Super Smash Brothers Roster Leak: Is Halo in Smash at last?

(Photo courtesy of Twitter user bigbongripperxcortanachief)

Super Smash Brothers, the fourth major release in the series, is seeing a launch on 3DS this Friday in Japan.  Thanks to cultural differences, yesterday was Friday in Japan, and that is why some lucky users are playing the game – and spoiling its content online for others!  While reports are still coming in as the day continues, here is what we can share so far-

Previously leaked pictures of the Duck Hunt Dog were not faked, and he has retained all of his famous catch phrases from the game.

Quarter-circle heavy punch is now REQUIRED to anti-air edge-guard into a final smash.

There are several new stages, including a “retro” F-Zero racing stage, as well as a stage inspired by Hotel Mario.

Pictured is the latest leak, which is still unconfirmed, which would identify Halo as the latest newcomer to Nintendo’s Smash Brothers series.  Several twitter users have confirmed that they have also found the character in the game.  One Japanese player had this to say: “(ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧”, which when translated from Katakana text, is said to be slang for “I have personally confirmed this fact.”

More as it becomes available.

First Look: The Last Guardian Repurposed as competetive MOBA, Debuts at TGS

Valve’s Half Life 3; Team ICO’s The Last Guardian; Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV: What do all of these titles have in common?  All of these projects are cancelled, and are being re-purposed into MOBA games. 

What is a MOBA game?  Created and popularized by Riot Games’ League of Legends, a MOBA is a “My Object is to Betray my Allies” game, where the purpose is to create a team of four white teenager and one Brazilian for them to make fun of, while allowing the enemy team to win and, as a courtesy, saying “I bet you kiss boys” afterwards.  For such a high-concept skill-reliant genre, it is a marvel that it has taken off in popularity as well as it has. 

Team ICO has shared this exciting news exclusively with us, and we say can only say “Hajimemashite” for the extremely kind favor.  Team ICO is a Japanese developer who has created niche PS2 classics such as 2005’s Shadow of the Colossus, as a division of Sony Computer Entertainment.  It should come as no surprise that Sony was interested in using the team’s unique talents to their fullest potential on their new PS4 platform, by creating a team-based game with limited world development, and no plot or inherent emotional value.  The design description is as follows: “A small 5v5 map based on two opposing teams.  A small group of characters called ‘Dreams’ will spawn in each team’s base, which will then march and meet within battlefield “lanes”, where they will crush each other.  Alternatively, a player can crush enemy Dreams for money and experience.  There will also be Dreams that are neutral to the conflict at hand, which sit between lanes and wait to be crushed by either team.”  Team ICO teased us with a few names of the neutral Dreams to be crushed, such as “Vitaversion” and “Eeco Seequel.”

Team ICO plans to formally reveal the official logo for the game at the Tokyo Game Show with no actual gameplay footage.  As of now, the official release date of The Last Guardian will be some time in 2011.

Report: Nintendo of America Responsible for Jennifer Lawrence Leaked Photos

(Photo Courtesy of Associated Press)

 

Early Sunday, the internet was set ablaze by a scandal the size of Watergate.  The popular actress Katniss Everdeen, along with several other actresses and notables, found themselves featured in several “leaked” nude and semi-nude photographs, which immediately went viral.  Some have come forward claiming that the photographs were leaked by an angry ex-boyfriend or an internet/phone hacking sexual deviant.  But thanks to a reliable source, this site will now report the unabridged truth.

 

Our source reports: “Nintendo was in a bad spot.  They just announced the ‘New’ 3DS, no one understood what it was, and all eyes were on them.  Some stockholders began mumbling about selling their shares in the Japanese video-game company.  Families across the nation were considering a boycott of the company, which is clearly not looking out for the best interest of kids, as even the brightest, tech-savvy kids do not understand why this new technology exists.  When I approached Reggie Fils-Aime, the President of Nintendo of America with a proposition, there were tears of great sadness in his eyes.  He wiped his eyes with a first-generation 3DS console , threw it directly into the trash, and asked me to sit down.  I explained my solution the best I could: ‘What is the only way to salvage a sullied household name?’  ‘A press release to further explain the goals and value of the new dev-‘ I pressed my fingers to Reggie’s lips and shushed him.  ‘You can only recover a sullied household name by dragging other household names through the dirt.’  Reggie’s eyes lit up in devious curiosity. ‘Do it,’ he said.”  From there it was simple:  Our source sought out an unnamed ex-boyfriend and paid him like $20 to leak the pictures. 

