Count_Zero

We go through the codex a little bit, and hunt down components of the research project. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

It would be reductive to say that Samurai Cop was is what you should expect from a film from the late ’80s, and early ’90s titled Samurai Cop. Reductive, and not entirely accurate. Not because the film is better than that description would imply – but because the film is actually worse. The film is a shockingly mean-spirited film, to such a degree that it overwhelms some of the charm that the film’s incompetence would have otherwise merited. The film follows Joe Marshall, a cop from San Diego known as “Samurai” due to his knowledge of martial arts and fluency in Japanese. He’s brought up to Los Angeles to take on the “Katana” gang – a Japanese gang that’s been pushing drugs on the streets of LA, and which the LAPD doesn’t have quite enough evidence to bring down. At which point, over the course of the film, the Katana gang stages a bunch of broad daylight assassination attempts against Joe and his partner, including blowing up his car, and the boss’s #2 – Yamashita (played by not even remotely Japanese actor Robert Z’Dar), infiltrates the hospital to kill one of the boss’s men who was taken alive. Oh, and Yamashita repeatedly guns down his own men before being taken into custody. The thing is, aside from knowing martial arts, Joe doesn’t particularly demonstrate any of the skills that explain why he’s called “Samurai”. We don’t get any scenes where he gets to speak or understand Japanese (not even the old gag where two characters try to insult him to his face in Japanese, leading to him demonstrating that he knows their language). All the LAPD members in the film – including Joe – drop insults against the Katana gang members that are almost racist, if they were comprehensible. The Katana gang itself is a perfect example of the film’s issues. Most films that engage in some variety of orientalism for their plot at least are willing to take the time to watch a few movies or maybe read a (singular) book on Japan to get a couple ideas to incorporate in the film. The film’s writer and director, on the other hand, heard a couple things about the samurai (that they exist, that they know martial arts, and heard about seppuku), and saw a Katana, and decided to base the Katana gang around that. Additionally, this film can’t not show women as sex objects. Joe Marshall stalks the daughter of the woman who runs a restaurant that the Katana gang uses as their base, in order to get information from her, and through stalking he gets her to fall in love with him. He’s constantly flirting with the one female cop in the film. During one sequence in the film where the cops are staking out a building to arrest one of the gang’s members, her only line is to turn to her male cop who is also serving as backup, to ask “Since nothing is happening, wanna fuck?” In a later scene in the film (which was cut from the version shown at the Rifftrax event where I saw it), she is tortured – presumably to death – with hot oil while topless. The male cop’s wife is also killed in front of him by having her throat slit, and the director puts the focus not on her dead body, but on her blouse which has exposed cleavage. The rest of the LAPD characters who aren’t female aren’t much better. Joe’s partner, Frank Washington, basically exists to be subject of racist jokes and stereotypes of varying degrees of severity (from the incomprehensible to jokes about his very large dick – because he’s black). The chief is almost the standard cliche about the chief from this kind of cop film (chewing out the protagonist because he’s a loose cannon) – until he’s straight up telling the protagonist to engage in an extrajudicial assassination of the Katana gang. It was bad when Out for Justice did it. It’s bad when this film does it – though this film at least has the “excuse” that the movie was made on no budget with an incompetent writer and director. That said, were it not for how nasty the film feels, the incompetence in the film’s production would, at least, give it a little charm. The film was shot in two different chunks months apart, during that time Matt Hannon, who plays the lead, had got a haircut and thus had to wear a fairly obvious wig. There are some very obvious situations where scenes shift locations but are supposed to be the same place. This doesn’t just happen in exterior shots, or transitions on interior shots, but also in reverse shots on dialog scenes. Shervan tries to cover for this by breaking the 180-degree rule and then picking the most nondescript wall possible for a background, but it just draws larger attention to the problem. Additionally, writer/director Amir Shervan either could not afford to get some of the cast back in for ADR recording, either due to time conflicts or lack of money, so there are large portions of the film where the voice over dialog is the director trying to do a voice, and not only failing, but instead doing a robotic voice. This film would, on its own, have a degree of charm based on how bad the film is, if it wasn’t for how generally aggressively mean the film is. If you watch the film, I’d recommend seeing it on Rifftrax on Demand. The Rifftrax for Samurai Cop is available digitally on demand from Amazon.com, along with the Rifftrax web site. Filed under: film Tagged: Film Review, rifftrax

