The acclaimed AMC television series of The Walking Dead has turned fans into zombies, with last months release of the ‘Dead Yourself’ app.
The new free iOS and Facebook app allows individuals to recreate their feverish-selves using the grotesque attributes of walkers and weaponry features in their photographs. A blood-splattered blemish, hollow eyes, dislocated jaw and arrow through the head is the perfect zombie-makeover to capture the attention of anyone’s liking. Who would have thought that the worst form of ourselves could serve as a promotion strategy for Telltale’s adventure horror game and Skybound Entertainment’s comic collection?
To distinguish the best walker profiles, fans are encouraged to upload their photos to the gallery on DeadYourself.com and rate the ones that appear the most horrifically realistic. Unsurprisingly, most of the highest-rated photos include young children and pets.
‘Dead Yourself’ app brings to question the extent to which the zombie-persuasion has driven us to change our appearance and the way we act in society. If the inevitability of a zombie apocalypse is the result of humanity changing. Soon enough everyone will be walking dead.
Paramount have released a new trailer for their upcoming film about circuses, Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away. In this trailer we see the making of Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away with commentary by director James Cameron, Andrew Adamson and Erica Linz. They talk about various things, but mostly about the production behind the movie.
You can view the trailer embedded below this article to see the Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away Q&A trailer featuring James Cameron, Andrew Adamson and Eric Linz. We have also included the poster for the film, which you can see below this sentence. Make sure you check out our review for the film here.
Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork Studio:AIC Publisher: FUNimation Platform:Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Release Date:February 26, 2013 Price:$34.98 – Available Here
Overview: Ecchi anime have quite a reputation in the industry and whenever one is licensed, there is a certain group of people who sigh and shake their heads. However time and time again ecchi and harem series have been released overseas and their quality has proven that these series deserve their place in the industry and offer more than just casual fan service. One such series has been Heaven’s Lost Property. With it’s nonsensical humor, intriguing plot and great cast of characters the series has made quite a name for itself in the West.
Now that the firstand secondseasons of the series have been out for a little under a year, FUNimation has brought Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork, a movie which continues the anime’s plot past the second season, to fans in North America. Does this movie contain everything that has made the past series great? We shall see.
Story:
After the events of the second season, Tomoki and the rest continue to live a far from ordinary life where giant chickens must be fought using a giant Sohara. Why you ask? Well to get a glimpse at Sohara’s now gigantic panties of course. This type of crazy humor mixed with fan service is what the series is known for but before long the viewer is presented with the main focus of the movie.
Hiyori, a face that should be familiar to those who have seen the past seasons, has been keeping a close eye on Tomoki and the New World Discovery Club throughout their adventures and when she suddenly asks to join the group, everyone is taken by surprise.
As the group welcomes Hiyori, suspicions still linger amongst the group as to why a girl who is as pure and adorable as Hiyori would want to join a club with Tomoki, the biggest pervert in the school, a sadistic Mikako and three girls with angel wings, Hiyori’s true motivations are revealed.
But nothing is as it seems as the Synapse refuses to leave anyone happy for long. What will happen to Tomoki and the Angeloids, but most importantly, what secret is Hiyori keeping from everyone? With a little over an hour and a half of viewing time, the story of The Angeloid of Clockwork moves at a brisk pace that is clearly separated into two sections.
Now one of the issues with trying to release a movie for a long-running series is whether or not the production studio should try and bring new viewers up to speed or simply forgo any recap and dive right into the story for long-time fans. With Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork the company has found a unique balance by including a vague recap for newcomers but also a new perspective for those who have seen the series before.
Rather than try and provide a brief run-through of the story so far, a little under the first half of the movie is presented almost entirely from Hiyori’s perspective. Viewers are presented the most noteworthy and public events from the first two seasons, such as everyone’s panties flying off into the sunset, the new girls gathering around Tomoki, the concert the group held during a festival, snow war and more.
While it is worth noting that this recap does run much longer than necessary, those familiar with the series should enjoy this fresh outside perspective. Seeing Hiyori’s feelings for Tomoki develop over time and what she thought of each of the odd events not only reminds fans of the numerous hilarious moments the series has had before but also a look at other events occurring at the time, often focusing on Astraea or Sohara interacting with Hiyori.
