I was prepared to ignore the film entirely when I heard about it. I had taken my fill of spy thrillers years ago, culminating in the horrible disaster that was “Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever.” Yes, I did watch “Mission Impossible 3,” and the last two Bond films, but I skipped all the “Bourne” movies, and lost interest in “Burn Notice,” mostly because I felt that the spy trend has run it’s course and there was nothing new they could possibly wring out of it. (That, and I was drawn to “MI:3” and Bond for their acting and plot, less than their cliches.)

I went to see “Salt” after seeing a bunch of glowing reviews calling it a solid summer film, action packed and whatnot. I’ve been a bit deprived on that front for a while now, and I had a free night, so I figured “why not?” And after the film had ended, I came away with a feeling of satisfaction and anticipating what they would do next (because they set up for sequels, as they always do).

“Salt” follows a few days in the life of Evelyn Salt, an agent at the CIA. After a setup where we see her rescue from a North Korean detention center, we find her married to one of her field contacts and preparing for her anniversary. What happens next is pure spy cliche- she is “outed” during an interview with a Russian defector, told she was abducted as a young girl, trained to kill mercilessly and transplanted to the US, where she is to get a job working in intelligence and wait for her orders to perform some wicked deed, in this case killing the Russian President. Salt denies all this, then goes on the run, evading CIA, Secret Service, NYPD and a whole mess of others, including her partner and friend, played by a somewhat monotone Leiv Schreiber, while looking for her suddenly missing husband. What happens next would be spoiling to reveal, so I will stop here, because if this isn’t enough to get you interested, then this is not the movie for you.

Much like the Bond films, this one is replete with car chases, explosions, headshots, whole-scale slaughter and a ton of Russians. Evelyn Salt is a “super agent” of death, dispatching all comers with guns, grenades and explosives. She can do anything, break into any place, avoid all detection, escape from any confinement- she is essentially perfect, not unlike James Bond, Jason Bourne, or Michael Westen, and she inspires terror in the hearts of everyone against her. Implausible yes, cliche definitely, but also expertly done. Despite rehashing every spy movie trend of the last 50 years, the movie never feels like a retread, never moves along slowly, and keeps the suspense going for the entirety of its 90 minute run. Flashbacks are interspersed at crucial junctions, highlighting the life Salt knew and showing how she got to this point, with everyone against her.

For her part, Jolie is very competent, channeling a lot from her “Tomb Raider” days into Salt’s resourcefulness and skill in combat styles of all types. She spends a lot of the movie haggard, which is a welcome change of pace from the usual elegance she seems to ooze. The one downside is her facial expressions- they never change. No matter what she is doing, or to whom, or whatever thew situation, Salt always smirks knowingly, teasingly, giving off more than a bit of arrogance. It leads to the character being very one-track at times, and severs a lot of her emotion. While we root for her when she is in a tight spot, she never feels truly worthy of our empathy, rather we root for her “Macguyver-like” skills in improvisation and quick thinking, likely wishing we could perform the way she does, even knowing that it would be physically impossible to do so.

But if one can suspend their disbelief for a moment, they will find “Salt” to be a wonderful diversion from a lot of the usual summer fare, despite it being “typical summer fare” itself. But in a season dominated by Predators, Airbenders, Dreamwalkers and a whole lot of 3D, Salt stands out as an action film, wrapped in suspense and full of questions. Who is Salt indeed?

For those uninitiated into the fandom, a “Predator” is a hulking monster of an alien whose sole point in existing seems to be hunting and killing for the thrill. Sporting greasy, reptilian dreads and a snarl only a mother would love, and armed with wrist blades, a wicked collapsible naginata, shoulder-mounted plasma cannon, cloaking device, and the ability to see in multiple visible spectra, the Predators embody the very essence of the killing machine, wrapped up in mountains of “cool.” Needless to say, the movie was a bona fide hit, and added to Ah-nuld’s status as the premiere action hero of his day.

Fast forward 23 years, and the latest “installment” in the series, aptly titled “Predators,” takes the series away from some of it’s more colorful modern settings, and places it back where it all began, in the jungle. The previous three or four outings in the series saw the monsters relocated to LA, where they stalked Danny Glover (but we don’t talk about that one) and then to deep space, where they engaged in brutal combat with the xenomorphs from the “Alien” films. While entertaining, those movies were pure fandom fluff, spawned by the wickedly popular crossovers of the 90s and 00s comic book revolution. That’s not to say that this one is not. In fact, “Predators” continues the trend right where the last “Aliens vs Predator” left off, full of mindless action and horrid dialogue, but still having elements of the same cool it did way back when, just heavily diluted.

Let’s get this out of the way first: there is no plot. There is a setup- eight people are plucked from their real world lives, and awaken in a freefall over a strange planet. Each one represents the “ultimate predator” on their world: there are cartel enforcers, yakuza, IDF, African death squad mercenaries, serial killers, Morpheus and Adrien Brody. And they gradually come to understand they are in some sort of game preserve, where they are hunted by a trio of the Predators, from which the movie takes its name. That’s about it. No surprises, no twists (at least none that you don’t see coming). But then again, you’re not going to this movie for serious dramatic acting or a compelling tale. You’re here to watch Predators kill people and blow stuff up. And believe me, there is plenty of that.

Unfortunately, very little goes beyond anything we haven’t seen before. People explode, someone gets their spinal column torn out, there are a couple of decapitations and there are a few impalements, but nothing truly disturbing or innovative. Where the original Predator pushed the envelope somewhat on what could be done with an “R” rating, this movie keeps to essentially the same level. The atmosphere is dark and smelly (not unlike the theatre itself), and suits the general theme of the movie, but again, it’s nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times already. Where the innovation falls flat, they try to make up for it in sheer volume, whether it be the gatling gun firing off into a herd of Predator “dogs,” repeated shankings, or bigger explosions. The one possible exception to this is a rather interesting scene involving the token yakuza, a samurai sword, and a field of long grass. What comes out of it is vaguely poetic and I suppose symbolic.

The characters are caricatures and exaggerations of stereotypes, some done well, some done awfully. Adrien Brody, picking up after, and ultimately emulating, Schwarzenegger, does his best with what he has, but ultimately falls short of being a true action hero. Despite a chiseled body, attitude and a definite proficiency for swearing, he should just stick to what he does best: playing the piano and orally violating Halle Berry. Alice Braga is ridiculously adorable as the IDF agent Isabelle, Topher Grace continues to try to cast off the cloud of Eric Forman, and a cameo by Laurence Fishburne round out the recognizable talent. Danny Trejo, best known for his voice acting work (he played Enrique on King of the Hill) shows up for a few seconds. Walton Goggins plays the role of Stan the convict with excellent overacting (at one point he actually says “5 o’clock, prime b***h-raping time” and actually keeps a perfectly straight face). But much props go out to Louis Ozawa Changchien for his portrayal of the yakuza: he conveys more with plain expressions than most of the other characters do with dialogue. That, and the sword fight.

So I suppose it comes down to whether or not I recommend this movie. As I said before, this is a formulaic Predator film, done strictly by the numbers and doing little to innovate or refresh the series. Anyone who has seen the last few installments is going to get more of the same. Unlike the first film, there is no suspense, no questions regarding what exactly is hunting the team (not even to them, thanks to some name-checking), and the sole surprise comes from the discovery that there is another race of Predators out there, which make sport of hunting the ones we are familiar with. (Actually, that was pretty cool- the “berserk” predators, as they are called, are infinitely “cooler” than the ones we have come to know.) But if you are going to see this film because you are a Predator fan, or just want some mindless action riddled with explosions and blood, then by all means go. You will not be disappointed.

Midnight Shamalon is an awesome director. After he did the lame Sixth Sense, he started making awesome movies like that one with that chick in the swimming pool. So obviously I went to see this movie.

Some retards called Midnight’s decision to get white people in this movie as “racist” or “the dumbest things I’ve ever heard,” but I believe these people are the idiots because they fail to see the genius in this move. Everyone knows Asians can’t act, you can’t argue with Google.

The Last Airbender takes the Japanime Avatar: The Last Airbender, and makes it even better. Based off of James Cameron’s hit movie, Avatar, the Japanime is really weird and isn’t even like that cool movie with the blue people. I find it kinda dumb that they are making a movie based off of a Japanime of a movie, but that’s hollywood for ya! The Japanime is pretty lame, I watched one entire episode of it once,– except for those 8 minutes where I went to get a snack–and I really didn’t like it. Besides, it was Japanese so like the lip-syncing sucked and it was really lame and had ugly art. So the live action movie fixes all of that because obviously its better than a dumb cartoon!

The best part about this movie is that stuff just happens. They don’t do that lame thing that other dumbass directors do like slow down to show you why they’re doing stuff. They just do stuff! Like some princess is in love with a really lame dude, and instead of wasting our time on dumb scenes of them going on stupid dates, the narrator just tells you they’re in love. They don’t do any of that stupid Rocky bullshit of showing him like punch the air a lot to get better, the narrator just says Jesus can do cool shit now.

I should probably explain to you guys what the movie is about. There’s this eskimo chick who finds some bald kid in an iceburg. He’s magically alive because he’s actually Jesus and he’s going to stop Satan and his demon lizards. You see, 100 years ago, all of the countries were living in peace and picking flowers or something gay like that, but then Satan and hell decide to stop being pansies and take over the world. They kill all of the angels in heaven except Jesus, who escaped to an icebirg with his pet flying hippo.

Anyway, the eskimo chick takes Jesus back to her village with her brother and they do some gay shit for a while and then Satan’s son figures out where they are! So shit goes down and they go to a temple where gay stuff happens and Jesus meets his dad, the like uber God, who is a dragon. He’s kind of like a gay snake dragon instead of the cool fire breathing ones.

Oh yeah, I should probably talk about the magic powers everyone has. See, people can do really gay dances to make fire, rocks, water, and wind and grass and stuff appear. It’s kind of like Captain Earth or whatever that gay-ass cartoon was called. So they do these dances and stuff appears, it looks REALLY GAY!!! I guess its still kind of cool, but if I could summon fire by doing stupid dances, I might not just not do it instead.

Anyway, they get in trouble and they get locked up with a bunch of guys who dance to make rocks appear. They’re fucking idiots though, so Jesus has to tell them to get off of their asses and dance the rocks out of the way so they can escape. They’re complete wusses though and it takes like 5 of them to do anything cool, but Jesus is there so he does magic stuff better.

Then Jesus gets caught by the cousin of Satan or something like that, so Satan’s son is like “that’s my prisoner, bitch” and kills a bunch of people to set him free. Jesus then makes it rain for 40 days and 40 nights to say thanks. Then they go to the North Pole so Santa can teach them how to make water fountains. So then the eskimo’s lame-ass brother falls in love with Santa’s daughter, but they don’t do it because eskimo dude is so pathetic. They learn how to make waves and stuff, but then Satan attacks!

This is where the movie really screws up, because Santa and his elves don’t sink the ships of satan. They’re attacking on boats, dumbasses! Make a giant tidal wave and kill them all! Instead, they do some other cool stuff like freeze people in ice. Then Satan decides to kill Zeus so they can’t create magic water, but it turns out Zeus is just a fish! Zeus and Hades are just two fish sitting around in some dinky pond. Talk about lame Gods. Then Satan kills Zeus and everyone gets really mad. Santa’s daughter then kills herself and Zeus comes back to life. Which is too bad because she was hot.

So then God is like “HEY JESUS, YOU DUMBASS, JUST MAKE A GIANT WAVE AND SINK THEIR SHIPS!” Jesus is a wuss and just makes a big wave and then lets it down, letting Satan’s army escape. I guess that’s like turning the other cheek or something. Then it turns out that Satan has a daughter and she’s going to try to kill Jesus in the next movie!

While the gayass dancing sucks, the fight scenes are really awesome. They have people getting set on fire, getting crushed by rocks, and all sorts of awesome. You know what made them even better? THE 3D.

The 3D in this movie is the best 3D I have ever seen. They even made it where you didn’t have to wear those gay glasses, the movie looks almost the same with them off! Except the parts when they have words and bigass boats, you can just switch between having glasses and not having glasses and it looks almost exactly the same! I don’t know how they made 3D without the glasses, but they did an incredible job of it. A++++ on the 3D.

The acting was pretty good too, that kid who played Jesus is almost exactly like Keanu Reaves! That guy from the Daily Show was on here too! He was just like on the Daily Show, but as Satan’s nephew! I can’t remember much about the other people, but I bet they were good too.

The Last Airbender is a frickin’ sweet movie that everyone should see. My girlfriend wanted to see that vampire movie, Twilight, instead, but I took her to The Last Airbender instead because I have actual taste. Midnight Shamalon is a great director, possibly the greatest and will hopefully make the next 4 movies in this trilogy just as good.

Sonic Triple Trouble (Japanese title: Sonic & Tails 2) is a direct sequel to Sonic Chaos (Japanese title: Sonic & Tails). Once again, I have to wonder why they changed the name, because Triple Trouble doesn’t make much sense as a title. Again, only Sonic & Tails are playable and while there are three antagonists, you don’t see them very often so I have no idea why they settled on that name.

Unlike the other Game Gear games up to this point, Sonic Triple Trouble has no Master System version. However, it still is a full-sized Sonic game and feels more like a main-series entry than a portable spin-off. Like its prequel, you Sonic has his Super Peel-Out and this is the second to last game it appears in. Tails can fly, but it again uses the awkward hold up and press jump while standing system instead of the much simpler jump mashing the main series utilizes.

Triple Trouble has a lot of alternative methods of transportation for Sonic, such as spring boots, rocket skateboards, and mine carts. None of which are incredible, but they don’t detract from the experience or anything. Tails gets his own vehicle in the water stage, which makes it easier for him because he cannot drown. Playing the game as Tails is essentially playing the game on easy mode as there are some other slight changes that make it easier to play overall, such as more lives. Also, despite this being Knuckles’ first Game Gear appearance, he is not playable. Instead he is once again an antagonist, along with the obligatory new character, Fang the Sniper. Who is a wolf. Except he doesn’t show up except for the title screen and when you try to get a Chaos Emerald. Also I’m not entirely sure he’s a villain.

Sonic Triple Trouble is one of the good Game Gear games, much like its prequel. The levels manage to mix speed and platforming pretty well and aren’t too difficult, allowing a speedy playthrough if you so desire. Unfortunately, its final level falls victim to the same annoying design problems many Sonic games fall prey to. Most of the final zones in Sonic involve doing things absolutely perfectly or you have to repeat a section over and over again. Whether it be falling down to a lower section or being stuck in a loop, this gets annoying quite fast and is not even remotely fun. Sonic games insist on doing this and Sonic Triple Trouble’s is one of the worse ones, requiring you to guess between different paths, going in loops until you finally find the right tube to jump in.

Despite the poor ending, Sonic Triple Trouble is a good game that is worth a play. Next up in the retrospective is Knuckles’ Chaotix, a game I have never played before, so that one should be interesting. After that I’m going to do a large post about all of the spinoffs up to Sonic R (which obviously deserves its own post).

For more entries in the Sonic Retrospective, click here.

Initially viewed as a “teenage Rocky,” Karate Kid was a story framed by themes of displacement, in Daniel’s relocation to a new home, and self-discovery in his interactions with Miyagi. Daniel was the everyman that embodied many youths, forced to struggle against bullies who were bigger, stronger, and tougher than he was. Miyagi was a surrogate father who taught him self discipline and respect. Rival sensei John Kreese was a semi-faceless monster caught up in his own ego and viciousness. The quintessential American underdog tale, and it caught on like wildfire, spawning three sequels, and sending Larusso all the way to Japan.

