Since 1924, MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) have been captivating and delighting cinema goers with some of the most memorable films to hit the silver screen. With over 175 Academy Award winning movies under their belt, it is no wonder why the company with the lion’s roar logo has thrived for 90 years.
That’s right, 90 years! To mark the tremendous occasion, the company’s icon; Leo the Lion was immortalised with a paw print ceremony at the infamous TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood,forever marking the golden-maned beast in history. However, that isn’t all; as MGM have a slew of other celebrations planned, involving none other than Sly Stallone himself (the writer and star of Rocky, one of MGM’s most well-known movies).
A special 90-year trailer will be shown in cinemas, and on MGM specific television and movie stations, which will highlight and showcase a wide tapestry of MGM’s proudest, and most memorable movie moments. In addition, some of MGM’s flagship movies (like Rocky, Rain Man, Fargo, RoboCop (not the new one) and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) have all been remastered into 4k resolution, and are being re-released on Blu Ray through 20th century fox. In addition, the studio has a few more awesome things for fans to take a look at, namely:
A one-of-a-kind collector’s book and bonus video disc companion commemorating 90 amazing years, featuring interviews from award-winning filmmakers, directors, and actors discussing the significance of their contributions to MGM’s legacy. The book and video highlight the evolution and history of the legendary studio and provide an extensive look into the studio’s golden years, classics, iconic franchises and much more. Interviews include Sylvester Stallone on Rocky, Clint Eastwood on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis on Thelma and Louise, and Walter Mirisch on The Pink Panther.
Fans can also relive their favourite film moments at www.mgm90th.com, a unique Tumblr website and the first Tumblr integration to feature a studio’s full library. The MGM 90th Tumblr site’s dynamic design encourages fans to explore and immerse themselves into rich content celebrating 90 years of MGM filmmaking. As fans integrate socially with the yearlong celebration, the Tumblr site will serve as an active aggregator showcasing all of the current sharing and postings. This fresh approach to syndicating content to fans allows a seamless integration appealing to all ages within Tumblr’s rapidly growing platform and beyond.
90 Years of classic filmmaking and looking as strong as ever. MGM looks like it will be around as there are stories to tell. Are you excited to see Leo the Lion finally cementing his place in history, and will you be picking up any of the 90th anniversary goodies, or will you wait another decade for the milestone of the century (literally)? Let us know in the comments below, and remember to always stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the MGM news as it becomes available.
A week has gone past us already, and it is time for the awesome folks over at Disney to shower us with free Disney Infinity maps in this week’s Toy Box Challenge. As with previous weeks, there are five free maps for Disney Infinity owners to download, as well as a new Toy Box Submission Challenge, and a video that showcases the winners of the previous challenge. Without further adieu, lets get into it!
TOY BOX SUBMISSION CHALLENGE
This week’s Toy Box Submission challenge will be a tricky one. The theme for this week is the Winter Sports Challenge. With the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics only a few months away, now is the perfect time to create a snow draped stadium as wild and insane as the Russian winter.
As always, you can create and share your Toy Box creations though, using these instructions:
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U
Bring up the Pause Menu and select “Online/Multiplayer.”
Then select “Toy Box Share” > “Disney’s Toy Boxes” > “Submit to Disney.”
Follow the prompts. You’ll be asked to give your Toy Box an original name and description. Choose carefully – they will be shown to everybody if your Toy Box is featured.
iPad
Bring up the Pause Menu and select “Toy Box Share.”
Then select “Disney’s Toy Boxes” > “Submit to Disney.”
Follow the prompts. You’ll be asked to give your Toy Box an original name and description. Choose carefully – they will be shown to everybody if your Toy Box is featured
TOY BOX COUNTDOWN
This week’s Toy Box Countdown features the top 5 user generated maps that were submitted to Disney for the previous Tangled Challenge. Check out the video below to see the top 5 entrants in the challenge. All of which you can download right now!
That’s another week of Disney Infinity updates for you passionate Disney fans out there. Were you happy with the Toy Box Countdown winners? Will you be downloading any of the maps (wither from the winners, or from Disney)? Let us know in the comments below, and remember that for all the Disney Infinity news as it becomes available, stay tuned to Capsule Computers.
OlliOlli was originally intended to be an iOS game, following up on Roll7’s Gets to the Exit, which debuted on the platform in 2012. A chance encounter between developers changed the destiny of the game, with Roll7 quickly coming round to the idea of button based control and a Vita exclusive at the suggestion of Velocity Ultra developer James Marsden.
The iOS prototype had proved tricky to control, and the final Vita form of OlliOlli still retains some of that toughness. The platform has allowed the developers to expand some of the game’s mechanics, and despite having iOS roots the entire game was built from the ground up for the Vita.
