The Neo Geo Pocket was one of the many short-lived handhelds that fell to Nintendo's domination of the handheld market and there was a Sonic game for it. Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure is almost like a remake of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 using Sonic 3 music. It is also the first Sonic game made by Dimps, who would go on to make almost every other portable Sonic game.
The levels all correspond to Sonic 2 levels, but shuffled up a bit. The level design is even much the same in some stages. Here is the level map of Pocket Adventure's Aquatic Reflex Zone and here is a level map of Sonic 2's Aquatic Ruin for comparison. While they are not exactly the same, they are very similar.
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So, Portal 2 is finally out. It’s been four years since Portal was released as part of The Orange Box and was met with almost universal praise. The simple, yet complex gameplay of two connected portals was amazing and the hilarious dialog and story made it even more popular. The only real problem anyone had with it was its short length, and Portal 2 not only remedies that, but it makes everything else better while it’s at it. Instead of a mere two hours, the game takes eight hours to clear single-player and another four or so for the cooperative campaign. And all of that time is full of fun, laughs, and a much deeper plot.]]>
It has been a year since we opened Insert-Disc, so we decided it was time to upgrade our look.
It's been a good year, filled with terrible movies (let us never speak of Spice World again) and Sonic the Hedgehog. We haven't really had a lot of content for a while, but 
A while ago I had heard about the existence of Super Kawaii Magazine. Despite repulsion at the obnoxious title, I was admittedly curious about a cosplay magazine produced by the Western fandom. Not nearly as jaded as many other anime writers, I am interested in cosplay enough to forgive that grievance if I found the publication interesting.
Unfortunately, the title of Super Kawaii Magazine ended up being one of the least offensive aspects. No, I was facepalming as soon as I opened to the editorial/letters page where readers had been asked to respond to “What does Cosplay mean to you?”. I don't mean to disrespect the merits of the hobby -being actively involved myself-, but the overenthusiastic glamorization of dressing as cartoon characters really rubs me the wrong way.
The next pages featured a two page spread on the cover girl, Sheila, and I still do not know who she is cosplaying as. I am guessing that it is a character from Loveless since she mentions it when asked what her favourite cosplay is, but it never specifically makes it specifically clear. Other questions include the obligatory “what does cosplay mean to you?” and “What is your favourite Pocky flavour?”. Now I could go on ALL DAY about how unreasonably worshiped Pocky is with the con-attending wapanese, and how no would even care if it weren't considered some iconic symbol of Japandesubanzai. What I really want to focus on, though, is how pointlessly fluffy this six-question interview with one-sentence answers is. It is nice that it lists her myspace if I were curious to see more of her work (stalkstalkstalk), but the entire interview was as interesting as watching cows chewing grass.
The next section, Score!, features products supposedly of interest to the magazine's audience with interviews from the creators. While the interviews are rather meaty and the products fit the demographic, the features really amount to nothing more than soapboxes for the creators to advertise their products. I would much rather a review format where the writers tell us if it is good, and not the creators.
Next up we have interviews (yes again) with cosplayers Lillyxandra and Pikminlink. The questions are about the same as Sheila's from before- including the Pocky question. The answers, at least, are more thought out than the single-line replies from before. What really catches the reader's attention are the very high quality cosplay photos on the next few pages. Both of these ladies are great at what they do, and had competent photographers to capture the two in appropriate settings.
Kyle Herbert and Eric Vale, both voice actors for Dragon Ball Z, were then interviewed about voice acting and cosplay. Neither are cosplayers, but the interviewer managed to shoehorn some relevant questions since it IS a cosplay magazine. Vale and Herbert were both reasonably interesting, despite the completely stock questions asked.
The coolest part of the magazine had a bunch of great photos of elaborate bento box meals. Delicious resolution of foods shaped into stuff from Totoro, Moyoshimon, Ponyo, Cooking Mama, and others. Once again it was up to me to figure out who these creations were based off of. The bento designs were by Anna the Red who was, of course, interviewed about her creations. She gets cool points for mentioning that she would like to cosplay as Gold Lightan.
Finally, the real bulk of the magazine reveals itself: High resolution photographs of Western cosplayers. The next thirty or so pages are photos taken by Droo Fatagrafa. Certainly these are detailed shots of mostly above average cosplayers, but little of it really blew me away. I believe this is partially due to the unimpressive backgrounds. Cosplay photography thrives is atmospheric settings that lend themselves to the characters portrayed. Almost all of this set was taken is a pure white studio; fine for some types of portraiture, but too bland for the subject matter. Yes, Droo, you have a nice camera and light setup, but I could find more intriguing through a quick Deviantart search. I don't mean to bash the skills of the photographer as these are certainly detailed, crisp images, but at the $14.99 price I should come away very impressed. Again, none of these cosplayers have the name of the character attached, so the curious are left wondering who that is; it seems like an obvious thing to mention in a cosplay magazine.
