That time again, time to put on your robe and attend the ceremony with expectations so far out to make worshippers of the Old Gods looks like wannabe zealots!
Especially since all fair criticism of the company is dropped by most people (and publications) when a Direct happens. But again, this is sadly “business as usual”, let’s move on.
Continua a leggere “Nintendo Direct 9/02/2022 | Rites Of N”
Given my adoration for the ero-guro master that is Shintaro Kago, i was gonna jump immediatly at the chance of adding an artbook of his to my collection (which it’s quite extensive, if i say so myself)… and i did. Had to import it, since it was gonna be handled by french publisher The Mansion Press, instead of the many italian and international publishers who usually publish his works (including underground – and fellow italians – firms like the excellent Hollow Press).
Not that it mattered, since The Mansion Press ships worlwide, it’s an artbook, and it happens to be localized in english.
“Localized” in the sense the publishing credits and the few titles-thems of the pieces are translated in english. It’s absolutely 100 % import friendly, so worry not on this regard.
Continua a leggere “Shintaro Kago Artbook ARTBOOK REVIEW”
Time for some picks from my embarassingly big Steam library, and why not one of the last things you expect to see on Steam, like…ports of Game Boy Advance games?
Yep, sometimes Steam being the de facto more used platform/store doesn’t just lead to lots of unfunny simulator crap trying to meme their way into profit, there’s clearly enough space for it to be used as a cheap, affordable and easy way for publishers to make some money back from their older catalogue, and it’s not really surprising, since the publisher in case it’s Majesco, a surprisingly resilient small publisher that published a lot of crap over the years, and… re-sell it, since they also brought over to Steam the infamous Drake Of The 99 Dragons, reviewed last year.
Though this case…well, cases are still odd, since Majesco basically ported both Iridion 3D and Iridion II from the Game Boy Advance to the PC, with the obvious expectations that come with it, since both games were made to play on a very small screen.
At least Majesco priced these very cheap, which is quite sensible to do, and they end up often on sale, so it’s easy to get the “Iridion Collection” bundle for three bucks.
Continua a leggere “Iridion 3D STEAM [REVIEW] | Advance To Steam”
Talk about a surprise release, since this 2020 french scifi movie only now has reached theathers in “The Boot”, and i’m willing to guess it never reached US theathers, since i didn’t even heard about it via social media.
Not even a mention, despite the original french title being similar to Luc Besson cult classic Le Dernier Combat, also a sci-fi movie with Jean Renò.
Regardless, the movie its set in a not too distant future (2050, in this case) where humanity it’s on the brink of extinction, with a red planetoid knows as the Red Moon is now coming so ever closer to Earth, bringing desertification, unliveable temperatures, animal extinctions and an energy crisis..
Only one man, Paul W.R., can save the day as he’s only one able to survive and pass through the magnetic field surrounding the planetoid, but mere days before the mission begins, Paul escapes to get away from his responsabilities, making the authorities start hunting him down, and he happens to meet a young girl called Elma, willing to follow him in his uncertain quest….
I’ll say that the cinematography it’s very good, some of the sequences are entertaining, there are some ideas, but the execution it’s just so confusing in many ways, as in the mesh of road movie and action scifi elements in a way that tries to kinda go for a more american-international feel or the themes and character motivations often feeling at odds, if not almost random.
Add a mediocre worldbuilding with some plot points never properly explained to make a simple plot kinda hard to follow, and you have a movie that’s perfectly watchable, has some good acting, but from beginning to end will have you more confused and annoyed than engaged at what’s going on and why exactly.
EUNGH.
Lurking about the various streaming sites (and also by browsing Amazon recommendations, if you have an order history like mine), i’d hard not to notice that alongside monster movies, one of the safest go-to themes for a b-movie – especially if it’s a made for TV – it’s aliens.
Yes, the “subgenre” it’s not as popular as it was in the ’90s, thanks to tech billionaries indirectly making the point that the “space age” it’s not coming anytime soon, and also making us quite undesirable to contact by the prospective of hypothetical extraterrestrial, but it’s clearly still cheap, fast and popular enough, since i keep on stumbling on “army vs aliens” i never heard of but that managed to get DVD releases, with confusingly non-descript and generic cover artworks.
Though i found this one, Invasion Roswell, on Amazon Prime Video, under his other – and far more generic – title of Exterminators. Despite not being about giant spiders.
But worry not, it has another, slightly more fitting alternate title, “Battle: Earth”. Or the german DVD one, “Exterminators VS Aliens”.
Continua a leggere “Invasion Roswell/Exterminators (2013) [REVIEW] | Made for TV invasion”
One might wonder why review Jump Force now, as it got “internet spanked” quite enough when it came out in 2019. Aside the fact i don’t need a reason to do so… Namco Bandai gave me a big one, by announcing they would remove the game from digital storefronts, alongside the 2 season passes, the DLCs characters and content by february 8th 2022, with online functionalities and features shutting down entirely by August 24th 2022, this on all platforms.