We learn the Eos installation was researching some critter, and accidentally let it loose. Sadly, it doesn’t help us fight the Kett. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We find another Remnant construct on Eos, and may be able to use this to improve the atmosphere. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

This time we’re taking a brief look at the West End Games RPG – and the times between the original novels and comics, and the more familiar era. Rebel Propaganda Poster by Harpokrates: http://harpokrates.deviantart.com/ Opening Credits: Star Wars Theme from Super Star Wars on the SNES. Closing Credits: Chiptune Cantina Band from Chiptune Inc. – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvJtiGFudFlvYMfjiU1NKJg Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: Role Playing Games, Star Wars Tagged: Role Playing Games, Star Wars, Star Wars Expanded Universe

We land on Eos, and things might be worse than we anticipated. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We begin our exploration of the Andromeda Galaxy. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We get to know most of the crew of our ship. My apologies for the lack of commentary, I’m getting over a cold. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

Before Kinoko Nasu created Tsukihime or Fate/Stay Night, he put out a light novel series titled “Garden of Sinners” (or Kara no Kyokai). The books set up some concepts that would be folded into to the collection of series that is generally known as the “Nasuverse” – though the series aren’t exactly in direct continuity with each other. In the mid-to-late 2000s, they were adapted into a series of animated films by Ufotable, prior to them getting the gig for Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works. The Garden of Sinners series is much closer to a mystery series than the majority of Nasu’s other works. The films follow Shiki Ryougi and Mikiya Kokuto. Shiki is a girl who Mikiya fell for in high school. She had a case of multiple personality syndrome with two personalities – one feminine (Shiki), and one masculine (SHIKI). After an incident that lead to Shiki attempting to commit suicide (for reasons that are explained later in the series), Shiki loses the SHIKI personality, but ends up developing Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, much like Shiki Tohno did in Tsukihime after his brush with death. Mikiya and Shiki end up getting a job with a magus named Touko Aozaki (the sister of the woman who made Shiki Tohno’s glasses from Tsukihime which blocked his sight) – doing private detective work. Over the course of seven films, we see them working to investigate various supernatural related killings – along with the serial murders in Shiki and Mikiya’s home town that set off her suicide attempt. Tonally, this is probably the bleakest of Nasu’s works. Sexual assault and suicide are recurring themes in the show, and issues of drug addiction also come up in the course of the plot. Actually, that last is particularly unique, as in most works of anime, with a handful of exceptions, drug use is a thing that happens elsewhere, with only a handful of works that I’m familiar with (that are set in Japan) bringing up recreational drug use in any respect. That said, the show doesn’t exactly handle drug use well – though I don’t think Nasu had anyone in particular to consult on these points. As with the other Nasuverse series that Ufotable has done, these films are very well done, with the animation looking great, and the action scenes in particular being very fluid. The fifth film, Paradox Spiral also does some really interesting stuff with narrative structure. I’m not sure if this was present in the original novel – but if it was, I’d be interested to see how it was executed there, as if it’s done there as well as it was in the film, then I’d be surprised that Nasu didn’t catch much attention as a writer earlier. Paradox Spiral‘s plot does stuff with time loops and non-linearity that I’ve never seen done to this degree and this well before. The series is very light on humor though, which makes sense considering just how dark the covered material is. There are moments of humor every now and then, but they are few and far between. Also, the length of the films vary wildly. The first quartet of films are each about a hour long, as is the sixth film. The fifth and seventh films, on the other hand, run about 2 hours each. This also can make the pacing very variable. The series is available on Blu-Ray from RightStuf, but it will cost you over $300, so maybe you might want to wait until it goes on sale. Filed under: Anime Tagged: Anime, Garden of Sinners, nasuverse, Type-Moon

