For those of you who haven’t yet got a chance to download Konami’s Hard Corps: Uprising or X-Men Arcade on the XBLA, now is your chance as both are available this week on the Xbox Live Marketplace for half off. This sale goes from June 28th and ends July 4th, making X-Men Arcade 400 points (originally 800) & Hard Corps: Uprising 600 points (originally 1200).
For those craving a different type of mutant, TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-shelled is also half off this week, but those who want it must act fast as the title is being pulled from the XBLA due to licensing issues on June 30th.
Finally after its long hiatus, Hunter x Hunter will make it’s triumphant return after more than a year without a new chapter. The series has been plagued by numerous hiatuses over it’s long run, which without hiatuses would be nearly as long as One Piece.
Many reasons have been given for the hiatuses such as illness of the manga’s author Yoshihiro Togashi and the birth of Togashi’s child. But it appears that this time Hunter x Hunter will be returning for good, without any hiatuses until the series reaches it’s natural conclusion. This is great news for fans of the series who have been tortured by the wait between releases.
Togashi will pick up his utensils once again and get back to work on the series with a new chapter coming this August. More details will be revealed in the coming weeks.
The upcoming Driver game, Driver San Francisco, is currently undergoing development for its release later this year. The title features a new Shift Mode that allows players to switch between vehicles on the fly (almost literally), as well as a gripping story and gameplay.
The developers behind the game, Ubisoft Reflections, have recently released a developer diary of the title discussing various aspects of the game. So get ready to gear up and drive on to an informative video as presented by Martin Edmondson, the Creative Director behind the game.
http://driver-game.com http://www.facebook.com/Driver
Developed by Ubisoft Reflections DRIVER® SAN FRANCISCO signs a return to the roots of the original title. Much to the delight of action driving gamers, DRIVER® SAN FRANCISCO features a unique open city driving and a shift mode allowing easy switching between cars.
Gear up for furious chases and hunt down your worst enemy in San Francisco !
DRIVER® SAN FRANCISCO will be released on September 1st 2011.
A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against pop star Lady Gaga for her apparent theft of charity proceeds she procured through her “We Pray For Japan” bracelets she has been selling on her website.
Gaga has been accused of pocketing a portion of the proceeds of each bracelet sold on her site, whilst claiming all proceeds shall be going to charity to assist Japan as the country recovers from the devastating natural disasters that hit the country recently.
The lawsuit states that documents were uncovered that revealed a large sum of the overall pool of donations went straight to Gaga and her associates. If this is truly the case Gaga has earned more than 5 million dollars at Japan’s expense.
Gaga and her associates have responded to these accusations with the simple comment that they are “without merit”. Gaga still continues her tour of Japan.
Ever since the 3DS was released there was only one way to play one of the most relaxing outdoor activities in the 3D. I’m talking of course, about fishing. The 3DS itself may come with an AR fishing title, but this pales in comparison with any legitimate fishing title and any fan of fishing knows this. But now you can actually fish to your hearts content because Natsume has just released Reel Fishing Paradise 3D to stores today.
Reel Fishing Paradise 3D is available for only $30 and it will include many different types of fish from bass to tuna, over a hundred different pieces of tackle and three fishing lure styles. Players can venture out into fifteen different fishing locations where they can catch a number of different fish in each area. Hiro Maekawa, president and CEO at Natsume describes these areas as “beautiful” and that the game will allow any player to “immerse yourself in a fantastic 3D experience unlike anything you’ve seen before!”
The Pokémon U.S. National Championships will be held at Indianapolis, Indiana between July 8th– 10th. Pokémon Trading Card Game and video game players will get to battle it out for a chance to obtain places for the 2011 Pokémon World Championships in San Diego, California, August 12th-14th!
In its 8th year, the Pokémon Trading Card Game National Championships will see an expected of more than 1 500 players competing for 24 invitations to compete at the World Championships! A battle pandemonium! Players will be giving it their all to best 1476 other competitors (using 1 500 as a guide). This means approximately only 1.6 % will advance to the world stage! They’ve got a tough 3 days going for them next week!
