Page 4663 – Capsule Computers

Tiger & Bunny: Volume 1 Review

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May 3, 2013

Tiger & Bunny: Volume 1
Author: SUNRISE
Illustrator: Mizuki Sakakibara
Publisher: Viz Media
Release Date: April 9, 2013
Price: $9.99 – Available Here

Overview:
The Tiger & Bunny series originally debuted as an original anime back in 2011 that turned out to be so popular that not only are two movies being made for the franchise, but a manga adaptation was created as well. With Viz already releasing the first half of the anime in English, they have now brought the first volume of the manga to North America as well. The question is however, is the manga as great as the anime it was created from?

Story:
In case you happen to be unfamiliar with the series, Tiger & Bunny is set in a world where some humans have begun developing special superpowers. The origin of these mutations is unknown and the people with special abilities such as this are called NEXT. With a number of people developing these abilities, a few of them have turned to crime and what is the best way to take down a super powered criminal? Well with a super powered hero of course.

That is where Hero TV comes in. The city of Sternbild is rife with criminals of all kinds and a number of heroes have been cleared to capture these criminals and turn them into the police and also the ability to enter dangerous situations to save those in danger. The actions of these heroes are broadcasted live to the world and they are ranked via a point system that awards points for capturing criminals, saving civilians and more with a “King of Heroes” title being awarded every season to the hero with the most points.

One of these heroes is Kotetsu Kaburagi, also known as Wild Tiger and although he is a veteran who has been a hero for a long period of time, his desire to act on instinct and put the safety of the people first has placed him second to last in the Hero rankings. To make things even worse, a new hero with the same abilities as Kotestu named Barnaby has entered the scene and he must partner up with him in the first ever hero pair. However with Barnaby set on earning the most points possible and trying to please the fans and become popular, his style of being a hero clashes heavily against Kotetsu’s. Can this odd pairing possibly work well together?

The Tiger & Bunny manga follows the events of the anime almost to a letter. The chapters contained in volume one cover the events of the first two anime episodes which means that it not only introduces the reader to the city of Sternbild and the world, but also a brief intro to each of the heroes. It is worth noting that there are a few extra tidbits added in here and there, but there are also a number of scenes missing, including those that focus on Kotetsu interacting with those around him.

Thankfully the comedic nature of the odd-pairing of Kotetsu and Barnaby still works well in print form and although we are only given a brief introduction to the cast, they are introduced in a decently enough. While unfortunately short on content, it does provide a nice sampling of what may be the most comic book style manga to be released in the West.

Artwork:
For the Tiger & Bunny manga the artwork is being illustrated by Mizuki Sakakibara and anyone who has seen the anime will be amazed at the amount of detail that has been put into the artwork in these panels. One thing that especially stands out is the fact that almost every panel has some nice detailed background scenery with only a few blank backgrounds here and there.

As for the characters themselves, it is worth noting that unlike the anime; nearly all of the heroes have been scrubbed of their advertisements. Outside of Kotetsu’s first costume which contains a fake company advertisement, almost none of the logos originally presented in the anime have been included in their manga designs. That being said, the characters both in and out of costume are extensively detailed to match their anime counterparts.

Thankfully, Viz has done an excellent job with their translation work and insertion of text. All of the Japanese sound effects have been completely translated into English with no whited out artwork or panels blocked with black text bubbles and any text that is placed over the artwork is cleanly inserted with no white borders obscuring the text.

Extra Content:
As far as extra pieces of content inserted in this volume, there are a number of color pages at the start of the manga, with three color pages featuring Kotetsu and Barnaby and one page featuring the rest of the heroes in their hero outfits.

The manga then closes out with Mizuki Sakakabira’s Image Sketch which has a number of character sketches of Kotetsu and Barnaby some extra character information about them, a small teaser for the next volume and then ads for other Viz releases.

Overall:
Tiger & Bunny: Volume 1 kicks things off well by following the anime almost to a letter and presenting readers with gorgeous artwork. Although a few scenes are missing and a few extra details are missing on the character designs, there are a few new scenes added in. Despite this, there isn’t too much progression here in Volume 1 but it does a great job world building and giving readers a taste of the potentially great content to come.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist – Spies vs Mercs Trailer

Luke Halliday

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May 3, 2013

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Splinter Cell: Blacklist – Spies vs Mercs Trailer

Ubisoft have released a brand new trailer for the upcoming stealth action game Splinter Cell: Blacklist. This trailer in particular focuses on ‘Spies vs Mercenaries’ and the differences between the two of them, which appears to be a major focal point of the game.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist is the seventh installment in the enduring stealth action game series Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. The game is slated to release for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and the PC on August 22nd, 2013.