We do some more side-quests, and we get our ship. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

This time I’m taking a look at the first book in the “Books of the Raksura” series by Martha Wells – The Cloud Roads. Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: Books, videos Tagged: Books, Books of the Raksura, video review, vlog

We’ve gotten off of Habitat 7, and we’re now en-route to The Nexus… and things aren’t going great there either. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’ve arrived on our supposed “Golden World”, only it’s more like Iron Pyrite. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’re returning to the Star Wars novels with our first straight-up stand alone book (meaning one that isn’t part of a trilogy or other mini-series. Writer: Kathy Tyers Publication Date: January 1994 The Truce at Bakura is available from Amazon.com in Kindle and paperback editions. Plot Notes A few days after the victory at Endor, an emergency communication drone from the planet Bakura arrives at Endor, with an emergency message for the Emperor – the planet is under attack by an alien race known as the Ssi-Ruuk, an alien race from beyond the outer rim. They have the planet’s defenders out-matched, and they are in desperate need of assistance. Apparently the Emperor had a deal with these aliens, and now that he’s dead, they have determined the deal is off – they have set out to conquer the whole galaxy, leaving no race in their way. Seeing an opportunity to win some hearts and minds, Luke & Leia persuade the Alliance council that they should send a relief force. At the very least, even if they can’t get the Bakurans to join the Alliance, they need to at least prevent a potentially hostile alien race from getting a foothold that could turn their efforts against the Empire into a two-front war. Luke, Leia, and Han set out for Bakura, along with an Rebel task force that includes Wedge and Rogue Squadron. On arrival, they negotiate an uneasy truce with the local Imperial Governor and the commander, and learn the truth about the Ssi-Ruuk. The Ssi-Ruuk are reptilian aliens who seek to capture their opponents and “entech” them, by transferring their consciousness into droid fighters – finding that Humans make for better sources of souls for their droids than the other aliens they brought with them do. Luke works with the commander of the Imperial forces to prepare a defence, while Leia tries to work with the locals. During a diplomatic fete, Luke meets a local politician named Gaeriel Captison, and falls for her. While meeting with her, Luke learns that her grandmother was part of a local Rebel cell, but was captured and suffered brain damage in Imperial captivity. Using the Force, Luke is able to heal her. Luke also learns that Gaerial is part of a local religious group that worships the “Balance”, and felt that the Jedi were responsible for upsetting the balance. Luke also ends up sensing the presence of a mysterious human among the Ssi-Ruuk: Dev Sibwarra. Dev is force-sensitive, but has received no training, and has been kept alive by the Ssi-Ruuk because her force sensitivity makes him useful. They have been abusing him and subjecting him to frequent brainwashing sessions to keep him pliable. However, when Luke makes contact with Dev’s mind in the heat of battle, it inspires him to try to rebel against the Ssi-Ruuk in various small ways. Further, the Imperial governor, Wilek Nereus, is in the throes of a conundrum. He absolutely doesn’t want the Ssi-Ruuk to win. However, if the Rebel forces also win, then he’ll lose power. So, he puts plans in motion to betray the Alliance at the moment of victory, including infecting Luke with a virulent parasite and then turning him over to the Ssi-Ruuk, in the hopes that the parasite will kill them all. Ultimately, Luke is able to heal himself of the parasites while aboard the Ssi-Ruuk ship, and with the assistance of Dev, is able to do enough damage and soe enough confusion that the combined Rebel and Imperial forces can defeat the Ssi-Ruuk. Meanwhile, Han, Leia, Gaerial and her grandmother are able to overthrow Governor Nereus. The Alliance offers Imperial forces the choice to leave to return home (or, for that matter, join the Remnant), or join the Alliance. The commander of the Imperial forces chooses to defect to the Alliance in order to command Bakura’s defense. Gaerial decides to remain on Bakura to help form a new government, and the remainder of the Rebel forces return to the rest