Given the interest Hollywood has devoted lately to remaking (and, some may argue, destroying) classics from yesteryear, I was skeptical about the remake of “The Karate Kid,” as it is still regarded by many to be a sacred relic of our collective past. If remaking the film wasn’t bad enough, changing its location from California to China, the mentor from Mr. Miyagi to Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han and the style from karate to kung fu, seemed like the largest travesty of all. “It’s Kung Fu, why not call it ‘The Kung Fu Kid?’” were the cries of many of my friends, who vowed to never see the film based on that alone.

Rather than join the outcry, I decided to wait until the film had been actually released before I rushed to any judgements. And I am glad I did.

Much like the original, Karate Kid 2010 centers around the story of a boy uprooted from a familiar landscape and forced to relocate far away. However, unlike the cross country trek in the first, this time young Dre Parker is taken all the way across the Pacific to China. Alone in a new country, with no friends and an inability to communicate, Dre runs afoul of a group of peers led by the vicious Cheng (expertly played by Zhenwei Wang), an expert in Kung Fu. Dre refuses to back down, and is pounded by the boy. When a prank goes awry, Dre is chased back to his apartment complex, where he is further assaulted until saved by the antisocial handyman, Mr. Han, himself a kung fu expert. Though reluctant to aid the boy, Mr. Han accompanies him to Cheng’s martial arts school, where they are strong-armed into competing in the Open Kung Fu Tournament. Mr. Han trains Dre to defend himself, taking him all across China while dispensing wisdom and more than a few challenging training scenarios. And did I mention that all this started because Dre was talking to a girl?

After I watched Karate Kid 2010, I went back and watched the original, and was struck by how similar they were. I read somewhere that the new film sticks to the story almost scene for scene, and for the most part it does: every major event that happens in the first film is recreated in the second, but not so much that it feels like a retread. Additionally, some of the scenes in the first film are expanded upon: Mr. Han takes center stage in a scene so powerful, you forget you’re watching Jackie Chan; the training sequences are extended out over several exotic locations; and we are given more time to witness the development of the bond between Dre and Han.

The setting of the story, filmed on location in China, is lushly depicted. Scenes filmed on the Great Wall, in the back alleys of Beijing, at Buddhist temples and finally at the Tournament itself with flashing lights and elaborate display screens, further serve to show a world far different from the one Larusso lived in, and further illustrate exactly how hard it has been for Dre to acclimate from his old life: he’s not just a stranger in a new neighborhood, he is a stranger in an alien land, far removed from what he is used to dealing with. In fact, Karate Kid 2010 manages to do in one sitting what it took the original franchise 2 films to do: it uproots the main character from an “idyllic” American world and sends him to a setting where he truly must interact, and indeed survive, entirely on his own. It’s one thing to move cross country, it’s another to move across the globe.

The film, while visually stunning, might not have worked, if not for the abilities of the more than capable leading actors. Jaden Smith shows that he more than just looks like his famous father, he can act. Whether he is joking around, showing off his “moves” or struggling against opponents both real and imagined, he tackles each scene with competence, flair and charisma. And in the process, he makes Dre Parker a protagonist infinitely more worldly, urbane, and likable than Daniel Larusso ever was. As classic a character as Daniel-san was, he was also very annoying. Dre, by contrast, is completely the product of a global world.

Smith’s talent is further showcased by his interactions with Jackie Chan. Now, any comparisons between Chan and Pat Morita would be completely unfair. Morita and Chan are different actors, coming from different worlds. Morita was still under-known at the time; Karate Kid made him a household name. By contrast, Jackie Chan is already world famous. In the case of both actors, their roles as mentors presented challenges: Morita was not the original choice for the role, he had to prove himself. Likewise, Chan has to fight against the general perception of himself as a comedic actor. Both played out of character, and had to tackle serious dramatic roles. And both were more than up to the task: they brought to life compelling characters that added to the appeal of the movies.

Which brings us back to the name: “The Karate Kid” is a horrible misnomer, but one they are more than willing to play to. Dre’s martial arts skills are obviously not karate. In fact, at one point in the film, when he visits the Fighting Dragons Academy, he remarks “It’s kung fu, Mom, not karate.” Given the interest in Chinese martial arts these days (thanks, in part, to Jackie Chan), it’s no surprise that they would ditch karate for something and more “trendy.” So then why still call this film “The Karate Kid,” when there is no actual karate in it?

Well, it IS a remake. An expansive, stimulating, vibrant remake, but a remake nonetheless. And be honest, would anyone debate this movie were it called “The Kung Fu Kid?” Probably not. But anyone choosing to pass this film up simply because of the name is doing the film, and themselves, a disservice. Look past the name, you will find a gem of a film, an underdog story in the same vein as Rocky, Star Wars and even Harry Potter.

And in case anyone wants to know…”wax-on, wax-off”, and the “Crane Technique” are still there, in spirit less than form. Just with more attitude this time.

And then came Toy Story. I remember it well, the day I saw that movie. I was 14 years old, on my way home from the mall, when I told my mom to drop me off at the movies. I wanted to see this new, computer generated film about the secret lives of toys. It had just opened, and my main draw was, of course, the computer animation. By this point in my life, I had seen the landmark children’s television series “Reboot” on television and was amazed by the early advances being made in computer animation. I went into Toy Story looking for something new and refreshing. I left with my mind completely blown.

I had expected to see a film with a flashy look to it, and a little story thrown in to justify the new technologies at work. I left with a modern fable about friendship, discovering one’s own identity and the chance to see the world through the eyes of a toy. Needless to say, it changed my life.

I am writing this now because I just finished watching Toy Story 3. It’s been a long time since the last time I had a chance to visit with Woody, Buzz, Rex and the Potato-Heads, and I will admit, it was great seeing them again. But this time I was’t a wide-eyed teenager looking for the next big thing, I was a grown man seeking a simpler time in life, when the pleasures of toys were the only thing that mattered.

I will start off by saying that this film is simply amazing. Where Pixar first pushed the envelope many years ago, they picked it right back up and pushed it some more. The environments are still colorful, the characters crisp and the dynamics of scene almost overwhelming. Despite being fully human-sized, I immediately could feel the room growing around me until I was the same size as Woody and the gang. Pixar has learned much in the last decade, and it shows.

But the strong point of Pixar’s films isn’t just the astounding visual effects, no, they also get by on strong stories. In the first Toy Story, the theme was friendship, self discovery and love. In the second it was the distance with which friends would go for each other. In this film, the theme is loss. Not just the loss of a beloved friend, or cherished possession, but the loss of innocence. Andy has grown up, the youthful boy that once played with these toys has now all but forgotten them. The opening montage of the film, chronicling happier times when play was the only thing that mattered, reinforces this sense of loss, especially when a grown up Andy now has to choose which toys he will keep, and which he will say goodbye to. Pixar knows how to tug at the heartstrings, and this is just the first of many times it does so over the course of the film. The toys confronting a new world, scary and mysterious, where they are no longer the most important thing in their boy’s world. It is a world where the toy box is now their home, with the attic or the curb being their final destination. Their one driving force is the potential for happier days down the road, as Woody puts it “one day Andy might have kids of his own, and we’ll be there for him.”

This theme of hope and loss is consistently reinforced throughout the film: when the toys are mistakenly thrown away, mistaking a simple error for intentional abandonment; finding a new home at the Day Care, where the promise of play reinvigorates them (the scene where the hear the children approaching is especially powerful, moreso when they see the other toys in the room run for cover); the fear and horror of discovering not only is their world, and its hopes, false, but that their beloved Andy truly misses them; the terrifying moments inside the trash compactor and incinerator (I admit, I almost cried); and of course, the moment of closure when Andy leaves for college. But mixed in with the knowledge that their happy days are gone, there is the spark of something beautiful, because they are a family, they rely on each other, and they always will be together.

After seeing the movie, I immediately tweeted that this film, more than I think any other Pixar work, mirrors the Studio Ghibli aesthetic best. And not just for the giant Totoro (though he was a welcome addition to the cast, wide smiles and all). See, John Lasseter, and indeed all of Pixar, are huge fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. And since I have essentially been eating, sleeping and breathing Miyazaki for about a month now, I began to notice things immediately. First off, this film is darker than any other Pixar has done. And because of this, the darker scenes seem all the more powerful. Just as Miyazaki tends to infuse his films with powerful imagery which sets tone, and empowers scenes, so here does Pixar. I need only to point to the end sequence with the incinerator. The sequence was so powerful, so vivid, that several people in the theatre (myself and my girlfriend included) were sweating while watching it. The perspective of seeing such a flame from the point of a view of a toy was frightening, awe-inspiring and all the more powerful.

Speaking of powerful scenes, Pixar also was not afraid to imbue this film with darker story elements. Just as Miyazaki disdains “dumbing things down” for children, Pixar leapt in feet first, forcing the toys, and by extension us, to confront the themes of loss and despair. Rather than sugarcoat the story, we feel everything the toys feel, and for a moment, the prospect of a sad ending was very real. It made the eventual resolution seem that much more satisfying, if still bittersweet. I know I wasn’t the only one holding back tears of both sadness and joy, and it made me think fondly of all the toys I had given away over the years, and the ones I still have back home.

Much like classic Miyazaki films like Laputa: Castle In the Sky and Spirited Away, Toy Story also sets up the locations as characters of their own. He imbues these locations with the same style of earthy organics he gives to his characters, allowing the viewer to essentially “feel” what the setting is thinking. Again, I draw an example from the dump/incinerator- Pixar gave a coldness and sterility to this locale, there are points during the sequence where we the viewer feel that the dump is itself a ruthless monster bent on destruction, when it is in fact simply a machine doing its intended job. This is a far cry from the safety of Andy’s bedroom, where it feels comfortable and familiar, or from the Butterfly Room, with it’s welcoming atmosphere and almost utopian flavor (at least, utopian for a toy).

Finally, Pixar manages to fit in just one more of Miyazaki’s favorite themes into the story: the innocence of youth. One of the defining elements of the earlier Toy Story movies was the genuine love Andy gave his toys, whether it was inscribing his name on their foot, or simply the act of playing with them, we could see that Andy was a happy child who loved his toys like they were his best friends…which it would be completely accurate to say they were. In Toy Story 3, this tradition continues, both with Andy, and later with the girl Bonnie. We see grown up Andy as a boy on the cusp of adulthood, but who still cares about his beloved toys, especially when they are suddenly gone. We see his behavior mirrored in the child Bonnie, who not only loves her toys, but actively seeks to “rescue” them from her Day Care, and even goes so far as to fix them when they break and treat them with the same love and respect Andy always had. There is a certain poignancy to the scene at the end of the film, when Andy finally parts ways with his beloved friends, and the joy in Bonnie’s face when she meets her new ones. They bond the two characters now share is tangible, palpable, and touching. Again, a very emotional scene that would draw tears from even the staunchest of viewers.

Hayao Miyazaki once said that if he were going to make a movie about a bug, he would do it from the bug’s point of view: he would make the world huge and show how the bug’s experiences were so different from our own. Toy Story was Pixar’s first attempt to do something of that nature with the hidden world of toys. When they succeeded there, they went and did it again (in between then, also showing us the world of A Bug’s Life). With Toy Story 3, they brought that world full circle, giving long time fans the resolution we sought, giving their most memorable characters the ending they deserved and introducing this magical world of toys to a new generation. This film will live on, because it speaks to the very core of who we are as humans, and reminds us that life is just a series of changes that we must face with dignity.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is perhaps the best video game movie released to date. Unfortunately, the standards for video game movies are quite a bit lower than other movies.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a street urchin adopted as a third son by the Persian king. Dastan has very little character development and the little he has follows generic action-movie lines. He is the “lovable rogue” who wisecracks and always manages to get out of rough situations alive. Gyllenhaal does a good job of playing Dastan, but the character has no depth. He starts out a cool action guy who’s wild and reckless and is not morally driven enough to argue with his superiors and at the end he is a cool action guy who’s wild and reckless.

His banter with the other lead character, Princess Tamina is, for the most part, funny. Princess Tamina is the love interest and also an incredibly flat character. They have a good banter to their petty bickering through the first half of the movie, but when they start becoming closer they stop bickering as much and become less interesting. Their relationship is amusing, but it is never even remotely believable.

In addition the villain is obvious from the beginning of the movie, and is essentially a walking cliché. Sheik Amar and his bodyguard Seso add more comic relief and a few good action scenes, but none of the characters are particularly strong. Still, between the Shiek and Dastan and Tamina’s banter, the movie has a good amount of humor that keeps things going through its clichéstorm of a plot.

The plot revolves around a magic Dagger of Time that allows the wielder to travel backwards in time a certain amount of time if certain mystical sand is inside of its hilt. Because of a significant change from the game, the Dagger of Time gets very little use, and its obvious combat advantages are ignored, which is rather disappointing. There is almost no sand of time throughout the movie, meaning the only part of the movie that wasn’t a cliché was wasted.

The movie also relies too much on “bullet time” for whenever a main character does something particularly “cool.” This quickly becomes annoying, especially when combined with the hard-to-follow action scenes that move a little too fast. However, the scenes of acrobatics and parkour are fun to watch.

Despite all of these problems, Prince of Persia is a fun movie. Seeing Dastan do fancy acrobatics around rooftops and the silly banter make up for the lack of depth. It’s a fun, “turn your brain off” movie. If you’re a fan of the game who doesn’t mind massive changes from the source material, or just feel like a dumb action movie with some good humor, it’s worth giving a shot. . I only played 2 hours of Prince of Persia, so I didn’t mind or notice many of the changes, but from what I’ve seen, a lot of serious fans of the game were upset by the movie.

Like much manga of its time, modern opinions on it are very mixed. Many readers just cannot get into the older artwork or dated plot. I guess I am just a science fiction traditionalist; despite being born in 1991, most of my SF reading is from the pages of 50s-70s issues of Analog, Galaxy, and Amazing Stories or even the earlier work of Jules Verne and HG Wells. Reading To Terra doesn’t feel at all like a step backwards for me since it fits in with my standard reading material. To Terra may have visual tropes reminiscent of Buck Rodgers and the like, there is no campiness to found in these pages. To Terra boldly tackles new concepts that by now have become overly-familiar concepts to SF fans.

The telepathic powers of the Mu will bring to mind images of The Force. However, I am more interested in its comparison to the Newtypes of Mobile Suit Gundam than the jedi of Star Wars. In Gundam, the people of earth were slowly beginning to obtain heightened mental ability due to adaptive evolution from space expansion. Char Aznable sees this as a necessary improvement for the human race and wages war against earth to force the earth dwellers to go out to space. To Terra is practically a reverse approach. The humans are bred on distant planets before returning to earth. The Mu are weeded out of society by the mother computer; those that escape drift through space hoping to one day be able to reach Terra. It could almost be read as Takemiya’s response to Char Aznable, but Gundam began airing a couple years after the debut of To Terra. I found the comparison between their perspectives interesting though.

To Terra is heavily steeped in social commentary and ambitiously explores a myriad of social themes that are both cautionary of the future and parallel of the present. Environmentalism, social classes, natural birth- To Terra presents effective use of social science fiction beings used to propel a story without becoming just a vehicle for the author’s commentary. Takemiy’s shoujo background is clearly evident; this shounen manga incorporates qualities associated with shoujo to create a story with a wide appeal without pandering to either demographic… mostly. It is interesting that it has debatable BL undertones that give it a strong similarity to the shounen of today.

The artwork of To Terra seamlessly blends a shoujo character design aesthetic with impressive technical and space detail. The style parallels the story as the expressive character designs match the character-based focus, but without the technical details being overlooked. Throughout the series there would be full pages depicting stars and ships against the blackness of space. These scenes were made from white on top of page of black. These ink-heavy scenes helped balance out the usual lightness. The earth city gave off a Metropolis vibe, which doesn’t hurt at all. The character designs have that “70s manga look” which some readers find very unappealing. While To Terra won’t change your mind, its beautifully drawn and will find fans of those who can appreciate it. I found the characters to be more consistently rendered and reasonably proportioned than a lot of older manga series. The writing is smooth and obtains a poetic feel that is completely appropriate for the space opera genre. There a few minor hiccups in the plot where the details are a bit fuzzy, but it stays consistent for the most part.

