Rockman Returneth!! Capcom Resurrects Rockman for Real!

They did it, they finally done it....and I'll tell you what....it's a good thing.

Yep, I hoped this was coming and they did it: Capcom is officially coming out with a new Rockman game that's officially a new game and not some release of sorts, Rockman 11 in particular. By the look of things, it looks like a sign that Capcom is truly turning over a new leaf after a string of very questionable decisions since this decade began and committed the equivalent of the Armenian genocide of gaming that is cancelling the anticipated Rockman Legends 3 game that rightly angered the Rockman fanbase for a good 6 years and counting. Speaking of which, with the 11th game coming out, Capcom outta owe the fanbase (and Legends fans like me) a favor and restart development of Legends 3 as an apology along with making the equivalent of the N Sane Trilogy for the first two Legends games (though I suppose a release of them on the current systems outside of PSN might suffice but that's another story for another time). That and maybe making a new kind of Rockman for another genre for curiosity's sake but again another story for another time.

Speaking of which, I'm quite surprised that the upcoming game is going to be in a 2.5D style instead of being sprite based in general, either in the classic 8 bit or in 16bit, but at least they look MUCH better than the artstyle of Mighty No. 9 of which that game was a bizzare bust so to say. And of course plays in the style of the last 10 Rockman games but I'm pretty sure there's plenty of room for new stuff to come along; that and it's a good thing I'm planning on playing the first Rockman game for the NES.

I don't know about you but I'm starting to have more respect for Capcom than I have for SNK, at least Capcom is doing the right thing. SNK on the other hand has yet to convince me that they're truly brining some badly needed umph to their non-fighter IPs, especially one concerning a certain Super Vehicle but I digress.

Arbalest Oscar Mike! Full Metal Panic video game Announced!

I thought I never would see this happening in real life but here it is: Full Metal Panic is getting a video game, specifically a strategy RPG of sorts. Like hot damn, one of my dreams is becoming true right in front of my eyes as I'm typing this.

Now to understand why I'm happy about this, you have to know that I am a big fan of the Full Metal Panic franchise since I watched the first few episodes on Hulu (at a time before they decided it was a "great" idea to be paid subscription only recently and outsource the free part to Yahoo TV for some idiotic, Lickboot-ite reason). I mean I'm quite impressed with a show that combines military sensibilities with cliché anime high school highjinks and that alone is gold in my book, though I'm not much of a mecha person (I prefer the types like the Level Armors from Metal Slug) but I digress. And it seems like FMP is making a comeback 12 years after that disappointing mediocrity that was Second Raid, like seriously that show disappointed in many ways despite its return to the military related intrigue and stuff after the lighthearted high jinks of Fumoffu (though that season alone is enjoyable in its right); though I am aware of the manga adaptations and the light novels continuing after Second Raid but I never read them as of now. In addition, not only are we FMP fans getting a video game adaptation of which I longed for some five years now, but also a new season for the TV anime series, called Invisible Victory; like it better have the voice actors from the previous season reprise their roles or I ain't gonna be happy.

Anyway, I'll do a little analysis of the teaser being shown on the article in question and I'll post my predictions just afterwards. So we get some exposition lines as we see some tire tracks in the snow, surprisingly voiced in English with Japanese subtitles (it's as if Bandai-Namco knew that the FMP series has fans in the English speaking West), then we cut to some snapshots from the show with the two main protagonists, and then we see the gameplay and it looks alright. I mean this is a beta of sorts and hopefully not the final product; it'd be stupid of Bamco to so but moving on. So what we see so far is something that allows you to freely roam around the battlefield as long as its in some circular limit and that it looks like a turned based RPG of sorts and I'm fine with that given that I excel at turn based stuff than real time ones. That and you have the ability to use firearm and melee weapons since that's how it is in the show, though I wonder if the game allows you to master the Landadrive thing that Sosuke struggled with in Second Raid? That'd be something. That and the armslaves (the robots the characters use to fight with) are chibi looking for some reason. And from what I know, the game is being made by the same folks behind the Super Robot Wars series of which funnily enough featured FMP in it and I have never played the SRW franchise in particular. Already the game is promising yet it looks like it needs polish before we see a full trailer in the future.

Given that the show had featured some good share of stuff happening in the high school the protagonists go to (especially in Fumoffu), my good guess is that at least a third of the game is spent doing stuff in high school, just like how it is in the Persona games, and that it can have an effect on the missions Sosuke undertakes outside of high school. Though come to think of it, that Fumoffu suit, the one where it looks like some yellow bearish creature with a green bowler hat, should be a usuable armslave just for s--ts and giggles; it'd make some great let's play material and Pew Die Pie better utilize it if he's gonna play the game in the future (and p--- off the haters from places like the Wall Street Journal for the mudslinging they did early this year) but I'm getting ahead of myself. Another good possibility is the addition of new characters specifically for the game in question and hopefully more interesting than most of the ones from Second Raid, though it'd be pretty odd for the antagonists from both the first and third seasons to show up as some sort of bonus boss fights or somethin'. With all of that said, I'm looking forward to what this FMP video game that I have long clamored for, though admittedly in my own head, will bring us when more details arrive in the future.

