Magic the Gathering fanatics convened today for the long-awaited prerelease Born of the Gods, the latest edition to the popular strategy trading-card game franchise. The new set from Wizards of the Coast follows the Hero’s Path, which began with the Theros block and will conclude with Journey into Nyx in April.
The prerelease event is similar in structure to Theros, with a choice of five packs for players to master their destiny to Lead (White), Outwit (Blue), Dominate (Black), Conquer (Red) or Thrive (Green). With each choice there comes a special promo card; Silent Sentinel (White), Arbiter of the Ideal (Blue), Eater of Hope (Black), Forgestoker Dragon (Red) and Nessian Wild Ravager (Green). Additionally players receive a Hero Card, d20 Life Counter and six booster packs (3 Theros, 2 Born of the Gods and 1 Seeded Born of the Gods).
Having attended the 4-7pm flight at Burwood Good Games, competitive matches were favoured as the prize pool was dependent on the number of wins per four rounds. Whereas the 11-3pm flight offered players a casual prize pool, guaranteeing all players 4 booster packs for participating and a little extra for first and second place. The most challenge aspect of the three matches per round was the 40 minute time cap, which increased the draw results for most players.
Don’t miss out on the last day of the prerelease tomorrow at your Local Gaming Store, as there will also be the Two-Headed Giant (2HG) sealed format available for team battles.
Overview Sentai Filmworks is a company that licenses a large number of anime for Western release but not all of their titles are given an English dub. However over the past few months the company has started to revisit some of their more popular sub-only titles and re-release them with not only an English dub but on Blu-ray as well. The latest title to be given this treatment is MM! a series originally released in North America in late 2011. With a new English dub and an updated format, is MM! worth the extra effort?
Story Taro Sado might seem like a relatively normal high school boy, but he has a dark secret that he tries to keep hidden from those around him. You see, Sado is a masochist and he isn’t just any normal masochist who might like being told off a bit by a woman, he is a super masochist to the point where anything abusive from women will cause him pure bliss, whether it is extreme physical punishment or being called a flea-ridden mongrel. Even the potential for death doesn’t seem to bother him all that much compared to the pleasure he would receive from such abuse.
This problem caused Sado to be ostracized during middle school when the problem started and he only has his close friend Tatsukichi now. This secret is holding him back from confessing to his first love and at the suggestion of his longtime friend Tatsukichi, Sado seeks the help of the Second Voluntary Club which has been established to try and help out students with troubles. Realizing that his condition is problematic, Sado seeks the clubs help.
However when he arrives there he isn’t quite sure what to expect as he encounters a charming girl named Mio Isurugi willing to assist him. Thinking he arrived in the wrong place, Sado tries to excuse himself only for this same smiling girl to suddenly assault him and threaten him for trying to blow her off. Sado quickly realizes that the other two members of the club have just as many complexes as he does.
Mio happens to be a brutal sadist who also has an extreme superiority complex where she sees herself as a god that wants to grant wishes to people in need while the other girl, Arashiko Yuno is the same girl who originally exposed Sado’s masochistic nature and has an extreme case of androphobia causing her to violently attack any man that touches her. With Yuno constantly attacking him whenever he is close and Mio savagely trying to beat the masochism out of him, the club only seems to exasperate his condition.
Over the course of the series more rambunctious perverts appear and center themselves on the club. There is a cross-dressing friend that, when dressed as a woman, begins to act like a high class lady that stands over commoners, a brilliant scientist with a young appearance and her lolicon assistant, a school nurse that loves to have the girls dress up in cosplay outfits and take photos of them, a girl with strong lesbian tendencies, incestuous feelings from Sado’s mother and older sister and more.
MM! is a hot pot of every perverse tendency mixed together to create an outrageous romantic comedy with a few pieces of drama laced scenes distributed sparingly. Almost all of the comedy in MM! comes in the form of slapstick as Mio doesn’t seem to realize her intense sadistic personality and continues to thrash Sado in every way imaginable even while he happily enjoys every minute of it.