Despite a hodgepodge of themes and elements, To Terra never wavers in its focus. It is a smooth journey up to its grand finale that serves as a satisfyingly grandiose climax. To Terra is a manga classic that has aged well and remains captivating in 2010.

1.The Villain Has Less Depth Than Boris Badenov

The villain is all but giggling as he kills children and destroys homes, the villain hates blue people because they’re stupid and don’t appreciate humans invading their territory, the villain is not an actual character. He is a plot device. He exists for the audience to hate him. He has no real given motivation for his action (I GAWT THESE SCARS WHEN I INVADED THE NAVEE’S HOMEZ) and is so one-dimensional that he makes Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle look like a well-developed character.

The villain is also incredibly bad-ass to incredibly goofy degrees. He doesn’t let problems like a lack of breathable air or being on fire stop him from killing blue people; he’s still gonna over-dramatically kick doors open and start shooting. This is why he is the only likable character in the movie, he’s the only one who seems to realize he’s in a crappy movie and he just rolls with it.

He’s so insultingly simplistic that I love him and consider him to be the true hero of the movie.

Also he makes really obvious political references that are several years old now (SHAWK AND AWE!).

2. I PLAY GOLF

Speaking of insultingly simplistic, there is the other villain who is less awesome: THE BIG CORPORATION CORPORATION INCORPORATED®. THE BIG CORPORATION CORPORATION INCORPORATED® wants the unobtanium because it does magic things that can be useful for making big ships and cool guns. The representative of THE BIG CORPORATION CORPORATION INCORPORATED® is as stereotypical as you can get, he’s even playing golf on the ship. That’s how creative they were with their characterization.

See, in Avatar, you, the viewer, cannot be trusted to figure out anything beyond the most basic of concepts. This is why every single character is completely flat and fits in nicely with familiar stereotypes. Can’t expect the billions of dollars to come in if the audience has to stop looking at the shiny stuff for a second to pay attention to characters.

3.Hi, I’m an idiotic douchebag, I’ll be your protagonist this evening.

I think James Cameron assumed that if he put someone in a wheelchair he could make them a douche and they’d still be likable. Sully is not remotely likable. He arrives on the planet, is a smartass for a while (and not a likable one) and then gets into the avatar. Once in the avatar he instantly can do everything, including walk in it. This would have been a good opportunity to make us warm up to Sully and grow to like him as a person by showing his struggle to relearn how to walk and the joy that comes from having full use of a body, even if it is not his own. Instead Avatar has him instantly be perfect at it, like most of what he does.

Upon controlling the avatar, Sully becomes an even bigger douchebag as he jumps around like a moron and destroys equipment as scientists and other avatars tell him to stop being a moron and let them run some tests. He then runs outside and just skips around like an idiot. This is because Sully is one of the dumbest protagonists of all time. Apparently he was not a very good marine, I know several marines and they know to follow basic orders like “don’t run around like a moron, we need to run some tests on your body.” Apparently the standards have laxed in the future.

If you told a marine to stay with the group because the entire planet is basically a deathtrap, they would not walk off to look at mushrooms and then get lost. Also in the future cellphones and tracking devices no longer exist because they can’t seem to find Sully’s avatar at all. Even though his body is beaming his brain signals to the avatar. Please note that these avatars cost millions of dollars and yet they have not put the most basic of tracking devices on them. My dog could be found more easily than the extremely expensive avatar.

Back on subject though, Sully does stupid things and gets into further stupid adventures until he meets Love Interest. Love Interest is the daughter of the chief and next in line to be the medicince-man. Pocahontas Love Interest trains him to be a Na’vi and after some goofy screw-ups he soon becomes better than every real Na’vi ever. Through these hours of training montages, we see that Sully grows from a douchebag in a wheelchair to a douchebag who now has working legs and wants to keep them. He’s pretty much a complete dick to everyone for the entire movie.

You see, no actual thought was put into Sully’s character besides “wise-cracking protagonist who goes native.” He doesn’t actually have a personality or any development. He merely exists. Exists and annoys.

4.Sully is better than everyone because of reasons

After Sully gets the hangs of things in his avatar body, he goes on to become better than every actual Na’vi at just about everything. All this takes is a few montage scenes, and it doesn’t ever feel like he worked at this. Because he’s the protagonist, he gets to be super-cool and succeed without any real effort. You would think he would struggle with various Na’vi customs and ridiculous feats of athletic ability, but despite being a crippled human, he can do everything the Na’vi can, only better. He has slight struggles at the beginning, but after only three months of training, the cripple is now the best blue person who ever lived.

5.The world really isn’t that interesting

Now that I’ve actually seen Avatar, those idiots who wanted to commit suicide to be reincarnated on Pandora seem even dumber. Pandora is a jungle with more blue. There are some more phosphorous plants and big trees, but it’s not all that different from a jungle at earth. All of the creatures are basically like a [insert animal here], but with 6 legs. Also, I find it rather odd that all but one species on the planet has 6+ limbs. The USB hair would be cool if they had actually done something with it. They plug into animals at the beginning, but it didn’t really mean anything. Also they use their USB hair in sex, so bestiality is apparently quite common on Pandora.

6.Giant Dragons Make Everything Better

Imagine your significant other told you they were actually there as a spy and getting close to you was part of their mission. This cliche’ is quite common, but generally it doesn’t also come along with an entire peoples’ home being destroyed. In the real world, when something like this happens, riding a giant dragon doesn’t count as an apology. Love Interest is happy to leave Sully for dead after he reveals that he was there to learn their ways just so they can be more easily conquered. Then he decides to go jump on the different colored dragon and the movie cuts away so they don’t have to show him actually struggling to capture the thing that is supposedly really hard to control. He then rides the dragon into the midst of the Na’vi and they all love him again. Because he has a sweet dragon.

7.AND THEN GOD FIXED EVERYTHING

Deus ex Machina endings are bad enough, but when it’s worse than that, when it’s literally just God fixing everything, there’s a problem. The vague Na’vi god decides that after half the Na’vi were dead it is time to make all of the animals attack the nasty humans. They don’t ever attack the Na’vi, just the humans and the day is saved by the birds and dogs. This is the actual ending. God fixing everything. Also known as the laziest possible ending.

Also during this final battle there is one human helicopter fighting on the side of the Na’vi, she is identified by the war paint on the chopper. For some reason none of the humans noticed this really obvious hint that she might have betrayed them and don’t attack her until she attacks them, which is towards the end of the battle.

8.Cruel Na’vi’s Thesis

The final mech vs. Sully battle was incredibly stupid. After jumping onto a mech while on fire, Villain starts a big fight against Sully. This mech has an Evangelion-style comically large knife. Which they use in their not very interesting final battle. While this whole battle is uninteresting, I find the large knife so stupid its worth mentioning. It’s exactly like in Evangelion, just a knife that he pulls from the back of his armor. Also Villain looks really plastic during this final battle.

9. Unobtanium

I liked unobtanium when it was called upsidaisium in a Rocky and Bullwinkle storyline. In Avatar, a movie that takes itself seirously, it’s just idiotic. Since it has become the future equivilent of oil, they would probably have a name for it by the time the movie takes place. Also, if they need unobtanium so badly, why not just mine it from the floating mountains? Given that they are floating, I’m guessing they have a pretty good amount of unobtanium inside. Wouldn’t that be easier than going at war with the locals over their holy lands? Oh wait, I get it, Iraq.

I see what they did there.

In conclusion…

I could rant about Avatar for a lot longer than this, but I need to keep this at readable length. Avatar is a mess of a plot with no actual characters. The movie doesn’t even try to make you care about anyone and the situations are so clumsily set-up that you can’t really care about anything. The only real reason to like this movie is for special effects. If you like eyecandy, I can understand enjoying Avatar. The movie is very pretty and they did a really good job with how the Na’vi look. The problem is that good CGI does not a good movie make. I think once people start watching the movie again on DVD and Bluray not on a giant screen they’ll start realizing that the only good part was the special effects which are much less impressive in your home.

Outside of Teddie Roosevelt–who you could say was Batman and a master zombie-killer while still being perfectly plausible–there are few presidents who mix well with weird stories. Abraham Lincoln is one of those few. With his height and iconic figure, you can imagine him fighting vampires quite easily. There is just something about him that makes it all seem plausible.

Abe’s vampire hunting began when, at age eleven, he discovers that vampire’s blood is what killed his mother. This revelation leads him to promise that he will destroy every vampire in America. He begins his training and studying in earnest so he can properly dispose of these creatures and has some failures due to the inaccuracy of folklore.

The story is told through both a third person perspective and first-person excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s diary. This method works well for the most part, but sometimes the switch can be a bit jarring.

As the story goes on, Abe becomes one of the greatest vampire hunters around. He then discovers southern vampires feeding on their weak slaves, using them as an endless supply of food.

This vampire/slavery connection is never utilized very well and feels slightly awkward at best and forced at worst. The plot would have been much better served by better set-up to this reveal and better support for it. After this initial discovery, the book doesn’t really have many other scenes of vampires feeding off of slaves.

This also turns the Civil War into a vampire war, which again could have been handled better. Despite these issues, the book is a good read. It has some humor and, when appropriate, amusing B-movie dialog and moments. Having Abraham Lincoln run through the forest after a vampire feels surprisingly satisfying, and works much better than expected. It isn’t so much of a humorous story as a vampire story that stars Abraham Lincoln. It handles itself seriously and that works for the most part.

When he becomes President, Abe’s vampire hunting stops, (it’s a bit harder to moonlight as a killer when you’re the president) but the plot remains interesting until the end of the Civil War. After that it becomes a little tedious as you are just waiting for John Wilkes Booth to kill him already. The book isn’t historically accurate in many regards, but it does throw some things in for history buffs.

It’s a good, fun read overall and is a very welcome reprieve from all of the teenage heartthrob vampires we have seen thanks to Twilight. It’s no literary masterpiece, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a good book that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

The Speakeasy Podcast is really great. It is like the behind the scenes conversations that become the basis for their articles. The four episodes released thus far cover a wide range of topics, and I am always interested to see what the latest show is about. The audio quality is very good with excellent voice clarity- Narutaki’s moe vocals will soothe your ronery otaku heart.

Episode 1: Bloody Mary, A Discussion of Strong Female Characters

Strong females characters is a topic that the Reverse Thieves have written about before, and it is a subject they both feel strongly about. They discuss how in the past, many people got interested in anime because they were told that there were tons of these characters. They take a look at the reality of the situation, but without being jaded and depressing about it like certain others tend to do. It is a very interesting show that does the topic justice.

Episode 2: Heart of Fire, Go Nagai VS. Gurren Lagann

If you hang around mecha fans, chances are that you have heard phrases like “oh! If you loved [modern anime X], then you will also love [old classic anime Y]. This episode takes on this concept, by specifically explaining why fans of Gurren Lagann are not assured to also be lovers of 70s mecha remake Shin Mazinger. This detailed look at the differences between the two shows reveals plenty of reason that badgering mecha newcomers into watching your precious old anime might not be the best approach. There is also some delightful fanboying over Wonder Fest 2010 to kick the episode off.

Episode 3: Coconut Monkey, Can You Feel the One Piece Love?

This episode continues to analyze why fans like what they like. Here the focus is One Piece and why it is third tier compared to Naruto and Bleach. After spending a good chunk of time presenting the series’ strong points, the pair bring up various reasons that attribute to its lack of success in the English speaking world. This is a great episode; the reasonings behind why it doesn’t have as much appeal here are all well reasoned and explained.

I really think the main reason is just that One Piece doesn’t seem as “cool” as the others. Luffy doesn’t have a bad attitude like Ichigo. You can go around wearing a sand village headband and pretend to be as cool as Gaara, but straw hats aren’t really in right now. I have always thought of Bleach as half-show, half-fashion item. One Piece just doesn’t have that edgy/Hot Topic feel that a huge portion of the Western shounen audience craves. Also, I actually think the Western feel off it is another strike against it for Western fans. They got into anime because it’s Japanese. They want ninjas and shikigami, not pirates. One Piece is often the favourite of those around the blogosphere, but they are generally older than the kids out watching these shows. There is much more to it, as the podcast explains. But I do think the others are just seen as more “hip”.

Episode 4: The Pink Lady, Invasion of the Beautiful Boys!

This podcast is about bishounen and how the guys who get mad about it need to change their diapers. I have a bias for this podcast, since I share their opinion on the topic. Handsome male characters do not have to ruin the show for the non-fujoshi, and it’s unfair to say that all female anime fans are shallow girls who are only after BL. The podcast explains, with very detailed support, how this took place in old anime that all the guys love, but when it takes place in a modern series the male fan community gets angry.

I have never had any kind of problem with this concept. After all, I read plenty of shoujo manga, and if I don’t mind them there, why should I elsewhere? As mentioned in the podcast, it has become a trend that any kind of remotely handsome guy is labeled “bishounen”. I fail to see how handsome guys are a problem at all. I like my anime to have moe ladies, so why should the guys not be handsome to match? When I read shoujo, I don’t think “Oh this guy is lame because he is such a bishie”, and neither do I feel that way when similar character designs infiltrate non-shoujo. While the over-the-top flamboyant characters are far from my cup of tea, a lot of what people are calling bishounen is nowhere near that. I like the characters in Gundam 00, and I feel the character designs are a suitable aesthetic. I have never think “eww Lockon is 4 grlz”, because that is stupid. Maybe it comes down to some people seeing these softer, gentler characters as not being manly? There are times when it that happens, but men don’t have to be tearing meat and shoving it into their faces to be cool guys.

[It seems like people pay too much attention to sexuality in their anime fandom. Less so for the guys who watch shounen, but I see it in the overall fandom. For example, a new line of anime figures comes out focusing on male characters. I think to myself "cool, maybe they will have X character that I like!", but then the whole article will be written as "cool new male figures _for girls_. Wait, why can't they just be.. cool figures for people who like the characters? I know PLENTY of girls who watch moe shows and own cutesy figures. What is with guys being allergic to the handsome male presence in their series? Liking a character shouldn't always have to revolve around your "tastes".]

—-

So far I am loving The Speakeasy Podcast and look forward to the next episodes. You likely noticed that the first couple podcasts have less of a response from me, but that is only because I listened quite a while ago. That and I could easily go on about the first episode’s topic for way too long. Hisui and Narutaki are both really cool and GAR guys, so listen to their podcast!

The game stays out of the courtroom though, since in the Ace Attorney universe it’s pretty hard for the prosecution to lose. Instead, Ace Attorney Investigations follows Edgeworth as he investigates the crimes beforehand and tries to determine who to prosecute. In true Ace Attorney fashion, even Edgeworth is accused of murder at one point. This means there are now about four characters in the entire series who have never been accused of murder.

Edgeworth investigates with various partners such as Franziska Von Karma, Detective Gumshoe and the obligatory teenage sidekick, Kay Faraday. I wasn’t fond of the idea of Edgeworth getting a teenage girl as a sidekick, since it doesn’t really fit his personality, but it works out fairly well. She’s a good character, not amazing, but she fills her role well and is fun to have around. Her interactions with Gumshoe are particularly funny, and the little team that Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and Kay form has a good banter.

The game has the standard Ace Attorney humor with ridiculous antics and melodramatic movements and dialog, but because Edgeworth’s personality is so different from previous protagonists, it has some differences. A lot of the humor comes from other characters flustering Edgeworth with their goofiness and stupidity and from some of the women becoming enamored with him. There are a lot of cameos from previous games–including one incredibly useless one–and at times it feels like fan-service. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it may detract from the experience for newcomers.