My only big concern is the platform of choice right now, the PS4, of which I said time and time again, I'll never invest in unless Sony throws in disc based backwards compatibility with PS1 and 2 games but sadly they're too stupid and greedy to do so, rather making us wrongly rebuy them on PSN and this Gaikai garbage but that's another story for another time. And of course, no Vita, because again Sony is too stupid to care for that underrated and awesome device and unwisely gave up on it in the West (sometimes making me wondering why I bothered getting it in the first place last year) but again I digress. Hopefully there might be a chance for a PC release, albeit on Steam but that's okay, better there for me than not given that I have a Steam account (though I prefer to buy them digitally now since I'm not bothering getting physical PC disks since they require Steam stuff and I do not wish to contribute to perpetuating this stupidity but that's another story for another time). Oh yeah and it might have DLC (or rather will possibly have) because EVERY game's GOTTA have it for some reason...can't they just not and leave it up to the developers to give their games some or not yet it should be MANDATORY for ALL games to have a complete edition with ALL the DLC by now (otherwise the developers should stop making games, nuff said); but hopefully the best case scenario is that they're like add on post launch content and not like horse armor and s--t.

But anyway, the fact that we FMP fans are getting a video game and a fourth season is a sign that good times are ahead for the franchise in question and that's a good sign in my book; that and it was something I just woke up too before making this post so better wake up to good news than bad I guess.

The New Kerfuffle: Why the Politics and Marketing Should not Mix

In light of the uproar about the marketing campaign behind Wolfenstein: Shadow of the Colossus and the misrepresentation of the uproar by the mainstream media to be some neo-Nazi shenanigans and Micah Curtis's somewhat understandable response, I'd figure I put my two cents on this issue and let me warn you this can get political but I have to say it.

Now before continuing, I must stress that I am clearly against Nazism and its ilk (talking about the Nazi Party, the SS, the Waffen-SS, and some likeminded Wehrmacht fellows), like 100% against them and that I'm perfectly okay with killing them in video games since well they are what that guy from South Park said, "very very bad people" (paraphrasing here but you get the idea). Even if they have some good ideas like opposing capitalism and communism (and pro-animal rights), it doesn't matter since those small bits of good will never outweigh their bad ideas and their actions since they believed that solving the problems of mankind was to either exterminate and/or enslave those that are "racially" inferior; small wonder why they are rightly considered the slime of humanity and often considered the villain by default. Though I'm not too gung ho on the Nazi-killing business these days since it's been done before and that I have other equally evil targets to go after than a common dead, evil horse; I mean they are the ultimate generic villain to use in pop culture (though at least it's justified mind you given what they are and did) that at least almost no one in the world can get offended at (compared to say Communists but that's another story for another time) and rightly so. In addition, I'm fine with this more darker and mature direction the new Wolfenstein series takes in that they remind us that the Nazis aren't just some people with different uniforms on the different side of the conflict but really bad people just as they are in real life (though they lack a lot of interesting contraptions in their arsenals), though to be honest they are somewhat more relatable (or rather barely) than demons but it doesn't matter at this point. Same can be said of vice versa, but it again it doesn't matter, they are acceptable targets after all and that's that.

Now to this marketing controversy; and as you know, a recent tweet said, "Make America Nazi-Free Again" and of course the internet is in an uproar; outsiders may look at this as a sign of "rising Neo/AlterRighter/Nazism" and get upset or at least groan but a closer look reveals that the community has a problem with just the marketing, not the fact that you fight Nazis. I mean the gaming community is pretty much A-Okay on that and rightly so; it's just that headline that clearly copies Trump's campaign slogan of which actually originated from Regan's old 1980 campaign slogan (making wonder if we should make him "evil" because of that phrase). And to be fair it's somewhat understandable to be not comfy with that phrase of "make something great/something again", far too often it's been used to mock Trump and/or equate villains in fiction with him because the mainstream media says so. Thought at least Mr. Curtis on reddit argues that the phrase is part of pop culture now and the least people can do is use it in a neutral and maybe positive way and I think he has a good point; it'd make me more comfier to see it used less to spite Trump. As for my view on the marketing line about "making America Nazi-free again", I just wish they gotten a better line since that one would end up dating itself, like "Take Back America from Nazi Tyranny" or "Free USA/Smash the Reich" or something like that.

Edit: In hindsight, I think the marking line in question is probably the least offensive the idiotic twitter handler spouted given the game's objective of freeing the USA from Nazi tyranny.

