A new Street Fighter X Tekken trailer has hit the web, this time teasing one of the playable characters for the upcoming game. This follows a slew of teaser trailers from Capcom, hinting at playable characters, with this being the latest one.
Street Fighter X Tekken as you can tell by the title is a mash-up of the Street Fighter and Tekken franchises. What sets this apart from past ‘worlds versing’ styled fighter games is that 2 alternate versions of this game are to be released from both the Street Fighter developers doing a more Street Fighter styled game and the Tekken developers doing a more Tekken styled game, that way fans of either series can get the feel of the game they are use to or simply prefer.
You can find the latest character teaser below. Can you figure out who it is?
The promo trailer for the upcoming anime ‘Persona 4: The Animation’ has became available for streaming today on Mayonaka TV’s official website. The promo trailer is only available for a limited time and provides a great sneak peak at the upcoming anime series based upon the video game ‘Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4’ which has an incredible cult-following in Japan.
If you’re a fan of the franchise, be sure to check it out quick before it goes (or for those who are reading this late, you can find it below this article streamed from youtube). Persona 4: The Animation will begin airing this October on Japanese TV station, MBS. So if you’re in Japan keep an eye out this October for Persona 4 on a TV near you.
Irrational Games has today released an epic 15 minute long video featuring Bioshock Infinite gameplay footage from their E3 2011 demo. For those who want to see more of the upcoming Bioshock title, you can grab a beverage, kick your feet up and let the footage take you to the skies in the world of Bioshock Infinite.
Bioshock Infinite will be a new direction for the franchise, leaving the underwater nightmare of Rapture and taking to the clouds in the new world of Columbia. Thus far it has been announced that Bioshock Infinite is to be released in the second quarter of 2012. You can check out the epic footage below.
Sydney’s very own cultural icon, the Sydney Opera House, will soon become the home to the Best of the Independent Games Festival. The Opera House will show case the most innovative and exciting games from this years Independent Games Festival from 28 July until 21 August. The Independent Games Festival is the longest running and largest festival dedicated to independent games worldwide: celebrating game designers who push the medium of video gaming in new and innovative ways. The festival has now been running for 13 years, originating in San Francisco when organisers noticed the value Sundance Film Festival provided independent filmmakers, who then decided to create a similar event for game developers. The Best of the Independent Games Festival is a free event and will be held in the Western Foyers of the Sydney Opera House between 28 July and 21 August. For More information visit the Sydney Opera House Website.
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard – Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Developer: Razer
Compatible with: Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® / Windows® XP / Mac OS X (v10.5 to 10.6)
Available for purchase at: Official Razer Store ($129.99USD) or Official Razer Store ($199.95 AU)
The first time I laid eyes on the Razer BlackWidow Ultimate was back in 2010 in the Razer booth at Tokyo Game show. I instantly fell in love with it, as the Razer representative was explaining its features to me, I wasn’t actually listening to anything he was saying, I totally zoned out and all I could think of was its Ultimate beauty and hoping that one day I could have her in my room on my desk all alone and all to myself. Well people, that day has finally arrived: Razer’s BlackWidow Ultimate keyboard appeared on my doorstep and after unpacking it I have her all to myself, turning off the lights, I can finally get acquainted with all her amazing features such as her illuminated and 1ms response time keys. Is the BlackWidow’s beauty really that ultimate? Read on and find out.
The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate keyboard is a fully mechanical keyboard with 50g actuation force providing 1ms response time. It’s fully programmable keys allow on the fly macro recording. It also has USB-pass-through and Audi-out / Mic-in jacks along with very cool backlight features.
The look of the of the BlackWidow Ultimate is very slick, one thing that I do want to mention is that it’s got this high gloss boarder running around the entire keyboard that personally I don’t like as it’s a magnet for dust and my pet peeve “finger print marks” This can make the keyboard look messy in the light. The keys however are a nice matt black and feel great on the fingertips. For all you wireless fans out there, the Blackwidow Ultimate is NOT a wireless keyboard but it has a very long braided cable (very well insulated) that feels like cloth/material. As always with all RAZER products the packaging is top notch and taking the keyboard out of the box is a quick and simple task that will not have you ripping or tearing apart anything.