Since the game never has you behind the prosecutor’s bench, they had to make some changes to the simplistic investigation portions present in the previous games. Now there is the ability to “deduce” during an investigation. When looking at a suspicious object in the environment, you can select “deduce” and then pick evidence that is related to it. This reveals more information and moves the case forward, and it would be a great addition to the main series of Ace Attorney games. The “logic” system is unfortunately not as well designed. The logic system involves connecting vague ideas and information to figure something out. Unfortunately this almost always boils down to “This thing is locked” + “This thing doubles as a key” = “OH MAN, THE KEY MIGHT OPEN THE LOCK.”

In addition to the crime scene investigation and logic system, they work in the cross-examination from the other Ace Attorney games. It works exactly the same–witness says something, you press for more information, you present evidence to prove the lies–but they appear in smaller bursts. The game is also much easier than other Ace Attorney games, except the portions where nothing makes any sense at all. The gameplay all works together pretty well, but almost every case feels like it drags on for too long, especially the final case. The final case alone has multiple moments where they could have ended it and made things better, but it just kept on going.

This wouldn’t be much of a problem if the game had a more interesting plot. Some of the cases are pretty good and the overall plot has some interesting ideas, but its execution is not wonderful. Still, I loved a lot of the new characters such as Kay and the Interpol agent Lang as well as some minor characters like the goofy Ambassador Palaeno. The character interaction is the best part of the game and make it all worth it as more Detective Gumshoe is always good.

The game is fun despite its flaws, and if you like the Ace Attorney series, you should pick it up. I couldn’t recommend it to a newcomer though, mostly because a lot of my enjoyment came from seeing certain characters. Newcomers should go back to the original games (which are appearing on WiiWare in case you can’t find the DS version) and pick this one up later. It’s a good game, but it could have been better. I look forward to seeing what else they can do with the Investigations sub-series.

Mushishi is an episodic series with no overarching plot. What strings these stories along is Ginko’s involvement in each. The plot is a chronicle of his travels and mushi-related situations; Ginko is what binds these stories together and the familiar object to rely on throughout the series. Ginko is a character shrouded in mystery, but whose personality and past becomes clearer as the story progresses. It can’t be said with absolute assuredness what exactly drives Ginko. He is concerned about mushi and obviously wants to learn more about them and their world, but doesn’t have a shounen obsession with being the best mushishi. He helps people with genuine concern, but remains detached and reasonable. Ginko is a quiet character who speaks little more than necessary. He sees mushi not as an enemy to be destroyed, but another creature just trying to survive. Ginko favours a passive solution, but is not above eliminating the mushi if need be. Ginko is, in some ways, comparable to Black Jack, but is not quite the “dark doctor” that Black Jack is portrayed as.

Ginko’s backstory is a tragic one, revealed in volume three. Ginko himself has no memory of his early life as his mushi encounter left him with no memory. His ability to see the mushi, normally invisible to human sight, lead mushi to have a strong influence on his life regardless of his wishes. He is blind in one eye due to the mushi-related accident. Mushi are also attracted to his body from the incident, leaving him unable to stay in one place for a long duration, without the area becoming overrun with the lifeforms. The lends itself to the story of a man forced to wander the countryside with no hope of settling down.

The characterization of Ginko is based having a quiet character’s detail slowly show themselves. However, he doesn’t really grow as a character in the traditional sense of character development. Perhaps the way he handles situations later on in the series is different from at the beginning? The development may be subtle or perhaps he doesn’t advance at all. Character development has become such a defining feature of Japanese storytelling that many readers cannot accept a character who is already so excellent at his job and solves the problems so readily. The term “Mary Sue” has been thrown around numerous times to describe Ginko. I’ve always felt that this is the wrong way of looking at the series, and I wonder if they even know what that means.. Ginko fills a specific role, and does so exceptionally. The focus of Mushishi is on the episodic stories, with Ginko as a the vehicle to push the events along and flesh out the story.

-

The early volumes of Mushishi can’t help but show Urushibara’s amateurish workmanship. Characters are drawn loosely and inconsistently. Faces can appear muddled and certain angles reveal a degree of awkwardness. It is obvious though that she has an aesthetic in mind that shows through numerous times, particularly in the environmental artistry. Instead of specific detail, brushstroke-like lines and heavy crosshatching give it an impression of rich earthiness. The artistic quality noticeably improves, and by volume four and five you can see the craftsmanship really taking root. The art is Mushishi, especially in the settings, are very evocative and contribute to the tone of the series. The mood of the series is usually relaxed with an inescapable eerie feel, but occasionally grows into moments of grand flourish- pages 14 and 15 of volume 2 come to mind here. Mushishi can have moments of near otherworldly delight, but without falling into surrealism that would keep it from feeling natural and grounded within the story.

It would be easy to just scan quickly and reveal the outcome of each chapter, but the relaxed pacing encourages the reader to take it easy and absorb the story and atmosphere.

Protip: The Mushishi anime soundtrack makes good background reading material. I don’t normally feel this way, as soundtracks are designed where each track reflects a particular scene. However, the Mushishi OST is always subtle and unobtrusive and molds well with reading it.

The foundation of Mushishi are the chapter long stories of when man and mushi come together with Ginko as a catalyst for change. The quality of these stories make or break the series as a whole. Fortunately, the quality has stayed consistent with a handful of particularly enthralling chapters that more than make up for occasional slight dips into less captivating territory. These short tales all deal with Ginko’s involvement in some Mushi-related incident. Despite this, there isn’t enough a pattern to it that would have it feeling repetitive. The situations take for more than just Ginko’s scholarly knowledge to solve. The meat of the stories revolve around how humans react to how the mushi have intruded upon their lives. The series encourage thinking on the readers part with contemplative scenarios.

The tone of the series is generally poignant, but the actual results of each story varies. At times the problem is solves and it concludes happily. At other times, the results can be a disturbing look at the reality of human frailty. What I really like is that the series isn’t too steeped in tragedy for its own good. The trend in storytelling is that a tragic ending equals a deep one. Mushishi has its share of bitter offerings, it knows when to let things work out nicely. Add in some unobtrusive wry humor, and Mushishi is a series that doesn’t fall into being so dark that the only expected outcome from each chapter is an unfavourable one.

To wrap up, I’ll mention something more personal. This has nothing to do with the quality of the series, but its a fact that personal experiences can add to the enjoyment of a work. As a child, I was fascinated with the world of insects, mollusks, and arthropods all around. My books of choice were not picture books; I usually carried large tomes detailing insect species and the like. Even today, I have an insect collection and even breed slugs. Mushishi takes this world of miniature creatures that I love and makes fictional stories around them. The is what initially led to my interest in Mushishi as I scanned through it in the bookstore. Just like sports enthusiast Tom Langston over at Nigorimasen is drawn to sports-themed series, my own interests lend me an affinity for Mushishi.

————————————————————————-
This review is based on volumes 1-6 of the Del Rey US localization, purchased by the reviewer.

No More Heroes 2 again stars homicidal maniac assassin otaku, Travis Touchdown, climbing through the ranks to be the number one assassin. The game starts off with typical Suda 51 humor as Travis and Sylvia break the fourth wall by discussing whether or not to explain what has been happening since the last game. His zany and satirical humor is present in this game as much as the first along with the wildly over-the-top sexualization and violence.

Travis and Sylvia aren’t the only characters to come back though, as Shinobu, a boss from the first game, and Henry, Travis’ twin brother and secret boss of the first game, are now playable characters. They can only be played in their specific levels, but it is a cool addition. They play much the same as Travis aside from a different ability tied to the B button. Shinobu can jump, so her stages have some jumping puzzles, which don’t exactly work out as well as they could have. I enjoyed her section so much that I would not mind if No More Heroes 3 made her the protagonist. Henry is insanely powerful and fast, and really is almost a god-character. Fun to play as, but more importantly, his relationship with Travis in the story is one of the funniest parts of the story. I would have liked him to be in more scenes, just to have him and Travis argue some more.

Travis plays much the same as he did in the first game, but the different light-sabers beam katanas add some new strategies. The various katanas you acquire are not so much upgrades in this game, but different ways to fight. Especially interesting is the eventual acquisition of dual-wielding katanas, which allows for very long combos. You also get a very large katana that grows as your ecstasy gauge increases. The ecstasy gauge increases as you kill more enemies, and when it fills up, a randomly chosen power-up will activate. These power-ups range from killing all enemies on screen to turning into a tiger that can kill anything in one hit. Yes, Travis turns into a tiger.

The bosses are an even bigger focus in this game, and most of them are a lot more interesting. I do miss some of the character of the first games’ bosses, but Desperate Struggle still has a lot of fun fights. Like the first game, the bosses attack in a variety of different ways, from using giant mechs, to sniper battles, to motorcycle duels. I especially enjoyed the boss that was highly reminiscent of a more spider-like General Grievous. The bosses are incredibly imaginative and while they aren’t as funny as the first game’s, there are enough laughs to be had.

Even the stages that lead up to the bosses are more fun now, as there is a greater selection of grunts to fight. The grunts also have much better AI and will work together to cause you a lot of trouble. The stages themselves do a lot of interesting parodies now to make them more interesting. There is a level that parodies Metal Gear Solid right down to vision cones on the mini-map, as well as a level that is very reminiscent of Resident Evil 4, including chainsaw wielding bad-guys. Each stage feels like it could be a critique on a certain genre, or just a shout-out. It’s hard to tell with Suda 51.

He did remove the overworld that so many reviewers complained about, instead replacing it with a simple map screen. The minigames are different as well, now in a classic 8-bit art-style that makes them much more bearable. The classic gameplay is more enjoyable, but still not that great, aside from Laying the Pipe and a couple others. At least they are more charming now with purposefully bad-sounding voice clips. In addition to the minigames you do for money, there are the gym minigames to increase your strength and health, and a game involving getting Travis’ pet cat in shape.

I could rant about No More Heroes 2 for a very long time, but I don’t want to spoil too much of the game. It’s a great game, and is one of my favorite games to come out this year so far. It just takes everything from the first game and makes it better. Overall, there are very few complaints I have about it. There is no reason to avoid this game if you have a Wii.

While I cannot read Japanese, the basic plot was easy enough to understand. A baby whose name I do not know falls into a portal in Ami’s bedroom that leads to the world of the plush animal guys. Ami and her friend Kumiko also enter the portal to retrieve her. It seems that along the way they are captured and must be rescued by the three playable animals- Iyo the rabbit, Kenta the bear, and Issa the panda. The game is much more dialogue heavy that any platformer probably has the right to be. I don’t know what they were blabbing about, but frequently throughout playing you hit signs that flag a conversation. What is said may or may not enrich the experience, but not reading it will not hinder the player from getting through the game.

The gameplay is a very basic platformer. Don’t let enemies deplete your three hearts and don’t fall into spikes, water, or off the ledge. You’ll have to put your dodging skills to work because the trio have no attacks of there own. Nothing wrong with this passive approach, as avoiding the foes becomes an important part of the design. The three characters can be switched on the fly with the left shoulder button. Each is capable of different tasks, so it is necessary to switch back and forth often. Iyo’s bunny ears can be stretched to latch onto red bows that begin to fly to elevate the player to or across ledges. The ears are also sharp enough to cut rope, but apparently not to damage an enemy penguin or bat. Breaking objects is handled by the bear Kenta using his wind-up punch or ground stomp. Finally, Issa is only good for moving or carrying boxes and things. In his defense, he is clearly the cutest of the three animals. At one time, your screen may be filled with bows, boxes, and boulders forcing constant character switching. Other than these tasks, they play identically.

The game is divided into nine substantial stages. Each stage has three areas with a different theme. While there are a few area rehashes, this means a whole of different places and spritework. There are the obligatory forest, ice, caverns and also dessert shop, pirate ships, and a very Kirby-esque cloud level with shooting stars flying in the sky. This lets the player explore a variety of locations without any one of them overstaying its welcome.

Animal Yokochou does have some careful platform hopping and enemy dodging, but the emphasis is on navigating your way through each level. There are bountiful switches and items that must be manipulated in order to advance. Unfortunately, this is way too easy. Every time you see a certain object, you know which character’s skill is needed to overcome it. There may be time where it takes a moment or two to figure out the order of operations, but it is largely based upon each character’s one skill. This makes it too simple and repetitive. Over and over the same basic methods will be used for progression. It isn’t as bad as I’m sure my description sounds, but it keeps the puzzle-based platforming in “cool concept” territory, but execution that is meant to be a bit challenging for small children.

That isn’t too say the game was completely devoid of challenge. While never a hard game, some of the jumps require some precise timing. There are enough dangers to prevent the player from rushing through. It only takes three hits to die or one poorly timed leap to end up at the beginning of the area. I would consider the difficulty to be on par with the Kirby series. Except without Kirby’s more challenging boss fights..

Because there are no boss battles at all. At the end of each stage, there is a minigame that must be beaten in order to defeat a giant cat who bears a strong resemblance to Richard Scarry’s Huckle Cat. These games include a memory cards game, whack-a-mole, balloon inflation, and pinball. While its true that my party is devoid of attacks, there should have been a way of having boss battles that utilized the real gameplay mechanics. Not resorting to cheesy minigames.

The opening and ending sequences are fully voiced, but the dialogue during the game is pure text. Of course, these voices will either leave you squeeing or feeling aurally tormented by kawaii overdose. The music is made up of light cheery tunes that fit the joyful aura of the game, but are completely unmemorable otherwise. Spritework in the game is a mostly good. The character portraits and sprites are nicely detailed, as well as the background. However many foreground objects are oversimplified. The three playable characters look great and are undeniably charming. The enemies lack variation, however, and many appear consistently throughout the game. Even a couple recolours will start appearing. The graphics have a very childish and cutesy look, which is exactly the tone of the game and anime. The technical details are highs and lows, but the real appeal lies in the charm of the visuals and atmosphere.

This game is an adorable platforming, but it hardly seems worth importing on that alone. With games like Kirby, Stafy, Klonoa, and other games throughout history, gamers are hardly devoid of cutesy platformers as it is. I did genuinely enjoy Animal Yokochou Doki * Doki Kyuushutsu Daisakuen! no Maki quite a bit. It is a solid kid’s game, but the flaws are hard to ignore, so my review likely makes it sound worse than it is. I had a very good time playing Animal Yokocho, but once it is beaten there really isn’t any need to go back to it and there are many other games more deserving of your time. Its not bad for some cutesy fun, though, and if you happen to come across a cheap copy- you could do worse.

Engaging

They Were Eleven is a sci-fi mystery thriller. In the future their is a elite school called the Cosmo Academy. There students from all over the galaxy compete to become students. During the final portion of the exam ten students, including our hero Tada, are sent to a abandoned space ship. Problems arise immediately when they arrive and discover that there are eleven people on the ship rather than the ten it was supposed to have.

They were sent to the ship with one goal, to survive for such and such. But with this mysterious extra member everyone gets nervous. They have the option to bail out of the exam at anytime but if they did that all of them would fail the entrance exam. Once they reach this point the group realize that their only choice is to try and work together. They all want to pass the entrance exam and if they were to give up due to their fears none of them would be able to get in.

Distrust plays a very important role in the story. As time passes you can see that everyone is slowly growing more and more paranoid. It is thankfully a very subtle change that is only brought to a head by some life threatening issues. Watching these people desperately try to work together while suspecting each other of being the eleventh man is fascinating.

Something that I found disappointing in the movie was that the cast isn’t fleshed out as much as I would have liked. Everyone is introduced in the beginning and seem to be quite diverse. Thing is only about half of the eleven are truly fleshed out. The other half seem to have been brushed to the side. Luckily the ones that they do flesh out actually become very interesting. The story has fun with the fact that the characters are from all over the galaxy and uses that to its advantage.