But of course I need to get into the bigger scope of things regarding the politics going on as of this writing; see, this admittedly unnecessary freak out over this tweet is a symptom of this idiotic tying in current politics in the US to the dystopian setting of the game by the mainstream media and their sympathizers, especially the likes of Polygon and their ilk as well as the leftist attempts to label anyone to the right of far-left as a "Nazi", thus ending up diluting the meaning of the term and taking Godwin's Law to the extreme. And as you can see, it really isn't helping, considering how VASTLY different the Trump Administration (for all of its flaws...especially that d--k Paj) and an ACTUAL Nazi occupation of the USA are, and it isn't just Wolfenstein getting unnecessarily politicized (at least in the marketing section), Man in the High Castle and A Handmaid's Tale are getting this too and it needs to stop. All this does is show how immature the media are when it comes to handling current politics, making me take them very less seriously to the point of mocking them (there's a good reason I made two maps making fun of this idea of Trump causing a MITHC situation though and I'm not bothering to upload them to AH.com ever) but thankfully I'm too smart to waste my time with these idiots, especially their followers who retweet whatever garbage tries to tie Trump to X and watch stupid late night "comedies" bashing him nonstop (of which make me question their statuses as "adults" if they're over the age of consent); hell, I rather deal with people who retweet stuff about Metal Slug Ass-tack and make stupid videos about something something MSA crank-artichoke deck of cards stuff over anything politics related but I digress. However, I have one thing to say to all of you mainstream "news" sites (both gaming and non-gaming) and the people  believing the idiotic narrative of [insert dystopic work of fiction] being "comparable" to Trump and the USA: go f--k yourselves! Please, take your dumb, kiddy grade fantasies of today's USA being something something dystopic and shove them up your asses and put a spin on them.

Now I usually don't say stuff like that but I must stress how little patience I have for this politics nonsense, especially when we should be more concerned with stuff like ISIS, radical Islamic terrorism, alt-left antics, figuring out the motive of the Las Vegas shooter, and when the hell will SNK (the company) make something non-KOF and non-mobile? Those are more important than trying to "relate" how Trump being president is to something truly bad like actual Nazi Germans taking over and messing up the U.S. of A.

Metal Slut Waifus and I: How the Waifus aren't the Main Problem of MSA

art done by BlueSquirrel 23

Since SNK came out with a new character as part of the update for that piece of ass Metal Slug Attack game (of which maybe I should just keep calling it "Metal Slug Ass-tack"...and I'll get to my gripe with SNK shilling it later on), and that plenty of people are getting frustrated about the "waifus" that the game is getting recently, I'd figure I'd put my two cents into this issue. And let me tell you as a bit of a spoiler, they aren't the main problem but a symptom of a bigger problem...

Now before I begin, let us go back to the time the first update for MSA came out, the one that had some new characters come out. Mind you I have long advocated for having new charas ever since I was a teenager falling in love with the franchise in the 2000's (long before that asscrap digital ghetto came out). Why you may ask? because to quote one of the MS designers, "it...would be good to [expand] the [Metal Slug universe] by focusing on other characters living [there] or creating more about the background and motivation of [the] main characters" and indeed having more new characters or at least more into the backstories of established ones would be one good way to bring depth into the mythos of a franchise that just hasn't done much since its inception. Seeing the newbies in question appear in Ass-tack made me somewhat bittersweet in that at least the game of which I detested had a few redeeming qualities, along with having Another Story of which I'll consider that the "campaign" mode of the game (and I'll get to that later on). However since then, the new characters have gotten disproportionately more and more female and more fanservicey as hell; not that I find that combination bad but it is a problem when the recent these days are almost entirely just that and no new male ones just recolors of previous units (and that something thousand Taro guy). Granted the gals in question have interesting backstories and whatnot, especially Shizuka and her taste in sweets, Jin the swordswoman having connections to her and Yoshino, both of which are part of the enemy factions, Destrade, the Zarya looking gal having a kind of "parental" relationship with Allen, and Dragunov's relations with her COs but the fact that they show more skin than necessary can be somewhat annoying to see even for someone like me. Yet part of why this is so can be summed up in one sentence: sex sells. And I'm pretty sure you know that already, I mean what else there can be for someone who are sexually attracted to women to get behind when it comes to the "waifus"? I wouldn't mind them in such a state if their "stripperrific" selves are like an alternate costume that can be somewhat more powerful yet fun to use (and troll players in PVP battles), yet that's not the case. In fact, it's safe to say that the waifus are also part of SNK Moneymore's strategy of unwisely continuing to prop up this not so decent game along with using microtransactions.

I make no secret I despise this game, since while it feels like it can be pretty decent at times (with the mechanics being actually alright despite being simple looking), it's infested with this gacha microtransaction nonsense that a lot of mobile games have for the reason of greed...and hurts the game, big time. I mean, I couldn't beat the first Another Story campaign (the one where you take the side of the PF squad and fight against the Martians) at all without having to either grind or buy stuff for a more tougher and appropriate unit with real money, same goes for a couple of battles outside of AS and that the grinding part throughout the game feels off and artificially tedious, especially with the fact that it would take a long time to get many of your units to higher levels, more stars, and better "frames".