Once the long look at the past wraps up, the story progresses rapidly once Hiyori joins the club. As Tomoki continues to put the Hiyori through numerous ridiculous trials to prove her pure nature, we see just how sweet of a girl Hiyori is and the true depth to her character that was developed over the initial recap. While everyone short of Icarus and the idiotic Astraea responds negatively to anything Tomoki does, her nature of always trying to comfort him really strikes an emotional chord.
Angeloid of Clockwork balances humor and drama decently enough and the movie can quickly switch between the two in an instant. However it is worth noting that while the movie does have its share of comedic moments, the focus of this movie is to advance the series’ storyline and because of this the Hiyori character is the only one given any major focus and character development.
Because of this however, Hiyori’s main role in this movie is a great example of how the series manages to convey a great storyline alongside all of the standard fan-service. While she ends up experiencing a number of Tomoki’s perverted pranks, she always remains bright and cheerful and looks past Tomoki’s perverted nature to see him for who he is inside. Thanks to the closeness viewers feel to Hiyori after experiencing her recap sequence, the major twist within Clockwork’s plot is very effective at manipulating the viewer’s emotions and drawing the audience in with the group’s plight.
While everyone has a moment, even Chaos briefly appears, viewers will experience the entirety of the Hiyori story arc and along with it they will be given an emotional ride with high comedic moments and low depressing events. With a third season on the way, Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork does an amazing job covering an important story arc from the original source material and leaving things off for viewers to look forward to more, even with this movie’s unexpected ending.
Visuals: When a show enters recap territory there is often a case of re-using old footage to try and save money and quickly push out a movie. Such was the case with the Shakugan no Shana Movie where numerous scenes were presented in lesser quality after being ripped directly from the original first season. Thankfully, this is not the case with Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork.
Despite showing off numerous scenes from the first and second season, each scene has been re-animated and provided fresh footage, usually from different angles, to match the amazing effort AIC put into the movie’s artwork and animation. Every character’s design returns better than before while the action sequences and chibi-style comedy sequences never miss a beat as far as animation is concerned. Of course there are numerous fan-service panty shots, however nothing venturing into any nudity for those concerned about such things.
Audio: Thankfully FUNimation has managed to retain all of the voice actors from the past two seasons to voice the characters of Heaven’s Lost Property and thanks to this viewers find themselves treated to great voice work by the returning cast. Colleen Clinkenbeard handles Hiyori’s sweet and pure voicework excellently while the rest of the cast voices their characters magnificently, especially Brittney Karbowski’s as Ikaros. It is also worth noting that for those who choose to, this release also includes the original Japanese voice track.
As far as background music goes, many of the background tracks will be familiar to those who have seen both seasons of Heaven’s Lost Property thanks to the fact that many are re-used for this movie. While it is disappointing that more background music was not created specifically for The Angeloid of Clockwork, a couple of insert songs including a replay of the English version of “Falling Down” help rectify the repeat of background songs.
Extras: As far as bonus features go, Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork features a number of expected inclusions, such as the original Japanese promo videos, trailers, commercials and teasers as well as the North America trailer and trailers for other FUNimation series. Also provided is a commentary track which runs the entire length of the movie.
For commentary viewers join Christopher Bevins, the series’ voice director, Greg Ayres who handles the voice of Tomoki and Carli Mosier, the voice of Astraea. Due to the length of the commentary viewers will feel like they are mostly watching a movie while listening to these three discuss various events as they occur on screen. This is a nice departure from the standard commentary fair, however it is worth noting that it would have worked better had Colleen Clinkenbeard, the voice of Hiyori, participated in the commentary.
Overall: Heaven’s Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork manages to pull off a great story which not only builds up a background character in a series already flush with interesting characters, but makes you feel for her as well. While the Hiyori recap does drag on longer than necessary, it allows viewers to truly care about her feelings and despair at later events. This roller coaster of a movie provides a stellar build up full of comedy and development all leading to an emotional pay-off that will be left with viewer’s long after the final seconds of the movie as they look forward to a third season.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Are you a fan of the word-based object puzzle game Scribblenauts? Maybe you’re a PC gamer and can’t be bothered with consoles but want a really fun puzzle game to quench your need for stimulation? Then you should definitely check out the latest Scribblenauts game, Scribblenauts Unlimited.
The game finally comes to the PC through the Steam platform, which is a great addition for the franchise. The game see’s players using their own imaginations and countless objects summoned by combining words to complete challenges and to collect Starites.
Be sure to check out the Steam store to pick up your copy.