The film takes its time to explain to you just what had been going on as it comes to a close. It tries to make it feel like the hints are there in the film to allow you to figure out who it is on your own but I personally feel that it was a bit of a stretch. Once they are shown to you it makes sense but they are things so to the side that it feels like the average person would never figure it out without it being pointed out to them. It was quite enjoyable though and I hope more people check it out.

This logo reminds me of Key games.

The show is broken into two halves the Allison and Will story, and later Lillia and Treize. My torrent only had the first 13 episodes, which covered Allison and Wil. Until the end, I was wondering if the “Lillia” character was ever going to appear before realizing their were another 13 to go.

Allison and Lillia strongly reminded me of the Disney Afternoon adventure shows that I adored as a child. It certainly gives off a similar vibe and simplicity as DuckTales and TaleSpin. Allison and Lillia is on about the same level of sophistication as these shows. So, while it isn’t the next Kino’s Journey, it is a childish show with a lot of charm.

The world of Allison and Lillia is one large continent split by the river Lutoni and the Central Mountains. The regions on either side each developed into their own cultures. The Roxcheanuk Confederation and the United Kingdom of Bezel Iltoa have been strong rivals, often at war. The series begins during an armistice between the two sides. Young pilot of Roxche (Roxcheanuk), Allison Wittington visits her childhood friend Wilhelm Schultz during vacation. The 13 episodes are divided up into three arcs spanning fourth episodes plus an episode to wrap up the Allison and Wil story. Each of these arcs are an individual tales of gallivanting around the countryside, stopping the bad guys, and pretty well having a good time doing it.

I enjoyed the characterization of Allison and Wil. Allison is a courageous and headstrong young girl who is always ready for adventure. She is pushy, confident, and quite charming. Will is the reluctant intellectual. His memorization and detective skills are vital in plot, but he has to be dragged along by Allison. Their assets are balanced without one being more important the other. The romance between the two is obvious, with Allison spending a good chunk of screentime trying to admit her feelings to Will, who is completely clueless. They are both likable and make good protagonists.

Less important is the suave Sou Beil air force pilot Carr Benedict and and the cutesy heir of the Ikstova royalty Fiona. They also inevitably bond as a couple, and are pleasant additions to the show. Benedict is voiced by Kouichi Yamadera, known for his role as Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel.

The setting here has a World War II aesthetic with industrial revolution technology. This translates to a world of biplanes, trains, fancy suits, and all manner of retro-cool. This is an aspect that I thoroughly enjoy in a show.

With plenty of charm, fun, and adventure- I’ve really enjoyed my time with Allison and Wil. It is a show that has a strong foundation that could’ve been developed further and made a bit more complex. However, not every story needs to be a sweeping and mature narrative to be a good show. As a fan of children’s adventure and fantasy fiction, I felt right at home watching this series. many viewers will dismiss this show entirely for being “stupid”. Its perfectly understandable if this show isn’t your thing, but I know there are those like myself who will enjoy it.

In part 2, I’ll wrap things up by comparing the Lillia and Treize characters and see how the plot compares. I’ll also discuss the technical merits of the animation and sound design, along with anything else I wish to add.

After saying a few unflattering things about Sonic 06, I decided that it might be a good idea to take a look at Sonic’s more impressive past. Despite what the Sonic 06 articles may make you think, I can be positive. Rather than simply going over the Sonic games on the Genesis like a normal person would, I decided to do something different: play every single Sonic game I own in release order.

This is no small amount, as I have every major release except Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Unleashed and the Wii games. Some of the smaller spin-offs I likely won’t play in full (No one cares about Tails’ Sky Patrol), but most of the spin-offs such as Sonic 3D Blast, I will complete.

This does not, of course, include Sonic 06, I’ve written enough about it already and I have the case crazy glued closed.

The very first Sonic the Hedgehog game was released almost nineteen years ago in 1991, and instantly SEGA’s mascot became less hideous. Sorry Alex Kidd, but you look like a horrible half-monkey, half-man abomination. Sonic soon became an incredibly popular character by virtue of being the definition of 90s. Full of attitude and X-TREME!, Sonic as a character is definitely a product of his time. Sequels and toys and spin-offs and cartoons and comic books later, Sonic is one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time. The true fans–adults on the internet who grew up with Sonic games–are not too fond of the direction he’s taken lately, but he still is popular enough to be a good cash cow for SEGA.

Sadly, Sonic the Hedgehog as a game does not hold up nearly as well as many of its sequels. If you go back to it now, you are unlikely to have any fun at all without powerful retro goggles. The game possesses many of the features we know and love today, but it is obvious they were still trying to figure some of them out. Running fast, despite being the game’s main selling point, is only really possible in Green Hill Zone. The other zones move at infuriatingly slow paces, especially Marble Zone. You could say the game jumped the shark after the first zone.

Green Hill Zone was the perfect showcase of Sonic gameplay. It’s open and clear enough to be run through quickly, while having enough loops, platforming, and enemies to keep you interested. Speaking of the enemies, one thing I always found especially creative about Sonic was its approach to taking damage. Rather than shrinking or losing a heart, your rings go flying everywhere. While this was frustrating when trying to get to the special zones, it was a good system that kept things from getting too difficult.

Bane of my existance.

After the fun of running through Green Hill Zone, you are thrust into Marble Zone. Marble Zone is filled with nothing but waiting for platforms to move, waiting for lava to stop falling, dying in arbitrary ways, and waiting for the fun to come back. Marble Zone Act 3 is my least favorite level in platforming history. The rest of the zones are a mixed bag, often culminating in an overly-frustrating Act 3.

It’s interesting how much the later games in the series follow the basic level archetypes set forth in the original. Both in the visual theme–happy green level, underground level, industrial level, temple with water, city, factory, robotnik’s base–and in general content of the levels–enemies, puzzle types, and objects. While these level types become cliche in later games, it still works and each of the zones has a little something different that affects the gameplay.

That Giant ball was Robotnik's greatest invention.

The Robotnik battles, unlike the zones, get better as it goes on. The first three are fairly simple, but different enough to keep you interested. After that, it does get more interesting with an obstacle course race rather than an ordinary boss battle and a more complicated battle involving bouncing explosives off of see-saws. One of Sonic Team’s better ideas was to not simply use the same boss, but to make variations upon Robotnik with various technological upgrades.

Unfortunately, Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t a good game, more of a good idea. It set up a very good foundation that the sequels would build upon later to make great games.(Well not all of them). Still, the original Sonic did have some fun bits and the music was fairly good. But, overall, I would not recommend going back to relive these particular childhood memories.

Title: Chains | Developer: 2D Engine | Platform: PC | Genre: Puzzle

Puzzle games that require you to match three colors have been done to death at this point, but every once in a while someone does something interesting with the idea. Chains is such a game, but rather than settling with one slightly different mechanic, Chains does something new every level.

The base game is nothing more than dragging your mouse along touching bubbles of the same colors to link them together and form chains. As long as the next bubble touches the one you’re on now, you can extend the chain. When you’re done, you simply let go up the mouse button and the bubbles disappear, assuming you have at least three. A very simple concept, but because the stages are so diverse it works really well.

You start out with a simple goal to get 100 bubbles cleared, but then the game changes for each of the twenty levels. In one level, the bubbles are falling down a tunnel and they need to be cleared away before the tunnel gets too clogged. In the level Coat Hanger, the bubbles fall on either side of the coat hanger object which swings if the weight becomes unbalanced. Another level puts point values on each bubble and requires an exact score to be achieved in a single chain.

All of the levels are different from each other, with only a couple of types repeating, this keeps Chains from getting stale. But the game does have a huge difficulty spike at stage 11. The final ten levels are much harder than the others, and at times come down to luck. A few are on the easy side, but overall it can get a little bit frustrating.

Chains is definitely not for everyone, but if you are a fan of weird, indie puzzle games, try it out. It’s only $5 on Steam and is worth your time if you give it a chance. It’s a very interesting look at how much you can do with one simple gameplay element.

You can download a demo of the game at the developer’s website, located here.

Roger Smith is Paradigm City’s top negotiator, a job involving a lot of talking to kidnappers, handling vast sums of money, and fighting random giant robot battles. For reasons unknown to Roger, he owns and can operate a megadeus(giant robot) called Big O. Every single villain in the entire city also pilots a megadeus and will whip it out at the slightest provocation, making Roger’s job a bit more exciting. The prolific megadeus pilot population is rather surprising since no one is supposed to remember how to operate them.

The citizenry of Paradigm City lost their memory forty years ago in an unknown incident. Since then, they have puzzled out how to re-harness the power of electricity, form a system of government, have a working economy, form large monopolies, and operate tanks. It’s not very clear how they managed to figure out all of this, but I’m guessing that a bunch of random guesswork was involved. Regained memories probably helped too.

The people of Paradigm City do occasionally recall things from their life beforehand, if they are old enough to remember such things. Except the times when younger people randomly remember things, except maybe they’re not remembering things, or maybe they’re remembering the future, or maybe they’re remembering someone else’s memory, or maybe they are actually just insane. The second season made things more confusing like that. Pretending the second season doesn’t exist, they basically just remember their pasts from time to time.

Anyway, when Paradigm City needs a negotiator it turns to Roger Smith, who is basically Bruce Wayne and Batman at the same time. He is rich and has a large mansion where he lives with his butler, Norman, and his robotic maid, R. Dorothy. If Bruce Wayne had a better sense of humor and created a giant robot instead of a pair of tights, he would be Roger Smith. Roger is a strict master, always enforcing his household rules, such as only letting women come inside unannounced and all residents must wear black at all times.

Some of the dialog in Big O is as bad as Frank Miller's work that isn't Dark Knight Returns or Year One.

Norman takes his job as butler/giant-robot-repairman seriously and constantly calls up Roger during robot battles to see if he should delay dinner or not. Dorothy, in addition to being a robot and maid, has a good repertoire with Roger that makes the series fun. She keeps Roger from getting a swelled head, and helps out in investigations. Although, every single fight ends in her stuck to a large magnet or used to activate an enemy’s megadeus.

The robot battles are fun, but quite often feel shoehorned into the episode. It never makes much sense that so many of these random people not only find these giant robots, but have memories telling them how to operate them. For the entire first season, the show follows a monster of the week format, which works really well for the series. The second season decides to have more plot though, more plot that makes no sense and is not all that interesting. The second season also contains the line: “I am one of the tomatoes.” It sounds just as stupid in context.

Fun Fact: There are no pictures of Big O on the internet.

It took me two weeks to get through the final four episodes of the series, and it did not feel worth it at the end. The story was boring and really quite idiotic. The final episode helped make up for some of that with some cool moments, but it didn’t make up for the rest of the season. Roger wasn’t as funny, Dorothy wasn’t around as much, and while other characters such as, Dastun, chief of police and good friend to Roger, and Angel, a spy working for the Paradigm Corporation and possible love interest for Roger, were expanded upon, they did not make up for the protagonists’ downfalls.

For the first thirteen episodes though, Big O was fun, had a good atmosphere, and was worth watching. I enjoyed watching Roger and Dorothy investigate stuff and have giant robot battles. The series worked when that was all it tried to do. The robot battles never did make sense, but I was okay with that. Go watch season one, it’s pretty cool and a lot of fun, but just try to pretend the second season didn’t happen and “forget” to watch that one. You’ll remember the series more fondly that way.

What will they do for the boxart if the series starts getting more and more entries?

Everyone loves killing zombies, but we’ve been so inundated with zombie slaying that I was afraid I would be sick of Left 4 Dead 2 before I even played it. I enjoyed the first game, but it got old fairly quickly. After a month or two everyone resorted to the same tactics and versus mode was robbed of all of its fun by people hiding in corners. Thankfully Left 4 Dead 2 corrects all the problems of the first game while adding a lot of new, interesting content.

One of the aspects of the first game that I really enjoyed was the subtle method of storytelling, where we found out more about the world from writing on the walls left by other survivors, as well as dialog between the main characters. Left 4 Dead 2 has a lot more of this story as various writings on the wall hint strongly that the survivors, while immune, may still carry the virus. The campaigns are linked together a lot better through the story as well, and you can tell what went wrong with the last escape at the beginning of each campaign.

Boomers are still there to mess you up.

Speaking of the campaigns, they are much more varied and interesting than the ones in the first game. Each campaign not only has a variety of interesting set pieces, such as the witch filled saw mill in Hard Rain, but they also change up the finale events. For instance, the finale of the first campaign, Dead Center, has the survivors collecting gas cans to fill up a race car to use for escape. The regular finale events involving holding out while massive hordes attack are more varied as well. In addition, each campaign has slight variations on the music, which is a lot more southern this time.

The new special infected give the game a lot more variety, and keep you from using several of the cheap tricks from the first game. For instance, the new spitter will spit a large pool of acid on the ground that will do exponentially more damage as you sit in it. This helps prevent closet-sitting and spreads out the survivors a bit. The charger rushes at the survivors, grabs the first one he runs into, knocking aside the others, and starts pounding the first guy into the ground. He does a lot of damage pretty fast when he starts pounding, but you can kill him fairly fast if you have a clear shot. The jockey jumps on top of a survivor and tries to drag them away from the others into spitter goo, witches, off ledges, or into car alarms. Jockeys aren’t too difficult to kill, but if everyone else is busy, they can do some damage.

There are now more interesting events throughout the levels such as this one where you have to retrieve some soda for an old gunshop owner.

These new special infected are joined by the first game’s cast of smokers, boomers, hunters, and witches. In addition to aesthetic changes, a major mechanical change is made to the witches during daytime levels. If it is the day, the witch will wander around crying, making her harder to dodge as you can turn corners to find a witch walking right towards you. You also have uncommon common infected with hazmat suits resistant to fire, body armor that makes them much more resilient to attacks, and several other kinds of slight changes that make it a bit harder for the survivors to kill them.

The survivors are slightly more explained as characters in Left 4 Dead 2, as the game starts with them strangers and they introduce themselves to each other midway through the first level. You can appreciate Valve’s usual attention to detail as in the first level they make up their own names for the special infected since they do not yet know what a “boomer” is. All of the characters save Rochelle are likeable and have funny lines. Coach is a sassy football coach, Nick is a smooth con artist who is also GOB, Ellis is a loveable redneck, and Rochelle is kind of just there. Rochelle is rather disappointing, she doesn’t have much of a personality besides being somewhat kindly and outside of “Son of a bee-sting!” and her horrible “Just axe me a question” none of her lines are that memorable.

Collecting gas cans has never been so much fun!

In order to increase the life-span of the game there are now new gameplay modes. There are the returning campaign, versus, and survival; plus new scavenge and realism. Scavenge mode involves a team of survivors trying to collect as many gas cans as possible before the team of infected kills them or the time runs out. Then the teams switch sides to see who can get the most. It’s a lot of fun and doesn’t take nearly as long as a regular Versus game. Thanks to the new infected, versus matches, pitting two teams alternating between infected and survivor against each other as they try to run through the level, are actually fun now, but still retain the problem of taking up so much time it’s hard to get a good game going.

Realism is the standard campaign with some changes, witches now instakill, you don’t see outlines of anything, only defibrillators(a new medkit substitute that can resurrect dead players) bring people back, and zombies take a lot more bullets to kill unless you headshot them. Because you no longer see the outlines of your teammates, communication is absolutely vital, do not attempt this without a microphone. Like in the first game, survival has you holding out in one area as wave after wave of zombies attack, and while it is fun to do from time to time, I’m not a huge fan of it.

There are a lot more weapons this time around.

In addition to all of these new gameplay modes there are a lot more weapons, new items like the adrenaline shots and special round dispensers, and so many other things that I don’t have room to talk about it all. Valve took Left 4 Dead, made it better, went crazy with it, then added more stuff. Left 4 Dead 2 is everything a sequel should be and more, and something you can be proud to have in your collection.