of the fleet. Worldbuilding First appearance in the novels of an “alien race from beyond the Outer Rim” – the Ssi-Ruuk. The Alliance captures a Ssi-Ruuk warship, the Sibwarra. The introduction of a religious belief outside of The Force – the Balance. Believers in the Balance (Balancers?) hold that the power of the light and dark side must be kept in check. Gaerial was a more… fundamentalist believer, and felt that the Jedi and the Republic threw the balance out of whack, and consequently she was concerned about the presence of even a single Jedi – Luke. First introduction of the Imperial HoloNet – a galactic communications network controlled by the Empire, but one which does not have instantaneous communications (like a Subspace Ansible) – the Bakuran garrison couldn’t use the Holonet to call for help from other garrisons, and the Alliance couldn’t use captured Holonet transmitters to access the entirety of Imperial Communications. Presumably this is what the Emperor used to contact Vader. On some planets, the Empire permitted local forms of government to exist as a means of controlling and pacifying the populace, provided they basically served to rubber-stamp the decrees of the Imperial Governors. First appearance of battle droids in any form, but not in the manner we’d see in the prequel trilogy – not by a long shot. Palpatine has had contact with alien races from outside of the galaxy, and has been cutting deals with them, for various reasons. Characterization Luke Skywalker: His first outing commanding a larger Rebel force in battle, not just a smaller group like a fighter squadron. This is now his first canonical attempt to try to teach someone in the force – Dev. Canonically Obi-Wan appears to Luke as a Force Ghost for the last time. Has yet to tell the Alliance of the truth of his parentage. Princess Leia Organa/Skywalker: Is still in denial over being the daughter of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, but becomes more accepting of this over the course of the book. Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost appears to her and a speaks to her, in an attempt to reconcile. Leia rejects his overtures. Han Solo: Is a little over-protective of Leia. Tends to put his plans together on the fly (much like Indiana Jones, which I think is a deliberate call-out on the writer’s part). Is not quite ready to propose yet. Chewbacca: We get scenes from his actual point of view for the first time. As has been established in earlier works, he’s incredibly mechanically adept, and he really doesn’t like C-3P0, to the point of having to weigh having to repair 3P0 again, against the fact that he’d really like to smack him around. C-3P0: Is actually somewhat mechanically dextrous, and can engage in semi-hacking if necessary, though he’s not as proficient as R2-D2. Can also wear Imperial Stormtrooper armor in a just convincing enough fashion to accidentally get shot by Chewbacca. Has a linguistics package strong enough to put together an impromptu Ssi-Ruuk-to-Basic translation package based on intercepted Ssi-Ruuk battle transmissions. Other Notes This book pretty much retcons the last portion of the Marvel Star Wars run out of existence – no Nagai, no Tofs, nothing, though part of the material from there will be back. My Thoughts This book was enjoyable to read, but not exactly great. Seeing Leia in her element as a diplomat was wonderful, though considering we get to see Leia as a general in The Force Awakens, I would mind seeing her in more books as a military commander going forward as well. Tyers does a great job of capturing the transition in the status quo that we see after Return of the Jedi – the Emperor’s dead, now what? In the comics, the answer to that question is “form a more conventional government”. In here it’s “strike while the iron is hot to foment more open rebellion on fringe Imperial colony worlds, while the Empire is disorganized, power is being concentrated, and the new Imperial government tries to figure out what they’re actually going to try to hold.” The concept of the Balance as a religion is a little roughly executed. Even Tyers admits that the concept is cosmic dualism taken to an absurd degree. That said, I do kinda feel that the concept is still executed here better than it is in the prequel trilogy. Next time with these recaps we’re taking on the first book in the Jedi Academy Trilogy with Jedi Search Filed under: Star Wars Tagged: book review, science fiction, Star Wars, Star Wars Expanded Universe