There are a number of running gags at use throughout the series as well, mostly played off of the various perversions each character has, Mio’s flat chest, Yuno’s androphobic nature causing her to ruin touching moments at the slightest touch, and finally the way Sado reacts to everything that is happening around and to him. There are also a few references to other series, such as Sado turning into a Super Masochist via Dragon Ball Z transformation, and again this is used for comedic purposes.
MM! is more than just a comedy about perverts, as it also has a few key pieces of character development that come to light over the course of the series. Yuno’s androphobia is a major issue that is explored in the beginning of the series as we learn exactly what caused her to become so afraid of men and adopt the policy of hitting them before they hit her. In this story we also learn that while Sado might be a masochist to the core, he is still an upstanding guy that does not want to see anyone upset and will go to any length to stop something bad from happening to others.
The romantic side of things pops up sparingly throughout the series, with Sado slowly developing a very minor harem by the end of the show. There is one obvious pairing focused on for most of the series but viewers are also shown that there is a love triangle afoot despite the one girl not wanting to admit her developing feelings for Sado.
While Yuno and Sado are explored and developed, unfortunately viewers only get to see a few hints about Mio’s past and why she is doing what she does. Outside of a few minor arcs the storyline of MM! simply continues to follow Sado, Yuno, and Mio as well as other perverts as they try to get along and maybe cure Sado’s masochism but in the end nothing is really resolved. Despite this, MM! offers a hilariously enjoyable viewing experience with a few missteps here and there.
Visuals MM! is uses a variety of brightly colored character designs and backgrounds and now that the series has been released on Blu-ray, these colors look better than ever before. The character designs are a bit simplistic and have many of your standard anime stereotypes but as far as their outfits go, rarely will there be an episode where a female character isn’t cosplaying or wearing a different outfit than the standard school uniform.
As mentioned before, a lot of the comedy comes in the form of slapstick and sight gags and many of these sight gags are based around how Sado reacts to the various forms of torture he is put through. His facial expressions and reactions as he becomes lost in the pleasure of his super masochism are well used throughout the series and almost always are good for a laugh. That being said, there are a number of extremely cheap looking scenes spread throughout MM! and the quality of the character’s facial designs becomes abysmal at mid-distance.
Now despite the amount of fanservice that a series like MM! may seem to offer, it is actually fairly tame on the surface. There are some revealing outfits worn and plenty of cosplay outfits with short skirts but there is actually only one panty shot throughout the entire main series, though the bonus features try to make up for that. Instead there are a number of lewd poses and of course a fair amount of masochism and sadism happening on screen.
Audio Now the special part of this release is the fact that MM! now sports an English dub to go along with the original Japanese voice track. A number of popular English voice actors have taken up with the cast, with Monica Rial handling Mio, Blake Shepard as Sado, and Emily Neves taking care of Yuno. Monica does an exemplary job bringing Mio’s character into English and Blake always has some rather hilarious lines when he handles Sado’s masochism. There are a few issues with the dub however as they chose to almost always have Sado call Mio ‘Senpai’ in English which sounds awkward most of the time and there are some issues with the mouth flaps not matching the new dubwork.
The basic soundtrack for MM! is rather bland and forgettable, but there are a few inserted songs that are enjoyable. This is made up for by the fact that both the opening and ending themes are incredibly catchy and highly energetic. The opening theme consists of two variations of the same song “Help!!” with a hell side and a heaven side sung by the Japanese voice actresses for Mio and Yuno. The lyrics are very similar to one another but the accompanying animation is altered while the ending theme “More-More Lovers!” by Natsuko Asou is always worth watching.
Extras For this release of MM! Sentai Filmworks has provided viewers with a number of extra on-disc features. There is a Japanese commentary featuring the voice actresses for Mio and Yuno with English subtitles for the first episode of the series, numerous Japanese promotional videos, trailers for other shows from Sentai Filmworks, a clean version of all three opening animations, a clean ending animation, and disc credits.