You can check out the awesome ‘Spies vs Mercs’ trailer for the upcoming Splinter Cell: Blacklist below in all of its high-octane action glory below.

Potential Wii U hack doesn’t bring out Nintendo’s armour

Darren Resnekov

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May 3, 2013

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While Nintendo deny any detection or physical proof of unauthorized applications running on their new Wii U console, the hacking group responsible for making piracy possible on the original Wii are arguing a different case. Recently the Wiikey Group, who have also released a similar product for the XBox 360, announced on their website that they have reverse engineered enough of the Wii U’s guts to allow the system to boot games from an external HDD, which is really the first stepping stone to allowing pirates to run illegal backups.

Only a few lines of code have so far been released and if Nintendo are really overly concerned about the issue it certainly doesn’t show, and nor should it. They didn’t even bother fixing the exploit in the Wii OS section of the Wii U, essentially allowing hackers the ability to play pirated material through the same exploit they already were using on the older console. The legitimate homebrew users will always be there as will the pirates, hiding behind the guise of using their consoles for homebrew App’s and other legal reasons, just waiting for a console to be compromised so they can start collecting free games. These are generally not the kind of gamers who would have forked out hundreds of dollars for new release games, and in a nutshell to equate number of downloads to lost revenue is a biased and unrepresentative statistic, but that’s cause for another debate.

Nintendo have commented on the news with the following, “Nintendo is aware that a hacking group claims to have compromised Wii U security,” the company said in a statement. “However, we have no reports of illegal Wii U games nor unauthorized applications playable on the system while in Wii U mode. Nintendo continuously monitors all threats to its products’ security and will use technology and will take the necessary legal steps to prevent the facilitation of piracy.” If the news is right,Wii U owners should expect a major system update from Nintendo that will more than likely remove the exploit or in cases similar to the original Wii, have the potential to brick and destroy the system altogether, something the good folks at Microsoft probably should have learnt how to do a long time ago.

Game & Wario to be unleashed for Wii U on June 29th

Luke Halliday

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May 3, 2013

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Nintendo have announced that the wacky and wild fun of Game & Wario will be unleashing all of its addictive gameplay on the Wii U come June 29th, 2013.

That is right, Wario and his crazy group of friends are back for some zany mini-game action. Ever since his original the beginning of the WarioWare series, Wario and friends have looked for new ways for gamers to play, whether it be with the Nintendo DS touch screen functions or the Wii’s motion controller. Now they take on the Wii U’s amazing GamePad device with a collection of games designed specifically for the controller and TV combination.

There are a multitude of gameplay options with Game & Wario that are sure to excite gamers. The single-player mode will feature twelve games to play that make great use of the Wii U’s capabilities by turning the GamePad into a number of different items. Players can expect to turn their GamePad into a variety of things such as a Camera and even a Handheld console.

Not only will there be a number of awesome single-player modes but there will also be many fun multi-player modes such as Disco which gets the party started with dance-off action and Artwork which tasks players with becoming artists and sketching up a storm. The Artwork game will also be integrated with the Miiverse which allow you to share your creations with the rest of the world.

Game & Wario is slated for release exclusively for the Wii U on June 29th, 2013. Get ready for all the crazy fun and mischief of Wario and friends as they get the party started on the Wii U with games that will quite simply blow your mind.

Build on the Battlefield with Guncraft

Zac Elawar

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May 3, 2013

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Exato Game Studios and Reverb Publishing like to say that they are “blocked and loaded” (how cute!) with a brand-new video for Guncraft, showing how players can build in the heat of battle to gain the upper hand.

Unlike similar games, Guncraft enables players to strategically build during multiplayer matches, crafting structures and walls block-by-block to use as immediate cover for instance. Alternatively, players can create any prefab structure to drop in immediately. No other shooter gives players this much flexibility to transform the arena in which they play. Check out the video directly below to get an idea of how this works in-game.

Guncraft In-Game Building

Also, Guncraft fans are being asked to help vote for the game on Valve’s Steam Greenlight. Vote today to hopefully see the game become available on the popular platform.

World War Z Impressions

Kane Bugeja

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May 3, 2013

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Paramount Pictures recently provided a 15 minute preview of their new film World War Z. The film is based upon the novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, written by Max Brooks. From what has been shown, the film will focus on “The Great Panic”, the title given to the original surge of the outbreak.

