What a week, had my first pint of 2015. Tragically that didn’t make the headlines, but anything of interest to me that did got pulled and carefully curated for your reading pleasure. Though looking at it it seems that not a lot interested me this week.
No More Marvel 616?
It seems idiotic to get rid of the designation at this point its been around for well over two decades at this point as is much more prevalent in the actual comics than this article implies. Its been central to both major events and entire comic book lines, certainly far more than the handful of mentions in the article. To be honest I have no strong feelings about other than thinking that it was a clever bit of multiverse building that elegantly served its purpose and that getting rid of feels entirely pointless
Digimon tri turns out to be movies
Well firstly I must admit my terrible transgression. My favourite season of Digimon was season three. Now that my dark secret is out, I was actually looking forward to this. While it may not be based on my favourite series the idea of coming back to what was nominally a kids show and seeing what they’re like a decade or so later is interesting. What I’m not interested in is a series of movies. For a number of reasons, the frist being that I have gone entirely off films as a format. I’ve watched maybe one in the last two years. Secondly if other anime series which transitioned to a series of movies are anything to go by this is going to come out over the course of years (with inevitable delays) as opposed to over the course of a few months. It’s unfortunate but this announcement basically killed my interested in this.
Which President Greenlit A Trip To The Center Of The Earth?
Whats interesting about this to me is not the answer to the titular question but the fact the trip was cancelled by the subsequent president because he thought the earth was flat and it would be a waste of money. How could any country led by visionaries like that have gone astray?
Yoshimitsu announced for Tekken 7
His inclusion was inevitable I think, as inevitable as the fact that he would (based on long standing tradition) look weird as fuck. Unfortunately I think they may have jumped the shark a bit here, he looks too unlike every other incarnation. There’s basically nothing about him that says “Yoshimitsu” other than his moveset and the fact that he has a sword. Which is a pity as, while I initially wasnt a fan now, I like the actual design. Especially in motion, the tentacles are animated really well. Though possibly it’ll all end up being largely academic as I’ve a feeling that Tekken 7 will mark the first time I havent purchased a mainline Tekken game. Feels odd even to type out. Look upon my works etc.
Bethe on SUNSHINE and Fallout (1954)
This is a brief but interesting read. I don’t want to sound paranoid but by the nature of how declassification works, and the way in which the stuff you really want to know never does get declassified, I can simply never trust any declassified documents. I mean, I will generally take them as being true, but in the back of my mind there is always doubt, as if I can only believe in them containing a hypothetical truth. But best to end it there before it balloons out of control (because if declassified documents do contain material harmful to the establishment then how bad was the thing they actually did? and so on)
Heroic Legend of Arslan Warriors game announced
I don’t know why I’m excited about this (and similarly excited for the new Arslan series) but I am. To an almost bizarre degree. I mean I don’t even recall if the original Arslan OVA series was that great, I saw it in 1996 (in a shithole in Ashbrook on a double-decker Amstrad VCR after pooling left over drink money to rent it from Supervision). Its one of those odd memories where I remember thinking it was amazing, but being unable to recall any of the finer (or hell, even the broader) details about it. I also havent had an opportunity to re-visit it in the intervening twenty odd years (ugh I’m old). But fuck it, I like the Warriors franchise (that would be the same family that gives us Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, etc.) and the licensed versions (Zelda, Dragonquest, etc.) have got very positive reviews so I can even justify my unjustified excitement.
New Ultramarine Upgrade Pieces and Transfers from Forge World
I’ve actually had conversations with a lot of different people over the last fortnight about how I’d like to get back into wargaming but the lack of solid prepaints (and the fact I can’t paint for shit) means that I can in no way justify the expense of miniatures that will remain unpainted (or worse, get ruined by shoddy painting). That doest mean I can’t still look at them though. I never had a problem with the Ultramarines. They have something of a negative reputation for being boring, similar to Captain America or Superman (and all three are blue). But I always had a soft spot for them (and oddly enough never warmed to Space Wolves who I feel I should like). I particularly like the new Forge World helmets shown here, they’re a nice pice of decoration that makes the units distinct without contravening the general aesthetic of the chapter. Pretty cool.
TyranoBuilder Visual Novel Creation Suite Now Lets You Animate Character Portraits
While Live2D certainly has implementation issues (both in terms of content creation and licensing) it’s impressive to see the feature set of TyranoBuilder becoming more and more robust. Even better is how quickly these additions are coming out. It seems to be a very solid piece of kit and if I could think of a single idea for a visual novel I’d be buying it. Unfortunately I’m still traumatised from that bitch of an external supervisor maintaining that visual novels werent games during that MSc defence. Time to drink the pain away again (hey maybe I should make a visual novel about that, “Rum-tan is my waifu!”
Millenium Blades Kickstarter
Not that I had any real goal in mind when I started this series of posts but it feels crass to me to include a direct suggestion of what people should spend their money on in it. Then again I don’t think the handful of people who read this will be swayed so my conscience is largely clear (about this at least). Theres a board game kickstarter on at the moment for, as mentioned above, a game called Millenium Blades. The game looks excellent, it’s an interesting concept, the rules look like a great mix of mechanical crunch and thematic enforcement, the production quality is top-notch, etc. I’ve sworn off Kickstarter more or less entirely and I’ve also placed a ban on buying any more boardgames for myself (especially from the states due to poor exchange rate and worse shipping charges). But I think I’m going to make an exception for this. There’s a week left to go and I’d urge you to check the game out. A short overview – https://youtu.be/jgFRosJm7AU. A longer overview – https://youtu.be/n7Uh4fonnvk and a full gameplay example – https://youtu.be/dVQFY-lNzY0. As I mentioned international shipping is unfortunately steep (as usual), though based on the companies other games it’s probably going to be tough to find much cheaper, so if you are swayed let me know as we can save a little bit by backing in bulk.
Rage of Demons storyline announced for Dungeons & Dragons
This is the next storyline for the D&D brand, which means tabletop, organised play, computer games etc. It will be the third one for the new edition so far and while they’re pushing the Drizzt angle the writer for the tabletop stuff has said the PC’s will be front and center. Speaking of the writer this time its been out-sourced to Green Ronin whose record speaks for itself (if you’re not familiar with them it would be saying “We’re good”). The first storyline event, Rise of Tiamat was what got me into 5th edition in the first place but ended up being a let down. The second, Elemental Evil – Princes of the Apocalypse held zero interest for me. I have no nostalgic attachment to anything involving Elemental Evil and to be honest the basic concept behind it is one that leaves me completely cold. Everyone has particular aspects of D&D that just doesn’t work for them and its mine. This one looks interesting though, I like demon lords, I like the Underdark, so why would I like a mix of the two?
Yomi released on Steam
This just strikes me as amusingly silly. Yomi was conceived as a boardgame implementation of the high level mental conflict involved in fighting games. So you could replicate elements of the experience when you couldn’t play the games. So the idea of a computer version of that just seems absurd. I mean of course people can, and do, like the game as its own distinct thing. But in essence you would be sitting down at your computer to play a game that’s replicating the feeling you get from playing another computer game, which you could do instead.
Chroma Squad released
I meant to, and thought I had, mentioned this last week. Apparently not. Anyhow the amazing looking Chroma Squad was released at the end of last month. I can’t wait to get to spend some time playing this, it looks like so much fun. I’m a fan of SRPG’s and a (very) casual fan of tokusatsu super-hero stuff (I mean did anyone growing up in the nineties not like Power Rangers in some manner?) so there’s nothing to dislike about this game (well apart from the fact it reminds me of a similar PS2 Japanese game that never got localised and who’s name I irritatingly cant recall)