Gameplay
OlliOlli is a 2D, side scrolling skateboarding game, and as such the control system takes some getting used to, particularly if your skateboarding history has until now been in the realm of Tony Hawk/ Skate.
Not only can you pull off tricks and grinds, but you’ve got to land them too. A couple of stabs of the X button gets your skater up to full speed, and pulling and/or rotating the control stick charges up a trick. Releasing the stick sends you skyward, and the only way to net the points from your inevitably awesome antics is to land with some sense of grace.
Landing isn’t the only skill to get a handle on. Perfect grinds boost scores and speed alike, and are only pulled off by hitting a rail at the last possible moment. Pulling off some of the trickier moves requires some pinpoint stick swirling and the levels themselves get increasingly more complex concotions of rails and gaps: the smallest of mistakes capable of sending your skater bouncing across the landscape, bones crunching all the way.
The twitch reflexes OlliOlli demands do come with time, and despite the difficulty curve it is largely a fun learning experience. Going by some of the mammoth scores on the leaderboards, it is much tougher to master. Luckily the difficulty is of the best kind – that dependent on player skill and not dodgy or unfair mechanics.
OllieOllie’s Tricktionary contains a myriad of moves: from Ollies to Bluntslides to 360 Hardflips, but you’d be hard pressed to distinguish between the more complex ones. In untried levels and harder difficulties there simply isn’t time to think, let alone watch, so the sticks and shoulder buttons are flicked and held and turned pretty much at random in the bid to survive until the end. Grabs and flatland tricks are all absent, with the game focused almost entirely on grinding and spins and flips.
It is a hell of an addictive game though, so despite the trick system not being as fleshed out as you would expect, the ride you get from OlliOlli is still exhilarating – and that ever present replay button will get a lot of use.
Five challenges populate every level, and completing them reveals the corresponding pro course, which comes with its own trickier demands. As ever with skate games the player is forever in pursuit of high scores and massive combos, with restrictions like no kickflipping and no pushing fleshing out the modest selection of challenges.
The challenges are a great hook for replayability, with high scores and world rankings fleshing out the onslaught of reasons to just keep on going. Every stage can also be played in Spots mode, where touching the ground spells the end of the run, challenging players to set the highest score possible in one combo.
Those up for a truly difficult experience can complete all amateur and pro challenges to unlock Rad mode, OlliOlli’s tip of the hat to its early iOS existence. Originally the landing system only allowed for perfection or utter failure, and that iron rule is revived for Rad mode.
If OlliOlli doesn’t spark that much commitment (or you just can’t be that good!) then there are always the leader boards and world rankings, which manifest most obviously in the Daily Grind. This 24 hour challenge is Spots mode with all the forgiveness sucked out, asking players to set the highest score possible on a particular stage. Practice runs are infinite but meaningless, with players only getting one shot at a scored run, making it entirely possible to end up with a big fat zero because of one dodgy landing.
The Daily Grind is OlliOlli in microcosm. Each run has the potential to last mere seconds or play out for the long haul, and everything in between. You can learn the obstacles or fly in the face of them, scoring big or landing hard depending on your skill and luck.
One thing to be aware of with OlliOlli is that it’s a bit crash prone if the Vita is connected to the internet. Roll7 are aware of the problem and are working on a patch, but until that comes around stability is vastly improved by switching off Wifi/3G or putting the console into Flight Mode.
Audio & Visual
Despite the increasing complexity of the stages the level design in OlliOlli never really changes. The five different areas all have distinctive themes but take those skins away and you’d be hard pressed to distinguish a Base level from a Junkyard one. The skater is too small to afford any sort of detail, and as mentioned before most of the tricks are a bit anonymous visually.
Thankfully OlliOlli has some excellent music that kicks things up a notch, with a handful of largely electro tunes providing the atmosphere needed to elevate the somewhat drab (but detailed) environments. The music makes OlliOlli feel like a skating game, whether it’s a chilled Massive Attack style number or an adrenaline shot reminiscent of something from Aussie wunderkind Flume.
Overall
Whilst it is missing some variety in both level design and its repertoire of moves, OlliOlli will take your eyeballs (and ears) and glue them to the Vita, whether you have twenty minutes on a bus or two hours on a couch. Fast, frustrating, and fulfilling, it’s a must own and a boon to the system, proving that iOS isn’t always the way to go in the pursuit of handheld gold.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Overview
Australia has seen an unusual amount of “otome” anime recently, shows that are more catered to the female audience, such as Hiiro no Kakera and Hakuoki. It’s essentially the polar opposite of the popular harem take for guys.
La storia della Arcana Famiglia also follows the trend of strong males vying for the main female character but with far more subtle cues than the previously named shows. Mixing super powers, guns and knives within an exotic Italian setting, it seems impossible for this formula not to work. But after so many years of watching anime, we learn that an impossibility is almost a certainty.
