Nintendo has put out some incredible game releases for the 3DS lately and each of the big titles has come wit it’s very own “limited edition” 3DS XL design; Fire Emblem: Awakening had one, Pokemon X and Y had two, and the upcoming One Piece Unlimited World Red also has two coming so in this day and age we’re not short on uniquely designed consoles. It has just been announced that Japan will be getting another two limited edition 3DS XL Console Colours and, although they are similar to the standard red and blue, they are looking fierce!
The glossy orange and turquoise additions to the 3DS family look fantastic with their black frames with colour matching buttons, bumpers and stylus. They are both set for release on the 28th of November and we’ll be going for $205 each. They look super stylish and if I didn’t already have a 3DS you bet I’d be excited to pick one of these babies up! Let us know what you think about the new colours/designs in our comments section below.
This Halloween, Ubisoft and Blue Byte are gathered around their bubbling cauldron, brewing up a spooky new update to ANNO Online for the holiday season. As you would expect the update includes holiday themed items and resources, but the really intriguing new feature is the mysterious new island that has suddenly appeared and the ghostly ship spotted off of the shores of the main island.
When the Halloween event emerges, players will need to assist the captain of this afflicted phantom ship in gathering loot in return for Black Beans which appear to be unusable … or are they? By using the beans as a currency, players can craft their own pumpkin farms and use their harvest to create Jack O’Lanterns. These lanterns will help you as you venture forth onto the mysterious Lantern Island and delve into the gates to the underworld that now lie open.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are a number of exclusive Halloween items available upon the completion of quests during the event. These include:
Haunted Mill: A building that produces flour 30% more efficiently
Haunted Paper Mill: A building that produces twice as much as a normal paper mill
Haunted Tree: A structure that produces amazing buffs from time to time
Pumpkin Soup (buff): A buff that quadruples production speed for a short amount of time
Beef Stew (buff): A buff that quadruples production speed for a long amount of time
Many people out there in the world of entertainment try their hand at creating a storyline based around time travel that both makes sense and doesn’t confuse the audience, some out there actually do the sub-genre of time travel a great deal of justice, while others just slip through the cracks and don’t entirely leave the proper mark. Titan Comics have recently completed the release of the four-part, supernatural, time travelling comic book Numbercruncher which seems to walk through this genre with such confidence that it almost oozes from the page. I’ve compiled all four issues into one review so as to get, and give, a better understanding of this comic as a whole.
Story
It is quite a complex comic and any explanation I can give would prove to be, just about, useless but I am going to try my best to take you all through the important parts without giving too much away. First of all let’s set up the world that this comic takes place in: Earth is exactly the same as it is in reality, what is different is the afterlife which, despite what people think, is not all rainbows and fluffy clouds. It is, in it’s simplest form, an accountancy where everything revolves around numbers, calculations, algorithms and “circulation”, this includes the spirits of those who have passed on. This “entity” is lead by the “Divine Calculator” who I can basically describe as a crusty old man who, in this universe, takes the place of God. The Divine Calculator has a great deal of “employees” who are also souls that have passed on, these employees are tasked with collecting the souls of the dead alongside making contracts with those who wish to, possibly, live again. Souls who are connected by contract to these workers, if they chose to, will live another life in the real world but once they have died a natural death they will take the place of their contractor and their contractor will be recycled back into the mix of the undead, not zombies, just people.
Now that that is out of the way, let me introduce you to Richard Thyme and Bastard Zane: Dick is a genius mathematician who is separated from his lover by death, he longs for her so deeply that he makes a deal with the Divine Calculator to live another life and it just so happens he gets the toughest, meanest and most devoted worker to hold his contract; Bastard Zane. They’re both in for one hell of a cat and mouse chase but Richard knows that, in this race, he is the tortoise while Zane is the hasty yet clumsy hare. This is where I am almost forced to stop because anything I tell you from here on wont exactly “spoil” anything for a future reader but it will dampen the experience a fair bit. You can only imagine the types of twists and turns to come out of a time travel story and you’re probably right in what you’re thinking but you’ll need a bigger imagination to hit the nail on the head. The story of this comic is downright fantastic, simple as that, I actually cannot find a better way to express this than to jus outright say it.
It is all about love, the chase and the chance to overthrow a God and each of these elements blend so greatly as to make for an incredible narrative. What I found worked well was the fact that no characters other than Zane spoke that much yet we got the same sense of depth to a character like Richard who barely talked to a character like Zane who narrated the entire series. God knows how the writers did it but they did it well. While reading Zane’s english accent got incredibly annoying and sometimes a bit hard to understand you, kind of, bypass it just to see the rest of the story unfold. It being a story revolving entirely around reincarnation and, somewhat, travelling through time through the recycling of souls you’d think that somewhere along the line the writers would confuse themselves and trip up but…no, they did it perfectly. Each life that Richard lived had a purpose, it had an means, it had an ending and, in the end, it had an impact greater than you could imagine. I’m being very vague but I have to be, all I’m going to say now is that this is the most perfect example of time travel that I’ve ever seen and yet it’s not even traditional time travel, it’s skewed and twisted and it works on so many levels.
Artwork
The illustrator, P.J. Holden did an awesome job with the art in Numbercrucher. What stuck out the most for me was the use of colour and sketching depending on where the story took place: When the characters were in the “afterlife” the style of illustration was sketchy, black and white, almost like it was just drawn with pencil for some sort of preliminary designs yet obviously more detailed. When the characters were placed in the living world it turned colourful, yet still very dark, and into something that seemed very traditional, like reading a Marvel comic. This contrast and comparison really showed the difference between both worlds. The use of numbers as images was also very well done and was placed in fantastically; gunshots explode into a flurry of numbers, people evaporating into a cloud of equations, it was just a really nice touch to an already great looking comic. It never got boring and the characters all looked great for what they were and who they were and I can’t honestly say anything bad about it.