Namco Bandai Games have released a new trailer for the upcoming fighting game based upon the legendary JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle. The brand new trailer features every single JoJo protagonist to date comprising all 8 parts JoJo.
The awesome new trailer is also important due to the fact that it shows off Part 8: JoJoLion protagonist Josuke Higashikata for the first time in an animated speaking role as he has never before appeared outside of the pages of the manga.
You can check out all the fabulous gameplay of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle in the trailer below. Be sure to let us know what you think of it all in the comments section.
Are you a fan of the wild insanity that is Shootmania? If so you may be interested to know that the open beta for Shootmania Storm has launched and is now available for download.
The open beta for Shootmania Storm gives access to several of the games modes excluding Heroes, Elite Exp and Royal Exp. Also available are the majority of servers and maps. There is some limits to what players on free accounts can access.
You can download the open beta of Shootmania Storm at the official Shootmania website here. Be sure to let us know what you think of the Shootmania Storm open beta in the comments section below.
Remember when Activision released the Angry Birds Trilogy on consoles for $30 to $40 bucks a copy, and we all laughed at the possibility of the game selling? Well, Activision are laughing now, as Angry Birds Trilogy has now sold over 1 Million copies. Yes, even I have to give the devil his due, as that once $2 app has profited in a big way for the publisher.
With that said, this success is looking to be expanded upon – as a Wii U version has now been announced for the Trilogy, which is set to have some nifty features.
What you may ask? Well, here are some fresh details:
Completely recreated in striking HD with refined controls, gamers can play Angry Birds Trilogy with all-new animations and interactive backgrounds through 700+ levels with more than 150 hours of addictive gameplay. Angry Birds Trilogy: Anger Management, the recently released DLC pack, features even more content with 130 fan-favorite puzzles like Wreck the Halls and Birdday Party.
Oddly enough, I like Angry Birds. I don’t like it in a $40 “Oh I must have this kind of way”, but the thought of playing it on the Gamepad sounds intriguing, and for once with this franchise, I’m saying why not. The Wii U version is due out on an unspecified date later this year.
Merge Games announced a special collectors edition of Edmund McMillen’s The Basement Collection. McMillen known best for the indie hit Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac and was one of the stars in the recent documentary Indie Game: The Movie.
The Basement Collection includes comics, sketches, art, nine games, including the Super Meat Boy prototype Meat Boy, Indie Game: The Movie, and tons of unseen footage from the documentary. “I’m honored to have the basement collection as my 4th retail release with Head up and Merge Games. Its a labor of love that will be packed with physical extras that should make this edition something to hold on to, Its awesome to have so many of my games in one place,” said McMillen.
Pre order your copy at Merge Games hereor buy it in stores on March 8th.
Nordic Games’ RTS RPG, SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny, has a whole bunch more content to play thanks to the newly available DLC released on Steam last Friday. Adding 12 more hours to the SpellForce 2 expansion, Faith in Destiny, the franchise is fast becoming a sprawling universe for fans to further sink their teeth into.
At $3.99 or $9.99 with your season pass (with Flink’s Diary and the Golden Fool included as well) this addition to the PC exclusive Faith in Destiny allows you to play as a young man who has the fate of Eo placed solely in his hands.
Gennaro Giani, the Localisation and Production Manager at Nordic Games has assured fans the DLC packages for his company’s games are a direct response to feedback given by the fans.
‘Listening to what the fans want is very important to us. Each DLC that has been released has taken on board the feedback we’ve received to create extra content that we know players will enjoy.’
So if you’ve wanted to get more game that’s suited to your demands, now is the time to pick up The Last Stand from Steam.
Chasing Aurora Developer: Broken Rules Publisher: Broken Rules Platforms: Wii U (reviewed) Release Date: November 18, 2012 Price: $14.99 – Available Here
Overview
Broken Rules, developers of indie darling And Yet It Moves, have brought their sophomore title to the Wii U’s eShop environment. One of the curious things about Chasing Aurora is that it is literally only available for Wii U owners. With a focus on the mechanics of flying like a bird, Chasing Aurora hopes to draw players in for a party game that will keep up to five players soaring for hours. Does it own the skies, or should its wings have been clipped? Let’s find out.
Gameplay
The concept of Chasing Aurora is beautiful in its simplicity. You control a bird as it takes to the skies. There are five super hero-looking fowls to choose from: Fink, Fex, Ruth, Storm, or Solitude. Players can fly around, flap their wings to gain speed, or tuck their wings in and dive to escape a sticky situation or give chase.