It's not like Metal Gear 7/Solid 5: the Phantom Pain where (while it has microtransactions, it only thankfully applies to multiplayer and presumably not as intrusive) at least you can grind to get more items and equipment to take on more difficult assignments and get more enjoyment from replaying previous missions, all without the bullcrap that are "sorties", "medals", and "cranks". All those (as of this writing) 177 hours of game play took nothing but brains, guts, hands, controller, skill, and in some cases a strategy book from Piggyback and luck. In MSA, I didn't even pay one cent, NOT one CENT, for anything, and while I have plenty of units to my knowledge (mainly through cranks), I have to spend a lot of MSPs on leveling them up and that I have yet to get more powerful units and more stuff to upgrade them, all while accounting for frames which make a difference despite having two units be at the same level when at different frames and those star things which again effect the battle. I'm pretty sure other people can explain this better but to sum this all up, all those frames and stars needlessly complicate the game and I could have beaten not only more stages but also a few AS campaigns; same goes for improving my experience if we have like a kind of system to buy units without this multiple currency type nonsense and crank s--t. And I know some may argue that the microtransactions are "merely optional" and that I can just grind my way through the game; but I just can't since it would take a long ass time for me to get my units strong and considering that I have many games to play (and replay for some), it's not worth my time and that again the game is rigged to entice you to get the mircotransactions just to win battles. There's a quote from ReviewTechUSA about this kind of stupidity, "spending money to beat a video game or have an advantage in a video game isn't playing it" and indeed it defeats the purpose of playing games to enjoy them, I play games for the sake of it and not to worry about spending my hard earned money on stuff I rather grind to get (I know that you have to spend money in an arcade game but that doesn't count) ingame.

Here's a good video by Yong Yea that highlights how this microtransaction garbage can ruin an otherwise decent game:

Now granted it might not have anything to do with MSA, but I can't help but connect it to my experiences with said game. As for me, I gave up on the game (quite rightly I add) after almost a month of pondering whether or not to keep playing it and decided it wasn't worth it. Sadly a lot of players still stuck with playing this crap but hey that's their decision, a stupid one IMO. The least they can do is point out the Lickboot-ite s--t SNK pulls off on Reddit, but again it won't change the fact that SNK basically got away with this (let's face it) scam and will continue to keep milking it for the foreseeable future, much to the detriment of the franchise's dignity (and no the newbies and the Another Story mode just won't save the game IMO, the damage is already done). It doesn't matter if the game was alright before said waifus came, what matters is that it's on mobile, has microtransactions, and is rigged to get you to use them to get ahead in the game. I mean I can accept that it reuses much of the sprites from previous games along with the soundtrack (thought the SFX are messed up for some reason), but one that has the kind of stuff that takes longer than usual to get plenty of strong units (and leveling them) and a form of limiting your turns via "sorties" when you can just not have them is quite a deal breaker for me.

And honestly I don't want this damn game existing anymore and I have frankly had it, like enough is enough. At this point I just want it shut down, SOON. Like maybe at the end of the year soon; why? because SNK ain't going to fix it anytime and it's getting on my nerves. Some of you may say that I can just "ignore" it but I can't, it's the only thing in the franchise that's being kept relevant and frequently infesting not only the MS wiki but also my Google searches. Also I don't want an MS8, just nope; trying to be like the arcade games (the way MS7 and XX did) didn't work then and it wouldn't work now and people who advocate for them are frankly IMO naïve and misguided. At this point a reboot of the franchise is necessary IMO, one that would ditch being sprite based and maybe arcade like but not a lot of people are going to like that but I don't give a damn.

But anyway, to sum this all up, the waifus being sometimes stripperific can be somewhat odd, at least are somewhat interesting to have in the lore of the franchise's mythos, they are unfortunately part of SNK's ways to get suckers into playing Ass-tack and frankly, I can see through it and I would suggest you do too.

Update: While I have put up the quote about the characters from one of the Nazca staff, I should also mention that the franchise already has its share of "waifus" long before Ass-tack came out.

Con Suers Win: Nintendo Loses to iLife in Court

I just couldn't believe it when I heard of this a few days ago but thankfully Rich of ReviewtechUSA reminded me along with one of the posters on Main Event TV's facebook of this kind of shocking event: for the first time in history, Nintendo has just lost a lawsuit against some nobody company called iLife over some discontinued hardware that the company in question "claims" that Nintendo stole from (granted the hardware in question is the awesome Wii but I digress). In an ideal world no one would bother with the garbage false as hell "lawsuit" that iLife cooked up just to get more money for money's sake but alas that isn't so, as life can often not be fair. Someway, somehow the judge in some Texan court took stupid pills this morning and declared that Nintendo is the "culprit" and must pay up this con artist company for supposed "wrongdoings", that or he must be really retarded.

