Man, so many good trailers came out this week! First there was the Fate / Stay Night trailer of all things bad ass. Then there was the Haruhi trailer of surprise and amazement. Both are incredibly hype and worth checking out! 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for movies!
Speaking of movies, I still haven't seen anything for Trigun. There's only two weeks left in the month -- after that, it's probably safe to assume it's not coming out until 2010 (or later, at this rate). What the hell happened to that movie? I was so pumped to watch it!
I'm expecting video game news to slow down, now that Final Fantasy XIII is out in Japan. I bet a lot of Japanese gamers and bloggers are going to retreat into their domains, playing the hell out of that game. Until then, hopefully next week will continue being as good as this week was in news!
Michael Moore visits a maid cafe in Akihabara
As awesome as the pretext sounds, it was something of a let down. I wonder if Mr. Moore was a little concerned footage of him going out to a maid cafe might be taken in the wrong context and used against him -- he seemed a bit nervous in there.
VAP、細田守監督「サマーウォーズ」を3月にBD/DVD化 -AV Watch
$100 bucks for the BluRay, and rougly $75 for the DVD? Is it no wonder the anime industry is dying?
The Escapist : News : Sony Says the "M" Words About PSN Again: Monthly Fees
Hat tip to Shyang for giving the heads up. Hopefully Sony won't commit suicide and alienate their user base. But then again, this is Sony we're talking about here...
『けいおん！』シリーズ第四弾！「ねんどろいど 琴吹 紬」が本日より案内開始なので遊んでみたお！
K-On! gets figmas! News that's just in time for Christmas, lol
Haruhi Suzumiya Film's New Promo Video Streamed - Anime News Network
Woot!
Spike VGAs highlight problems with industry awards
I agree whole-heartedly with this article. Uncharted 2 wins game of the year, but not action-adventure title of the year? What gives?
Dungeons & Dragons For Microsoft Surface Has Come A Long Way - Dungeons & Dragons - Kotaku
Can you imagine what it'd be like if the Microsoft Surface was compatible with Project Natal? Mind blown, sir!
FF13にはちゃんとパンチラあります 安心してご購入ください : はちま起稿
One brave gamer bites the bullet and provides...panty shots...for the rest of us non-Final Fantasy XIII owners. Oh dear...
You might want to turn off the comments though, they're pretty annoying. I didn't think Japanese comments could be as vile as American ones (haters are universal, I suppose).
Not to spoil anyone either but, there's reports coming all over the place about how linear Final Fantasy XIII is shaping out to be, although, it's still too early (I don't believe anyone's beaten the game yet at this point).
You know what's funny though? Ryougi Shiki's seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto does the voice of Lightning, the main heroine. They act almost identically! I instantly recognized it right when she opened her mouth. I'm such a nerd...
A hentai game.
Read a little bit about the story and you'll see what I mean: in the future, waitresses at various restaurant chains around Japan fight in a large tournament. The winner receives a large cash prize of 10 billion yen, as well as the title "Virgin Goddess". The loser, however, gets "humiliated" by either being stripped of their clothing or at worse, gang-raped.
The playstation version doesn't have any of those humiliation scenes, so don't ask me about it.
Footsies are incredibly important in this game. Some of the best characters can keep you outside of combo range with just their limbs alone. Ayako for example has a light kick that can literally kick you half a screen away.
Super moves are also extremely good. A successful super on hit will always do 50% life, changing the momentum of the game in an instant. Tamao, for example, has a super fireball reminiscent of the Marvel vs Capcom series: she fires a humongous full-screen fireball that's unbelievably quick on start up! Crazy cheap!
There's 12 characters available at the start, along with two extra "hidden bosses". You have your traditional shotokan styled fighter in Yuka with fireballs and uppercut attacks; the combo friendly techno-raver Ayako; and the deliciously KoF inspired, sadistic-looking Kyoko. Every character plays identical in some form or another with quarter-circle forward commands and the occasional charge back moves. This makes for a somewhat dull lineup, but in the same breath puts the entire cast on the same page making for a somewhat balanced fighter.
It ain't broke if everybody has it!
All in all I would recommend this game for the retro enthusiast. It's not an incredibly deep fighting game, nor is it too simplistic that you can't have fun with it. Everybody should check it out once if they can. Just ignore the wonky story plot and enjoy it for senseless mayhem!
And sometimes the opposite is true as well.
So how do you calculate risk vs reward? Paying attention to your opponent's patterns is a start. It's important to keep in mind all the options you have available to you at all times, and selectively catagorizing which move is appropriate for each situation.
Let's examine one particular move from Tekken: the hopkick (uf+4)
By itself, the hopkick is a very basic looking move. On hit, it knocks the opponent up into the air, allowing free damage. Hopkicks in Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion also carry another unique trait: they "crush" low attacks, meaning they're invulnerable to all low-hitting moves.
