyes on the site for that one.
We here at Capsule Computers recently reported on some news that revolved around a little company called “IRL Shooter” who bring all the elements of a good zombie/Shooter game into reality so as to scare us while also giving us a glimpse of what it would be like to be the hero. A massive warehouse, state of the art faux-weaponry, hundreds of paid zombie/actors and a thrill you will remember for the rest of your days.
You can read about it in more detail by clicking here before moving on with the rest of the article. The folks over at “IRL Shooter” have heard what fans have to say about their thrilling experience and they’ve decided to add a few more awesome things into the mix just to make that experience all the more sweeter. The company has only just introduced three new promotions for Sydney players and each of them is enough to get any gamer/zombie fan excited:
· $50 “The Infected” Ticket – Become a zombie! For just $50, zombie enthusiasts will get the chance to be one of evil Dr. Klaas’s faithful undead horde with the aim of chasing players inside the game venue. Their infrared ‘bites’ will damage the players & earn the zombie points & XP for their character. Get your undead friends together now!
· Free Paintball – everyone who buys a full-priced ticket for IRL will get 10 free passes plus 100 free paintballs each (1000 for the whole group) – valued at over $500, courtesy of Ultimate Paintball. With two sites in Sydney, Ultimate Paintball are the biggest and best paintball fields in NSW. This deal gets you over $500 worth of FREE paintball for you and your squad. It’s the perfect way to train for IRL and it saves you money.
· The Vixen Gamer – everyone who buys a ticket in February will get the chance to play on a team with The Vixen Gamer (Clare Costigan). Clare is a writer, presenter and gamer; she recently signed to represent IRL Shooter online. Order your ticket this month and team up with Clare!
Fact is, “IRL Shooter” still needs a bunch of money to complete their kickstarter, if they don’t hit their target they wont be coming down to Sydney so I say to everyone out there: Head over to the “IRL Shooter” “Pozible” page to pre-order your tickets and back the kickstarter, there’s also a whole bunch of information there that you all may be into so it’s worth heading over there now just to check it out. Click here to go there now. We all cannot wait for this awesome “event” to head down to Sydney, if it is half as good as the Melbourne one than we’re in for one hellish apocalypse of a time! Get into it and start backing up “IRL Shooter” now!
Overview
Robot Entertainment had a couple of smashing successes on their hands with the popular third-person tower defense Orcs Must Die!franchise and strategy game Hero Academy. Now, they’re looking to port their latest iOS offering, a Diablo-esque space RPG called Echo Prime, over to the PC. Will Echo Prime resound throughout the halls of history or should it fall on deaf ears?
Gameplay Echo Prime was built on game mechanics that will likely feel familiar to anyone who’s given Blizzard’s Diablo series a go over the years. While it’s a tried and true formula, Echo Prime just doesn’t keep itself as exciting or interesting as the genre’s premiere offering in any way.
You are the head security officer on board a space ship. Chaos breaks loose, and in the final moments you hear a voice. She tells you she is the “prime echo”, and explains that echoes are beings from distant worlds which will lend you their power.
In the game itself, an “echo” literally translates straight into an ability. It can be something you manually activate (like a fireball attack) or a passive ability (such as increased armor by a percentage). At the beginning of the game, you can utilize only a single echo, with more unlocking slowly as you level up. After each mission, your echoes will gain points to level up right alongside you, ultimately giving you enhanced abilities and more money.
Beyond the echoes you can unlock (of which there are over 60), you can totally deck your character out with a wide range of guns, swords, armor, and helmets. There’s a standardized store you can buy a locked set of gear from – no loot hunting like games of this style typically have. Your character will actually change his look depending on your loadout, which is always a positive, but the lack of in-game drops hurts this game’s style.
Another hindrance to the game is the mission and level design. Echo Prime was clearly built with smart devices in mind. Missions are generally conquered by completing a series of corridors that usually take no more than a minute or so to beat. Each corridor will have a few enemies spaced out over it’s length, and defeating every enemy grants access to the next corridor. When you beat all of the corridors, you’ve completed the mission. They do throw some bosses in there for you to bat around, as well as a few alternate enemies or mission types (destroy alien eggs or survive arena waves), but it all ultimately leads to a boring, repetitive experience that rarely shows anything new.
Visuals & Audio
The graphics appear as though they would have been impressive to see on a handheld device. The port to high definition on the PC wasn’t nearly so kind, though. The character models lack much of the definition an outright PC game typically has. This also results in fewer, simpler textures. The effects look ok and the variety of echo portraits are interesting, but fighting the same enemies ad nauseum in the same space ship corridors quickly grows stale.
The sound design does nothing egregious to hamper the experience, but it’s ultimately a forgettable offering. There’s nothing that will leave you tapping your foot or going out of your way to dig up the soundtrack they include with the purchase of the game.
Overall
Overall, Echo Prime is clearly a mediocre PC port of a mobile game. The high definition version of the game does nothing visually impressive and the sound design is fairly forgettable. Endless uninteresting corridors with the same enemies over and over will have you ready to step away from the game within a handful of hours with it. If you get the game, you’ll likely have some fun with it for a little while, but you probably won’t stick with it long enough to complete the game.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
After showing off their demo at EB Expo 2013 last October, gamers can now check out the demo of Unhack. A four episode demo is available for free at developer’s InvertMouse’s website. The game is a cross between a Japanese visual novel and a puzzle game. Players will fight against the 5K Worm and save the internet in this ten episode game.
