Wednesday 14 September 2016

Combiner Wars Sky Reign (minus Hound): Combiners, now with 100% more cats

Who here is sick of people talking about Combiner Wars? Who here is sick of all the repaints? Who here is probably telling me I have no life because I review kids toys? To those I say: You have seen what's commonly covered on this site right? Trust me, this will probably be the last time Combiner Wars gets covered... at least gestalts. I do have a few Legends class characters from the line, just not the rest of their teams when applicable. So, lets finish off Combiner Wars before Titans Return goes to far ahead... I've got time... I hope... For those wanting to see a review of Hound, look up my review of Combiner Wars Swindle, I cover the two of them together. Also so that I can power through these: Deluxe figures that make up the limbs: Arm mode is half robot, half car with a hand on its foot, and the Leg mode is a compressed car with a foot in its exhaust.
Gotta go to the gym more mate, you're meant to be the Autobot bouncer

Sunday 11 September 2016

F%&@ this game, F%&@ this game, F%&@ this game, F%&@ this game, F%&@ this game

Decided to change the order, Sky Reign is Wednesday.

Ugh... this game. This abomination. This atrocity. This disgrace. What better way to celebrate the 15th anniversary of a franchise then to almost single handily kill it? Granted, it wasn't alone, Genesis and Secret Rings helped. This game, is infamous in how bad, how broken, how glitchy it is. This game, above all others, is the reason the franchise has the reputation it does. This was one of the first games I got for my 360, due to a sale EB was doing, and that my only other option was a 16-bit collection where the games I'd want to play, I already had for the DS. I should note, I have not played the newest contender to this throne, I don't have the game, but in the spirit of No Man's Sky's release, let’s go back, to 2006, to a game that no longer had the protection of the time. When DLC was starting to become a thing, but not patches, to a game that had the franchise creator leave the company. If you thought Assassins Creed Unity and No Man's Sky was bad, well, I envy you, because dear, naive reader, you haven't seen anything yet. Welcome, to "SONIC the Hedgehog", or to go by its more common name, Sonic '06.

Wednesday 7 September 2016

Pokemon Adventures Red/ Green/ Blue Arc: It's Kanto as you always imagined it

I hope you like Pokemon, because you're going to see a lot of it in the next few months. So to kick start the spa... I mean content, lets take a look at a part of the franchise that, while it gets more attention then some, its nowhere near as known as the main three, being the games, TCG and anime. The franchise has had several Manga incarnations, but the one that many bring up is Pokemon Adventures. I get the feeling some are going "But its the first of the month, why is this not a comic review?!" To answer that, its pretty simple. I see comics and manga the same way as I see western animation and anime, in that they're basically the same except for a few changes. The main differences between them? Manga are normally longer then standard comic books, in that Manga are almost small novel sized, where as comics, before getting their complete arc releases, tend to be no bigger then a magazine, being generous. Manga also tends to mimic the anime art style, but to my knowledge, primarily stay black and white, in that there is no colour in them outside of the front and back covers. Are there more differences? Yes, but most of them are culture based. Yes US, there are more countries in the world then yours, or was the .au in the web address for this site not enough of a clue? I know I don't talk with an auzzie bogan accent but still.


Monday 29 August 2016

Mediaholics Cinema: Jem and the Holograms Episodes 1-5


 For those who can't see the video, link to it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjW3I4tHpXQ

Welcome to the Mediaholics Cinema. Tonight, we are airing the first five episodes of Jem and the Holograms. Why? Because we hate ourselves and want to put more effort into learning about the franchise then the movie team did for the 2015 movie. Do note, THIS DOES NOT SHOW THE ORIGINAL EPISODES. This is a commentary on them.

Wednesday 24 August 2016

Opinion piece: Fan projects, and take downs

Recently two fan projects have come out and quickly been taken down. Another Metroid 2 Remake, and Pokemon Uranium version. While I wasn't able to get Metroid 2 before it got taken down, though versions are still available online, I do have Uranium's install. But them being taken down does raise a question, should they have been taken down?