Think you’ve got what it takes to win? Pre-registration for the Pokémon Trading Card Game will take place on July 7th-8th at the Indiana Convention Center. It’s open to all U.S. residents with a good standing in the Play! Pokémon program. Players won’t have to qualify, but there will only be a limited number of places so you’d better get in quick as places will be given on a first come, first-served basis.
Players placing in the top eight in the Junior Division (born 2000 – ), the Senior Division (1996-1999) and the Masters Division (1995 or earlier) at the end of the 3-day event will be given a place at the 2011 Pokémon Trading Card Game World Championships where they will compete with the best of the best from players around the world in more than 25 countries and win scholarships, medals and other prizes from The Pokémon Company International!
Visit www.pokemon.com for more information about the 2011 U.S Pokémon Trading Card Game National Championships.
Now for the Pokémon Video Game National Championships!
Thousands American players have already competed at the regionals in the 2011 Pokémon Video Game Championships Series. And now only the players who placed in the top 16 at the Seattle, San Jose, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington and Newark regionals received invitations to compete at the Pokémon U.S. National Championships! Players placing in the top 8 in the Junior, Senior and Masters divisions will obtain a place at the 2011 Pokémon World Championships, where they get to compete against the best from Europe, Japan and South Korea!
Did you miss out in the regionals and still want to compete at the national championships? Well not to worry, you get one last chance! How you ask? At the U.S. National Championships Video Game Last Chance Qualifier tournament which will be held at Indiana Convention Center July 8th! Registration is done on the day and players will need to bring their copy of Pokémon Black Version or Pokémon White Version and their Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo DSi XL or Nintendo 3Ds system. The top 16 finishers in each division will receive a place the next day in the National Championships!
Visit www.pokemon.com/vcg for more information about the U.S. Video Game National Championships and U.S National Championships Video Game Last Chance Qualifier tournament.
Needless Part 1 Tag Line: IN AD 200X, World War 3 began… Produced by: Sentai Filmworks Run time: 280 minutes, over 12 episodes. Language:English, Japanese Genre: Action, Seinen, Science-Fiction, Comedy Available for purchase at Siren Visual Online Store ($49.95)
Overview:
What do you get if you combine the bible with a season 1 episode of Heroes and a soft-core porno flick? You get Needless, a series that doesn’t really care for subtlety, class, characters, plot or anything. Yet somehow this works for Needless. The complete apathetic mood of the series makes it feel as though someone slapped together some anime tropes and called it a day, yet it all feels so cohesive and intentional that it comes off as charming more than anything. But where does this charm come from? Is it earned? Read on.
Ahh.. Just a flesh wound!
Story:
The plot of Needless is so simple that I found myself pondering whether it was lifted straight off an ‘Anime for Dummies’ book. We have all the shonen archetypes present, such as; wimpy kid saved by badass in apocalyptic world and people have magic powers and fight with them. It is most definitely nothing new, but at the same time it feels fresh because of how they have gone about using those archetypes.
Needless flat-out has characters acknowledge the stupidity of what is occurring and even regularly break the fourth wall. Is this needed? Not particularly, but it makes Needless stand out as more than just another post-apocalyptic world shonen series. The fact that all the characters are in on the joke makes for a hilarious joy-ride of a series. Even if the story is something you’ve seen before, the characters comments on that make it humorous enough that it doesn’t matter.
The only thing that does bog the humour down is the constant fan-service jokes. A lot of the time they just aren’t funny. Louis C.K once said that you can’t laugh while trying to jerk off. I think that applies to these moments (not that I condone that sort of behaviour over animated characters, but to each their own). They kill the humour preceding it and slow the pace down tremendously. I was also a little disappointed that the fan-service scenes weren’t played up as being stereotypical like the rest of the series, instead they just went for straight out fan-service with the humour supposedly meant to be surrounding the awkwardness.