Accompanying these extras are two sets of Japanese dub only shorts that, as mentioned earlier, provide a lot of the fanservice that the show itself did not. There is the “A Rather Extreme Short Story” set with five shorts running about two minutes long a piece that feature various members of the female cast interacting with one another with plenty of panty shots and lewd poses. The other collection is the “Hidden Camera Shorts” which are four sets, three of which focus on hidden cameras spying on the female cast changing clothes and showing off their underwear while the final short focuses on Mio’s fanclub spying on her.
Overall Now that the MM!: Complete Collection has been released with an English dub it is as enjoyable as ever. For viewers who would still prefer the Japanese audio it is still included and the Blu-ray upgrade does offer a nice jump in visual quality and for those that have been waiting for an English dub the cast handles the characters impressively well with almost every joke easily transitioning into English considering it is primarily slapstick sight gags.
Although the characters are primarily developed based on their perversion, all three members of the main cast grow a bit over the course of the season, though not enough to truly resolve everything. With the potential for romance always so close but still so far away, MM! doesn’t really resolve anything in the end but it is still a great ride with hilarious enough comedy to keep the viewer in stitches.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Overview Despite people’s concerns going into the game, Dead Rising 3 turned out to be an amazing game that kept a lot of the franchise’s beloved personality while also expanding the scope of the game. Our full review of Dead Rising 3 can be found here, but now that Capcom has released DLC for the game, what can fans expect? With the first piece of DLC, Operation Broken Eagle, already available for purchase, should fans of the game be ready to download it?
Story
Operation Broken Eagle is the first of four episodes of downloadable content for Dead Rising 3, with all episodes taking place under the title of “The Untold Stories of Los Perdidos.” Each episode will follow a different character as they move around Los Perdidos during the events that occur in Dead Rising 3. These stories will be told to players by a man who was watching the events occurring in Los Perdidos through the ZDC cameras.
However at least as far as Operation Broken Eagle is concerned, there is almost no crossover story to be found except for Nick appearing briefly and a few small environmental objects explained. For Operation Broken Eagle, players take on the role of Adam Kane, a special operations commander who is flying into Los Perdidos with his squad.
Kane has been given the order to eliminate any terrorist or illegal survivors still moving around Los Perdidos with the highest order being to kill any of the President of the United States’ remaining guards and capture the President alive for questioning. Despite the fact that the President is still alive, Kane chooses to listen to the acting commander-in-chief and although there is a brief moment of hesitation on his part at the start, Kane quickly ignores any morality and simply chooses to follow his orders to the letter.
After their helicopter is shot down, Kane spends the rest of the DLC’s hour to two hour long story moving in one complete circle around the map as he eliminates evidence, gathers supplies, and locates the President. There is no deviation from the plot outside of one type of rudimentary side-quest and throughout the story there is no development for Kane until right at the end but at that point it doesn’t even matter.
Gameplay
With Operation Broken Eagle, gamers are getting the same type of gameplay that they originally had in Dead Rising 3. Players can choose to play either the story through normal mode or through nightmare mode and they are then dropped in Los Perdidos with the exact same level and unlocks that they already acquired in the game’s main storyline. The map remains the exact same though a few doors are either barred off or already opened and all of the collectibles such as blueprints and Frank statues can be collected as well and the progress will also carry over to the main game.
Since the game plays the exact same as Dead Rising 3, players already know roughly what to expect as there are hundreds of zombies on the screen at any given time and Kane controls the exact same way as Nick does. There are however no weapon lockers available for players to use which means players will need to be a bit quicker on their feet when it comes to the weapons they use and combine. That being said, there rarely is a weapon shortage thanks to the game providing a wealth of options of equipment halfway through the DLC.
Once players reach a certain point in the story, a base will be established that will contain never-ending supplies of new weapons via boxes in the area. These weapons primarily are firearms, coming in the form of an extremely enjoyable minigun, an automatic shotgun, and a grenade launcher that shoots liquid nitrogen rounds.