Gone are the days of having your little desk lamp turned on so you can see where your typing, with the BlackWidow Ultimate you have individual backlit keys with five levels of lighting, pressing the function key along with the light key will toggle you between all five modes which are dull to very bright. I personally love the blue colored lights on the keys as they are easy on the eyes and don’t feel at all annoying to look at while typing in the dark. Also the light matches the lights on the front panel of my PC so that makes it even better for me as I like color co-ordination in the office and while playing video games.
The first you will notice about the Ultimate is that it’s very solid and quite heavy, weighing in at 1.5kg’s. Being heavy does have advantages and it does come in handy when you’re play games such as first person shooters or RTS such as Star Craft II where your fingers are moving frantically all over the place and you can’t afford to look down to re-adjust yourself because the keyboard moved slightly, this can sometimes be a deciding factor in tournaments or online matches. I personally found the weight of the keyboard to be a major plus for me in terms of gaming and even when I’m just trying to type I don’t want to re-align myself because the keyboard moved, I want to stay in the zone and type away like a madman and the BlackWidow Ultimate gives me that option.
I must say that for the first few hours using the keyboard it did feel a little awkward as this was my first time using a mechanical keyboard the keys are far more responsive than a regular keyboard that uses the standard rubber in lay (old keyboard Logitech MX 5500) but after a while as with all things you start getting used to the keys, the pressure and the feel and most importantly the clicking sound really helps with typing and I believe it improves your accuracy and speed.
The main feature of the BlackWidow Ultimate mechanical keyboard is the feel. On a regular keyboard you never quite know if you’ve actually pressed the specific key fully so that it registers to the PC and through to the game or an the email your typing, but with the Ultimate keyboard when you push any key on the keyboard down slowly or fast you hear a “CLICK” this sound also plays with your head because if you can hear the click that means its worked and you know you can move on and press the next key. As previously mentioned the 50g actuation force and a reduced actuation of 2mm resulting in 1ms response time is amazingly quick and what you need for online gaming or just touch typing in the office.
Another cool feature available is the audio-out / Mic-in Jack and USB-Passthrough. You can of course plug in your headset into the mic/audo jack (which worked quite well) and then a USB memory stick or USB mouse without having to maneuver you way to the back of your PC and fiddle your way through finding the jack or the USB slot. I’m personally using the USB-Passthrough with my audio headphones and they are working perfectly, would have been nice to have 2 USB slots hey one slot is better than none.
Finally, the part where all the MMO fans came to read. I must say that the Black Widow with its “On-The-Fly macro recording and 10 customizable software profiles is where the magic really happens, with a simple click of two buttons you can set your macro click again stop the recording and your right to go. I’m not a big fan of MMO’s so I didn’t test it out on WOW or RIFT but I did test the on-the-fly macro on a few of my Steam titles such as Mass Effect, Amnesia, Torchlight and Beyond Good and Evil and had no problems what so ever. You have the option to change between 10 profiles without having to go into any driver menus which is where the BlackWidow blows many of the other keyboards out of the water.
Now how much do you expect to pay for all of this you ask? Well if you live in the USA the BlackWidow Ultimate is retailing for $129.99 from the Razer store. If you live in my neck of the woods (Australia) the BlackWidow is retailing for $199.95. Quite a huge jump in price difference, now taking both these prices into consideration the BlackWidow is still quite expensive, are you getting your money’s worth? I have to say YES! But can everyone afford this Ultimate keyboard? I’d probably say no. That said the BlackWidow Ultimate with its mechanical and backlit keys, programmable on-th-fly macro recording, audio and usb-passthrough make it a delight to work and especially game with, both casual and of course hardcore gamers will find plenty to love in this keyboard. If you can muster up the cash to pick one up – you will not be disappointed.
