She’s back and she is looking damn fine! Princess Zelda has been confirmed as the latest addition to the next Super Smash Bros. game so all you fans of Hyrulian Royalty can be at ease knowing your princess hasn’t been left out of the battle. Nintendo only just announced this and, much like every other character announcement they’ve made, it has come with a whole bunch of awesome-looking, HD screenshots from the Wii U game as well as one lonely image from the 3DS version which is still looking very good for a handheld title.
She’s wearing her original attire, or something close to it, and it seems as though she has some new moves up her sleeve. There’s one thing I can’t help but bring up…no Sheik? None of the images feature Princess Zelda’s alter-ego, Sheik, which I find to be something odd, I’m sure she’ll still be around but until images of her are release we’ll just have to make do and be happy with the beauty that is…Princess Zelda! The new “Super Smash Bros.” game is set for a release sometime within the new year so keep your eyes out for that and keep your eyes on the site for any and all news pieces and updates to come.
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning Studio: Sunrise Publisher: Siren Visual Format:DVD(Reviewed) Release Date: 20th November 2013 Price: $34.95 – Available Here
Overview
Reading the name “Tiger and Bunny” really doesn’t do this series justice, it seems a little sissy and possibly like this is NOT an anime about Western-like superheroes who compete with each other to save lives in incredible ways, knowing anime though it could’ve been about a Tiger and a Bunny living happily together…this is NOT that. Tiger and Bunny is a “once in a million years” type of anime that seems to slide into western culture easily and fits the superhero genre like a glove. Years after the home release of the series we’re met with the very first Tiger and Bunny movie which seemed like a promising film that many fans of the series would be excited for, to see the great story of Tiger and Bunny continue on into a set of movies is something great but, without giving away too much, it looks like my expectations for this film were far to high.
Story
Now before I jump into the review for the film I’d like to refer you all to the reviews I did for both the first and second parts of the Tiger and Bunny series (Part 1 and Part 2), reading them will help you better understand this review and it will also allow me a bit more space to talk about the story within this movie instead of harping on what has already been said. As someone who has watched the Tiger and Bunny series multiple times I was very excited for the movie, I assumed it would continue off of the series which left on a huge cliffhanger so when I saw the title “The Beginning” my brain automatically thought “Well, maybe it’s the beginning of the end?”, it turns out I was entirely wrong.
The movie goes for a solid hour and a half yet fifty minutes of it is all footage we’ve seen before in the series just with a few small and ultimately useless scenes added in. It covers from the beginning of the series up until the point where the heroes must stop a giant statue from destroying the city which was, once again, covered in the first two episodes of the series and for it to be placed within the movie seemed like a bad idea. The last fifty minutes had the team face off against a new “Next” with an interesting power that I cannot outline because, I suppose, it’s part of the excitement. The villain, Robin Baxter, is a thief with an odd ability that has allowed him to slip away from authorities in almost every country, he’s a master at the art of stealing and he loves what he does, this time he targets Sternbild City but the local heroes wont be letting him get away with it this time.
The original story, which started about half way through the film, was actually not bad at all, the villain wasn’t terrible and the setting was actually pretty good, not to mention the interactions between characters were probably done just as well as they were in the series. I just didn’t like the idea of a recap, it seemed…lazy, so to speak. I highly doubt that anyone who hasn’t watched the series would be watching the movie and it’s not some sort of “reboot” type of deal similar to what Rebuild of Evangelion has been doing so why make a large amount of the movie the same as the series? Had they animated it different I would understand but most of it was just the same clips added from the series.
There were some small scenes that I enjoyed because it gave us a small insight into the back stories of the characters, scenes like when the heroes had a little party together and you actually saw what Rock Bison’s power is rather than it just being skimmed over like it was in the series. As I mentioned above, character interactions were also done well but…look, it felt like the series which is great because the series is fantastic but we’re supposed to be watching a Tiger and Bunny movie, I expected it to somewhat outdo the series and honestly…it didn’t. I understand that the film was meant to fit in-between episodes two and three, they did a great job at making it noticeable, but it made me sit back and wonder why they didn’t just add it somewhere into the series because it gave no deep information that would change the series for fans, it was simply another “villain of the week” case for the Sternbild Heroes and it was ultimately a little disappointing.
Audio and Visuals
I know I continue to compare the movie and the series bet I believe it’s justified. The main cast make a return for the movie and I’m so glad they decided to bring them all back because they have such a dynamic and make for some incredible and odd characters that are both real and unreal. There were a couple scenes within the film where certain characters were paired up, for no reason other than that was how the story panned out, and the interactions between all of them were so good, they felt so real and the credit goes to the writing team and the delivery of the voice actors and actresses that worked on the series. The music was great, I didn’t take much away from the score but from what I remember it was pretty much what you would hear in the series, that’s possibly why it didn’t really hit me. When it comes to Tiger and Bunny I can’t help but focus on the voice actors only because they’re so damn good, it honestly made the movie that much better for me.