Why is it low-risk? Simple. Hopkicks benefit from the fact that on block they're -12 frames. That means that only moves that can come out in 12 frames can effectively punish it. In the world of Tekken, only jabs can reliably punish hopkicks, and for most of the cast there aren't very many jabs that can deal a whole lot of damage. At best, jab punishing will only turn the momentum in the opponent's favor, but it won't exactly destroy your health bar.
Look at it from your side. If you land a hopkick, you're liable to take away up to 40 to 50% of your enemy's health bar -- why wouldn't you want to throw out more of those! That's why hopkicks are extremely high-reward, low-risk moves.
There are other instances where the risk is minimal while the rewards are plentiful. In 2D fighters, jump in attacks can be considered high-reward, low risk moves. If you land a jump in, chances are you're going to follow it up into a combo. But if they other guy knocks you out of the air, you won't exactly lose a ton of life -- just that one opportunity of dishing out damage.
First off, I need to apologize to the guy who claimed he watched the Tekken 6 Nationals over the weekend. He was right. They did happen over the weekend. I was wrong about that. However, I won't apologize for the claim he made about the top three players being Bob users. That was flat out wrong. Not only that, but he was being a total couch warrior about the matches, saying how boring they were to watch and uninteresting.
I hate couch warriors.
The top place finisher was an old schooler from the Tekken Tag days named ChetChetty, a really phenomenal Paul user. Second place went to Mr. Naps, a very excellent Bryan user and Street Fighter player. Third went to another Tekken Tag player (who coincidentally is a former National champ for the U.S.) named Insanelee. He used Julia.
Congratulations to all the placers. Good luck in Japan guys; take home the world crown for the U.S.!
Youtube user Nyawu has a ton of match vids up from the event, which I'd recommend over the UFragTV stream. The UFragTV stream has 10 hours worth of coverage, but there's no timestamps around to tell you what exactly you're looking at, if you happen to skip around a bit.
Here's a sample match vid between Antonio and JTChinoi, a super-impressive Xiaoyu player:
The "To Aru" series seems to be picking up pretty big lately -- it was only a few weeks ago when the Railgun show was featured on PSN's Toro Station! Still no Figma announcements though...
Source: ねこあれぶろぐ Blog
I sat down and watched the entire DVD movie this morning. While it wasn't as mind-blowing as chapter five or as action-packed as chapter three, Satsujin Kousatsu (殺人考察) made it's mark by being emotionally heavy. The orchestral score was excellent in this regard. There were times where it suspended quietly in the background during the darker scenes, creating an unreal sense of unease.
It was especially dramatic during the final scenes, filling in the lack of words with climactic music.
Watching it again however, I noticed that are a few scenes that probably won't make much sense for viewers who haven't read the novels.
Case in point -- in a particular scene near the climax, Ryougi clutches her blood-stained knife to her breast while the antagonist slashes wildly around her. It's an odd looking scene, for sure. Why is Ryougi ignoring this extremely dangerous situation, and choosing to focus her attention instead on her knife? They don't spell it out for you, but in the novel it's noted that she wanted to keep the lingering warmth left on the knife before it fades away. I'd say more, but I don't want to blow the ending.
I'm kind of sad that the series has ended, but then again I'm looking forward to Witch on the Holy Night next year. There hasn't been a Type-Moon novel since 2004, so with eager anticipation I'm sitting on the edge of my seat for this one. Here's hoping to more continued success from Kinoko Nasu!
I was reading up the latest issue of Wired at Barnes and Nobles today, and I glanced across an article for James Cameron's Avatar. I never knew James Cameron used to be a trucker. That blew my mind. And his inspiration for getting into movies was Star Wars. Didn't know that either. But what really impressed me about him was the fact that he was so passionate about making a movie that would rival George Lucas's creations that he quit his steady job and plunged head-first into cinematography.
Made me think about my own life again, and how much dedication I have (and haven't) put into life.
On a different note, my sister finally graduated today. Was pretty awesome. It took her roughly 10 years to do it, but she got it done and I'm super proud of her. Grats, sis.
Not too many links this week; I've been a bit of a mess, juggling all kinds of stuff. Didn't help that it was kind of a slow news week...
まにあっくすZ ルフィ、「メンズノンノ」表紙を飾る …漫画キャラは初
Luffy getting on the cover of a popular Japanese Men's fashion magazine is a bit...counter-intuitive...
2 Eva Fender Guitars Auctioned for 17 Million Yen
Holy crap! I should make me one of them and sell it on eBay!
Famitsu: Final Fantasy XIII Misses Perfect Score [Story Spoiler!] - final fantasy XIII - Kotaku
Not quite a perfect score, but it's one of the best scores the Final Fantasy series has gotten from famitsu. Kinda odd that a lot of other titles get perfect scores.
Cool Video: Suzuki Motorcycle Assembles Itself | Autopia | Wired.com
Pretty cool stop-animation video!
YouTube - NachumeがElectro Worldを踊ってみたNachume danced Perfume's Electro World
Is this the next big thing in Japan!?
