So back here I outlined my plan to curtail my spending on games and deal with my ever growing backlog. The list of games wasnt a goal, it was a leash. It’s been three months since then so how has it worked out so far? Continue reading…
Top 25 (recent) Anime for people who dont watch anime
What’s this all about then? Well this is some suggested viewing for people who are only passingly familiar with anime in general or with anime thats come out in the last few years. If the last time you watched some anime it was prefaced by this:
or the words “Studio Ghibli” then this list is for you. If you think all anime is shallow super powered adventures aimed at teenage boys or heaving tits and demon penises, then this list is for you. I’ve tried to cover as many of the major genre’s as I could (so now you have no fucking excuse for referring to anime as if its a genre rather than a medium ;)) without a) sacrificng quality or b) sacrificing accessibility. So the majority of shows listed here require no prior knowledge of or familiarity with anime or japanese culture in general to fully enjoy. If you do end up checking any of them out let me know what you think. Continue reading…
Best of 2011 – Anime – Unfinished
Note: This isnt done (well theres a full top 10, just not a full entry for each), but I’m not going to finish it and I’m sick of seeing it floating around in Drafts
I thought I’d watched a lot of anime this year. But looking back I only watched around fifty shows, actually, I suppose that’s nearly one a week. Is that a lot? Who can say. Not I anyhow. Well, whether I watched a lot or not is really secondary to the main issue, which is quality and based on that metric it was an excellent year for anime. It’s been a while since its been a meaningful chore to decide what to include. But this year it really was a struggle and some great stuff didnt make it, like C – The Money of Soul and Possibility, Highschool of the Dead, Code Geass, One Out’s, etc. To be honest there was so much good stuff out there that I would suggest taking a look at my complete anime list over on Myanimelist if you need some viewing suggestions. Of course, I only watch an anime when its complete, which means that some great looking stuff wasnt even eligible for inclusion (I’m looking at you Persona 4 Animation and Fate/Stay Zero, among others). Continue reading…
Ave Imperator – Design Journal – 02 – Mirroring Lenin’s treatsie on steps
The title was just going to be “One step forward, two steps back”. But clearly that wasnt wanky enough for me. This is going to be short because its late and my thoughts, much like the organ they emanate from, are squishy and soft. I’ve abandoned UDK (don’t cry for me Epic) in favour of Unity. I then ran into one of the first problems I had with UDK – lack of cohesive learning material. There are few books for either (and software updates have made the ones that exist somewhat out of date). There are professional video tutorials, but they are a) for slightly older versions and b) despite telling you they will teach you how to use the program they will in fact teach you how to do one thing with the program, generally create a third or first person game. Which isnt really what I want to do. Continue reading…
Bioshock Infinite – My (brief) thoughts
Just finished it, it really picks up in the last third of the game. I thought the ending was predicatbly telegraphed, but worked in the context of the game. Its probably something you dont want to look to hard it. Overall the last part of the game really redeemed it for me, I still think it was trodding old ground but it did it very well. Solid 8/10 if I had to give it a number. Not sure how much replay value there is, got more or less all the collectibles and the combat wasnt engaging enough to make me play through it again. Took about 11 hours to complete, for once I actually would have preffered if it were a little shorter. Continue reading…
Ave Imperator – Design Journal – 01.5 – Floundering
Floundering is a weird word and a flounder is a weird fish. Anyhow this isnt really about Ave Imperator, hence the 1.5. It’s more about the process leading up to Ave Imperator. Which is fraught with distraction at the moment. Continue reading…
Rutger Hauer, Foreigner and all the girls I’ve loved before
No real insight here, just something that I’ve thought for a while that got shook lose earlier in the week. Someone asked me was I still in love with someone. I answered in the affirmative but thinking about it afterwards I think they misunderstood my answer or at least interpreted it in a way I didnt intend. I suppose its semantics or possibly just me being contrary. But I think theres an important difference between the question “Are you love with X?” and “Are you still in love with X?” The first question is explicitly asking how you feel about someone at the present and in the present. The latter question however is less clear. I think most people, fairly enough I suppose, interpret the answers as being the same. Actually I’m going to change my mind a little here. I think the answers are the same, its just the latter question gives me a little wiggle room to be a cunt. I shouldnt have answered yes, I should have said “It’s complicated” and explained myself. Which is what I’m doing now. This is probably going to be a deliciously adolescent mixture of wanky and whiny. You have been warned. Continue reading…
The Letter of the Law
As I said in my last post I want to try and make sure I get at least one blog post up a week. So to adhere to at least the letter if not the spirit of that goal I set up a small blog entry to autopost each Sunday. And I clearly set it up correctly which is why this is going up just over a day late. Yay, technology!
This week was marred by a fairly vile bout of flu which I still havent recovered from. Though around Friday I could at least think straight. I really need to do something about my general health. It’s annoying losing a week to that. I also ended up getting guilted into putting flatpack furniture together and fucked up my back again. Yes, yes, whinge, whinge, I know. I did get a bit of gaming done at the beginning and ending of the week. I finished off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (amazing game, one of the best action games I’ve played in years and possibly the only game where it actually feels like you’re wielding a razor sharp lump of death) last Sunday and this Sunday I continued my initial experience with the new SimCity (really great game and I seemed to bypass the infamous server issues entirely).
So not productive, but at least it was unproductive in a tangentially productive way. This week has been going better. Still feeling wiped out from the flu but I got back to finishing off the initial draft of my novel. As I was reading through it to re-familiarise myself with I could see quite a bit wrong with it. Not sure if its entirely salvageable but I still want to get a complete first draft done and at least give it a once over. At that point I might abandon it and move on but at least then it’ll be properly “complete”.
Behind the times
In which I explain why I’m giving up manga and rewatching tv shows for march Continue reading…
(Upcoming) Games of 2013 – Prelude to the deluge
This list is likely to change/expand pretty drastically after E3 when its likely the launch lineups for the PS4 and XBox720/Durango are announced. I’m not sure if I’ll be jumping to next gen straight away because as I mentioned over here I’ve got back into PC gaming in a big way. Well, thats most likely a lie. Unless the launch line-up is absolutely shit I’ll probably grab a PS4. Though I am interested in how theyre going to handle backwards compatability, particularly considering the amount of donwloaded/PSN content I’ve purchased.
Even without the infusion of next-gen stuff 2013 is looking like a pretty amazing year for gaming. A large number of titles that were originally slated for 2012 got pushed back and a number of highly anticipiated sequels to popular franchises are coming out this year as well. As well as looking at whether or not I’ll bother with next gen consoles theres also the question of whether or not I’ll bother with the Wii-U. My luck with Nintendo systems is mixed. While I owned a SNES I preferred my Megadrive. I never had, or played more than once, a N64. I got a lot of play out my Gamecube (worth it just for Eternal Darkness, Super Monkeyball and Animal Crossing). I was excited about the Wii, bought one and played it literally twice. On the other hand there’s a number of Wii-U exclusives that I really like the look of (SMTxFire Emblem, Monolithsoft’s X, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, maybe Zombi-U). I might pick one up when the majority of those games are out and the systems dropped in price. Knowing Nintendo I dont want to get stung when they do an early hardware revision. Continue reading…