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning basically looked the exact same as the series. The series was animated fantastically and all the costume and character designs were done to a high calibre, the film is the exact same. The new character, Robin Baxter, was designed to have a suit similar to those of the heroes which, when you look at the big guys of the series, is actually a little refreshing because, had the movie gone differently, you could imagine this man joining the team of heroes and actually fitting right in. Sunrise has, once again, done a brilliant job at fusing both traditional animation and CGI animation, they’ve once again proven to be one of the very best at animating in such a style and I hope they continue to do it into the future. The animation is fluid, the designs are brilliant and it ultimately reminds me of the way the series was done because there is no huge gap between the quality of the two, if anything the series actually had better and more aesthetically pleasing scenes.
Extras
In a surprising turn of events, this release came with no extras apart from a reversible cover for the DVD case. There were no on-disc extras nor were there any physical ones, what’s surprising about it is that when Siren Visual released the series down here it came with so many “goodies” but this time there was nothing, it was bone dry. Once again, a little disappointing.
Overall
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning IS a good movie, I don’t mean for it to sound like I didn’t enjoy it because I sat through the whole thing without faltering once despite having seen most of the footage time and time again, my only big problem with it is the way they went about throwing in a recap instead of continuing with the story, I would have understood if they reanimated the scenes but it seemed like a “cut and paste” job for the most part. Still, the voice acting is absolutely brilliant and that goes for the animation too, I just can’t help but compare it to the series, it’s a bit upsetting to say but I think you’ll have to go into this movie with low expectations if you’re to truly enjoy it. The Beginning is basically another little story added into the Tiger and Bunny series and I would’ve have preferred for it to be shortened and called an “OVA” because that’s pretty much what it was. If you’re a fan of the series and a fan of the genre I still recommend you get this, let’s just hope the next movie does much better than this one.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Sword Art Online will be getting a TV special on January 1, 2014, called Extra Edition and Daisuki.net will be streaming it immediately following its debut in Japan.
The two hour special by Aniplex will feature Kirito and the others as they go on an underwater quest within Alfheim Online to grant Yui her wish to see a whale. It turns out Leafa can’t swim, and as Asuna and the girls teach her Kirito is out meeting someone…
The special streams worldwide on Daisuki.net, except for French-speaking areas, China and Korea. Streaming begins at 01:00 Japan time as a simulcast, rather than a livestream, so users can watch the special later as well.
Additionally, a special page has been added to the Daisuki website featuring a trailer, wallpaper, Twitter accessories, icons and a hidden secret.
Dementium II HD is the 3d port of the Nintendo DS first person shooter Dementium II. The game has been rebuilt to include brand new 3d visuals and revamped controls for the PC. William Redmoor returns as the protagonist of Dementium II HD as he fights his way out of the Bright Dawn Treatment Center as hell comes perilously close to reality.
Story
William Redmoor may have killed his wife and daughter. Maybe not. But he is trapped in the insane asylum and the game kicks off as he awakes from intensive brain surgery. William finds a series of postcards he has apparently left himself and discovers the hellish monsters are penetrating his reality and the doctor who performed the surgery is up to no good.
Those who have never played the original Dementium will be a little lost at the start. There is no recap of the first game to get new players up to speed, not that there is much to get up to speed to anyways. Unfortunately Dementium II HD suffers from an extremely murky plot. There is a lot of potential material to work with in Dementium II HD, but instead the story takes a really bland and overused route of all sorts of baddies invading the world. Though the game hints to that William could simply be utterly bonkers and everything could be in his mind, taking this route so feels more like attempting to make a puddle of water as deep as a swimming pool.
Gameplay
Dementium II HD is a first person shooter that mixes retro styled FPS mechanics with Resident Evil styled horror. Unfortunately, what is considered a decent title on a Nintendo DS does not fare as well on the PC. Hit detection is flaky, especially with melee weapons. The flamethrower behaves more like a lighter than it does an actual weapon in terms of range. Problems with hit detection are worsened by highly mobile monsters like the brain creatures. Even more frustrating are the enemy health pools. The health pools seem arbitrary at best. There are some portions of the game where a monster will seemingly absorb two or even three times the damage the exact same creature soaked in earlier areas.