Now, i know this would be reason for joy to many, but i’m an archivist at heart, and while i won’t miss the microtransaction laden bullshit, i find it silly that they didn’t even managed to make a complete edition of it with all the content on disc, only the Deluxe Edition on Switch with the Season Pass 1 content baked in the cart.
So years in the future you won’t be able to play the Season Pass 2 characters at all, which isn’t exactly a loss given the game wasn’t good to begin with, but it’s even more soon-to-be legally lost content. The loss of the online functionalities was inevitable, to a point, but the rest not so much.
Continua a leggere “Jump Force PS4 [REVIEW- FUNERAL] | To The Digital Graveyard With You!”
Yes, for a change there are now some reviews you can expect from me since i got hold of an X-Box One X on the fairly cheap, though i do emphasize the “SOME” as there’s not really much to collect for this console, even if you’re a collector and mostly play-collect physical copies on consoles.
Sure as hell it’s more doable than getting a PS5 before 2023 for me, so look forward to some of the…very few notable X-Box One “esclusives-identifiable” games over the year!
On a unrelated tangent (which i forgot to mention two days ago), i won’t be reviewing Scream V as i honestly never watched the series, for various reasons not worth explaining here, i’m not even sure i will watch this one, at all.
Tomorrow we’ll start again with the full length reviews, too, so look forward to it!
Not even two weeks into 2022, and we’re getting befuddling news like that the second season of the Kancolle anime series isn’t scrapped, but it’s coming out this fall (October 2022), after 6 years of absolutely nothing aside from messages from Kadokawa confirming the thing was actually being made somewhere, somehow, and technically not cancelled.
Guess it was true, but it’s still a surprise considering how Kancolle as a brand has been eclipsed by competitor Azur Lane, who brought the formula into international hands, making more bazillions along the way, to say nothing of the other gacha free to play games with similar themes of “antropomorphized anime girls versions of weapons… and mostly WW II warships”.
The brand as a whole it’s not dead, and Kancolle still does decently in its own original browser game incarnation back in Japan, which i guess makes sense, since Kadokawa Games’ division never planned to make the game (officially) available outside of Japan, but i guess someone in the upper echelon of Kadokawa its kicking himself he didn’t push to localize the darn thing or make a smarthphone version to also make available overseas, since Azur Lane did exactly that, and stole Kancolle’s thunder and a huge part of the potential fanbase.
So yeah, i guess that other, different Kancolle anime series that was announced – and also confirmed as “not dead” over time- it’s also being made, eventually.
Guess i’ll have to review the first season of the Kancolle anime and the sequel movie this summer, i’ve already reviewed both Azur Lane The Animation and the slice-of-life spin-off Slow Ahead, so why the fuck not?
It’s the final day of the 12 Days Of Dino Dicember, so let’s end it with a proper obscure gem, the Czech movie Journey To The Beginning Of Time. As in the original, not the re-cut, re-filmed version that reached US territories in 1966 under the same name.
Today thankfully you can watch it as it was released on a region-free Blu Ray by Second Run, which also includes the English version, but i’m not gonna bother with that for now. Sorry, but i simply can’t afford the time to watch that as well and compare the two.
This comes from Karel Zeman (no, not the soccer manager), nicknamed the “Czech Melies”, famous for his fantasy films combining live action and animation, and hugely influential, not surprising to fellow czech Jan Svankmajer (you can’t imagine how happy i am by just having the occasion of nominating him in any of these reviews, retrospectives, but beloved by many american directors, like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, and serving as inspiration to Jurassic Park itself.
Continua a leggere “12 Days Of Dino Dicember #12: Journey To The Beginning Of Time (1955)”
We previously spotlighted the delights of live action tokutatsu monster and superhero anime hybrid with the Dinosaur War Izenborg 4 episodes-to-compilation film “Attack Of The Super Monsters” by Tsuburaya Productions, so let’s talk about an even more obscure kaiju film, this time by Toei, with Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds, also known as Legend Of The Dinosaurs.
Interestingly, this was a japanese kaiju movie spurred by the international success of Spielberg’s Jaws (release in 1976 in Japan) and a coincidental resurgence of reports of Nessie in Loch Ness, so Toho settled to make it about a geologist who start investing strange reports of fossilized eggs and odd events surrounding the Saiko Lake (one of the Five Fuji Lakes) community, including a headless horse carcass and mysterious disappearances of people in the lake area.
Eventually Takashi puts the clues together and surmises it must be a Plesiosaur doing this, which turns out to be true, as it attacks the lakeside attendants during an event (hi, Jaws parallel), but in japanese monster movie tradition, the creature it’s bound to fight with another monster, a “Rhamphorhynchus” (basically a type of pterosaur like the pteranodon), emerging from a hidden cave in the Aokigahara region (aka the tragically famous “Sea Of Trees”, subject of a very crap Gus Van Sant movie to make things even worse), as accidentally discovered by a young girl.
Continua a leggere “12 Days Of Dino Dicember #10: Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds/Legends Of The Dinosaurs (1977)”
Wise Cafe (International) 