 

Speaking to one concerned mother, she claimed to be “entirely shocked when I turned on my MSN machine to read the news and look for recipes.  Who would have guessed that this woman had a naked body under those clothes?”

Speaking to my own father, I asked, “Pop, have you seen the leaked photographs of that one actress?”  He said “No,” but from the look in his eyes I could tell that he had already saved them to the hard drive of the family computer. 

Not once in the entire day of interviews did a single person mention the “New” 3DS, by name or implication.  A blistering success on the part of Nintendo of America, and a generally favorable outcome for just about everyone owning a libido.  In a final sentence to our source, who will remain unnamed until his grave, I asked “How much did Nintendo pay you for saving their business from absolute destruction?”  As my source turned to walk away, he whispered, “One Nintendo ‘New’ 3DS LL with Super Smash Brothers.”

Nintendo Employee Accidentally Eats “New” 3DS

When Nintendo announced the “New 3DS” and “New 3DS LL” models, the Japanese Video Games company was met with extremely mixed reactions from around the globe.  Some die-hard Nintendo fans were upset, because they had recently invested in a 2DS or a 3DS XL, and now there was another brand new model with everything fans had asked for since the original release.  The “New” models feature a right-side analog nub, more shoulder buttons, a virtual Wi-fi switch, and an upgraded CPU for faster downloads and processing speed.  Continuing an utterly puzzling naming system, Nintendo has managed to confuse and upset a high number of fans with their latest announcement.

 

None were more confused than an employee of Nintendo of Japan, who has chosen to keep his name and position unlisted for this article.  For convenience, we will name him Mr.M for this article.  Following a business meeting last month, our source was given a prototype copy of the new hardware to bug-test and report on.  Mr.M and his work group came out of their meeting confused as to what they had in their hands.  Notoriously vague, the upper management of Nintendo had managed to announce the project to their teams- without explicitly explaining what it was they were developing. 

“My friend asked me, ‘Mr.M, what is this exactly?’ and I did not know how to answer.  I am the leader of a marketing team and am under considerable pressure to perform as a role model.  I did not know how to express the thought that I was missing an essential piece of the puzzle – what a ‘New 3DS’ is supposed to be.  In my haste to explain to my team, I began to eat the device.  When I had finished eating the entire object, I explained how it had tasted, and asked my interns to draft an explanation, and some catchy phrases.  Content, I retired to my office to begin my daily work and think on the project.  An hour later, management entered my office, horrified that I had made a mistake.  They explained that the ‘New 3DS’ was not edible, and also not simply a new model of the 3DS line.  It was in fact an entirely new console, in the way that the WiiU is not simply a new model of the Wii.  I was flabbergasted.. and all I could say was, ‘My bad.  But how was I supposed to know that when you didn’t tell me?’ “

Mr.M also blames his actions for pushing the Western release of the “New” 3DS into 2015.  The “New” 3DS is expected to launch in Japan simultaneously with Monster Hunter 4G on October 11th, as a bundle package – which is puzzling, as 4G is a title developed for the 3DS – not the “New” 3DS you will get in the package.  Speaking with a long-time Monster Hunter fan, he commented that he now owns “Five Monster Hunter-themed 3DS models.  This **** has to stop.”

Nintendo has since released an apology to confused fans – “We apologize for poorly representing our new product to you.  We were considering other names for our brand new, not-at-all-part-of-the-3DS-line console before we settled on the name ‘New’ 3DS – namely, ‘3DS+’, ‘3DS 2’, and ‘3DS Lite’.  Please understand.”

 

Also, really, Sakurai?  Shulk?  If Ridley is an assist trophy I will literally only buy one copy.