The regular enemies are rather boring and brainless. They rush mindlessly at William until he drops out of line of sight. Then it is like he never existed in the first place. Though each enemy type is supposed to have unique strategies for managing them, the enemies boil down to two groups: enemies you can stab and enemies you probably should not stab. At least the later boss fights are mildly more interesting, with some actually requiring more skill than just running up to enemy and mashing attack as quickly as possible.
The game is not very scary. Although an overused technique, there is no surprise scares in Dementium II. Very blatant combat music kicks in the minute William is sharing the same area as an enemy, even if the enemy is practically out of sight. I did like the fact guns are not reloaded automatically, which ratchets up the tension a tiny bit during a fight. Even though William moves with such little enthusiasm that seniors in walkers would be able to outpace him, the enemies are even slower and can be dodged easily by simply sprinting away while reloading.
Dementium II HD’s controls did not port well. Though the mouse and keyboard controls are perfectly serviceable, the default binds are a little strange for any veteran of the FPS genre. However, the controls can be rebound to something more familiar. Though the game boasts full controller support on its Steam page, the control scheme just does not transition well to the controller. There are simply too many different keys that need to be bound. Often games compensate for the fact controllers are extremely limited by making certain buttons situation specific, but Dementium II HD only recognizes one action for every button. Possibly the most frustrating portion is that disabling the controller vibration does nothing. The big ogre mini-boss will still cause the controller to rumble, even though vibration was disabled and I was playing with the mouse and keyboard.
Visuals
Adding “HD” to the title of Dementium II HD feels like a half truth. The game is a high definition remake of Dementium II in the sense the graphics are now in 3d and are of higher quality compared to the original Nintendo DS version. However, the graphics look like they came out of the year 2000. Models are of extremely low quality. Many of the objects in the game are 3 dimensional geometric shapes with textures that do not even make an effort to hide the fact. The textures are just as bad, with some textures displaying extremely noticable pixilation from the low resolution. The cut scenes are a little confusing, jumping from high quality cut scenes to pixelated messes. The very first cut scene was very good, but the very next cut scene looked like a 360p YouTube video was inserted into the game.
The UI is simple and usable for the most part. However, the crosshairs are practically unusable at certain parts of the game. I appreciated the fact the crosshairs drifted around as William moved his weapon, but there were many parts of the game where the area was so bright that the crosshairs simply disappeared into the background. The ability to adjust the crosshair’s colouring to something more obvious would have been beneficial.
The visual style of the game is passable. The monster design have a few hits, but are mostly misses. The most interesting and terrifying creatures are the first creature William encounters. They are creepy, inspired by the hospital setting of Bright Dawn Treatment Center and merged with something that would haunt the nightmares of most people. However, the quality of monsters take a sharp downhill turn from there.
Audio
Dementium II HD’s audio does not inspire much awe either. The game’s sound files are of low quality and sound not much better than what a Nintendo DS is capable of. The volume of certain sound effects are way too quiet compared to the rest of the game. Unfortunately all of the guns fall under this category. I have heard .22 calibre bullets that had more punch than Dementium II HD’s firearms. Many times, the combat music and enemy noises completely drown out the sound of weapons firing, forcing me to rely on visual indicators to know my weapon actually fired. The quality of music is not bad, they are standard horror fare that could have been from any generic horror film. there is also a distinct lack of variety as there are only a handful of tracks and only one combat track for the entire game.
Overall
Unless you are a huge fan of the original Dementium II on the Nintendo DS, Dementium II HD should be avoided. I question the logic of porting a FPS that did well on a handheld device like the Nintendo DS and expecting it to stand up against even budget FPSes of the same price range on the PC as the bar is set much higher on the PC. Dementium II HD has a poor story, lousy audio, and low quality graphics. The term “HD” is thrown around as a marketing buzz word these days, with HD sunglasses and HD make-up appearing on store shelves. It is to the point that the value of phrase is completely shallow. Unfortunately, Dementium II HD is no different. It is just shallow.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Message to all LINE users, at long last your prayers have been answered, you can now play golf on LINE. That’s right in an incredible unprecedented event, Gameloft the legendary mobile games developer and publisher, have teamed up with chat messaging colossus LINE to bring LINE users an experience unlike any other and it’s name is LINE Let’s Golf.
Bringing together the popular LINE messaging platform with the iconic Let’s Golf games series, a collaboration of mythological proportions has finally been realised with LINE Let’s Golf. A meeting of mobile application giants such as this is one that can only be compared to the mighty eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which is an understatement of course.
Ever wanted to play golf? Well now after centuries of human existence we have reached the point in our history where such a thing is possible all in the palm of your hand. Well what are you waiting for? Prepare your golf club to get a hole in one! Now that is what I call an eruption.