Overall
The comic is down right fantastic and, as I did, should be read all together. While it is great to read the comic issue by issue, reading it in it’s entirety just hits you so much harder than it would reading it month to month. The characters are all great and, while there really isn’t much dialogue and what not, they all belong in their places within the comic and it’s story and without any of them the comic would not have been the same. The art immerses you into the comic and allows you to be taken away by it all. It’s just an all around fantastic comic and I couldn’t recommend it more.
Just when you thought there couldn’t be any further avenues for Attack on Titananime fans to explore for parodies, a genius Japanese fan has recreated the opening theme video using his horde of feline friends.
It was only a matter of time before Attack on Titan crossed paths with the internet’s favourite animal in a kawaii mash-up for the ages. You can check out the cute and funny Attack on Titan vs Cats parody video below.
Be sure to let us know what you thought of this ingenious bit of parody in the comments section below. What is more frightening, a horde of cats or titans?
Fans of Platinum Game’s femme fatale heroine Bayonetta have reason to be excited. Studio Gonzo have just released the first trailer for the upcoming anime film adaptation of the popular Bayonetta game.
The film itself is titled Bayonetta: Bloody Fate and will feature an original plot featuring the colourful cast of characters from the game. Interestingly the original voice cast will not be reprising their roles in the film. Instead an entirely new cast will take on the roles.
The trailer features what is set to be the film’s theme song ‘Night, I Stand’ by Mai. You can check out the trailer below for your viewing pleasure.
With Halloween being celebrated all around the world, Joymax has decided to join in on the fun by releasing a huge Digimon Masters Online event to celebrate the time of the year where everything gets just a little more spooky! If you’re already a player of the hit MMO/RPG game now is the time to head over to the DATS Center in the Digital World where you’ll meet Pumpkinmon who will give you a new weapon to add to your arsenal: Pumpkin Bombs. Pumpkin monsters will appear all around the Digital World and it is your “duty” to use the pumpkin bombs and destroy them. Destroying them will earn you candy that can be traded in for high-class items such as Burst Accelerators and Digi-Soul Buffing Sweets.
Soulmon will also join the celebrations during this event. This guy loves sweets and by looting “Ghost Cookies” from fallen enemy Digimon you can then trade them to him for a number of different Halloween Gift Boxes which include items like Backup Discs, Ecoluters, Mysters Mercenery DigiEggs, Mystery Reinforced Mercenery DigiEggs and Pure White Mystery DigiEggs so there really is no reason to ignore the event considering how much you have to gain by taking part. The Halloween Event will be running from today until the 26th of November so you’ve got just a little over a full month to enjoy all that this spooky event has to offer. Head to the Official DMO website here to get started!
Recently we reported on the latest scan which revealed the final two giant characters to be featured in the upcoming Dragon Ball Z game Battle of Z. Official screenshots have now been released showing off Great Ape Bardock and Giant Meta-Cooler in all their gigantic glory as well as a few other screens showing off the other new characters such as Beerus and Whis from the new movie Battle of Gods.
These new screenshots indicate that the Gete Star stage from the movie Cooler’s Revenge might be playable which would be a first for the series as the stage has previously only been playable in boss fights and you couldn’t fly around and interact with it. Hopefully it is not limited just to the boss fight. Check out the newest screenshots below and let us know in the comments if you will be picking up Battle of Z when it releases in early 2014 on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PS Vita.
With the release just a few days away on Friday, Warner Bros. now has its Batman: Arkham Origins launch trailer up for players to get one final look at a little bit of the story that will unfold on that Christmas Eve night in Gotham. The most important part being of course the “Personal Mission” that lies at the center of the game.
The “Personal Mission” is not from Batman though, as he doesn’t really have personal missions mainly anti-personnel ones. Nope, the mission the trailer references is all about the hate Black Mask has for Batman, even showing the Black Mask without his telltale mask. It’s no surprise then that he would offer such a huge bounty on Batman that night.
Those wanting to watch the launch trailer for themselves and get a feeling for this “Personal Mission” can find it embedded below. Batman: Arkham Origins is set to release Friday, October 25th, 2013 worldwide for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, and PC.
Paramount Pictures wants to know… “who’s hungry for some chimichangas?”. No, Deadpool, sit down… what are you even doing in an Anchorman article? Anyway, the studio have released a brand new trailer for Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.
Along with the video – embedded at the bottom of this article – which shows Brick being Brick, believing he lost his legs after wearing green pants in front of a chroma key screen, we also have an official, updated synopsis:
With the 70’s behind him, San Diego’s top rated newsman, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), returns to the news desk in “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.” Also back for more are Ron’s co-anchor and wife, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), weather man Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), man on the street Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and sports guy Champ Kind (David Koechner) – All of whom won’t make it easy to stay classy…while taking the nation’s first 24-hour news channel by storm.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues will have its Australian premiere on November 24, ahead of its nationwide release on December 19.
Paramount Pictures are proud to present another instalment from the highly anticipated comedy, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, coming to cinemas worldwide on November 14. As recently revealed in the Redband Trailer, Jackass fans can expect an outrageous and hilarious performance from Johnny Knoxville and Jackson Nicoll -as the Bad Grandpa, Irving and young accomplice, Billy embark together on a wild road trip.
The featured ‘Penguin’ clip explores the extent to which a ‘customer is always right’; as Irving challenges his rights to park in his driving spot, against the store owner’s penguin statue. Not your average debate; “you put a penguin in my spot” vs. “you ran over the penguin”, but it’s hard not to laugh at Knoxville’s effort to get away, without fixing the damaged penguin.