Over the past few months, I’ve been doing a Let’s Play of Mass Effect 3. I felt this was the best time to do that Let’s Play, with the impending release of Mass Effect Andromeda. We also have some time and distance from the initial controversy over Mass Effect 3’s ending, and the second wave of controversy over the “Director’s Cut”, which meant that I could approach the game fresh, without any of that baggage. So, how does Shepard’s final outing fare? The final installment of the series has the Reaper invasion finally having arrived in the galaxy, after two games worth of warnings. Shepard and Liara learn of a weapon from the previous incursion of the Reapers – during the time of the Protheans – called the Crucible. Now, Commander Shepard must forge an alliance of alien races – council and non-council members alike, in order to stand against the Reapers. From the standpoint of the game’s structure, this means that all the game’s quests, both on the main thrust of the story and in terms of side-quests, is all put towards the specific goal of preparing the crucible and going for one final push against the Reapers. This provides an incentive for taking on the side quests, as you need all the resources you can get, while also providing a sense of urgency. This is heightened by the increasing presence of the Reapers in the galaxy. As you explore systems, you face an increased risk of attracting Reaper ships to that system. Once they show up, you have no choice but to run, and should you return to that system, the Reapers will return more rapidly, if not instantaneously, should you return. Further, as the game’s story goes on, the Reapers will start occupying more and more systems, meaning that there are less and less systems you can search for resources or to complete side-quests. Additionally, the consequences of the major choices from earlier games have some repercussions here. some are more dramatic than others – saving the Rachni queen in Mass Effect 1 means that you can recruit the Rachni to help the war effort here. Recruiting Legion and completing his Loyalty Mission in Mass effect 2 means that you can broker a final peace between the Quarians and the Geth here. Even having some of the DLC characters from Mass Effect 2 on your side, like Kasumi and Zaeed can make a tremendous difference with how several quests turn out, and in turn what resources you get. One of the more interesting party members you get in this game is one who is only available through DLC – Javik, a Prothean who was in cryogenic freeze. Javik has some interesting insights on how the galaxy has changed in the millions of years since his race’s demise, and as a character his story is incredibly well written, but it’s also somewhat optional. Now, what is a little less optional is two of the pieces of DLC for the game – the Citadel and Leviathan DLC. The former provides some really impressive bonding for your party members, first as the party fends off an assassination attempt against Shepard by their evil clone, and then as you unwind after this with a house party in Captain Anderson’s apartment, which he’s loaning to you while he’s stranded on Earth leading the resistance against the Reapers. There’s a lot of really strong humor in the Citadel DLC, from the party members demonstrating their snarking abilities, to the house party basically providing a wonderful opportunity for these party members to bounce off of each other in various hilarious ways. The Leviathan DLC, on the other hand, is much more serious, and enriches the story a little more – providing a clear explanation of where the hell the Reapers came from, why they have that form, and what their purpose is. It also makes the revelation in the game’s conclusion feel less like it came out of nowhere, and makes it feel earned. There are some really exciting elements in this DLC, and it makes for a really interesting mystery that ties in well with the rest of the story, which also has some really fun and creepy sequences. As far as the revised ending goes, going in without having experienced the original ending, the director’s cut ending felt tonally consistent with the rest of the work. While on the one hand, I get the argument that changing the ending of the work based on popular complaint feels like a pronounced and dramatic artistic compromise, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened with a major popular artistic work. Sherlock Holmes was resurrected after people objected to the conclusion of The Final Problem, and Holmes death therein. Even Douglas Adams was working on a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel at the time of his death, after fans stated their reservations with the end of the final book Adams wrote in that series – and after Adams himself admitted that he was in a bad head-place when he wrote that book. So, I can’t fault Bioware rethinking the ending. So, Mass Effect 3 felt like a satisfying conclusion to the original Mass Effect trilogy, though one that changes the galaxy in such dramatic ways that I completely understand why they moved the next installment to another galaxy. I’m glad that Andromeda is taking the story where it is, and I’m interested in seeing how it goes from there, and should they choose to revisit the end-state of this galaxy, being in Andromeda provides a lot of freedom on how they can handle that. That said, Mass Effect 3 is not the best entry point to the series – either Mass Effect 2 or Andromeda would probably make for better options for where to jump in. Mass Effect 3 is available from Amazon.com. Filed under: Video games Tagged: Mass Effect 3, Reviews, Video games