After an insert of a Stormhawks comic (that equals to nothing else than an advertisement) and a few small articles (Art trade cards, photoshop eye-colour change tutorial, and a few obvious cosplay do-and-don'ts), there are convention photos. This time, the pictures are simple hallways shots with congoers and other distracting elements in the background. Candid, yes, but dime a dozen through a million other sources. The only really impressive photography were the few photos with the Pikminlink and Lillyxandra features. I expected much better from a magazine built around cosplay pictures.
I have a very high tolerance for cutesiness, but the magazine's fluffy, pointless writing was more than I could stomach. Instead of opinions and information from the magazine writers, there are just a ton of interviews where the person gets a chance for attention or hawking their wares. Where there should be amazing cosplay photos in suitable environments, there are boring studio-shot portraits. I had low expectations, but was expecting something a little more substantial from Super Kawaii Magazine. Perhaps it was silly of me to bother checking this out, but I have always been supportive of the Western fandom; I firmly believe that there is the potential for a very cool cosplay-themed magazine to exist.
[I JUST NOW NOTICED THAT THERE ARE TWO POCKY STICKS RANDOMLY ON THE FRONT COVER] ]]>
Two weeks ago at New York Comic Con/New York Anime Fest the film Mardock Scramble premiered. The room was half empty. This was a world premiere event. The first time ever that it had been screened to the public not just in the US but anywhere. Simply put it was a crime and I think it shows why anime can't hit it off in the US. Nobody gives it a fair chance.
Aniplex actually went and brought Tow Ubutaka the writer of it over for this. I cannot imagine how they must have felt seeing the size of the crowd. You could tell he was really proud of what was made. The entire crowd was very thrilled with what they had watched. If only more people knew about it.
And after watching Mardock Scramble all I can say is that if it was actually given the exposure an event of it’s caliber deserved it could have and would have been a huge hit. It was screened in a tiny room in what has now lovingly been dubbed the anime ghetto. Because of the way the organizers decided to handle things at NYCC/NYAF this year the two events, though they were in the same building at the same time, were treated completely separate and as such they were marketed separately. The only way you could have known about Mardock Scramble is if you went to the NYAF webpage. And you know what? The average anime fan that would have gone to that page wouldn’t give a crap about Mardock Scramble and even if they did it was scheduled against the Haruhi movie so most of them would go to that anyway.
Thumbs-up out of thumbs-up bro-fist
Watch it.]]>
Zombies are cool. No matter how you slice em, dice em, create em or kill em, zombies seem to always ooze awesome (along with various bodily fluids). And they also seem to be everywhere these days. Thank (or blame) George Romero for introducing them, Resident Evil for making them mainstream, and “The Walking Dead” for giving them depth, but zombies are still one of the more prevalent themes in movies, games, comics, books...you can’t turn around without seeing them, can’t escape them (much like their victims), and the best you can manage to learn to live with them.
But this begs the question: what can you do with them? As with any genre, it’s only a matter of time before everything that can be done, is done. Zombie Apocalypse? Check (Night of the Living Dead, et al) repeatedly. Zombie sci-fi? Check (Resident Evil). Zombie slice of life? Check (Dawn of the Dead). Zombie comedy? Check (Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead). So what else is there to be done with a genre already running on fumes?
Well, let’s try to see what can be done. Let’s make our own awesome zombie movie.
Now it’s time to flex the creative muscles. What else is cool? Oh, I know! Spring break. But not just any spring break, let’s say spring break in the iconic, picturesque Scandinavian mountains. Lovely scenery, snow, isolation, college kids. And not too much association with the “Evil Dead” franchise. Yeah, that’s definitely a new spin on things. And how about this: let’s make the zombies smart. They can plan, they can ambush, create traps and lures. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea! Okay, so what do we have here? A bunch of college kids on spring break, traveling to a winter wonderland in the icy Norwegian mountains, finding them selves being hunted by intelligent undead. Awesome, that’s a new spin on a tired genre. Let’s go with that.
But wait, we can make this better. What could make smart zombies even scarier? Hmm...good question...I got it!
Let’s make them NAZIS!.