Story
An organisation sits in the heart of the island of Regalo, preventing disasters and aiding the locals in times of trouble. The Arcana Famiglia is a hierarchical establishment, led by the fierce Papa and his subordinates who possess Arcana cards. These cards allow them to use arcane powers, with each individual granted a unique card which in turn gives them a unique power.
The main twin-tailed character, Felicita, is announced to be a reward in the form of a wife to anyone who wins the upcoming Arcana Duello tournament. This is declared by her father named Mondo, also known as Papa, and Felicita isn’t too happy about this. She declares that she will forge her own future. This sounds inspiring but Felicita is such a passive, boring character that her determination falls short of any connection to the audience.
Arcana Famiglia is introduced as a light-hearted action anime built on a strong cast of unique male characters who each have a pretty interesting back story. Whether it’s due to the low episode count or because it’s simply a poor adaptation of what is possibly a good visual novel, the show trips over its own feet and lands in a ditch after only a couple of episodes. It then proceeds to roll around in the ditch making half an effort to actually stand up on its feet again.
You know those pointless filler arcs that happen in between important episodes of popular shonen anime? This is Arcana Famiglia in a nutshell. The action is dropped to develop the characters and provide an entertaining reverse-harem experience.
Except it’s not entertaining, especially with the female lead being as bland as she is. Two of the males and potential love interests, Liberta and Luca, have a traumatic past that’s genuinely intriguing but is hardly resolved. This is a common flaw in poorly adapted anime that seem to touch upon story elements then forget about them and move on or else the studio will miss the 13 episode dead line.
This would be forgiven if the entire point of the series, the tournament that promises the audience a damn wedding, was awesome and actually gave us a lasting romance. I don’t normally give spoilers away, but true to an under-developed adaptation that tries not to upset any fans, there is hardly a satisfying conclusion.
The last few episodes do explain some of the questions viewers will have, other than the predominant “why did I watch this?”, explaining the real purpose of the tournament but only giving us half an episode to witness what was meant to be a spectacular end.
Visuals
Arcana Famiglia was animated by J.C. Staff, a company that’s infamous for releasing great-looking shows at best and horribly average ones at worst. While not bad, Famiglia is best described as vanilla with a splash of exotica given the Italian art and architecture you see in Regalo.
Characters look funky and even Felicita is a mix between cute and dashing as she sports a black suit and high-heel boots. Unfortunately, characters don’t look cool standing around doing nothing, which is how they’re presented most of the time. The odd action sequence is a rare chance to see some substance to the style, but you’ll be slumping back into your chair before you know it as it’s over far too quickly.
Audio
Hanabee has used the Sentai Filmworks English dub that was provided with the North American release and while some of the voices sound uninspiring, there are some that match the characters well. You’d be forgiven for thinking the main heroine is a mute, as she hardly has a script, and she sounds better during the scant few action scenes than she does when she’s mumbling a few words.
The male cast sound mostly good although Liberta’s forceful “cowabunga dude” voice will have you wanting to watch a violent movie afterward and the perplexing question of why Nova was voiced by a female will forever remain unanswered, especially since the original Japanese actor was a male. Most importantly, this waters down any romantic prospects between Nova and Felicita.
The opening song “Magenta Another Sky” by Hitomi Harada is a great rock/pop track that resembles the fun style of popular singer LiSA. “Pieces of Treasure” by the Japanese voice actors of Liberta and Nova is a bit different, and probably subjective. While the melody was nice, this reviewer wasn’t a fan of the voice tone.
Extras
Arcana Famiglia comes with a few basic extras such as clean opening and ending animations along with the thirteenth episode which is actually a bonus OVA, featuring a funny side story that does more to make the audience like the characters than the previous twelve episodes.
Overall
From the first few minutes you’d be forgiven for thinking Arcana Famiglia is an enjoyable action series mixed with enough reverse-harem elements that appeals to male audiences as well as females. And you’d be wrong, as Arcana Famiglia proves ideas are nothing without direction and execution.
You will be scratching your head wondering why you’re watching this, why this show was even made and possibly why the universe even exists at all. This isn’t an action series and nor is it a romance series. The story is rushed, goes nowhere and the empty ending is further punishment for daring to watch all 308 minutes of this anime.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
EA Mobile is kicking off this week with a major update to The Sims FreePlay. Sims will now be able to move into new stages of their lives with the new family tree update. Adolescents can complete a quest at level 19 to grow into adults and adults can become seniors after a quest is completed at level 21. Additionally, new clothes, hobbies, and buildings have been added for your senior Sims to enjoy their retirement. Check out The Sims FreePlay for free on iTunes, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store.
Chinese New Year will be January 31st this year. To celebrate the Year of the Hourse, a variety of EA Mobile titles are running sales. Bejeweled Blitz will be featuring the Blazing Steed rare gem that will give players the Blazing Speed and fire gem boosts in game.