Either way, I can safely say that iLife can go f--k themselves for this kind of idiocy and getting away with it; Nintendo has no right to uphold their "appeal" thing and should just give those iLife Lickbootites the middle finger by not giving up the court issue. It's times like these where I wish I had some way of donating my money to something like a patreon equivalent to Nintendo to help them out financially (along with many other youtubers who have a lot of patreon accounts but I have no idea how to do so as of this post) but the whole patreon/gofundamee/something starter thing is another story for another time. But still I just can't belive that these d-----bag moneybags can pull off something like this; they have to like bribed the judge behind close doors or something, there's just no other way they could succeed in this.

But ranting about how much those iLife goons can take it up their asses wouldn't be any help but the least I (and maybe you) can do is keep up on any developments on this "Nintendo v. iLife" situation in the near future. Hopefully Nintendo can fight back against those pr--ks given that Nintendo is a multi-million dollar company with a lot of financial resources and supporters like myself (though granted they recently done some stupid decisions but that doesn't matter right now) to help them out.

Low Joe? Angry Joe vs. the Internet

(note: this might be old but I had other things to do so I'm just getting this up here while it's still relevant)

It seems that ol' Angry Joe getting different lately and that it's not sitting well with the community at large: namely him announcing his 2 month vacation from making game reviews and topping it off by disabling comments and ratings after the uproar he received. What led to the backlash was his vacation only applying to game reviews and not his other videos, which technically makes this kind of outrage understandable.

And as you can tell by my way of viewing it, I'm somewhat more understanding of Angry Joe than the community given that making reviews in general takes a while, especially with him having to do other responsibilities in life regarding health and chores just as I have to. However, I do not think disabling comments and ratings just after announcing this is a smart idea and is actually kind of shady; maybe it's because of the whole experience of seeing how a certain rad fem "critic" deal with criticism but I know AJ should know better. All he might end up doing is fanning the flames so the best thing he should do is well not. But then again he did admit on his response video that he would never do this kind of shutting down comments and ratings thing like 3 years ago and now he went back on it; talk about hypocrisy.

In regards to his vacation though, I'm going to do something after seeing this: I'm going to give Joe the benefit of the doubt by just waiting for his game reviews to come out. Why? because well as I have said, I understand the need to do other responsibilities in life and trying to get freshened up outside of making content (heck I have plenty of material to make after making this blog post) and in that sense I think he's right to do so. I know it may not be a popular opinion to espouse in light of this but my gripes with his handling of the backlash (and him claiming that the "haters" are after him and being subbed to those Young Turk jerks), but keeping calm and not do anything rash is the best way to handle it; though to be fair he should apply the vacation to his other reviews of which I don't care for as much as his game ones, that would help.

My Review of Ohrai's Metal Gear Works

It's July 13th, and today is the 30th anniversary of the Metal Gear franchise, one of my favorite gaming franchises of all time and I'm going to celebrate by reviewing the artworks of one of the best artists in history (though Konami is making a "game" to the dismay of anyone who cares about the series but I must digress for the sake of my sanity).

And of course I'm going to play art critic because why not? I don't have much to do as of this post. But anyway, for the sake of maintaining some atmosphere of positivity, I'm going to focus on his weakest works to the best ones since what else to end it on a positive note to celebrate a revered and respected franchise?

And before continuing, must note that I'm using my preferred nicknames for the games listed that don't have the Solid in them. Why? because that's how I wished they were called; it pays to have watched AVGN's video on the inconsistent sequel titles and I figure I would follow his words on them since I agree with him but that's another topic for another time.

So let's start on his cover for Metal Gear 4: Sons of Liberty (AKA Solid 2):

Good lord, it could some work; Snake looks like he's on crack or some other stilumant drug. That or he took way too much meds to keep himself awake. And I get it we all need something to keep ourselves awake in our times we're active but this just doesn't sound right. Also isn't he supposed to have his left eye shut for accuracy? And they appear to be purple for some reason as well as his face but moving on. Fortune's boobs look like freakin' torpedoes (and bigger than they were in the game!), not that I think it's a bad thing (and in fact it's a plus in my book) but of course that plus is outweighed by her legs looking too skinny for her physique and her face making her look like Michael Jackson to an extent. Fat Man seems to be either lacking a lower torso and his arms look bigger than they should be in the games but maybe it's the perspective of him crouching; not to mention his face looks purple for no reason (almost like a purple people eater!). Vamp looks alright, though him behind a hapless SEAL dude threw me off for a while, making me think he's either part of Dead Cell or "Snake Plisskin". A little odd that the cover depicts his death which seems a little violent to me but whatever, preferably I rather have his corpse slumped in front him or held up and having his blood sucked out like that one scene in the game. Overall, outside of those flaws, everything else seems alright, though those Gurlukovich Soldiers on the top right corner look like they're astronauts floating in space (to quote Pennywise, "They float...they all float").