The melee weapons are a bit more interesting as Kane’s weapon of choice are combat knives, which are two knives used at the same time for some rather brutal attacks and enjoyable zombie killing and a tactical axe which combines a riot shield with an axe that is just as fun to mess with as the combat knives. Also coming in with this DLC is a new armored vehicle called the Armadillo which sports a mini-gun on top and a new combo weapon blueprint, all of which can be used in the main game. It is also worth noting that there is no co-op multiplayer allowed in this DLC mission, meaning that it will always be a solo affair, which is an odd choice considering how fun the game can be with two players, but as mentioned before, at least these new weapons carry over to the main game.
Outside of the new ways to take out zombies, the game is very limited on content. Outside of the story missions, which can be completed in around an hour at best, there are side-quests that can be used to pad your playtime a bit but these come in the form of collectibles. There are ZDC cameras that can now be hacked, the safe houses from the main game can now be eradicated by gassing the occupants, and gathering up your lost comrades. Most of these comrades are already dead which requires the player to recover their dog tags, though it is possible to move along with two surviving soldiers at the same time.
Visuals & Audio Outside of a few minor differences in a handful of areas, players are dropped right into the same map they have played through before. The game still runs incredibly smoothly whenever a lot of action is happening at any given time which is a nice touch. As far as the new equipment and Kane go, they have a nice look to them though the firearms are all predictable and bland looking while Kane looks great but fits the standard soldier look.
As far as the voice work is concerned, we hear only a minor amount of dialogue considering there are only a few cutscenes in the DLC and two of them are narrated by the man watching the cameras. The voice work provided is handled well enough but does nothing to stand out.
Overall Dead Rising 3: Operation Broken Eagle does offer a few fun new toys to play with and a decent side-attraction for fans to play through, but coming in at a price tag of $10 with only a minimal amount of content on offer it is a shame that there couldn’t have been something else done with the story. With a very short playtime and barely any story to be concerned about, Operation Broken Eagle could easily have been a lot more but merely settles on being adequate at some things while falling short on others.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Yielding from Eastern Europe, independent game developer Beatshapers Ltd has announced that their upcoming title – Ready to Run – will be available as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Remember playing with your R.C. cars and track sets? Well, Beatshapers is trying to bring out the retro feel while imbuing a futuristic mojo into this ‘furious’ title. Let’s see what unique selling points it has to offer:
Highly responsive arcade R.C. cars physics
15+ futuristic looking radio-control cars with various designs available to play
Single city environment featuring endless tracks configurations for different race modes.
Real-time and asynchronous multiplayer modes.
Various scoreboards with filters, with an emphasize of PSN friends.
Stay tuned for more Ready To Run news and take a peek at their teaser video below!
You may remember that Sentai Filmworks had picked up the license for Upotte!! back in 2012 and if you’ve been waiting on that release then you will be happy to hear that not only is it coming soon, on February 18th, but it will also be sporting an English dub and the OVA that was released a few months after the ten episode series ended.
Today the English dub cast has been announcedand it is being directed by Leraldo Anzaldua. The announced English cast can be found below:
Click image to view in full fize
Funco (FNC)
Genevieve Simmons
Ichiroku (M16A4)
Brittney Karbowski
Sig (SG550)
Emily Neves
Elle (L85A1)
Nancy Novotny
Ichihachi (AR18)
Juliet Simmons
Sako (SAKO Rk95)
Maggie Flecknoe
Galil (Galil AR)
Beth Lazarou
Agu (AUG A1)
Molly Searcy
Tei (T91)
Tiffany Grant
Fara (FARA 83)
Cynthia Martinez
Hachihachi (SR88A)
Allison Sumrall
Saa (SAR21)
Beth Lazarou
Faru (FAL L1A1)
Shondra Marie
Jiisuri (G3A3)
Chelsea Ryan McCurdy
Empi (MP5A2)
Brittany Djie
Springfield
Jovan Jackson
Ms. Fujiko (FG42)
Shelley Calene-Black
Garand
Andrew Love
In case some of you don’t remember that this is an anime about firearms that have human forms, Sentai Filmworks has also provided a brief synopsis of what anime fans can expect from the series which can be found below:
Kiss kiss, bang bang! The arms race takes on a startling new development when the arms come with heads, legs, and very feminine bodies attached! Yes, at Seishou Academy every girl is literally a lethal weapon, and they’re all gunning for the top shot at getting their own personal serviceman! Needless to say, it’s going to be difficult for newly recruited human instructor Genkoku to adjust to working with a living arsenal of high caliber cuties with tricky names like FNC (Funko), M 16A4 (Ichiroku), L85A1 (Eru), and SG 550 (Shigu). Especially since many have hair triggers and there’s no bulletproof vest that can stop a really determined co-ed!
