I got an anime DVD at Big Lots today. It's Samurai 7 Vol. 1. It's based on Akira Kurosawa's movie, Seven Samurai, and focuses on a water princess named Kirara who goes into the city to recruit samurai to protect her village from bandits called Nobuseriwho turned themselves into machines. By the time the DVD ends, she's recruited four, Shimada Kambei, the leader, Okamoto Katsushiro, a young and inexperienced warrior who idolizes the principles of bushido, Kikuchiyo, a short-tempered cyborg, and Katayama Gorobei, an experienced warriorwho entertained people onthe streets. It's a pretty cool series. It has cool character designs and fight scenes combined with above-average animation. The DVD only had the first four episodes, but I'd actually like to get the rest of the series, since the series isn't officialy up on YouTube.
The majority of games I play nowadays are at the arcades or old school retro titles, so I was ecstatic to find out about the next SNK collection for the PS2 and PSP. A few weeks ago the ESRB listed SNK Arcade Cl.ass.ics 0 by slapping on an M rating and mentioning 20 titles wiil be included on the disc. What are the games? Nobody seems to know...unless ya visit the Japanese game forums or read imported comics. An ad from the Japanese KOF Vol. 4 comic revealed screen-shots of the following titles that I identified.
- Alpha Mission
- Athena
- Baseball Stars
- Bermuda Triangle
- Gold Medalist
- Guerrilla War
- HAL 21
- Ikari Warriors
- Ikar 3: The Rescue
- Marvin's Maze
- POW
- Prehistoric Island
- Psycho Soldier
- SAR: Search & Rescue
- Sasuke vs Commander
- Street Smart
- Touchdown Fever
- TNK 3
- Vanguard 2
- Victory Road
This compilation contains pre Neo Geo games made during the companies earliest days before King of Fighters and Metal Slug wrecked havoc in arcades. Having the entire Ikari Warriors series in one package is a must buy but Guerrilla War is definitely the most intriguing game. You play as Che Guevara (single player) and Fidel Castro (co-op) as they attempt to overthrow president Batista during the Cuba Revolution. I never knew SNK supported Communism.
Last week I had a chance to rent one of the very few animes movies at my local Blockbuster. One of them happen to be the subject of this blog, and its one of the best anime movies I ever seen (look at a bunch). The name of the movie is Grave of The Fireflies:
This movie was originally made in the late 1980's, but was released to DVDs by A.D.V films this year. This movie doesn't have any top notch animation, but doesn't even require it. What drives this movie is the relationship between Seita (male above) and his little sister Setsuko. The movie takes place during the WWII era, and their lives are greatly effected by the war.
Scene at the beginning where they flee bombing planes
As the movie progresses the two start to become more dependent on each other.They windup living with relatives, but they soon leave due the lack of compassion from their aunt. The end up living in a bomb shelter were they promised to look after each other. Despite the tragedies going on around them Seita does wonderful job trying to be a good brother. While their parents are gone its Seita who has to fill in both roles as parents. The more hopeless the situation gets, the more determined he got to protect his sister from reality.
Some of the good times the two spent together.
Though Seita was a great support to his sister, the effects of the war continued to loom over them throughout the movie. Many food supplies were rationed, and the value of money plummeted.The hearts ofthe nations people also become cold, and indifferent to the duo's situation. Still Seita foundways to get around their hopeless situation ( by stealing).
A river they lived by in the later parts of the movie.
As the story progressed their living conditions become more unbearable, and forces Seita to risk his life to get their next meal. With everything thing going on Setsuko slowly loses hope, and clings desperately to her brother.
Setsuka waiting for her brother to return with food.
The movie was real eye opener to the effects that war has on it people. The bombing wasn't ultimately the primary threat the two faced, but crushed spirits of their countryman (and women). As the war progresses they recived less help from those around them and eventually they had to look after themselves. With no one to support they led solitary lives that eventually overcame them. I highly recommend that this movie be viewed with Kleenex's because of the many powerful scenes in this movie. Many of them were difficult to watch but came together beautifully in the end. Whether your touched by the story or not the struggles of these kids are unique and very tragic.
The fireflies play a significant role in the movie, and ironically symbolizes the two perfectly.
To those still reading I have a treat for ya. If you want to watch the move here a linkto a streamed version of the movie. Non-subscriber's to megavideo can only watch 45 minutes of the video, so keep that in mind (half now and half later). Anyway I'm tackling the move Voices of a Distant Star this week. It promises to be another emotionally charge move, so wish me luck.
Yes, another thread onthis. Why you may ask? because i never recieved any answers or reasons of why in my last blog. Be aware while reading this i own ALL Next Gen system. and in no way fanboyism. i just want my stuff to work the way it was meant to.
I've got a few "answers" (most just speculations and fanboy rants), but none of them seemed to be actual fact. Few of the things i heard was that the PS3 flat out couldn't handle it, which i flat out just don't believe. Cearly companies boast about what theirs systems really can't do, but at this stage in the game, i doubt, highly doubt, that they would clearly state that their system and games could go up to 1080p when theres no way that they could, especially since there are 1080p games out there for the PS3.
Some people like to blame the Devs. Which in some case might be true. i mean after all they're the ones releasing games on multiple platforms while the games only seem to be in 1080 on other platforms. Some people think its the case of them developing the game on a rival system and porting it over to the PS3 because it would be cheaper for them to do so and the PS3 is apperently the more powerful system and its harder to make games for. well then why isn't it in 1080 on the PS3 then if it is on the other system? besides wouldn't it be easier to make it on the harder system and then port it over so nothing is lost? i guess money may still be a factor, but then atleast you wouldn't be cheating the consumer. Another reason i heard was because apperent;y Sony doesn't help developers make games for their system so this is a way of punishing them? again i don't buy that since i know Sony does help Devs, and the blow back from any "punishment" towards Sony product would be evident. aka i don't think Sony would just take it on the Chin. But then you look at Sony exclusive games, case in point Littlebigplanet. A Sony exclusive yet only goes up to 720p. but if its Sony exclusive why is it only on 720 you might be asking. i asked the same thing. the response i got was the game is highly geared towards children or atleast a family friendly environment, and most don't have an HD tv yet so it made sense to make it for a more wide range of what people had. ok....but can't it support multiple outputs? 720 and 1080? i have plenty of games that have multiple outputs so why not this?
The main problem i and most of you should have with this is that its confusing why games aren't released on a standard system and why another system which plays the same games has the upper hand? I mean you'd think Sony alone would be pissed they're losing sales to their competitor due to those who want superior quality. i've switched preorders before on a game that wasn't supporting 1080p on Sony and i'll do it again. which is a shame, i weigh my option on multiple factors, to of the major ones being, how does it look and can i play it with my nephew who has a PS3. i can take a hit in quality if i can play it with my nephew, but i really don't like to. especially when today i did a side by side comparison of the Demo for Brutal Legend on both systems, and while if you only had one system you obviously wouldn't know or care about the difference, but when you look you can definately tell a difference between 720 and 1080.
We know the system can handle it so why is this still an issue? why hasn't it been addressed and why isn't anyone talking about it. seems like the unspoken rule. "don't mention this issue, its taboo.". Screw that i want an answer and it fixed, this is ridiculous at this point. i want an explanation of whats the problem why it hasn't been fixed and when we can expect it to be fixed, or a reason why it won't be. i think if we';re the ones spending the money then we're the ones who deserve an answer!