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society had quite a challenge and a history of failed attempts by others to overcome when they decided to create their own film of Lovecraft’s most famous and influential story- The Call of Cthulhu.

I want a poster of this next to my Metropolis poster.

The entire production is filmed to resemble an early horror/science fiction film along the line of Metropolis, Faust, and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. The film is silent and black and white (plus sepia).  There are the usual black screens with text for the dialogue, which allows for easy translation. The DVD has 24 language options. The black and white looks great with overblown highlights and perfectly captures the vintage feel, including screen flicker and noise. The settings and effects fit the time period, with real sets and claymation and minimal use of greenscreen. There are absolutely no CG effects in the entire creation. The creators coined a new term for their filming process called “Mythoscope” (I don’t know how, but I’ll be fitting this term into everyday settings as well) that combines modern and vintage filming technique. Also utilized was “Mythophone” which converts the high fidelity audio into sounding proper for the time.

This is not a B-movie. The effects may be cheesy at times, but the directing is very impressive. The tone is intense and suspenseful. The cinematography is fantastic and creates an appropriate atmosphere and horror mood. The symphonic score fits right in and works to effectively complete the overall ambiance. The actors play their part skillfully, and accurately portray that feeling of “unspeakable terror and dread”. There is no over-the-top, silly acting that one may associate with the era. The workmanship here is very faithful to the source material and in keeping it in line with the vintage feel.

The Call of Cthulhu runs for 47 minutes- a perfect length to portray the short story and not linger on past its welcome. Because of the nature of Lovecraft’s writing, I don’t see the story making an effective full-length film with lots of dialogue. There was more suspense and build-up than you might expect for its short length, but it was effective all around. I would have liked a more vague conclusion than showing what they did, but I can accept it. I learned from this film that even removed from his writing, the feeling of suspense and wonder of Lovecraft’s stories can be presented, just in a different way. It isn’t the same appeal as his writing, but a different and effective appeal.

I want to mention that I really recommend this for after reading Lovecraft’s original short story. No one writes as beautifully about everything horrid, and this cannot be captured in film. I wouldn’t want people to watch the film and then read the story with previous knowledge of the conclusion. The story will lose some appeal that way, while the film will only be more enjoyable to established fans of the story. So, read Call of Cthulhu and then watch the movie. It is in the public domain and can be read (along with tons of other HPL stories) right here.

A very fun watch- I highly recommend it. It is also nice to see just how much care was put into this fan project. The making-of feature is required viewing.

—

I really like the idea of combining modern and vintage filming technique. The Call of Cthulhu mostly relies on imitation of archaic technique and technology. I would like to see a similar process, but with more modern elements for a truly anachronistic feel.  I would like to something similar, but in wide-screen or perhaps an ambient-electronic soundtrack. There a lot of interesting directions this could go. I would like to see some experimentation in the future with this style.

When I first heard about Scribblenauts, I was super excited. A game where you can summon anything from a little pad of paper to solve puzzles and save the world? Including krakens and dinosaurs and Long Cat? And you wear a funny looking rooster hat the whole time? I was pretty much sold on the concept and art style alone.

The months that followed were almost painful. This was one of the first DS titles I had been looking forward to in such a long time and yet the release date was so far away. The internet provided a few videos from E3, displaying such grand things such as “God VS the Kraken”, and some artwork including a scene with the main character, Maxwell, riding a velociraptor, holding a sword to fight zombies from the future, as seen here:

Let me clarify… YOU CAN USE A TIME MACHINE TO FIGHT ZOMBIES WHILE RIDING A DINOSAUR.

Fast forward to late September, a birthday package arrived with me containing some shirts, a new umbrella I needed, and Scribblenauts. I started the tutorial, where it explains the controls, how to summon things, the way to beat levels, what items you can ride and how to do so, how glue and adhesives work, and other important things. I cruised through it, went to my classes, and played all during lunch.

When you first turn on the game, it takes you through the usual opening credits before dumping you off with Maxwell in a mock-forest level (by summoning things you unlock different worlds for your start screen to begin on).

Welcome to the Start Screen.

You have the option to oblige to the game’s will and hit the start star on the bottom of the screen, or you can see where your curiosity and wonder leads and hit the journal in the upper corner and conjure up all the creatures and items you’ve wanted. I would also estimate I spent hours just summoning things on the opening screen, because there are so many things you can make! While Scribblenauts does not have everything ever, you can summon a select choice of nouns that are not offensive, vulgar, proper nouns, that sort of thing, that will entertain and amaze. I remember typing in “love” and my magical notebook gave me an anatomically correct heart. The games other summons, include everything from Cthulu, submarines, freeze rays, teleporters, God, death, everything, and nothing.

Unplayed levels are marked with exclamation points, locked levels with a lock, beaten levels with a Starite.

And then I began my journey with dear Maxwell and his silly hat. Each world has twenty-two stages; half are puzzle based, half are action based, though I felt there was no real difference between the two. When you are in a world, you will start off with the puzzle stages, but if you hit the little explosion tab in the bottom right corner, it changes over to the action puzzles. When you begin a world, only the first level of the action and puzzle stages will be unlocked. As you beat levels, you will unlock the other levels of that world.

Your typical start to a level.

In the first puzzle level of world one, you are brought to a forest with four people: A cop, a chef, a fireman, and a lady doctor. At the beginning of each level, you are given a hint to help you complete the level successfully. In this one the hint reads, “Give two of them what they would use in their hands!” Easy enough, right? So I could make a gun for the police man, a frying pan for the chef, a hose for the fireman, and a stethoscope for the doctor. I’d be over achieving and going over the level’s par amount of items. Every level has a par amount of items it thinks you should use to solve the level. Use less, you get more points upon beating it, use more you get less points for making too many mistakes.

Starite get!

As soon as you solve the puzzle, the Starite you’re after appears, it falls, Maxwell grabs it and swings his arm in a windmill of joy, signaling the completion of the level. Alrgiht! You’re scored on the Par number of items, Style for how cool you are at doing the level, the time it took you from when you started until Maxwell grabbed the Starite, and this grand total adds up to the number of Ollars earned. Now I know what you’re thinking, Ollars is a terrible rip off of the monies used in this game. Well, you’re right. Ollars are the only currency in Scribblenauts in which you can buy many things from new worlds, music to play for the whole game, or different avatars for Maxwell to be. You also get merits usually, which are more or less the achievement badges when you do something new and exciting in the game, like conjuring a new item you’ve never made before, or using lots of rope to solve your puzzle, like Candlejack mig

Backflips get you major style points. Oh wait...

Every level you go into is rated on a scale of one to four stars, one being the easy “give this person what they need” kind of puzzle, four being the equivalent of stopping a time bomb from going off in the White House and you forgot wire cutters. You also have the option to play levels you’ve already cleared to get a genius achievement, which means you’ve successfully completed the level three times with all different items. I’m not an over achiever or anything, but I found myself stepping up to that challenge a few times, and it was fun.

I don’t know what they were thinking in terms of ordering the levels but…

The first few worlds were indeed fun and quirky as I expected, especially due to its strange world layout. I made scuba tanks so I could swim under water, I fed animals the noms they wanted, I air lifted patients to hospitals on the tops of mountains. I could solve any problem because I had the power to summon anything. The thing is, there were so many things I could use to solve the levels, I found myself sticking to a few choice items because I knew they would get the jobs I needed done. I often had repeat use of wings, the jetpack, the infamous tyrannosaurus rex, sharks, rope, and helicopters. It’s not that I didn’t WANT to come up with other things to use and solve the puzzles, I just knew if I had to go over gaps, wings would get me there, or if a bear wanted to eat me, the tyrannosaurus would eat it first. Half of the items I used didn’t function in a way that I found useful, so I just stuck to what worked. And making items itself was an easy thing, making them do what you want was the difficult part.

This is what the journal screen looks like.

To make things appear out of thin air, contrary to the first law of thermodynamics, you hit the little journal tab and type in what you want to make. No worries if you don’t know how to spell your item, Scribblenauts has a sort of spell check system where if it doesn’t recognize the word you put in, it will ask you if you meant one of three new options similar to your word. If a word has more than one meaning (when you type in fan it will ask you if you mean the tool or the person, not that those are entirely different) it will give you both and you can go from there. Once the item has entered the Scribblenauts world, it kind of just hangs out in midair until you drag it with your stylus to wherever. While you have the item selected with your stylus, you can rotate it using L and R. You can drag the item onto Maxwell for him to wear or hold or wield, you can drop it on the ground, you can place it inside of a box, or you can drag it up into the trash can which takes the place of the journal tab when you have items selected. Items won’t always be what you want them to be, though, or function in the way you’ll want them to, like I mentioned not but a paragraph ago. Water won’t make lava harden, and neither will ice. Guns will only fire so many times. The people you summon usually just sit there and look dumb unless they need to drive something or they’re afraid of something else on the stage.

Here we see Maxwell swimming into a corner… And swimming… And swimming…

Because the game is solely dependent on the use of the stylus, it can get a little obnoxious, especially controlling Maxwell. The extent of his controls are simply ‘tap the area where you want him to go’ which will often result with Maxwell running into a wall until you tell him not to, or Maxwell falling into a pit of death because he didn’t feel like jumping (he can only jump if there is an obstacle in his way), or Maxwell getting eaten by a tiger because he accidentally got to close. Basically, anything Maxwell can do wrong he probably will because of the poor stylus controls. Let’s face it, we’ve all grown up with the D Pad, and while I give 5^th Cell a pat on the back for trying something new, completely relying on the touch screen for controls was not their best move. Plus, all the D Pad did in the game was control the camera, which would snap back to Maxwell after a few seconds, which got annoying. The ABXY buttons functioned in a similar manner to the D Pad.

When I began Scribblenauts, all these minor faults were passable. The levels were easy enough that control problems or summoning things didn’t affect me enough to get overly frustrated. As the levels got more complicated, there would be times where I’d play a level, quit out because I couldn’t solve it in a few tries, went back to try again, turned off the game for a while, and went back again to actually beat it after much toil. I would say this happened merely a few times in the first few worlds… Once you hit around world 4 or 5, things start to get tricky. In worlds 6 and 7, I became to be more frustrated by the puzzles because a lot of them seemed impossible, and by the times I bought worlds 8, 9, and 10, I would often just go into a level, stare at it, and leave. I did on occasion try to do the impossible, see the invisible, but there was no way I could row row fight da powah. At all. I also found the level layout themselves getting stale. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Scribblenauts art style, but many of the layouts were small and there wasn’t much exploring as I thought a puzzle/action game would warrant. In fact, it felt like the game on a whole was just a puzzle game. The action portions, which I would assume included the racing and fighting challenges, were awkward and weren’t as action-like as I was expecting. From everyone I’ve talked to, I feel like I’m the only one who’s cared to play the game this much, and if you’ve gotten further minus FAQs please, let me know your secrets.

Hypothetically, if I was there to make changes, I would have done so! But I wasn’t, so here are few things I would have suggested. First off, I’d give the game a general plot. So you have a name, a notebook, and you’re getting Starite to complete the levels… But why? To what end? Is there a reason to the Starite? Is Maxwell using it to run the LHC? Does he need to collect it for a friend who likes it a lot? Unless Maxwell has a purpose (other than traversing the levels) in collecting the Starite, it leaves the game dull where there could have been something stringing us along for the game.

I want to love him more… But I just can’t.

Second, give Maxwell a little more defining character than the hat and his trademark arm spin. I love the little guy, and I think he deserves a second chance if 5^th Cell decides to ever follow up Scribblenauts. I don’t know what his deal is, why he has an excellently awesome notebook that can basically summon anything, and I kind of want to. I mean, he IS your main character and all, he deserves a little credit. Third, make some more exploratory levels, like the old school Mario games style of side scrolling. I think it would have been lots of fun having to create lots of objects to get through a less condensed level with similar amounts of puzzles to reach the end or the Starite than many of the ones presented by Scribblenauts, and if there was more of a story line I think this method of play would have fit better than if the story (or lack thereof) remained as it is. And finally, touch up the controls, make them slightly less stylus based. Maybe have an option where you can reverse the controls so the D Pad and buttons control Maxwell and the stylus controls the camera, just something so we have better control of Maxwell and the things he makes.

Panda panda panda panda pan panda!

I would like to make it clear that I don’t think Scribblenauts is a bad game. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it was a breath of fresh air from everything else I’ve been playing ever. The only bad thing I will say is that I feel disappointed, maybe even slightly betrayed, by the results of Scribblenauts. However, I still applaud 5^th Cell and friends for their game. There aren’t enough people in the gaming industry trying quirky new things like this. Scribblenauts will provide you a fun gaming experience that will entertain you for a while, depending on how much you want to get into it. For those of you who haven’t played this, borrow it from a friend or rent it. It’s worth a shot, but I don’t think it’s worth the money to own it forever and ever. Scribblenauts most certainly doesn’t live up to my every hope and dream that I thought it was going to be, but there’s still a little part of me that giggles when I can make ninjas fight pirates, and then have the winner fight samurai, and so on.

In the end, Scribblenauts pulls off some great stuff. When finishing this review, I was listening to LoadingReadyRun cover this year’s Desert Bus for Hope, and Joel DeYoung from Hothead Games was playing for the children. Everyone was asking him questions, and one of them was if you have an idea for a game, what should you do? His advice was this: Make it, even if you don’t think you can make it fulfill your greatest vision of that game, because if you have an idea and you do nothing with it, what’s that idea worth? And if you do make your idea come to life, it is progress, and progress is a very valuable thing. 5^th Cell may not have created a game that fulfills neither their nor our greatest visions for what this game could have been, but they made it, and for that I tip my hat. I look forward to their many future projects, with all of their progress in hand.

HA-HA! Video games.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law was largely ignored by most people due to its short length and low difficulty. However, something made me decide to finally pick it up, and that something was the game’s new price point of $5 new at Gamestop/EBgames.  I’m willing to give just about anything a shot for $5, something that has backfired on me in the past.

I’m a huge fan of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and I love the Harvey Birdman cartoon, so when I heard the game was essentially Phoenix Birdman: Ace Attorney at Law I was intrigued. The game works just like Ace Attorney, having you look around crime scenes, talk to people, and use evidence to prove that people are lying in court. Unlike Ace Attorney though, everything is blindingly obvious. You never have to think and at times it feels like you’re watching a cartoon that makes you press a lot of buttons before anything actually happens.

This is tolerable as really you’re just there for the Birdman humor. The complete cast is here and all of the voice actors save Stephen Colbert reprise their roles. Colbert’s replacement does a fairly good Sebben though and Reducto isn’t around tons, so it all works out. As the game goes on you see the same recurring gags and even the same ending style from the show. If you have not watched the show, the game is still fairly funny, but all of the references will go over your head.

My biggest problem with the game is the wasted opportunity in the “press” command. In the Phoenix Wright games, this can be used on every statement a witness would make to almost always get unique, new dialog out of the characters. Some of the funniest lines in the game were obtained via these commands, but in Birdman most of the time you get a generic “I don’t see anything wrong with that” from Harvey.Aside from this though, the game throws a lot of good jokes and bizarre situations at you.

You really can beat the game in about an afternoon; each case is the length of a slightly longer than normal episode of the cartoon, making the game feel like a DVD of the show with only five episodes.   Still, it’s worth picking up, especially at $5. Fans of the cartoon should go get it right now. If you’ve never seen the show before you’ll likely find it uninteresting unless you’re a fan of other old Adult Swim shows like Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Sealab 2021. Also a Space Ghost game would probably be the most amazing thing ever created.