Genkoku will have to rewrite the operator’s manual on student/teacher relationships, and pray that his job description won’t include having to field strip and reassemble one of his cadets in the dark. But unfortunately (for him) FNC’s already thinking about becoming his personal weapon, and she usually gets what she aims for! get ready for explosive situations, amour-piercing rounds, cheap shots galore and one very shell-shocked homeroom instructor!
Today Seven Seas Entertainmentannounced that they have acquired a new manga license and it just so happens to be Citrus, a yuri manga by Saburouta. This is far from the company’s first yuri themed manga and they are currently planning on releasing the first volume of the series on December 16, 2014.
The story of Citrus focuses on the fashionable girl Yuzu has just transferred into a new school after her mother remarried. When she arrives at the school for her first day, she learns that the school is an ultra-strict conservative girls’ only school. To make matters worse, she immediately argues with the student council president Mei who she learns later is her new step sister. The first chapter of the manga was published near the end of 2012 and the first volume was released in Japan back in July. Currently Citrus is still running in Comic Yuri Hime alongside YuruYuri and other yuri-themed manga.
The Xbox One is unfortunate incompatible with the myriad of accessories on the market. Razer is stepping up with Microsoft to release a line of accessories to remedy that problem. Razer has hinted out that a controller and an arcade stick will be released alongside several unannounced accessories. More information will be released in the coming weeks.
“Razer is dedicated to improving the overall experience from the games themselves to the player, be it console or PC,” says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director. “By working with a company as prestigious as Microsoft on a system as sought-after as the Xbox One, we’ll be able to accomplish just that. This is an exciting time for the hundreds of millions of gamers all over the world, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.”
Rambo The Video Game has been slowly approaching, with a few videos showing off what players can expect from the game based on the trilogy of movies. But the main question that fans of the series have probably been wondering is when exactly they’ll be able to experience all the Rambo action for themselves.
Well, luckily for fans Reef Entertainment has finally revealed when Rambo The Video Game will be hitting store shelves. European and Australian fans can expect to get their hands on the shooter on February 21st, 2014 while players in North America and Canada will have a little while longer to wait, but still within Q1 2014.
Players will finally get to see what it feels like to be one of the most well known action heroes from the 80s when Rambo The Video Game releases for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC. With February 21st quickly approaching those wanting the get the exclusive preorder figurine should jump on their chance while they still have time.
Today Viz Media has announced that they are teaming up with Eleven Arts to bring Tiger & Bunny: The Rising to a number of major U.S. cities starting on March 14th. The full list of locations, theaters, and times that the movie will be screening can be found here.
Tickets for the movie will cost $15 each and all attendees will receive a free 12” x 18” premium cardstock movie poster and while supplies last, an exclusive movie clear file. Tiger & Bunny: The Rising is the second film for the extremely popular anime series and this time it takes place after the events of the anime. When Apollon Media’s new owner fires Kotetsu and moves Barnaby back up to the main hero league, Barnaby is paired up with a new hero named Golden Ryan. With Kotetsu unemployed and three powerful NEXT appearing and causing destruction in Stern Bild, what will become of everyone’s favorite heroes?
If my small stint at trying to learn French back in school taught me anything, I probably forgot it since this I pretty much can’t understand anything that is being said in this latest Titanfall trailer. We do know however that it has something to do with the battle beginning and probably the intro to the scenario that players will be experiencing as they fight against one another while piloting mechs and running around with jetpacks.
Anyways, EA‘s Titanfall is currently set to be released on the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC on March 11th in North America and March 13th down in Australia.
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