We’ve arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Travel Agent lied. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

We’ve arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Travel Agent lied. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

I whip up my Ryders. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Video games

This time we’re covering The Best of the Rest for Nintendo Power’s 5th year. Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Games Reviewed: Home Alone 2 (NES, SNES, GB) – THQ Super Battletank – Absolute Entertainment NHLPA Hockey ’93 – Electronic Arts Bulls vs. Blazers – Electronic Arts Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Game Boy, NES, Nintendo Power, Nintendo Power Retrospectives, Retro Gaming, SNES

We board the Citadel, make our final choice, and I give my final thoughts on the game. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

Having reviewed the Duck Tales games on episodes of the Nintendo Power Retrospectives, I’ve come to really dig (no pun intended) the pogo mechanic from that game. When Shovel Knight was released back in 2014, that game caught my interest, and seeing it at various Games Done Quick events just heightened my interest. However, my finances were never quite enough for me to pick up the game, even when it was available on sale – and then the game got a physical release for the Nintendo 3DS, which was carried by GameFly, so now I had no excuse. The game has a fairly simple premise – Shovel Knight used to adventure throughout the land with Shield Knight. However, Shield Knight was lost within the Tower of Fate, which was then sealed. When the evil Enchantress forms a group of knights within which to terrorize the land, called the Order of No Quarter, and then un-seals the Tower of Fate, Shovel Knight sets out to defeat the Enchantress and find Shield Knight. The game, at least with the Shovel Knight campaign, is primarily built around the pogo mechanic as a means of attack and traversal, with new abilities being made available in each level through “relics” which the player can equip, and which allow new methods of attack and traversal. These are obtained not when you beat particular bosses (like with Mega Man), but by vendors in hidden rooms in each level. Obtaining these items will cost a certain amount of gold. If you don’t have enough gold, a vendor in the first town can sell the item to the player – assuming you can beat the level. The abilities are incidentally useful – though rather than having their own power pool, like with Mega Man power-ups, they draw from a combined magic pool. Rather than letting you take on the levels in any order, as with Mega Man or Duck Tales, the levels are presented in blocks of three, with optional bonus stages that will allow you to earn additional cash and take on additional bosses. After beating each block of three, the way is open to the next block, and so on until you reach the Tower of Fate, which is made up of two distinct chunks, like with Dr. Wily’s Castle. The game doesn’t use a life system, instead giving you a near unlimited number of lives to get through the level. When you die, you are bumped back to the last checkpoint, marked by an orb with a gemstone inside, and you lose some of your cash – but you can get that money back as you make your way back through the level. However, if you die again, you will lose additional money, and the last batch of cash you dropped will no longer be available to pick up. Additionally, if a player wants some additional cash and an additional challenge,they can destroy the checkpoints for a quick buck, but the checkpoints (naturally) do not respawn if you die, and you’re bumped back to the last checkpoint that you didn’t destroy. Shovel Knight controls incredibly well. The controls feel even more precise than the controls on Duck Tales, while the jumps are spaced well enough that they provide a little margin of error. That said, movement with the analog pad on the 3DS was very loose – on multiple occasions, I attempted to pogo jump using the analog pad, and the game completely failed to recognize the down-input, and instead of pogoing, I instead hit the enemy and took damage. I can’t say if this is an issue for the versions of the game released on other consoles, but I’d recommend taking that under advisement anyway. My main issue with the game is with how the game’s final boss rush is handled. Generally, my views on boss rushes are that they should really be their own level, ideally with some sort of checkpoint in between each re-fought boss. The game does something similar to this by giving you a full health and magic refill in-between each fight. However, it also puts the bosses in a semi-random order, which makes planning your tactics rather frustrating. Additionally, I have an issue with how Tinker Knight is implemented in the boss rush. As a character, he basically has two life bars. He first takes you on one-on-one. In this form, he’s mostly a cake-walk, but his attack patterns are set up so you will end up taking some cheap-hits, particularly through a couple RNG (Random Number Generation) based attacks. After you’ve taken down his first life bar, he runs off screen and returns in a suit of power armor, with only one weak spot at the very top of the armor, and with a whole new life bar, and no way to recharge your health mid-fight. By comparison, Mega Man and Zelda II both gave the player abilities that let them heal their health mid-fight, E-Tanks in Mega-Man, and healing spells in Zelda II. Now, this is certainly a challenge, and if the game took the tack of, say, the way the Mega Man games handle their boss-rushes, by letting the player select the order of the bosses, I wouldn’t have as much room to complain – it would create a situation where the player could rip the band-aid off early, and take on the bosses that they felt they were weak at first, before moving on to the bosses that they felt were their strong suit, or vise versa. By putting the bosses in random order, that’s not an option, so you have to just hope that you get the bosses in the order that you want. Aside from those frustrating bits, I really enjoyed the game – it’s an excellent 2D platformer, and I really wish I’d taken the time to pick up this game sooner rather than later. If you have an opportunity to play this game, I’d recommend picking it up. Shovel Knight for the 3DS (and several other platforms) is available through Amazon.com. Filed under: Video games Tagged: indy games, Reviews, Video games