Another cover for MG4:

Yeah another flawed one, though this one seems slightly better IMO. Raiden looks like he's either on botox or a member of Deathklok (or even that one black haired dude who's name escapes me); and his hair is blonde for some reason. Solidus Snake, while he's alright in terms of the depiction, looks like Ogma from Metal Slug 3D and his eye seems to have lost his pupil (perhaps it's due to the resolution displayed). Revolver Ocelot, while also drawn fine, looks almost like a different person and where it not for his SAA revolver, I probably would be confused as to his identity. "Mr. X", the blatant expy of Gray Fox, looks like he's having bowel problems and resisting the urge to go to the bathroom, almost like what Johnny Sasaki and his relatives constantly have. Over than those flaws, again everything seems alright.

On to the cover for Metal Gear 5: Snake Eater (AKA Solid 3):

Well this one seems to be more of an improvement over the over two but still some minor nitpicks. For one, Eva's face makes her look like she's in her thirties, but at least she's rocking that rack if you know what I mean. Also the Boss's gun looks slightly different than it was in the game and her eyes seem blackish for some reason like she's getting posessed. That and it seems to be cut off from the left edge, making it almost incomplete, otherwise I would be ranking this as one of the better covers Ohrai made.

Another cover for Metal Gear 5:

Another good one, and it seems more complete so to say. Though one flaw is the redundant use of the Boss in this, I know the rest of the entries repeat some of the characters over and over but this one to me feels unnecessary. Personally I stick with just having the Boss in the background and not also in the bottom right corner riding her horse; it should have been just the horse itself for all I care. That and Eva's right eye is slightly crooked, but it's pretty minor to say the least. Otherwise, a pretty good pic from Ohrai-san.

The cover for Metal Gear 3 (AKA Solid 1):

While predating the previous entries, this one seems to be a lot better and on par with the first cover for MG5. It's safe to say this might be one of my picks but I'll get to that later. Not only is this well drawn, but the composition is clear as hell to me; I can make out what side is the protagonist's and what is the antagonist's and it seems to be like getting the viewer on the edge of his/her seat. Though Liquid Snake's hair seems alitte short or that he seems slightly balder than he is, making look like John Smith from Disney's Pocahontas. That and Otacon's hair looks girlish for some reason but those are about it. A stunning work for a stunning game, that's pretty fitting so to say.

The cover for Metal Gear: Portable Ops (though I must disclose that I have not played the game yet though I have a PSP now and I probably should seek out a physical copy of it, and that I might not be able to know the names of some of the characters involved):

Now this one might be another top pick for me as this not only showing a clear composition about the sides involved but also seems slightly more action packed but not completely constant. Though again some nitpicks, like that dead woman Big Boss is next to seems white as snow for some reason and that the Cunningham guy seems fat (though maybe he's like that in the game). Over than those details, this one is great and on par with the last one. Though the guy with the white headband (who might be Roy Campbell if I remember) looks like Marco Rossi and that the gal in the middle with blue hair reminds me of Alice from that meh Metal Slug Attack game for some reason. I don't know why I needed to type that last sentence out but that's just a hunch I have.

So in conclusion the first two are weak, the middle two are fine (though the first one had potential to be part of the best), and the last two are superb. And if you ask me the best one out of all the covers Ohrai made, I'd say the one for Metal Gear PO takes the cake since it manages to be action packed and getting the viewers more effectively with most of the characters seeming to get ready to fight at a moment's notice.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Metal Gear! May you hope to be...um, remembered fondly by those that played the games in general.


Sources: http://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/162906640390/noriyoshi-ohrai-生頼-範義-november-17-1935

Prepare to Cringe: Crash is the "Dark Souls" of Platformers

It has been almost a week since the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy came out for the "PS4" and if you ask me, it looks just as good as the originals, though there are some gripes I have with the game (especially in regards to the voice acting of which I feel is questionable in most parts). But alas, the mainstream games journalism must find something "witty" to say when covering the N Sane Trilogy games, namelydeclaring Crash Bandicoot, of all franchises, to be the "Dark Souls" of platformers.

It's stuff like this is why I not only not take mainstream gaming news seriously but also feel ashamed to be a millennial; it seems that the newer generation can't seem to appreciate the classics properly. I get that the games in general are tough but not impossible to beat, heck I just was able to beat them almost smoothy last year for the franchise's 20th anniversary celebration. All it took was raw skill and guts, no hand holding, no mircotransactions, no BS, nothing, and that's what I like about most games back in the day.

At least the good news is that a lot of people aren't taking this well and rightly so and in fact mocking it by making memes out of it, one of the joys of the internet.

Escándalo de Super Mario! Mario "Appropriates" Mexican outfits

Indeed, it didn't take long for snowflake crazies to find something to bash about the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey game; what Mario is wearing in particular when he goes to that Mexican looking kingdom place. I mean people are getting upset that Mario is wearing a Sombrero and a Poncho in the game; and keep in mind that the reason he wears it is to have the one guy get his approval regarding  a dress code in the kingdom in the game. But alas, the mere fact that Mario is wearing them means that somehow the game is racist towards Mexicans; like as if Nintendo would go out of its way to tick off the population of Mexico and its cousins outside of Mexico. Last time I checked, Mario's more concerned about rescuing Peach from Bowser Koopa's wedding that she didn't want and I highly doubt he should worry about the Mexican clothes he dons later on as long as he's...you know, fully clothed and not otherwise.