But honestly, there isn’t a lot awkward about this series. It’s straight up and down a complete parody of shonen anime and the fan-service really wasn’t done right here. Not to mention the pedophile jokes lean more towards disturbing than funny.
Can you guess what these scissors are used for?
The story of the series is pretty much paper-thin, but that’s completely intentional. I know this series is an adaptation of a manga but from what I hear they are both very different, with this amping up the humour and downplaying the gore. This collection of the series leaves us hanging with the heroes lives in peril against a gaggle of fan-service girls who serve the sole purpose of wearing paper clothing and flashing their panties at any given chance. Does it make me want to see the next collection? No, atleast not for the story that is.
Characters:
I’ll say this straight out, the characters are all (every single one of them) shonen archetypes. They are hardly original, but they all used humorously in that way. You have all the stereotypes of shonen series, the badass, the wimpy kid, the busty women, the cute little girls, the old man and the idiot side-kick. Needless plays this up to great affect, bringing a great deal of laughs.
But the interesting thing is that they even throw in the religious connotations trope. The two main characters are named Adam and Eve (one of whom is a priest). Also everyone’s powers comes from the prophet who came to earth and caused the lackluster apocalypse (seriously, it’s supposed to be the apocalypse but only one part of Japan is reduced to a baron wasteland).
The characters themselves put into any other series would be utterly boring, but in Needless they work and really despite their 2 dimensional personalities, that’s really all that matters.
He swears hes not Dante!
Artwork:
The art and animation of this series instantly reminded me of Gurren Lagann, what with the baron desert wasteland and character designs. However as the collection went on it seemed to come more and more into it’s own. It definitely has a distinct art-style, though a lot of it feels borrowed from other series. The animation itself is average, with an unfortunate ammount of still-screens when attacking but this may also be a parody of shonen special moves. That one I wasn’t 100% sure of.
Overall it holds itself up well enough but I can’t help but feel as though it was too bright and fluorescent for it’s own good. Needless is about manly bravado, fan-service and having a laugh about the sometimes stupid nature of Japanese animation. The bright colours feel almost too strongly forced at times, but it’s not so bad it detracted from the collection as a whole.
Audio:
Without a doubt probably the biggest highlight of the series, is the music. The opening theme ‘Modern Strange Cowboy’ is full of complete and utter bombast and machismo that it is hard not to be swept up into the episode following it (Check it out below this review).
The ending theme unfortunately fails in all ways to provide a good counter-point to ‘Modern Strange Cowboy’. Instead we get a dreadful J-pop track with clips of fan-service girls through-out. The ending is so pitifully disappointing in comparison to the opening that I chose to skip it every episode following the first. Once was enough for me.
The voice acting is good enough, albeit a little wonky in some points, though that is undoubtedly at the fault of the dodgy dialogue (If I have to hear Cruz say “Oh Geez” one more time, I think I may end up institutionalized). The characters thoughts also sounded rather peculiar, sounding as though they were recorded by the actors talking into a plastic cup. I have no idea what was going on there but it wasn’t good.
Thankfully the rest of the audio, including the killer soundtrack is all brilliant. If only the ending theme were as good.
Ending theme, your fired!
Special Features:
There isn’t a lot in the way of special features. We get the usual slip-case and trailers from Siren and some Japanese promos for the series. The slip-case is worth commenting on as it features a peculiar printing error on it. It lists the collection as having 3 discs, however only 2 are present. I’m unsure whether a 3rd disc was intended for the package or if this is simply an error by Siren. All episodes listed on the box are present so I’m guessing it was merely an error in the print of the collection.
Conclusion:
Needless is a series not for the serious. If you don’t like silly balls-to-the-wall action with some fan-service crammed in between, this probably is not something you want to watch. On the other hand if you don’t mind the silly side of things, this is definitely worth your time and money.