Having gone through the melodramatic gravitas of Fate/Stay Night (both regular route and Unlimited Blade Works), it’s prequel Fate/Zero, and the adaptation of the visual novel that came out sooner – Tsukihime, if I was to describe the next Type-Moon anime to come out in a short phrase, it would be “And now for something completely different!” Carnival Phantasm is an adaptation of a comedic manga series that put the characters from Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime (and with it spinoff works like Melty Blood) in a variety of comedic scenarios. The scenarios generally don’t have any sort of coherent narrative to them, at least across works, and instead take the form of a variety of comedy sketches. The sketches range to everything from a bit where three of the characters from Tsukihime and Melty Blood perform as a manzai group, to the Holy Grail war being re-done both as a Japanese game show and as a Wacky-Races style car-race in two different episodes. The jokes tend toward the absurdist with a side of the slapstick. Generally, this works, through there are a few bits where the show does jokes based around how absurdly melodramatic and dark some of the bits in the shows can be, and the jokes come across less as funny due to the absurdity, and more hateful and mean-spirited. What helps the show the most is the fact that the because both visual novels have elements of harem series to them, when the show brings in more harem comedy elements as the basis for some of the sketches (like one where Saber takes a job at a cafe to buy Shirou a birthday present), it fits in perfectly. The one issue I have with the show is a lot of jokes in the show are based on elements of the game that aren’t particularly accessible if you haven’t played all the games – major characters from the show include characters from Melty Blood (which only recently got a US release on Steam – and only with the final installment of the series) or from the expansion story from Fate/Stay Night – Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. Unfortunately, as of yet Carnival Phantasm has yet to receive a US license. This is a bummer because it’s an absolutely hilarious show, which I think would really hit it off with fans, though the inclusion of characters from those two other games could be something of a barrier. Filed under: Anime Tagged: Anime, anime review, Fate franchise, Type-Moon

We make our final push to the beam, to head to the Citadel. Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games

This time I’m taking a look at the first of the film adaptations of Cornelius Ryan’s books, with The Longest Day. Special Guest Appearance by The Historic Nerd: https://www.youtube.com/user/HistoricNerd Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Filed under: film Tagged: collaboration, Cornelius Ryan, Film Review, World War II

We take the fight to the Reapers, in the streets of London Filed under: Let's Play Tagged: Let's Play, Mass Effect 3, Video games