The game will be released on InvertMouse’s website in the coming days. In the mean time, be sure to check out the Steam Greenlight campaign and download the four episode demo here under “Play.” Unhack‘s demo is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Blackguards is the latest addition to The Dark Eye series. Originally a pen and paper RPG system, The Dark Eye has grown to include several video games. Blackguards is a mature tale about a group of convicted criminals running from the law while looking to save the world. The game features turn based strategic RPG battles using The Dark Eye’s rule system.
Story
Blackguards looks to shake up the classic hero saves the world trope by thrusting convicted criminals into the role of heroes of the world. Although I found the game had some very mature moments involving drugs, prostitution, torture, and murder, the overall plot was not nearly as dark as the description would suggest. There are definitely much darker and mature games out there in the market, but Blackguards chooses the slightly safer route of being just dark enough to easily earn itself a mature rating without being provocative or controversial.
The writing in Blackguards is a bit of a mixed bag. I found the beginning of the game to be a little silly, but the game manages to have some great moments. The writing improves as it goes, and is generally solid with a great cast of characters. Unfortunately, the more mundane writing of combat dialogue was overlooked. Each character has only a very small handful of sayings they will utter through the course of combat, which becomes very repetitive.
Gameplay
Blackguards will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played table top RPGs as the rule set is similar to classics like Dungeons & Dragons. There are two difficulty settings for Blackguards, one designed for veterans familiar with The Dark Eye’s rules and one for those new to the series that will automatically assign skill points based on a simplified version of the rule set. The game uses hex based combat maps and adventure style point and click gameplay for the story. Daedalic Entertainment is also behind the adventure game Chains of Satinav in The Dark Eye universe, which explains the setup. The point and click adventure mechanics are standard fare, with nothing to complain about.
The real star of the show is Blackguard’s combat system. Because the game uses The Dark Eye’s rule system, combat works smoothly and in a predictable manner. Roll for initiative, action phase, rinse, wash, repeat. Although Blackguards does a great job of reminding players that they are playing a video game version of a table top RPG, Daedalic Entertainment doesn’t go all the way. I would have really liked to see the results of rolls in the combat history. There are over 120 combat maps to play through. Many are littered with line of sight obstacles, traps, and interactive objects, encouraging strategic thinking. There is a spectacular variety of scenarios, which does keep the fights interesting.
Players can hover over their enemy with the mouse cursor to get the probability of success based on their stats. Unfortunately, the game does not show when 100% probability is possible or when 0% probability is possible, which is annoying. The UI is based around right clicking enemies to bring up a ring of icons with possible skills. Commonly used skills can be dragged to a hotbar bound from 1-0. I found this system works well for characters based on physical damage, but magic users have to contend with some extra frustration. Each spell circle is broken down to four quarters, each representing a spell level. The size makes things rather difficult to click, and using characters with large spell repertoires becomes annoying.
The hex map takes a little practice to get used to. For the most part, right clicking on a hex will allow the character to interact with that hex and anybody occupying the hex. However, there are times where clicking on the hex will have no effect. I have narrowed down these troublesome hexes down to ones with some sort of object in them, such as flowing water. To deal with these hexes, I found myself having to click near the edge of the border to move my character onto the hex, or right clicking the enemy directly to attack.
The game’s AI provides a good challenge, even at normal difficulties. However, I wish the pathing was smarter. The game will walk characters through visible traps and natural hazards, even though there is a safer path of equal distance available. I found myself moving characters one hex at a time on maps with traps and hazards, instead of contending with the poor pathing.
The items in Blackguards could use a little work. Though there is better armour to discover has the game progresses, there is very little improvement on melee weapons. While spellcasters see a consistent growth in their spells and ranged fighters gain access to new arrows and bolts, there is very little upwards progression on melee weapons. Of course, players could always choose to equip their character with three different types of melee weapons, but that would also require spending precious AP points on improving skills with other weapons versus dumping them in statistical improvements.
Visuals
Blackguards is an excellent looking game. The backdrops are hand drawn and they look fantastic. The UI is simple and very fitting for a fantasy RPG. The hex map is drawn in on all the battle maps, evoking the feel of the battle maps found on table top games with miniatures. The character models and animations are well done. The loading screens are full of character concept art, which help make the transition between combat to the adventure portions of the game. I do wish there was more variety in the character portraits. Although this is a small complaint, often time players will be faced with battles with 6 portraits of the same characters, which makes telling apart enemies a challenge. The camera angles move from an overhead view to a side view. It works great for the most part, but there are a few objects in the game that will be practically impossible to maneuver around due to the camera angle. There is a small icon error that needs to be patched in the character equipment screen. The boots and headwear icon are clearly swapped. It was a little confusing at first when trying to equip a Tricorn hat in the icon marked with a hat and getting no result.
Audio
Daedalic Entertainment does a great job with Blackguard’s sounds. The music suits each of the game’s settings well. The game’s script has full voice acting, done by some very good voice actors. The sound effects are great, there are not many games in recent memory that actually evoked a vocal reaction from me. I couldn’t help but utter “gross…” out loud after listening to the Morfu slugs slither their way across the map. The only weakness is the repetitive nature of the lines characters will say while in combat. The triggering system can be a little repetitive, with some characters repeating the same line twice in a row without a break at times.
Overall
Blackguards is a solid game for RPG fans looking to check out a new system. The Dark Eye is one of the most popular systems in Europe and hopefully Blackguards will bring some attention from players around the world. Although the game provides a strong audio/visual experience and a good, but tame, story, there are some problems with the combat system that may scare off non-hardcore RPG fans. There is a ton of content for $39.99, with more than 40 hours of adventuring. It’s a shame that Blackguards needs some tweaking before it’s ready to break into the mainstream; however, Daedalic Entertainment has made a great step towards that goal with the game.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