]]> http://insert-disc.com/2009/12/03/ha-ha-video-games-harvey-birdman-attorney-at-law-review/feed/ 2 http://insert-disc.com/2009/12/01/face-punch-an-action-movie-for-the-ages/ http://insert-disc.com/2009/12/01/face-punch-an-action-movie-for-the-ages/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:40:20 +0000 Brittany http://insert-disc.com/?p=335

It’s Saturday night, and I’m standing in the longest line I’ve been in for a movie. All I want to do is buy my ticket to go see The Men Who Stare At Goats, and here I am standing out in the cold while a breeze manages to make me feel like my winter jacket is made of cheesecloth.

After an agonizing fifteen minutes of waiting, I get to the little window where you buy your tickets.

“I’m sorry, that showing is sold out,” the girl behind the fiberglass divider says. Her voice has the nasally quality of a seagull. I ask what else is playing that would be comparable to TMWSaG.

“The Face Punch showing at 9 has some seats left.”

What.

“You know, Face Punch, some crazy action flick that just came out of nowhere.”

A movie with a name like Face Punch could only be one of two things: A bad rip-off of Fight Club,or a musical montage of someone punching various people in the face.

“Their tagline is ‘Face punch: let’s do this!‘ My boyfriend saw it last night and he is just absolutely raving about it.”

I bought the ticket and ran to theater room four. The only available seat I could find with the dim lighting of a preview for another zombie movie was in the front row. I settled myself just as the movie began.

An hour and fifty minutes later, I emerged from the theater a changed person. Face Punch was like nothing I’d ever seen before in an action flick. The plot starts off a little cliché, the first five minutes are devoted to flashbacks, but that doesn’t last long. I think the best way to describe it is that Face Punch is the opposite of Dragon Ball Z in the way that a DBZ episode is about ten minutes of talking for every two minutes of fighting. After my first viewing of Face Punch, I went back a second time with a stopwatch. There is exactly an hour and thirty-two minutes of fighting in Face Punch. That means only eighteen minutes of everything else, five of which are flashbacks.

It was surprisingly well-executed and extremely well paced for this kind of movie. The main character, who managed to remain nameless the whole film, went from fight to fight just punching people in the face and knocking them out in one solid hit. The fight scenes themselves were choreographed beautifully. The Face Punch fighting style relied on a lot of punching in the face, as one might guess, but they kept it fresh from scene to scene. The main character’s fighting style was quite fluid for a man that just goes around punching people in the face. It was like a combination of Muhammad Ali boxing and Jackie Chan kung fu.

I don’t want to give too much away, seeing as Face Punch hasn’t been out longer than a week, but let me just tell you, someone named Arnold makes the best cameo I have ever seen in my years of watching movies. He and the narrator have one of the most amazing fights I have ever seen, and never will you ever be so conflicted as to who you want to win that fight. The best thing is, there are no special effects in this movie. Everything they do, they are actually doing themselves.

The music that the Face Punch team included in the movie was incredible. Just listening to the soundtrack makes you want to go out into the street and start punching people in the face, it’s so good. I was actually amazed that there wasn’t an all-out brawl in the theater, but I think that’s because everyone was in awe over how great the movie was.

I cannot urge you all enough to go see Face Punch. It’s possibly one of the best movies of all time, and I would have to list off every emotion in my vocabulary to tell you how I feel about it. Face Punch’s powerful themes of destruction juxtaposed against a society that doesn’t quite understand how to deal with destruction creates the perfect stage for the issues the protagonist must face or punch during his journey from boy to man. The ending is nothing but perfect,and it leaves you wondering about yourself, and whether if you had to, would you punch someone in the face for what you believed in.

Now, I know I would.

The cover of the graphic novel depicts three weapon-wielding, cloak-wearing mice looking very serious in their forested surrounding. Let me just stop here to mention that these mice are legitimately mice, not some kind of humanoid-mouse-furry-monstrosities. If you are picturing the Redwall series by Brian Jacques, then you are on the right track. It isn’t hard to draw comparisons between the two, while at the same time Petersen’s work is vastly different, if in a similar ilk. I would certainly recommend that Jacques fans give the series a try though.

One could look at the cover and be fooled into assuming it to be juvenile entertainment. The book was actually surprising violent- while not overly bloody, there is plenty of death and a dark tone overall (at one point early on, the mice cut open a snake and comment on the dead mouse found within). The heroes are not above killing their enemies, whether it is a larger predator or a fellow mouse. Of course, youth will appreciate “mouse-violence” even if their parents don’t always. The website recommends it for a 10+ crowd, which seems appropriate. Beyond that though, lies a complexity and cleverness beyond a lot of children’s entertainment.

In Mouse Guard, the world of mice is a dangerous one filled with predators. They live in protected villages with communication between each other extremely dangerous. The Mouse Guard is an elite group of warriors who protect travelers from their treacherous surroundings. In this story, there is a conspiracy brewing and a traitor to the Mouse Guard, and three of the guards, Kenzie, Saxon, and Lieam have to stop it. The plot is fairly basic, but livened up with exceptional execution. With their “mice cuteness” and cold, battle-hardened personalities, the protagonists are an undoubtedly endearing trio. The writing ranges from being quite clever to a bit awkwardly worded a times. There is a lot of “Else, the guard may perish” type of writing which works better in some instances that at others. The plot can also be a bit jumpy at times, though not enough to detract significantly. The story is full of action packed bravado, ‘epic fantasy” dialogue, and enough complexity and clever scenes to give it a sophistication beyond brainless “hack and slash”.

While I really enjoyed the story, the main attraction is the absolutely beautiful artwork. Many of the reviews I glanced through before purchasing it made little mention of the aesthetic appeal. Dark thick linework and gorgeous colour fill the pages. The art is exquisitely detailed with a strong focus on perspective. I was instantly impressed with the artistic merit of the series. The mice are well proportioned without seeming cartoony. The backgrounds are brilliantly rendered and stylized. I adored the textures and lighting presented. Be sure and take a look at some of the artwork on the Mouse Guard website.

Extras include maps, area guides, example of mouse occupations, and a gallery of the characters as drawn by others. A nice, complete package.

I am quite enthusiastic about Mouse Guard. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The story stands on its own as an impression semi-kid’s book, and the stunning artwork really gives it a lot of appeal. It is sophisticated enough to make it more than just a fun fantasy adventure, while managing to remain exactly that. The series continued with another six issue series, compiled into another graphic novel Mouse Guard Winter 1152 and will continue as another bi-monthly six issue series Black Axe, beginning 2010.

It doesn’t take long to understand the reasoning behind the game’s title. If the conventional opening sequence doesn’t quite give it away, then fighting rats in the sewer most certainly will. Nostalgia is exactly that- a tribute to RPG tradition. If you can appreciate very old school RPG gameplay, and if the sound of “highly influenced by Skies of Arcadia” intrigues you, then this may be your cup of tea.

Nostalgia takes place in the 19^th century and the neo-Victorian feel is everywhere. I was excited as soon as the opening had a credit for “airship designer”. The game starts off with Indiana Jones-inspired adventurer Gilbert Brown facing off against an armoured knight in the Tower of Babel. Yes, it is as amazing as it sounds. Brown saves a girl and gets her onto his airship, but doesn’t make it himself. It is around this point where I learned that while airships are cool, airships with giant swords at the bow are so much cooler. Now, back over at Gilbert Brown’s house, we see his son Edward (the real protagonist) and his wife receiving news that Gilbert is missing. Inevitably, “Eddie” (I wish the game would have referred to him as Edward) sets out to find his missing father. But wait- you wouldn’t dream of going on any kind of adventure without getting an adventurer license! After passing an initiation test involving the previously mentioned sewer-rats and obtaining a party member while doing so, it is time to head out of London. From here on out, it’s a globe spanning adventure that successfully combines “Steampunk”, “Indiana Jones”, and “Around the World in 80 Days”. I have no complaints with that match-up.

I am pretty enthusiastic about this setting. As a long time fan of neo-Victorian, I had been really looking forward to this game. Unlike a lot of steampunk, it doesn’t just feel like the creators poured a bucket of random brass things all over the place. Not everything is brown or wearing goggles. In a way, it’s a more realistic portrayal of the aesthetic. It certainly is over the top with its theme, but in a very charming way. You will be fighting dragons with an airship, when saving there is a sound effect like a clock winding, ancient artifacts and mythological places play an important role, and I learned that normal witches are not steampunk however if they have goggles on their witch hat then they quite clearly are.

As the game had been touted for its heavy inspiration from RPG classics, I had been expecting 2D instead of the Phantom Hourglass-style DS 3D. After an initial disappointment, I quickly adjusted and was impressed by the graphic detail, especially the background textures. My only significant complaint here is the jarring difference between when you would see an enemy in the story and then when battle starts, the design is completely changed. The game’s music could have used a few more tracks, but all of it effectively complimented the atmosphere.

The gameplay in Nostalgia certainly lives up to its name. The basic flow of gameplay is to navigate from town -> dungeon -> next town -> next dungeon -> etc. Combat is very traditional with a party consisting of a sword user, gun user, offensive magic, and defensive magic. Yes, the healer is a girl wearing white. Combat is turned based Final Fantasy style, with options “Attack, Special;Magic, Item, Defend, Run Away”. Special skills are unlocked by spending SP points on a grid system. Leveling one skill to a certain extent will unlock a neighboring skill. Since the skills are not revealed until unlocking them, it becomes guesswork anyway. I’m not really sure what the point of having the grid present was for. The enemies are never too tough, and grinding shouldn’t be necessary in this game, especially if you went out of the way to reveal the entire map of each room since the encounter rate can be annoyingly high. And before the boss of each area is a save point in the dungeon that also completely replenishes health and mp. You may be wondering how they got around the fact that you could endlessly grind while having practically infinite hp and mp- they didn’t. It’s a poor design choice that gives the player an option to overlevel incredibly easily.

The most notable aspect of the gameplay- along with being why legions of Skies of Arcadia fans are highly intrigued- is the inclusion of airship battles. Each party member controls a different weapon on the ship. Sword user has the giant sword attached to the ship, the gun wielder uses the guns, the witch uses the cannon, and the healer fires some kind of laser orb. Enemy ships and flying creatures can appear to the sides or front, and different weapons will be stronger or weaker against certain sides. Expect to be doing near 100 damage to an enemy positioned in front and around 30 for an enemy to the side. The airship battles are fairly robust and often incredibly challenging. One problem I have with the game is the unbalanced difficulty between land and air battles. In the dungeon, fighting isn’t really a problem and I died once (in the first dungeon). However in air, you’ll be facing against iron clad behemoths that take down your puny ship in two hits, leaving you wondering if this is really the right direction since you are clearly under-leveled. But no, it’s just really ridiculous.

Many will find this game completely unappealing. It is saturated in RPG conventions and clichés. The gameplay is simplistic and perhaps overly traditional and not particularly difficult, airships aside. However, there will be plenty of old school fans who will love the straightforward intend and fall for the charm of the atmosphere. It successfully accomplished in being a tribute to games of old, while being a polished and enjoyable game in its own right.

[ Review copy provided by Ignition Entertainment ]

You know how Rock Band works, you know how this game works, it isn’t a revolution. This game does, however, prove that all that the one-band games needed was love, and a band diverse and popular enough to justify being a separate entity. Harmonix has created here something wonderful, and I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be very successful.

Since everyone knows by now whether or not they like Rock Band, the question here is if the Beatles content all came together. From the title screen you can tell how much love was put into this game(you can’t buy that Activision). The menus, the interface, the animations between areas in story mode, the animations during songs–it’s just amazing and you can’t do that unless you really care about what you’re doing.

I was particularly impressed by the animations that played during songs, I’m down with what they did there. The standard on-stage stuff looks great, nothing mind-shattering, but where the game really shines is when you see what goes on during the trippier Beatles songs. They start off with them sitting around the studio, but then go into psychedelic dreamscapes with weird stuff going on here, there, and everywhere. I am somewhat disappointed that “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” did not show rocking horse people eating marshmallow pies, but I will forgive that since the animation looked beautiful anyway. Yellow Submarine and Octopus’ Garden are also notable because of their imaginative animations.

I don’t want to spoil the party, but the game isn’t perfect. I want to tell you that while the new harmonizing feature works great, at times when you sing solo the voice track will switch between the various Beatles; something that can be confusing when you suddenly go from singing with Paul to singing with John. Also, between the two of us, I felt like the game didn’t have quite enough songs. 45 is good, but when I’m used to sixty-four or so songs it seems a bit sparse, especially since a few big-name songs are missing.

These are only minor complaints though, and the game is fun from the beginning to the end. You get to play most of your favorite Beatles songs, and the rest are sure to come so that you can get it through DLC. I feel fine recommending this game to you, The Beatles have such a wide appeal that you most likely know and love the songs already. And after a hard days night, singing/drumming/strumming along with The Beatles is a great way to unwind.

7 out of 7 stars

It’s rare that you see a 2D game for consoles these days, and it’s almost unheard of to have one released on disc. Muramasa proves that we need that to happen more often with its beautiful scenery, fluid animation, and old-school design. The game has garnered attention because of its art direction, but that’s not the only reason to buy this game; the setting, the atmosphere, and the gameplay all work together wonderfully.

Muramasa is set in Japan during the late 1600s and tells the stories two of demon-blade wielders: Momohime and Kisuke. Momohime’s story isn’t really her own, as when the game begins she is possessed by the spirit of a swordsman named Jinkuro who rarely lets her have control of her body back. Kisuke starts off less interesting as he is an amnesiac ninja, very original. His story becomes more interesting once he meets up with Torahime, his lover, but it starts off very uninteresting. The stories don’t really intersect overtly except through the alternate endings, there are subtle connections though. Torahime is Momohime’s older sister, and both protagonists are searching for the same object, even if they never quite meet.

It is a bit hard to follow what’s happening throughout the story though; as the game will only briefly mention characters and events while expecting you to remember them. The presentation needed work in a few other places as well, with awkward moments before every boss battle where you just walk around talking to a few people who you’re about to fight. There was also one particularly poorly executed point in Momohime’s story where I reached the boss and Momohime was all of a sudden in control of her body saying that Jinkuro’s spirit was eaten by an oni. They never show you this happening, they just say it apparently happened during the two second load time. The presentation works over all, but when it messes up it’s very noticeable.

The combat in the game works well, but can get repetitive; you have a basic set of combos and that’s about it. Each sword you get has it’s own special move and you can have three equipped at once to switch between in case one breaks or you want use a different move. When a sword breaks, you have to re-sheath it and wait for it to repair itself. They can do that because they’re magical swords that have magical repairing abilities. There are only two types of swords though, long and short. So your basic combat stays largely the same throughout the game which can lead to it feeling a little repetitive at times. What is especially disappointing is that Kisuke and Momohime play exactly the same; their only difference is that they have different swords.

While the environments in the game are very good looking and have decent variety, they too can get a little repetitive as you will find yourself backtracking a lot. You thankfully won’t find yourself getting lost though, as the game has a Metroid-style map with an arrow telling you in what direction your next objective is. Along the way you can stop in shops, go to hot springs, and explore challenge caves. The problem with the challenge caves though, is that they often have barriers that require you to have a more powerful demon blade. Meaning that if you want to explore them, backtracking is required. They also tend to underestimate their own difficulty. Most of them pit you against 100 enemies, which is difficult on any level and one cave’s recommended level of nine is a complete joke, it’s difficult even on level 39.

There are a couple of other side activities as well, like cooking. You can cook up hot pots to instantly heal you or healing items to be used later. The problem is, every single time you cook something you have to watch the cooking animation, and it’s not just an animation. You have to hit the A button about 8 times to get through it all. The sword forging works better, even if there isn’t much to it. You just need to have a certain amount of souls(acquired from defeating enemies) and the prerequisite stats and swords.