Technical Specifications
•Full mechanical keys with 50g actuation force
•Individually backlit keys with 5 levels of lighting
•1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response time
•Programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording
•Gaming mode option for deactivation of the Windows key
•10 customizable software profiles with on-the-fly switching
•5 additional macro keys
•Gaming optimized key matrix for minimized ghosting
•Multi-Media Controls
•Braided cable
•Audio-Out / Mic-In Jacks
•USB-Passthrough
•Approx. size in mm: 475(L) x 171(W) x 30(H)
•Weight: 1.5kg
System Requirements
•PC with USB port
•Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® / Windows® XP / Mac OS X (v10.5 to 10.6)
•Internet connection (for driver installation)
•At least 75MB of hard disk space
Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the infamous Resident Evil franchise, Capcom has some big plans in mind to celebrate the series. As well as the releases of Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D and Resident Evil Revelations, Capcom will be releasing an epic anthology box-set featuring every main title of the series, excluding Resident Evil 5 (though the box features a spot for it to slide right on in, if you own it).
Featured in the box are the following games and goodies:
Resident Evil Directors Cut (PS1)
Resident Evil 2 (PS1)
Resident Evil 3 Last Escape (PS1)
Resident Evil Revival Selection (PS3) – HD versions of Code Veronica and RE4
Resident Evil 4 and Code Veronica Soundtracks
Special Pins and Stickers
That is a great deal of goodies to be had, unfortunately folks here is the bad news; this box-set is limited to Japan only and is only for the Playstation 3. Some good news however is that Resident Evil Revival Selection will be making it’s way to North America in the near future.
Capcom is releasing the box-set to Japan on the 8th of September for 7,800 yen, exclusive to the e-Capcom store. Prepare to import Resident Evil fans, this one looks to be a must-have.
When They Cry Part 2 Tag line:When the Cicadas cry. Produced by: Geneon Universal (US), Siren Visual (AU) Run time: 300 minutes over 13 episodes Language: Japanese, English Genre: Horror, Thriller, Mystery Release date: 20/5/2011 Available for purchase at Siren Visual Online Store ($44.95)
Overview:
In what appears on the surface to be a cute little girl drama series, turns out to be something comparable to Twin Peaks and even Elfen Lied, you have When They Cry or to those hard-core otaku out there Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. A series that takes brutality and hysteria to the next level. What you have here is not for the weak. This is an anime that doe not have mercy for either the characters or the viewers. This is no-holds-barred anime at it’s finest.
Story:
When They Cry tells the tale of a town brought to the brink of insanity. A cursed town where time is of a different nature, and murder is rampant. The series piles on mystery after mystery. With each question answered a new question is posed and the plot-thickens. This collection concludes the first season of the series (which has spawned multiple sequels), in a fairly satisfying manner whilst leaving room for a sequel (which it already has recieved).
This particular collection features the Time Wasting, Eye Opening and Atonement chapters, with each taking up several episodes. I particularly found the Time Wasting chapter to be the most interesting as it laid a lot of the ground work for what was to come. The Atonement chapter provided a satisfying end and gave an explosive (literally) conclusion to the series as well as hope for the towns peoples future.
Hit me baby one more time!
Without going into to a great ammount of spoilers it’s worth noting; time and the effect it has on a person is a central part of this series. With time and other problems plaguing the town not treating these characters too fairly, things begin to spiral into insanity with some extremely depressing and gruesome occurrences taking place.
The downfall of this all though is that at times the horror is laid on too thickly over the cutesy characters which can be quite jarring to the viewer. Overall the series storyline is one that will definitely keep you both entertained and guessing, whether it’s going ultra-violent or twisting the plot, it’s definitely a strong part of the series.
Characters:
The characters are all very well written and each embodies the insanity and isolation that the series world forces upon them. The only negative to be said about them is that they all generally fall within the stereotypes of the genre. I personally found the little girl characters to be extremely stereotypical and in turn became difficult to empathise with, as they each are simply just cute yet with a dark side.
However the characters themselves are good enough to not be entirely pulled down by being slightly stereotypical. Partly due to the brilliant writing of the series as well as the great voice work from the voice actors. With both dub casts doing a great job with the characters.
Seven days… Oh wait wrong number.