LINE Let’s Golf is available now on both iOS and Android devices. Be sure to pick up this historic game now on iTunes or Google Play. This is a monolithic release to say the very least, one of which will forever be etched in history that will signify a changing of the tides in the matrix known as the mobile gaming platform.
Development on a brand new MMORPG is now underway and gamers can explore the fantasy world of Aura Kingdom from Aeria Games, the publishers behind Waren Story. Aura Kingdom has already started its closed beta, launching it a couple days before Christmas as if it were a gift for its long-awaiting gamers.
In the wake of the conclusion of the highly successful Founder’s Beta, thousands of players have already immersed themselves in the online game. For anyone excited to sign up for the Closed Beta, it comes with guaranteed access to exclusive items, titles, and the ability for players to save their character name when the game transitions into Open Beta.
Aura Kingdom empowers players as Envoys of Gaia, tasked to defeat evil forces which threaten the kingdom. Players can have an option of one of eight classes, with hundreds of possible weapon and skill combinations. Envoys can even call on the powers of spirits, summoned from the Dreaded Realm to aid as loyal battle partners.
Aura Kingdom is free to download and play. Players with a beta key can download the game now from the official website.
As a crazed fan of Kill La Kill I am very excited to bring you news of the Anime’s next piece of merchandise and this time, well…it’s a big one! Kill La Kill has become mighty popular and for every hater out there I guarantee there’s at least 100 people who are absolutely loving it and with good reason too! It’s quirky, it’s comedic and it’s full of hardcore action!
Well it seems as though the folks over at “Phat!” (a merchandise manufacturer) and “Good Smile Company” (a merchandise distributor) have revealed that they are going to be selling a big piece of Kill La Kill merchandise starting up for pre-order next April and the figure will be of Ryuko Matoi (the main character) wearing Senketsu while in a battle pose, as you can see from the pictures within the article it is looking absolutely amazing and really is a must-have for fans of the series. The figure gets an actual release in June of next year (2014) but it goes up for pre-order in April, the figure will sell for about 8,800yen or US$84 so it’s fairly pricey but hopefully it is worth it.
Blood Lad fans will be happy to know that series creator Yuki Kodama will be involved in another anime project, however this time not an adaptation of one of Kodama’s manga series like Blood Lad, but rather one that features Kodama’s design work.
The series is Hamatora, which is planned to be a mixed-media franchise, which began with a manga in November. It will continue with the anime series starting in Winter 2014. The series follows a gaggle of super-power people called ‘Minimum Holders’ all of whom contain the ‘Minor Miracle’ power.
It looks to be one hell of an anime series. You can see for yourself in the Hamatora trailer below.
It has just been confirmed through Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan that two more series’ have been added to the all-star line up for the up and coming Namco Bandai brawler game J-Stars Victory Vs and of those two series’ comes one new playable characters and one new support character the likes of which fans of the Shonen genre and fans of Shonen Jump alike shall know very well.
Seiya of the series Saint Seiya will hit the battlefield as a brand-new playable character, he’s the Pegasus Saint and he’s ready to throw down with the rest of the tough roster, so far his moveset hasn’t been detailed but we’ve heard is that one of his attacks will be the “Pegasus Meteor Fist” though I’m sure fans of the series will already be imagining and speculating on how the character will play.
The second character to be added and the character that will serve as a brand new support type is Allen Walker the exorcist from the D.Gray-Man series, literally nothing has been said about what he will do as a support type but, once again, fans of the series will probably already be guessing. it has also been confirmed that up to four players can battle at the same time within the game, two people playing locally can search for players within the country who are also playing locally together and battle them.
The game is set for a releae in Japan on the 19th of March and, although Namco Bandai have said nothing about localising it in Australia or North America, I’m sure we’ll be seeing it in a local game store sooner or later, just keep hoping that it happens!
A trailer for the upcoming Winter 2014 anime series Buddy Complex has been released. The trailer details the anime’s plot and introduces the colourful cast of characters set to star in it. Oh and it also has robots fighting things of course.
Buddy Complex is a new mecha anime series from the creator’s of 2013 Anime of the Year nominee Valvrave the Liberator. The production is being handled by Sunrise studio with the series premiering on January 5th, 2014.
The series follows high school athlete Watase Aoba as he attempts to coerce his cute classmate Hina into doing a sexy promo video for his swim club. She agrees but with one condition – Aoba must pilot a mech and fight invading aliens.
You can check out the trailer below for a glimpse at what looks to be one of the standout anime of Winter 2014. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
A trailer for the upcoming Winter 2014