While Muramasa is a very fun game, it is unfortunately riddled with small problems that bring it down. It’s definitely worth the price of admission, but you still can’t help but feel that it could have been better.

Never before have I played a game where reincarnated Biblical characters, the Tower of Babel, and Demon Summoning DSs are major plot points. Even within the context of Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Survivor is weird. The new strategy-RPG spin-off of the series not only brings the signature Shin Megami Tensei weirdness to the genre, but it manages to create a completely new and unique battle system.

The battlefield works like most strategy-RPG games, making you keep an eye on everyone’s positions and range. When you initiate a battle, however, you have a first-person, turn-based battle similar to the main-series MegaTen games. Each of your characters represents a team of one human and two demons, and everyone in a battle gets one turn to attack the enemy party. As with all Megaten games, you can get extra turns for exploiting weaknesses and lose them for striking resistances. Your characters have no equipment and instead just learn new moves by selecting a move that an enemy has before the battle starts. Once you have the move you want selected, you need to defeat the enemy who has it, which will net you the ability for yourself.

The game requires a lot more strategy than is initially apparent, and there are not that many tricks that will work at all times. The enemies are also in groups of three and if you take out the leader, the other two will die as well. This brings up the issue of whether or not you want to take out the partners first for more money and experience, or if you want to take out the leader first so you can get through the level more quickly. The game also manages to cycle through mission types at a good pace. Sometimes requiring you to protect civilians, kill enemies before they escape, or juggle a mixture of several mission types at once.

This all works together really well, and some of the skills you can acquire in the latter half of the game make you rethink your approach. The game does have a couple of difficulty spikes that require some grinding to get through. If they had increased the amount of money you get in battle, grinding would have been less necessary as fusing stronger demons could have alleviated the difficulty problem.

Demons are obviously important, and you acquire them at the devil auction, where people just auction off demons somehow. From there you can fuse demons together to create new ones. There is a good variety of demons, but in order to get new tiers of demons to bid on, you have to pay money for a new membership level. This limits your already limited funds even further and makes it much harder to get new demons.

The reason all these demons are running about is because your protagonist’s cousin helped a cult make modded DSs(called COMPs) that could summon demons quite easily. The government is understandably frightened by this so they lock down your entire city; leaving you, your friends, and thousands of other people alone to fend for themselves. Rumors soon get started that the government is going to kill everyone in everything inside of the lockdown after seven days.

The story does a good job of throwing plot twists and new information at you at regular intervals, and will make you want to keep going. Even past the instances where it wants you to grind. The game is fairly challenging throughout, but it feels fair until those grind-tastic moments. The game is great though, and if you like MegaTen or just strategy games, pick it up.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has one of the most refreshing takes on stealth in quite a while. As much as I love Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell, it is nice to have something different with the stealth genre, and Batman does just that. You don’t hide in a cardboard box until you know exactly where all of the enemies are going to be and when. You don’t commit suicide the second you’re discovered because you know waiting for the alarms to go off will be more irritating than doing it over. Instead, you get to be Batman.

Never before has a licensed game made me feel like I really was playing the character. Batman can jump off of rafters, gliding in behind enemies to take them out; throw batarangs to incapacitate enemies before slipping in to finish them off; and even burst through windows, terrifyingly taking out the henchmen behind them. Rather than the de-empowered stealth we are so used to, Arkham Asylum gives us a perfect balance of power and weakness. Batman may not be able to take too many bullets, but when the bullets are flying, he can escape to the shadows and start picking them all off one by one.

They're all that ugly.

That really is the art of Batman’s stealth, sneaking about and taking out everyone a few people at a time, and you don’t have to worry when you move in to bash a goon’s head into the floor. There never is another guard around the corner that you didn’t see, you have your bat cowl to show you where everyone is at all times. You can very satisfyingly take one guard out, grapple up to a gargoyle, and, as the others are rushing to see your handiwork, glide-kick the straggler before spraying some explosive gel on the unstable wall and climbing into a vent to plan your next move.

Batman’s toys do have some problems though, as a few feel a little overpowered. The triple-batarang is so overpowered that it felt like I was cheating when I used it. The Bat-cowl works nicely as a way to plan your moves, but it is so useful you will find yourself playing most of the game with it on, putting an ugly blue filter on everything. The gargoyles do feel a bit contrived, as they are present in every stealth room. It would have been nice to have those high vantage points be a little bit less awkward feeling, but they work well enough.

Thanks to the Unreal Engine, Commisioner Gordon got a dose of steroids.

Stealth is not the only aspect of the game though, fist-fights are more common. While very satisfying, the fist-fights are fairly simple and just don’t feel as good as the stealth. It helps the pacing, but I just found sneaking about a lot more fun. The boss fights are much more disappointing, unfortunately. They are not only all very generic outside of Killer Croc, but they aren’t that fun. The final boss fight is especially horrible in both mechanics and story.

The game is not all stealth, punching, and generic boss fights, thanks to The Riddler. The Riddler apparently was very bored so he decided to call up Batman and ask him riddles. In addition to his riddles, which involve finding things in the environments, you also have Riddler trophies, patient interview tapes, and a few other things to collect; and, thanks to the game giving you maps with approximate locations of what you’re seeking, I actually found them all and enjoyed myself while doing so.

Bat carcass in alley this morning, joker gas in burst stomach. This asylum is afraid of me. I have seen its true face paint.

Next to the stealth, the best part of this game is definitely the characters. I’d like to give a formal, posthumous apology to Heath Ledger. I remembered wrong, you can’t keep that trophy, Mark Hamil is the better Joker. The other characters are casted very well, and all act like they are supposed to. You can find interview tapes with the Arkham inmates and doctors that give good background on the characters.

In addition to all of this you have the challenge rooms to do. While the combat challenges get old fast, the stealth challenges are very good and add a little something extra. In challenge mode, you can obtain medals by taking out henchmen in specific ways. This causes you to find new ways to do things and think outside of your usual techniques.

Hi there, Bats.

Even if you are not a very big Batman fan, you need to pick up this game–the stealth sections alone are worth it. While a few areas of the game needed more work, it really is one of the best games so far this year and you do not want to miss out on it.

Rating: 6 out of 7 stars

If you have a PlayStation 3, be sure to buy that version. The Joker DLC is a lot of fun, and his take on stealth is incredibly different since you have a much smaller and different set of tools to work with.

Ponyo has also delivered what I consider to be the most appealing visuals of all Studio Ghibli films. Compared to the fantastic settings of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Ponyo has a much more pedestrian aesthetic- taking place in a normal seaside town. However, the oceanic scenes are truly stunning and the picturebook style is very impressive. The marine life was especially memorable and fascinating. The ocean was teeming with beautifully designed jellyfish and other sea creatures. What was the most notable with the perfectly selected colour palette that brought the world to life.

It does seem as if Ponyo is one of the more controversial Miyazaki films. While many, like me, have fallen in love with it, there are plenty who are critical of its simplistic plot and characters. A common opinion is that it is too slow for kids and too childish for adults. While I disagree, it’s an understandable complaint. Ponyo simply has a narrower appeal than most major Ghibli works. The pacing is a bit drawn out at times and some children will be bored with the lack of any significant conflict. I watched it with my 6 year old nephew who adored it, and wouldn’t stop talking about Ponyo for over a week.

A lot of jerks around the internet are too elitist people are very interested in seeing Ponyo in theatre, but are concerned about the quality of the dubbing and the Westernized credit song. Of course, we all know that these are just excuses to not have to go outside. Disney dubs have always been much respected even with subtitle fans. Personally, I have never been a huge fan and Lwelyk really despises them. At the risk of running off potential viewers, “no” the dub wasn’t really the best thing ever. The voices were okay, but the actual acting was a bit weak. Noah Cyrus’s acting of Ponyo was fine, but rest of the cast was far from ideal. It also has to be mentioned that “Ponyo” is mispronounced every single time by every single character. Incredibly annoying? At first, yes. Soon enough I was so absorbed into the movie that the mediocre voice work and mispronunciations ceased to bother me at all. Watching Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea was the most enjoyable time I have ever had in a theatre. Seeing a Ghibli film in theatre has been a dream of mine since first becoming a fan almost 10 years ago. I wasn’t disappointed at all.

Before watching Ponyo, I was making fun of the dubbed song with the rest of the internet. When the credits finally rolled, I was singing along with it at the theatre.

Greatest cover ever?

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis is a “generic-sounding” name that Clements uses as a replacement for a real title when he is writing about instances and people that he shouldn’t reveal.The name also became the title of his recent book (published by Titan Books) that is a large tome of collected essays from nearly twenty years of writing. The book is full of essays, anecdotes, creator profiles, panel transcripts, and a whole lot more. With its broad range of topics and massive amount of content it makes a perfect otaku bathroom reader.

And I had every intention of treating it as such. I decided not to review it so that I could enjoy it over a period of time instead of rushing through. After all, I had read a good chunk from the pages of Neo and Newtype before. I ended up reading all 395 pages in four days. Every piece written was a joy to read and I devoured large chunks in each sitting.

The book contains chapters on the industry, legality, toys, translation, and more all with Clement’s behind-the-scenes look at these topics. There are chapters that take a look at various manga anthologies dedicated to subject such as golf and pachinko. Jonathan Clement’s writing style is very entertaining and truly packed with unique information. This is a reading experience unlike any other. It is an insightful and clever look into the series, industry, and fandom.

My favourite of the larger pieces is one of the panel transcripts. Highbrow Skills in a Lowbrow Medium is an amusing and detailed speech given at the British Centre for Literary Translation. In it Clement’s warns the audience of some difficulties of the job and shares humourous stories from his own experiences.

Anyone who is hesitant to pick it up because they already have many writings in their collection of magazines should put that feeling aside. To have all these stories collected together sorted into chapters and indexed itself makes it worth owning. Add the newly published segments and there should be no question as to whether one should purchase. Fifteen (US) dollars is a small price for the content.

If you have any interest in the world of anime at all, then there is so much to absorb from this reading. This book taught me that chopping old cabbage can create a convincing sword sound. Schoolgirl Milky Crisis is absolutely brilliant and an informative resource to treasure on one’s shelf.

These reviews are based off of PDF copies of each first volume provided by UDON.

FAIRY IDOL KANON – Kanon was just an ordinary girl who loved to sing… but now with the help of a magical fairy, she’s on her way to becoming a pop idol!

Fairy Idol Kanon is about a trio of young girls who love to sing. One day they are approached by a fairy who explains that fairies get their energy from the beautiful singing of earth. Lately people are not appreciating good singing and the fairies are losing energy. Kanon, Marika, and Kodama set out to become idols to be heard around the world to spread their harmony to lots of people and save the fairies.

The concept sounds ridiculous, and it most certainly is. The girls form a “supergroup” (Does whoever chose the wording even know what that word means?) and set out to become pop idols with their singing. After introducing the girls and telling the tragic tale of the fairies, most of the volume is spent performing for auditions, though a cooking interlude was thrown in as well. The story is extremely formulaic. Those familiar with the shoujo stories of a young lass aspiring to be a “_____” will find little new here. Kanon and pals try their best to succeed, but rival Julia is determined to get in their way, and along with what appears to be an evil fairy, is trying to sabotage their attempt. Nothing new here, and its over-the-top nature made it a hard pill to swallow at times. Still, it’s a very sweet story with an appealing lead who makes a good role model for young girls. In a world where trash like Bratz seems to be the entertainment targeted at this demographic, I welcome a lead who is sweet and determined.

While older readers may tire of the plot heavily steeped in shoujo conventions, kids, in particular young girls, will probably enjoy it. Only the more discerning children will notice the formulaic plot and even less with care if they do. The endearing cast and cute story should capture the attention of the young girl audience.

The artwork is glaringly sloppy and has an amateurish look. Many of the older readers who do read this kind of story tend to be attracted to the cutesy artwork. While the style is cute, the workmanship takes a lot away. I assume that mostchildren readers will be able to overlook this.

NINJA BASEBALL KYUMA - After a little ninja named Kyuma mistakes the team captain for his master, he becomes the local baseball team’s first ever ninja player!

From the title, Ninja Baseball Kyuma sounded like a disaster. The plot summary doesn’t make it sound much better. Kyuma is the last member, along with his dog, of a clan that has been waiting over 400 years for a messenger to arrive and summon them back into battle. The captain of a struggling baseball team discovers Kyuma in a forest and ends up recruiting him for the baseball team. Kyuma believes him to be the messenger sent after all this time and he has been called upon to fight in baseball. War has changed.

Kyuma has incredible skill from his ninja training. He hits the ball the way he would deflect a thrown weapon with his sword. He refers to the team captain as his “liege” and truly believes that baseball is war and is amazed when the first match is won with no casualties on either side. The rest of the team just think he is a weird kid who likes to pretend to be a ninja. Kyuma helps tremendously while playing and boosts the overall moral with his fighting spirit.

While it sounds ridiculous, it is significantly more entertaining than I expected. The ninja jokes become a bit stale and it is certainly campy, it’s quite humourous and enjoyable. The series seems very aware of itself and doesn’t come off as obnoxious, like many other juvenile shounen series. With a humorous setting, likeable cast, and plenty of fun; it makes a very good boy’s comic. For older readers, it is a childish series, but pretty well structured and good for some mindless fun since it doesn’t try to be as serious as it could have.

THE BIG ADVENTURES OF MAJOKO - Follow the adventures of a human girl and her new wizard friend Majoko, as they explore the Land of Magic and its many wonders.

The Big Adventures of Majoko features a pair of young girls and their adventures in the world of magic. Nana finds a mysterious book in her room and opens it to reveal blank pages. Suddenly Majoko pops out from the book. Majoko has been looking for a human partner to go on adventures with and asks Nana to come to the magic world with her.

This book is ridiculously charming and a whole lot of fun. The plot is mostly made up of episodic adventures with the girls dealing with various things in the world of magic. The stories end with a children’s moral lesson. The story is really cute; I was smiling throughout the whole time reading. There is a good chunk of humour and excitement that I imagine kids will find appealing.

Majoko and Nana are an endearing pair. Nana is a human just getting used to the magic world and who is the more clever of the two. Majoko is confident and uses her magic often, but not always with ideal results. Both are sweet and loveable.

The art is simplistic, but adorable and fits the tone of the story. Character designs are appropriately cutesy and the landscapes well done.

This is the series I most look forward to reading more of and I enjoyed it immensely.

SWANS IN SPACE – Two young girls are recruited by a cute, bear-like alien into the Space Patrol, a secret organization dedicated to helping others across the galaxy.

The class president, Corona Hoshina, is a strong-willed girl that is looked up to by everyone at school. One day she is helping out the introverted girl Lan Tsukishima, and encourages her to not listen to people making fun of her interest in the Space Patrol series. Lan then gives Corona a Space Patrol watch-toy. Corona puts it on that night and wonders if she should wear it tomorrow to not hurt Lan’s feelings. Suddenly Corona is warped from her bedroom to a Space Patrol training simulator that she passes and becomes recruited to work alongside Lan as a Space Patrol trainee. Lan and their boss are both slackers and Corona becomes determined to make them a respectable patrol team.

At first, Swans in Space comes off as being extremely childish. The art style is the most simplistic and the narrative the most straightforward. Upon reading further in though, it reveals itself as a very well-written book for the younger audience.

Despite being about these two Space Patrol trainees working together, the space missions do not become the focus of the book. Until the final chapter, there had not been a real mission shown in depth, and even then the focus is not on adventure. This series is very character oriented, with a lot of time spent on character interaction and development.

Corona is a very respectable girl who works hard on schoolwork and classroom leadership. Despite not having even wanted to be the Space Patrol, she quickly becomes determined to do her best at that as well. Lan is a lazy girl who really only cares about being able to wear the patrol uniform because she is a huge fan of the Space Patrol television series. She has a likeable nerdish charm though.