Artwork:
The art style of the series is suitably grim with a juxtaposition of cutesy moe characters. This both works and doesn’t work simultaneously. It works in that it provides quite a large amount of shock value at witnessing what is taking place with these cute characters doing horrible things. It doesn’t work in that it can feel incredibly jarring to those who aren’t adjusted to such ultra-violence, particularly from cute little girls. However, this is all extremely distinctive and does make When They Cry stand out from the crowd.
The animation is brilliant with a fair amount of detail placed into the character movements with only a few clunky looking scenes (particularly when someone is thrown, it looks static to some extent). Thankfully the animation is generally well done and brings the characters to life wonderfully.
I don’t think we want to know the origin of this blood…
Audio:
When They Cry’s soundtrack is relatively decent, with a great deal of good tracks. The only let down on the soundtrack is that it is essentially nothing more than stock music for this kind of series. The tracks are what you’d expect, eerie, moody and in some scenes poppy.
The opening theme is very good though and perfectly sets the mood for the show, being an ominously creepy tune, featuring a mash up of cute and freaky imagery in its video. The singer’s voice sends a chill down your spine as she repeats the same line as though she were stuck in a loop (clearly to signify the state of time in the series). The ending theme is equally good and also featuring equally creepy imagery.
As I stated previously all the voice actors on both audio tracks (Japanese and English) where absolutely on their game with this series and showed the characters the delicate care they deserve (even if the characters don’t show the same care to each other). The audio work all-in-all was very good, apart from the less than stellar background music which was simply expected and a little bit average compared the the opening and ending songs.
Special Features:
As with all Siren Visual releases to date, When They Cry does not feature a significant amount of special features apart from a nice slip case and a few trailers for their other releases. This is a continual problem with Siren Visual releases that often let down the overall experience of the collection.
I personally would have liked to see some commentary or production art at the very least. But I have grown use to Siren’s releases featuring little to no special features so I can’t say I expected anything more from them.
Hopefully in the future Siren will include more special content and features to their releases, as their is little reason to stick around once the final episodes credits roll, other then to rewatch it. Only time will tell.
How did you manage to get a flash light stuck in there!?
Conclusion:
When They Cry Part 2, is a great conclusion to a great series. However it is a difficult anime to recommend as it features high amounts of ultra-violence and imagery that can be considered frightening to many. This one seems to be tailor-made for the hard-core otaku crowd with very little lee-way for the mainstream audience. Despite this it is an overall great series and is definitely a sight to behold.
In an affront to opinions everywhere, Trion have taken it upon themselves to dispel the belief that Clerics everywhere are weaklings.
In this video for their flagship MMORPG, Rift, the Cleric class of this game looks as though it can pack a bit of punch as well as healing. As a player of Rift, I can attest to the awesomeness of the Cleric in the hands of the right player. So if you’re interested in Rift or Clerics in general, be sure to check out the video embedded below.
In the latest video from Ubisoft for their upcoming game, Driver San Francisco, comes a reveal of a car within the game.
This car is the 1974 make of the Ford Gran Torino, which for Ford enthusiasts would be a very notable vehicle. The trailer also shows off other vehicles from makers like Chevloret, Ford, Dodge and Pontiac. Adding to the video is some classic Starsky and Hutch style police chase music, which makes it incredibly entertaining to watch.
Discover the lengendary and classic cars appearing in Driver San Francisco in this video, featuring the 2006 Ford GT, 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, 2009 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR, 1986 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, 1974 Ford Gran Torino, and 1971 Pontiac Lemans. Driver San Francisco will release on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii September 1st 2011.
Cow and Chicken Season Two Genre: Animation/Kids Producer: Cartoon Network Platform: DVD Running Time: 286 minutes Year: 1998 Price: $24.95 (Buy Here)
Overview
After breaking out of the animated showcase, The What A Cartoon Show, and standing on its own two feet for a successful season, Cow and Chicken returned with a second season. With the same cast of characters, same outrageous animation style and same bizarre plot lines; it was apparent by season two that Cow and Chicken had created a foothold in 1990’s animation and would emerge as a seminal series that would go on to influence a variety of other Cartoon Network animated series.