Thankfully a lot of Mexican people aren't really offended at this and in fact are pretty okay with it, as anyone should be. That and of course folks like AlphaOmegaSin pointing out the absurdity of the whole backlash against Mario wearing sombreros and ponchos.

I don't know about you, but there's a lot of things I'd be more concerned about when it comes to Super Mario Odyssey than a freaking sombrero and poncho and I suggest you do too.

It Once Did Everything: PS3 gets discontinued in Japan and a Potential Memoriam

I really feel bitter writing this considering my liking for the console in question and my lack of fondness for it's "successor" but I must address this since it just happened sooner than I thought: the dreaded time when the PS3, the last great Sony console IMO, is officially discontinued in its home country, Japan. I know some people (SOME people) will just not care and go "oh boo-hoo, an olld console dat almost nobah-dee carez abowt in da wohrld iz goin' de wey of da doh doh but I gawt me sum fancier s--t with moar graphics and spekz and s--t so I dawnt feel bahd" but let me, as one of the presumably few people sticking with an "old dinosaur" console put my thoughts on this.

I'm simply saddened that Sony chose to put a pretty console out into the pasture and basically making us gamers stick to the "PS4" of which will always be a PS3.5 without backwards compatibility nor it's very convenient XMB menu system; all this without even putting back the ability to play PS2 discs in some version that can considered the "swan song"! God, writing that just makes me even more angry at Sony for just canning the PS3; I get it, it's no longer the big system that the gamer community care anymore for some reason but at least give it a few more years before say 2020 and maybe a few more games like Atlus did with Persona 5, of which I will forever be happy to own it as one of the last PS3 games ever made in my lifetime but I digress. I mean the PS2, despite it's heyday fading out by 2008, got to be able to be made until 2013, that's like 13 years since it came out in the year 2000 and with the rather unwarranted advent of the "PS4", I expect the company to do the same with the PS3, in spite of my earlier distaste for the console since Sony thought it was a great idea to get rid of backwards compatibility, disc-wise for the PS2, in their later models (and I will never get over it, never!). But alas, I was wrong and here they are discontinuing the console in their home country of all places, though to be fair they did start this trend in New Zealand almost two years ago so it's technically expected this would happen but not this early.

*Sigh* At least I have the Nintendo Switch as the true next-gen console to look forward too, that system is worth getting for as far as I'm concerned (the PC doesn't count, though I would need to get Win 10 sometime before 2020 but that's another story for another time) .

Slander Fi! The Marines Get Attacked for "Toxic Masculinity"!

Happy Memorial Day! and today I'm going to show you something not so happy. Why? Because it's outrageous and deserves to be mentioned. For some hairbrained reason, Vox, one of the many "respected" mainstream publications, decide to crap on the USMC for being some supposed "rape culture" institution that uses "systemic sexism" of a sort. And I'm like what? All this on a day where our armed forces, in spite of their problems in the past and today, are to be respected for the duties they do? It's as if Vox has a bone to pick with the Marine Corps of all things, especially in a service that's supposed to use "toxic masculinity" to carry out various tasks to ensure the safety of our citizens and other countries around the world; it's a military institution for crying out loud.

And I suppose one can argue they're merely criticizing the past treatment of women and I guess that might be okay; but why bother trying to all negative on a holiday when they should be rightly praising the USMC's attempt to get women into their ranks? It goes to show you that SJWs are never satisfied in a true sense and will criticize anything, even my country's military, just to make their voices heard. Well I got bad news for Vox; the Marines are more worried about ISIS trying to wreck havoc in the Middle East as much as they can before they rightly go kaput and/or try to take down more innocent lives in Europe and the West than some nonsensical "systemic sexism".

Spawned In the USA: Far Cry 5 Stokes Politicized Craze

I did not see this coming though I must stress that I really don't care about Far Cry at all aside from playing the first game on the Xbox console of which I enjoyed a lot but lost interest over time nor am I interesting in the upcoming game I will mention now. Anyway it's shown that Far Cry 5 is not only coming out but will be set in my home country, the United States and that the villains will be some fringe, Christian doomsday cult that took over some county in Montana and they are all white. Granted I really don't care if I'm fighting the Nazis, the Soviets, not-Al Qaeda, or Morden's Rebels as long as I know that the bad guys are evil in both historical and/or fictional context, i.e. deserving to be whooped, but I have to stress that description of the villains of FC5 for a reason.