Soul Sacrifice Delta Review: Go Read a Book

Soul Sacrifice Delta, Keiji Inafune’s MarvelousAQL-developed brainchild, is an expansion to the base game Soul Sacrifice, and the only game currently available for Sony’s Playstation Vita handheld console.

Soul Sacrifice’s core concept is simple:  In a world of magicians and monsters, you are often given an option: Sacrifice your enemy, and absorb his power to kindle your own, or Save him, out of the goodness in your heart.  As this translates into game-play, your job as a player is to defeat a monster, and choose whether to kill or heal their human form, in exchange for a permanent power or defense buff.  Regardless of your choice, after the mission is cleared, you will harvest a part of the monster, similar to action RPGs like Monster Hunter.  If you kill a Kraken in battle, you may receive a modified Kraken Tentacle, which you can use to channel a unique spell in the next battle.  The boss roster is weighty, and the pure number of spells is ludicrous. 

That concept forms the base layer of the game.  Add on to that: Guilds, Multiplayer and Story focus.  In the Delta expansion, you can join one of three organizations: Avalon, magicians who must sacrifice all vile fiends; Sanctuarium, rogue magicians who choose to save without prejudice; Grim, magicians who leave the fate of the monsters up to chance.  Multiplayer, both through ad-hoc and wifi, add the dimension of strife between factions – an Avalon sorcerer and a Sanctuarium priest might join forces to fight a Werewolf.. until it becomes a race to Sac or Save the fiend.  Beyond roleplaying, the world of Soul Sacrifice is built up incredibly well by a powerful lore base, in which each fiend acts as a twisted retelling of a fairytale, each with its own short story accessible in game.  Names like Magusar, Carnatux, Illecebra, and Sortiara will stay in players’ minds for years – not because they are especially deep or beautiful characters, but because they are all multifaceted, have agendas of their own, and fit well into the game’s world. 

For all this buildup, it just sucks that the game won’t let me have my cake and eat it too.  Since saving monsters does not give you attack power, I never did it.  I usually die in one hit for some reason, which I think is a game breaking bug.  When I play online with my friends, they always sacrifice me when I die.  When I finish missions, it always calls me a third-rate sorcerer.  I think the algorithm for that might be hacked.  Cerberus is also too hard for me, he keeps charging at me – if only there was a shield item to use or something LOL.  JK though because I only bring homing damage weapons.  If I wanted to die in one hit, I would play a real game like Dark Souls 2. 

2/10.  Inafune, this is not what I payed for when I backed Mighty Number 9.

Based on 2.2 hours of gameplay.

Report: The Pirate Bay to pay royalties to Kill La Kill animators

Notorious free-media-for-all website The Pirate Bay announced early Monday morning that they would be striking a deal with Kill La Kill animators Studio Trigger for continued use of their intellectual property.  Studio Trigger, an anime veteran dream team, has animated several projects to varying commercial success, until 2013’s Kill La Kill made the studio a household name amidst the titanic competition in the animation world.  The Pirate Bay claims that the anime, which stretched a single continuous 24-episode season, has brought more traffic through the website than any other form of pirated intellectual property in 2013. 

The Japanese anime exploded in popularity in the Western world thanks to fan blogging and viral marketing on social media websites such as Tumblr, Reddit, 4chan and Kotaku.  Speaking to one fan about the series’ ongoing legacy, “Kill La Kill was not only the best animated work of 2013, but the only one I have ever seen.”

The Pirate Bay has offered Studio Trigger 25% advertisement revenue from traffic intending to pirate the animated series, in a four-year contract.  TRIGGER went on the record to comment, thanking The Pirate Bay for their generosity, mentioning that it was “a better deal than TBS had ever cut them.”  While Kill la Kill’s saga has ended, Studio Trigger is hard at work on Fall 2014’s adaptation of the manga Inō-Battle wa Nichijō-kei no Naka de, which translates to “Big Battle Sequences.”  The Pirate Bay has expressed interest in continued partnership with the animation studio.

 

Source:  Tumblr.

Ichi the Killer: Disgusting Violence

Ichi the Killer (or Koroshiya Ichi) is a late 90’s manga by Hideo Yamamoto. 