Plot
Rather than bore you with a tedious re-write of a plot overview, it is best if you read the review of Cow and Chicken season one to get an idea of the shows basic plot. Rather than just retell the plot, which at its core has not changed, the series is after all still about Cow and Chicken, I will look at the subtle ways the plot has changed. The format hasn’t changed from the first season; the show is still broken up into three segments, one of which is I Am Weasel. I think the problem I have with the plot of I Am Weasel is that except for I R’s jealousy of Weasel, the series has no consistency. In every episode both characters are rivals in some random profession. As a result, the jokes are always based on I R trying to foil Weasel. At least in this season The Red Guy adds an extra element, even if he is an over the top instigator fueling the flames of an already heated rivalry.
Cow and Chicken on the other hand, is full of consistency, to the point of repetition. I was a little disappointed to see that the episode Orthodontic Police managed to slip out of season one and into season two as well. Not to mention small in between episode segments where Chicken flies a bee or Cow makes a trampoline out of her tongue. Watching the season from beginning to end, or at least watching episodes in close proximity to each other, the use of repetition is obvious. While I have noticed that even animated series as big as The Simpsons reuse scenes, Cow and Chicken don’t seem to try and hide their recycling under new narrative, it is just out there in the open. However I am sure watching the episodes over a reasonable time span would help avoid this issue.
Characters
Throughout season two, Cow and Chicken stay much the same as in season one. While the two characters grow and their relationship is stronger and we learn more about them, their personalities are pretty consistent. Season two reveals some interesting character developments in terms of minor characters though. The characters of Mum and Dad have a few jokes revolving around the fact that they are both just legs. In the episode ‘Cow and Chicken Reclining’ Chicken pulls the top half of a man and woman out of a cupboard to which Cow comments “my science project”. A few other gags like the parents portrait above the bed being just of legs, and their feet on the pillows when they are asleep in the same scene poke fun at the fact that they have no upper half. While it might be weird, these jokes really work despite their ridiculousness. Perhaps because they have no upper halves, the writers seem to throw in a lot of gender confusion jokes. While the mum wears a dress and the dad pants, there seem to be a lot of jokes that are along the lines of “it made a woman out of your mum and me”. It’s an odd character development, but a development nonetheless, one that appears countless times throughout season two.
The biggest character changes in season two come in the form of character cross overs. I have already mentioned how The Red Guy appears in I Am Weasel now as an instigator character, essentially the same character he plays in Cow and Chicken. As well as this, Weasel crosses over into Cow and Chicken in an episode where Cow falls in love with Weasel after watching him on television and then pulls him out of the TV and into her world. Little cross overs like this work well, especially considering that up until that point I Am Weasel seemed mostly irrelevant to the series as a whole.
Audio and Visual
Season two definitely had an improved animation style. While the visual aesthetics of Cow and Chicken relies on really outrageous images, I felt as if season two pulled this off while at the same time avoiding the little off-model character poses that season one seemed to have. There is nothing overly spectacular about the visual styling of Cow and Chicken: it is quintessential of 1990’s Cartoon Network animations and works well within that framework.
In terms of the sound, voice actor Charlie Adler does another amazing job voicing almost every character on the series, with an amazing range in pitch and emotion spread across each character he voices. Despite this, I still can’t help but think that Cow and Chicken is a little too loud: there seems to be an awful lot of yelling and screeching in the series.
Conclusion
In terms of writing, I think Cow and Chicken season two is an improvement over the first series. While there are some lazy movements, such as a complete reusing scenes without changing the context of the narrative, these can be glossed over in terms of an over all improvement of story. I Am Weasel still sits oddly within the framework of Cow and Chicken, despite the few cross overs between them, and the jokes in that section wear rather thin. There seems to be more of an emphasis on improved animation style, which works well for the series, especially in pushing some of their really out-there jokes. A bit more of an emphasis on the minor characters, who mostly just serve as one-hitter jokes also works well for the series, as just Cow and Chicken might get a bit monotonous. Overall I would say I prefer Cow and Chicken season two to the first season, and can see why it held such influence over the Cartoon Network throughout my youth.