It’s uproariously hilarious at times and provides enough action and fan-service to keep your eyes happy all at once. Needless is indeed a beast to behold, with that said I give Needless Part 1:
Symantec, the anti-virus software giant behind the Norton family of AV software, has found Apple’s iOS to be far ahead of Google’s Android mobile operating system in terms of security. According to Carey Nachenberg of Symantec,
“We set out to analyze the core security architecture of iOS and Android,” he says. “To analyse how secure they are, their potential vulnerabilities, and [determine] what is the state of security for these devices.”
He said that iOS has an advantage in security, for a few reasons, such as:
Even though both OSes uses “traditional access control” via passwords, iOS comes with a feature that allows the owner to remotely locate, lock and/or wipe their devices, something that Android users have to implement themselves with 3rd party applications.
One of the biggest differences between the two operating systems is their approach to what Nachenberg calls “application provenance”, identifying and certifying an app for the App Store is a much more stringent process for apps on iOS. Each and every app is reviewed before it is approved into the iTunes App Store, which serves as the only source for iPhone apps, unless the device is jailbroken, which essentially means allowing code that isn’t signed by Apple to run on the device.
For Android, the approach is completely different. “In effect, Google lets you create your own [signing] certificate and public/private key pairs” says Nachenberg. “There is no vetting of apps posted on the Android Marketplace. And apps can be sideloaded from any other website.”
On-device data encryption is also different between the two platforms. Apple offers built-in hardware encryption for all on-device data since the iPhone 3G[S]. The key to decrypt the data is stored on the device, but currently it is not protected by the user’s passcode. That means, Nachenberg says, that if an attacker gains physical control of the device and jailbreaks it, giving the attacker root access, then “iOS is very happy to decrypt all that data for the attacker.”
Android’s most widely installed operating systems, 2.1 and 2.2, offer no encryption however. Their tablet operating system, 3.0, does offer an option to encrypt data, but the user has to turn it on themselves, and encryption takes around an hour the first time it is turned on.
There are also large differences in the way apps are run on the operating system. On iOS, apps are not allowed read/write access to other apps or the OS. Each app can’t even tell if another is running. On Android however, apps are allowed read/write access, but only if the user approves it. Whilst this means Android apps can do more more easily, it does mean that a rogue app could potentially access all data on the phone’s internal and external storage.
iOS does have many flaws though, Symantec found 200 vulnerabilities that date back to 2007, the date of the iPhone’s release, which could allow an attacker to access nearly all files on the device.
You can see evidence for Symantec’s findings in practicality too. Android has been plagued by malware, whilst iOS has had very few viruses, and those were only effective on jailbroken phones that hadn’t had their root passwords changed, something that is strongly recommended in the jailbreaking community.
It’s been a long time coming, but the owners of the video game cocktail bar Mana Bar have finally announced an opening date for the Melbourne venue.
Saturday 16th July is the date to keep clear, as announced today by creator Guy “Yug” Blomberg.
The doors will open at noon, with prizes, competitions, live entertainment and special guests throughout the day, night and the rest of the weekend.
The first Mana Bar opened in Brisbane in March last year, and after its success, expansion to Melbourne, and other cities nationally and internationally, was a natural next step. The Melbourne venue is located on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, and will feature seven LCD TVs allowing visitors to play the latest games on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii consoles.
But the owners were careful to dispel the usual geek stereotype, and create a unique venue that caters to both gamers and non-gamers alike, with a dynamic environment based around the social interaction of playing games with friends and strangers. Patrons can also expect gaming decor, paraphernalia displayed in cabinets, game-themed cocktails, and apparently, a life-size Duke Nukem statue.
The wildly original looking game, Bastion, has been confirmed to release on July 20th, 2011 as the FIRST Summer of Arcade release and it will be priced at 1200 Microsoft points or $15.00. Super Giant games is developing the title and Warner Bros. will be publishing the game, which won seven awards and nine nominations at E3, including Best Downloadable Game, Best Original Game, and Game of Show. It was also announced that Bastion will be coming to the PC some time later this year.
Bastion tasks you with finding a safe place in a crumbling world while a narrator tells your story. Unique gameplay, great art and interesting elements all combine to make this game one to watch.
Can you guess what these scissors are used for?