The controls themselves feel spot on. Our fine feathered friends glide through the air, turn, dive, bank, and otherwise ride the wind with a responsiveness that most games only hope for. The problems with Chasing Aurora, though, have nothing to do with how the game controls.
First and foremost let me caution you. Chasing Aurora was released with the intention of being a game focused on local multiplayer. If you don’t have two to four other people that would want to play this game with you on a regular basis, it becomes very hard to recommend.
The game’s single-player component, Challenge mode, consists of a series of flight races. A series of gates are set up in a loop on each level, and players have to guide their way around the loop as fast as possible, picking up the occasional item to grant you extra time and a score multiplier. When time runs out, you are given your score and a score rating up to three stars, and then you move onto the next course. This entire mode basically boils down to gliding in a small circuit as many times as you can and other than that, nothing ever changes. It is, unfortunately, one of the most uninspired single-player components seen in a game in some years. With some more time in the oven, Chasing Aurora could have had a solid story and some interesting levels added to it and it would have been a fantastic experience.
The multiplayer component, however, definitely has some solid components built into it. The multiplayer mode, Tournament, requires at least two people to play. Once you have your crew lined out, there are three different game modes to play: Hide And Seek, Freeze, and Chase. Much like the recent Nintendo Land, Chasing Aurora aims to be another top asymmetrical game (with a single player that uses the gamepad having a slight advantage, typically).
Hide And Seek sets the Gamepad player apart from all of the other players. The team of players much chase down and capture the Gamepad player, who’s given the role of the “Golden bird” and a burden to tote around and protect. Of the three game modes, this one felt the weakest. It can make for some interesting moments, but several birds trying to catch laden swallow feels like a better idea on paper than in execution, often to the demise of the single player fairly quickly.
Freeze will take players back to the days when they were out in the schoolyard, playing freeze tag with a group of kids. The Gamepad player is given the role of an icy ne’er-do-well, bent on chasing down and freezing all of his adversaries. Birds on the team are frozen mid-air as soon as they’re touched by the icy loner, but other teammates can risk themselves in a bid to touch their teammates and unfreeze them. This mode feels quite fun, and anyone who’s played freeze tag as a child will be familiar with it immediately.
The final game type, Chase, is hands-down the most fun to be had with the game. Every bird is placed equidistantly away from a glowing orb. When time starts, every bird vies for the orb and, once they have it, they try to outrun all of the other players. Each bird is given 3 lives and, once they’ve been outrun and are off-screen for three seconds, they lose a life. The last player standing is the survivor. This mode will create a lot of screams and yells as players get away with the orb or have a near miss at a steal attempt. This is the single best game mode on the entire package.
The problem with Tournament mode is that you have to have at least two players present to enjoy it. An artificial intelligence or online play could have gone a long way toward adding some real value to this package. It’s also disappointing that each Tournament is actually broken into every game type, so playing the games you’re really not interested in isn’t an option unless you want to keep replaying the tutorials.
Visuals & Audio Chasing Aurora‘s art style is fantastic, hands down. The world looks like a light-hearted stage made of brightly colored paper craft. The character designs are also phenomenal. Each of the five characters look like little avian paper mache super heroes. The environments are vibrant and inviting. Character animation, as simple as it is, looks so fluid that it really feels like you’re watching birds swoop and dive through the environment, riding the wind as they maneuver through the air. All around, the game is a joy to look at, really making you question how people could argue that “video games aren’t art.” The devs at Broken Rules knew what they were doing when designing the look of this game.
While the soundtrack does have one or two catchy tunes, there isn’t really much more to brag on as far as the audio goes. The sound effects work to great effect, with the exception of one obnoxious sound that signifies you extending your time on the single-player component – and if you’re playing that mode, you’ll be hearing that sound effect a lot. It’s also worth noting that music will only come from the television – not the Gamepad, which can be a bit disappointing.
Overall
While Chasing Aurora is a beautiful game with what felt like tremendous potential, it ultimately falls short. The complete lack of any solid single player element and no online or AI components for the multiplayer mode really hamstring the game. If you have a group of four or five people together, Chasing Aurora can certainly provide some frantic, exciting times, but in the end it’s hard to recommend what feels like an incomplete product in a marketplace where, limited though it may be, much better experiences exist.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