 

My friend, Thom, who is a sexual pervert, recommended that I read the manga Ichi the Killer.  At first, I was reluctant to read a manga with such a ridiculous premise (gang wars in Japan) , but when I saw that the titular hero was a Ninja Turtle, I changed my mind.  Now I wish I hadn’t.  Where do I even start with a travesty like this?  I don’t know where to start.

I’ll start with Ichi himself. 

1.  Ichi cries.  That’s all he does.  Heroes are not supposed to cry.  When Ichi cries, he loses control of himself and starts to act violently.  I believe he might be possessed by demons maybe.  When Ichi isn’t crying, people pick on him and bully him around, which I think is the author trying to make him a likable character.

2.  Ichi gets erections all the time.  Heroes don’t get erections.

3.  Ichi kills people because other people tell him to.  I don’t think Ichi even fights for Justice or Love. 

I could not relate to Ichi, and I think that makes him a bad main hero character.  Kakihara is the main bad guy but I think I can relate to him more because he is at least a badass.  He doesn’t care about pain and he doesn’t care about authority, so I think he might have supposed to have been the hero after all.  Overall I didn’t like the dynamic between the hero and the villain because they only meet at the very end and they hardly talk to each other.  Maybe Jii-san was the hero after all, because he only wanted to make the gang move out of the hotel so he could let other people in.  I think that might be it. 

There were also no female fighters so I think that might be sexist. 

Another thing about this piece of work is the violence.  Anything that features violence promotes violence and there is a LOT of violence in Ichi the Killer.  I get that the world of the Yakuza is supposed to be a doggy dog world, but the level of violence in this manga is obscene.  There are also a lot of penises but they censor them so it isn’t as offensive.  I don’t think anyone said “I love you” in the whole manga and that means they were missing a big part of what makes a manga good, the romance.  There were also very few jokes.  Except when Ichi kills his slut girlfriend after he says he will beat her up in place of her pimp, I think that might have been a joke. 

At the end, Ichi kills Kakihara by cutting off his arm and then his fingers and a bird pooped on his other finger.  Then Ichi decides to live a normal life and Jii-san starts to raise an orphan.  But then Ichi cries again at the end, so he still cries a lot.  I didn’t like the ending.

 

Overall I think this manga was offensive, distasteful, and smut, fit for consumption by nobody.  5/10.

I don’t talk to Thom anymore.

What is my intention?

Have you ever tried to discuss your favorite thing on a Youtube video?  Or on Reddit?  As the internet continues to evolve, clear limits to an anonymous community rise to the surface.  Since anonymous and semi-anonymous users have absolutely nothing at stake, no catalysts to encourage performance within boundaries, most attempts at discussion follow a discouraging format:  One well-meaning post about the topic at hand; three personal insults (deserving or not) to the original poster; one Bible verse; ten pages of responses about why Christians ruin everything.  Nothing is gained, and the entire thread has simply wasted the time of anyone who intended to discuss a topic. 

What I’d like to do is discuss things I like and dislike.  If no one ever responds, or ever reads these posts, I’m satisfied discussing these things with myself.  But I would like to encourage anyone who objects to my opinion, or who would like to elaborate on a position I mention, to do so thoughtfully.  I don’t ask for respect.  I would rather someone opens by cursing my name, then teaches me something new, than a following of yes-men who think my opinion is law.  I would be overjoyed if people with different opinions would share them with me. 

For the most part, I will be critiquing or reviewing entertainment, which may include animation, movies, video games, books and plays, from anywhere in the world.  If you would like to hear my opinion on an item, let me know.  If I’ve never heard of it, I’ll do my best to work it into my schedule to look up and touch on, at least briefly.

 

So here are a few ground rules I’d like to set for myself for however long I sustain this project:

I will not delete or move any toxic post.  I usually will not respond to those either.  I will hold myself to a higher personal standard of critique: One sentence reviews are not sufficient.  I will attempt one or more posts a week, through rain or snow or sleet.  Unless it is sleeting very hard.  I will do my best to expand my vocabulary, expand my horizons, and to learn something new from anyone who wants to teach me.  I think that’s about it.