Yeah, perfect. Nazi snow zombies. Hunting scared college kids on break. Alone, in the mountains. All it needs now is a creepy, but also very tongue-in-cheek title. Something quirky and fun, but also alluding to something worse. I got that one too. We’ll call it “Dead Snow.” Oh boy, this is gonna be sweet! All we need now...
Wait a second...what do you mean “it’s already been done?”
Yes, our magnificent creation of a zombie movie, full of Nazis, blood, guts and scared twenty-somethings, aptly titled “Dead Snow” does, in fact, exist. And yes, as ludicrous as the premise sounds, it works, and works wonderfully.
Dead Snow was released in 2009 worldwide, a romp through a garden of excess by director Tommy Wirkola, already known in certain circles as the director and writer of “Kill Buljo,” a parody film of the “Kill Bill” franchise. He was also known for incorporating a level of gore into his films that would make Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, and whoever churns out the “Saw” movies, blush. Dead Snow, his most recent work (at least until “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” comes out), manages to give us all of that blood and then some, living up wonderfully to its cheeky title and promise of both “Death” and “Snow.” Of which there is in abundance.
Plot-wise, the film is essentially “Evil Dead” in the mountains. A group of college friends vacation in a remote cabin in the woods, they meet a bizarre wanderer who informs them of the local legend in which townsfolk at the end of World War II drive a battalion of Nazi soldiers into the mountains to die. Their anger transforms them into zombies, who then prey on the villagers, and whoever comes into their territory. The kids try their best to laugh off this dismal tale, but when they find a old chest of gold, and each take a coin from it as a memento, the zombies come to them, laying siege to their cabin and picking them off one by one.
There are a lot of times the cliches of the genre do it justice. And there are a lot of genuinely creepy scenes. The opening, which features a girl running for her life through snowbanks, to the tune of “In the Halls of the Mountain King,” sets the tone wonderfully, and is one of the most evocative sequences in the entire movie. Watching the wanderer encounter one of the monsters in his tent at night is another one that will send chills down your spine. Dead Snow manages to accomplish readily what a lot of western film have been failing at of late- making zombies truly scary. Rather than throw waves and waves of them at the audience and try to scare you with the idea that the normal way of life has been swallowed up by cannibalistic undead, Dead Snow shows zombies as tricky, conniving team players who hunt like wolves and possess a strength that keeps them from being killed easily. It works, and works well.
At the same time, there is a lot of dark humor going on throughout the movie. While not a comedy in the strictest sense, there are times when you can’t help but laugh as the predicaments the main characters put themselves in. Even the closing shot, with its simple pronouncement of two words (“Oh f***.”) will make you laugh from somewhere deep down in the recesses of your soul.
Dead Snow had a very limited release in the US, mostly at independent theatres or as part of zombie film festivals. Among the dedicated (and the disturbed, this movie is wickedly, gloriously violent), it was hailed as an excellent entry into a fastly diluting genre, easily on par with such major releases as “Zombieland.” And for the most part, it is. Dead Snow is the kind of movie that never really gets old, you can watch it again and again (as I have) and still take away the same gleeful morbidity you had the first time you saw it. But it did not quite find the audience it deserved, especially among a public that seems to love zombies. So do yourself a favor, find this movie and watch it. You’ll be very glad you did.]]>
After months of planning, the first issue of Insert-Disc's magazine is finally available for all readers. This magazine is the result of the combined efforts of myself and British writer ![Planescape-torment-box[1]](http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/863248/10408321/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Planescape-torment-box1.jpg "Planescape-torment-box[1]")
For the past year, I have been getting really into photography. Most of my output has been anime figure photography or industrial weirdness. The chance to take photos was one of the aspects of Otakon that I was really looking forward too. My camera skills are still weak, and this was actually my first time interested in taking photos of people. I am used to macro photography for the most part. At the convention, I made an effort to take reasonably interesting pictures without taking the cosplayer's time. I didn't ask for a long photoshoot, but I at least would try to get pictures away from the crowd. I avoided the dealer's room completely for photos and spent a lot of time stalking cosplayers around the balcony or outside the center. Some of my favorites are taken with the Baltimore harbor as a backdrop. As my first experience with cosplay photography, I am overall pleased with my results. In the future, I would like to have some serious photoshoots and do more stuff though.
I myself cosplayed on Saturday as Ginko from Mushishi, which can be seen in the gallery. Whenever I was asked to have my photo taken, I wanted to make the shot as best I could by removing my glasses and badge. I really hate having the convention badge in almost every photo, so I went ahead and stuck in my pocket or had my companions hold it.