A good number of articles and people on twitter (sometimes I wonder why twitter was ever invented in the first place) are trying to make it out to be some "commentary" on the Trump administration and of the US political scene today. And you can tell I'm not enthusiastic about this agenda pushing nonsense since I feel they definitely aren't contributing to whatever the message the game might present to us and of discussion. I mean I don't see how trying to shove current day politics in pop culture (in a blatant fashion rather) would do any wonders though granted there were numerous attempts in the past since print was invented I guess but I feel like the recent trend of trying to tie stuff about Trump and other political subjects in something like Far Cry 5 is really getting annoying real fast. Heck I called this out when people where trying to tie the Trump campaign to something like the Man in the High Castle TV show of which something like an Axis takeover of the USA isn't worth a lot of political debates and campaigns to deal with but I digress for the sake of my sanity.

And here again, something like an insane doomsday cult that speaks for God yet abuses its Christian ways (and no doubt bringing out the bad from the Bible...no joke the Bible had some bad stuff in it) should not worth getting politicized over as there is nothing political about obviously evil cults taking over innocent towns and whatnot, it's a moral issue and something has be done to defeat them. Thankfully this article points out the stupidity of making FC5 something about Trump and the USA and kudos to him; the more people pointing out the agenda pushing nonsense the better.

And as for me, I'm not getting FC5, not because of the setting and the controversy, but because there's more games worth my time IMO, like the Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Gotcha Force, as they are more expensive to own than they should be but that's another post for another time.

Update: Things are really getting of out hand now that there's a "petition" floating around that basically demands Ubisoft to change the game as to not be "anti-white" yet it has been pointed out by plenty of people that the petition is a fake and that many gaming "journalists" fell for it. I mean the whole line about "harassment of gamers by mainstream journalists during Gamergate" should be obvious that something isn't right about the petition given that while the major of the pro-Gamergate community has not done any harassment, there is a small minority of them that did do the harassment business. Yet, they are rightly condemned by the majority since they like many other asshat trolls, they don't add anything meaningful; the most the mainstream journalists did is shame gaming culture and declare them "dead" of which I will contend help escalate the controversy more than it needed to be but that's another story for another time. But I will link more about how this petition is a fake to this article that explains more in detail than I can.

Bill Nye, the Science Dork: How Low He Fell

(I know some people would object to linking to Breitbart, but f--k it I don't care, as long as mainstream news outlets and sites like InfoWars don't get the clicks and I'm not in the mood to archive links to similar topics right now): http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/04/24/bill-nye-rachel-bloom-team-for-lgbt-sex-anthem-my-vagina-has-its-own-voice/

Well, it happened, Bill Nye, the once proud name in teaching children the importance of science and being featured on that ride with Ellen DeGeneres going back to the age of the Dinosaurs in Disney World Epcot, is now going off the deep end in promoting this crazy idea of gender being a social construct and that gender is on a "spectrum", meaning that men can be women and vice versa. Now I might be missing some things to back up my argument but I know this can somewhat apply to transgenders and this sex change is a result of them dealing with medical disorders that had to be dealt with surgery, but this idea of gender and sex not synonymous at all and that there's more than two is ridiculous (though I personally like to believe there's two and a half genders but that's it). I mean to me, the idea of genders being a "spectrum" that's not related to medical surgery sounds like something out of some nutty fetishist's hentai comic (or manga if you prefer); in fact it's almost like Anime Phsyics for all I care. If that kind of notion is true then where's the instant nosebleeds from looking at attractive people, spiky hairs, and people being punched to the horizon and "turning into stars"? I digress; I should also note that he appears to be shoving this nuttiness down people's faces with the lyrics that sound don't even sound like they belong in a show with Nye involved; it's more like something some left-leaning webseries would have made.

And keep in mind this isn't the only time Nye is getting politicized, he made some false claims about the constitution needing to support sciences and that science is political, though there is plenty of truth to that claim to his credit. Yet ironically he was kicked out of the March For Science well marches for being a white, cishet, male, go figure; I guess that's what he got for being so politicized. I hate to see blacks and non-whites being kicked out for supporting political right wing causes regarding current politics.

Update: Although I must stress that I do sympathize with his claim that climate change must be taken seriously, but he ends up making himself look like a fool by saying that climate change...skeptics need to be locked up and treated on the same page as genocide deniers. Hasn't he heard of like ignoring them since well they aren't completely right on this subject?

Update 2: There seems to be an episode from Nye's old show that explicitly showed that there are two genders and that gender is determined by chromosomes, which would rightly contradict Nye's new view on the spectrum nonsense, that got removed just not too long after the "brilliant" gender "spectrum" episode got released; talk about an act of Minitruth. And now Snopes, the "ever so reliable fact checking site" claims that the "spectrum" thing is true and that the old video that was removed is false the whole time....

I'm going to let this sum up how I feel about the various sites defending this nutty doublethink:

Still Active

Hey folks, in case you are wondering, I haven't updated this blog in like a couple months, various other things had taken my attention, including certain political events of which I don't wish to talk about right now.

So in the meantime, I'll find whatever topic that is fitting for me to do a post on as well as updating my other blog, so stay tuned.