From my brief glimpse of World War Z there is one thing I learned, it is intense. The movie has a completely different feel to it than other zombie films and the feel it does give off is terrifying. The zombies in the film are insane, World War Z finally demonstrated what the ‘Z’ stands for – Zerg. The director, Marc Forster, certainly has no qualms with throwing waves of zombies at every problem, rather than shamble, or even run, they act like a tidal wave of carnage. The fact that the zombies don’t care about their own bodies furthers the feeling of overwhelming chaos. World War Z has got an uphill battle to prove that swarms can be horrifying, the most frightening part of the sequence shown was wondering if Brad Pitt had the macro to effectively manage the swarm.

Unlike more traditional zombie films, which relied on a sparse spattering of zombies throughout the film to drive the tension up, World War Z focuses on the true size of the world’s population and what would happen if it turned on you, giving off a sense of unbridled panic rather than a creeping sense of fear. World War Z is set to prove itself different from other zombie films. Whether it will appeal to fans of traditional zombie horror, used to a less action packed and more suspenseful affair, remains to be seen but the film is definitely unique in the terror it brings. Essentially, World War Z combines the horror of zombies with the unstoppable destructive force of natural apocalypse movies.

From the small amount of footage seen, the film seems to be fast paced, and consistently so. The action scenes are broken up by scenes of discussion and contemplation, only to be quickly dispelled by another battle. World War Z blends the pace with the story well, giving the audience as much time to think as the characters, and it’s not long.

All in all, World War Z seems to be on a much larger scale than typical zombie movies. More of the world is seen affected, characters travel long distances and those that fight are not a small band of survivors, but more akin to a resistance force. For once you don’t have to assume that the world off-screen is in chaos because in World War Z, you see it for yourself…and it is horrifying.

World War Z bursts into Australian theatres June 20th. Check out the trailer below for a glimpse of the chaos.

Awesomenauts Celebrates 1st Birthday with Retrospective Video

Zac Elawar

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May 3, 2013

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Awesomenauts landed on consoles worldwide a year ago, and since then over a dozen updates have been released, adding items, skins, characters and recently even a new map!

The game launched with a roster of 6 galactic mercenaries, which has now doubled to 13 today. Additionally, a lot of balance adjustments have been made over time, always with the help of the community’s feedback. To celebrate, Ronimo Games have released a new video, showing the progress the game has made since it’s inception. It contains some never before seen footage of the game during various states of development and moves through all updates ending in the latest, 1.17, containing the new map. You can check out the video embedded at the bottom of this article.

And there’s still much more coming in the following months! Besides the multiple new characters getting geared up for future updates – one of them being Admiral Swiggins, the winning character of the design-your-Awesomenaut contest – update 1.18 is currently being put through its paces in beta. It contains another balance overhaul and the first premium skin, Leon Pirate! This is a new type of skin that also completely replaces the audio for the character. You can check his video out directly below. Enjoy!

Awesomenauts – Leon Pirate Skin Showcase

CandyMeleon Now Available on iTunes

Jamie Laike Tsui

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May 3, 2013

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BulkyPix and Levelloop released their new title to iTunes today. CandyMeleon pits players to catch as many pieces of flying candy as possible while dodging a variety of obstacles like piranhas. Candy can be caught by either firing the CandyMeleon’s lightning fast tongue or catching the candy as they fall with a wide open mouth. Coins earned in game can be spent on a variety of upgrades for the candies and new outfits for CandyMeleon.

CandyMeleon is available for free on iTunes. The game is compatible with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Be sure to read our review of CandyMeleon.

Ubisoft Releases New Rayman Legends Trailer

Jamie Laike Tsui

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May 3, 2013

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Ubisoft released a new trailer for Rayman Legends featuring the Mariachi Madness musical level. The trailer shows off some of the rhythmic gameplay set to relaxing mariachi music. The developers have crafted the map to time player’s movement and punches to the rhythm of the traditional Mexican folk music. Players will have to dodge a variety of new enemies in the level, including Mexican skeletons. In addition to the trailer, Ubisoft released three screenshots of the upcoming Mariachi Madness level.

Rayman Legends is the sequel to Rayman Origins. The platformer will be released on September 3rd, 2013 in North America and on August 30th, 2013 in the rest of the world for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U.

New Infographic/Video to Celebrate Blood Brothers’ 1st Birthday

Zac Elawar

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May 3, 2013

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The popular dark fantasy role-playing game Blood Brothers is celebrating its 1st birthday! So, DeNA is excited to share with you a new data-packed infographic showcasing the extraordinary milestones the game has achieved in its 1st year on the Apple App and Google Play stores. You can download the free game right here for either Android or iOS.

The anniversary infographic – which you can view for yourself directly below – highlights Blood Brothers’ tremendous performance over the last year. Also check out the celebratory video trailer embedded at the very bottom of the article.