Monopoly Hotels has Chinese New Year themed rooms like the Chinese Yo Yo Room and the Tea Culture room.
Monopoly Slots has a new Chinese themed update that adds the Ancient China Slot Machine and the Great wall of China.
Finally, Real Racing 3has discounted the Dodge ’69 Charger RT by 30%.
Today Good Smile Company has announced that not only are a few new figures are available for pre-order, but that the company is also opening up a new figure manufacturer and distribution company right here in North America. Ultra Tokyo Connectionis being opened up in Los Angeles, California this month and it will soon be able to distribute numerous products from Japanese companies such as Good Smile Company, Max Factory, FREEing, and Phat! Company, though at the moment it is still being established.
As for the figures that have been made available for pre-order, first we have Nendoroid Levi from Attack on Titan. He will be released sometime in June 2014 and currently costs ¥4,200 (JPY). Images of the nendoroid can be found below.
Next we have a full size version of Levi in the form of a figma. This figma will be available sometime in May 2014 and can currently be pre-ordered for a price of ¥4,937 (JPY). Images of the figma can be found below.
Moving away from the Attack on Titan figures, we have a figure coming from the popular show Kill la Kill in the form of Ryuko Matoi : Kamui Senketsu Ver. This is a 1/8th scale figure and costs ¥8,800 (JPY) to pre-orderfor release sometime in June 2014. Images of the figure can be found below.
Moving away from the more serious figures, in closing we have a new nendoroid for everyone’s favorite second fiddle, Luigi. Nendoroid Luigi will be available sometime in June 2014 and he can currently be pre-ordered for a price of ¥4,000 (JPY). Images of Nendoroid Luigi can be seen below.
The ultimate war between the battle of the sizes is about to begin again and it will be up to the player to decide who will win the boob wars, the flat chested girls or the girls with ample bosoms? Today MangaGamer has announced that they will be releasing Ultimate Boob Wars on February 21st and the digital title is now available for pre-order on their site for $44.95. More details and additional screenshots for the eroge can be seen on the official website, but it is highly NSFW so we have only included some of the tamer screenshots below.
As for the story of this 18+ PC title, after the women of the world became either flat chested or big breasted, a divide split the land in two and a delicate balance was formed between the two tribes. However now that the “Chest Cleavage,” the dividing line between the tribes, has fallen, the big breast and flat chest kingdoms have begun fighting an all out war once again and it will be up to players to help decide the winner.
With Australia Day soon approaching, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia are celebrating with an exclusive promotion at the Playstation Store. As it so happens, the discounted games are compiled to offer Aussies the perfect fix for the footy season from now until January 30.
The exclusive week-long Aussie promotion includes:
Rugby League Live 2 – $29.95 (reduced from $69.95) on PS3
Rugby League Challenge – $7.35 (reduced from $14.45) on PSP and PS Vita
Of course, Australia Day would not be complete without Australia’s cinematic greats such as ‘Red Dog’, ‘Mad Max’, ‘The Dish and Kenny’, highlighted on Video Unlimitedand the perfect Aussie playlist via Music Unlimited at the Playstation Store. If you are not already a member of Music Unlimited, take this opportunity to sign-up before January 31 and get unlimited music for only AUD $1 a month, for three whole months.
Wishing everyone a great week of games, movies and music for Australia Day!
Indie developer Stoic has brought us a strategy game set in a dark Norse world where giants live and work beside man and soulless automatons roam the land, destroying anything in their path. The Banner Saga is one part Final Fantasy Tactics and one part Oregon Trail. You’ll make hard decisions that affect who lives or dies, command your soldiers in unforgiving combat, and decide how to handle situations as your caravans travel across the land.
Join editor Joe Morgan as he explores the world of an epic Viking saga. You’ll witness several difficult encounters, explore the ins and outs of combat and character progression, and make decisions that affect the fate of hundreds. Whether human, varl, or dredge, no foe should be underestimated.
Be sure to check out our full review of the game here.
We livestream gameplay footage on our Twitchpage. Our YouTubechannel is updated with content daily. Also be sure to follow us on Twitter, and Facebook. Leave a comment here or head on over to our YouTube page and leave a comment so we know what you think and how we can improve our Impact! feature.
With their announcements for Hearts of Iron IV and Runemaster, Paradox Interactive has kept the flow of announcements at their conference going. Today, they announced a new game mode for their multiplayer wizard action game, Magicka: Wizard Wars.
The new “Duel Mode” will put four players in an arena and two randomly chosen players will begin a one-on-one battle. When one competitor falls in battle, a spectator will step in and challenge the champion. The game will continue in this fashion until a robed combatant achieves six murders.
The newly announced game mode is set to release “in the very near future.” You can check out footage of the new mode below this story. For more information, check out their official website here.