Legally, yes. Nintendo was well in their rights to do it and to them, they have to. The games do infringe on copyright, using their IP's without their permission. Companies do still have to protect their IP's because if they have to take down things that do put them in a negative light, they would have a stronger case because letting them thrive, the defendant can just go "well if they can get away with it then why can't I?" More often then not, these kinds of projects fly under the radar of the companies and if they do find them, and they're getting a lot of traffic, then they tend to ignore them, claim they had no idea they were a thing. Case in point using one that I've covered here, Pokemon Zeta looks to still be around, just that development has ceased for their current project, Pokemon Insurgence. It raises the question "Why would they?" as the same thing applies to fan animations, fan art, song remixes, mods and more. Well, with a few odd exceptions on the more darker side of the internet, it's free promotion material, so they only get involved when it gets enough public attention. For Nintendo, it seems to be the highly publicised fan games, but there are other examples of it from other companies.

Is it the only option? Not always. For every AM2R and Super Mario 64 HD Remaster, there are cases like Mega Man x Street Fighter, a game Capcom endorsed and promoted. One option Nintendo could do is come to these fans and say "if you let us take a large chunk of the sales for royalties and no PC version, we'll put your game onto our eshop", it would be free money to them along with a way of finding fresh tallent that could handle smaller projects. Its also a potential way to help with release dry spells like what's happening for the WiiU where the next and potentially last pure WiiU game is Paper Mario Colour Splash. While yes, the devs of the games would potentially be getting screwed over in terms of money, at the same time though most of them are making these kinds of games on a budget of nothing and putting them out for nothing, so to them, some money is better then no money. And in the case of quality control, Nintendo could easy say "if your game doesn't meet our expectations, we'll send a cease and desist" wading out the cheep cash grabs from the quality projects. Is it flawless? No, but at least it's better then "Anything that is not made by us is not allowed to exist".

At the same time, for projects like Uranium, what might be a better idea is to turn it into its own franchise, akin to something like Freedom Planet was to the Sonic Franchise. All they'd have to do is remove the connections to Pokemon like calling them Pokemon, changing Pokeballs to something else, and removing any main series Pokemon that are in teh game if any exist. I think all the assets in it, from what I've seen, are original aside from things like Pokeballs, so the changes would be minimal. This also lets them put the game onto Steam, and get some money for their efforts because legally, its not a Pokemon game. Its how third party transformers are still allowed to be a thing because legally, they aren't those characters.

It's a legal grey area, and there's no right answer, so the question becomes "what do you think is the better idea?"

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Deadpool: Anyone here know how to fix 4th walls?

A note to parents who read this. While Killing Joke and Dawn of Justice were rated R, to me, they never felt like it, so I didn't review them as such. Here, while it was still MA15+, I can see why this was rated R for the US. Consider this a warning, as I'm not going to censor this, I'm not going to sugar coat it. If you don't want your child reading something that brings attention to explicit material, stop them from reading this now.

Sunday 14 August 2016

Wednesday 10 August 2016

Red vs Blue: Incompetency incarnate

We've fought wars over lots of things. True world wars over resources and political structures, internet culture fights a new war every other day it seems (What is it now?), gaming culture fights millions of identical wars in the current onslaught of shooters and action games. But, I'd like to present to you something that some consider diabolical. A war so dangerous, that it has no clear end, one fought on thousands of battlefields, most of which we may never see. A war where the casualty cost is high, with soldiers pitted in a battle with similar gear, all because they want to kill each other, and steal flags... Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Well, a stupid war, with a stupid goal needs to be fought, with stupid soldiers. Welcome, to Red vs Blue.

Sunday 7 August 2016

BIONICLE 2016 Creatures: Rahi sounds more badass, just saying

The joys of BIONICLE sets from a reviewer's perspective: Most of them are clones, so I can get through six in one day. Why? Because that's exactly what I'm doing. All I can review are the Summer (for here) sets of this year, can't do the winter wave because they're not being released here, which I am a bit bitter about because they look awesome, and more interesting then the Skull things from last year.

Wednesday 3 August 2016

The Killing Joke: Sometimes all it takes is one bad day

A few things before I start. First, what does it take to get an R18 rating for people in America, this is MA15+ along with Deadpool. Also: Two timely movie reviews in a row? Does this count as a comic review? It's directly based off a comic, that's good enough right? No? Well I'm doing it anyway. Regarded as the backstory of The Joker, armed with an all star cast and crew "and an R18 rating" in America, seriously? Regardless, this got attention, this got hype, did it deliver?