Posts Tagged ‘Bad Machinery’

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All Points Bulletin: Zorg of Versailles

May 27, 2012

If you have any suggestions for what to highlight on an APB drop us a line via email or Twitter.

Narutaki’s picks:

  • Oscar’s Pachinko Revolution
    Apparently, unbeknownst to me there are multiple Rose of Versailles panchiko machines. These are images from the latest one. The only thing I’d be worried about is what is the ending video when you win? Rose of Versailles, not the happiest ending in the land.
  • Bad Machinery in Print
    This quirky webcomic is something I recently started reading, but John Allison was a forerunner in webcomics way back when. He releases limited print-runs of story arcs, of which I have the recent Murder She Writes. But now, finally after many years, Bad Machinery are getting official collections from Oni Press.
  • Video Game Prints
    These Ukiyo-inspired pieces featuring classic Nintendo characters are really nice. I think the Samus one is my favorite.
  • Red Riding Redux
    This Disney long-lost short recently made its way to the surface again. It isn’t that old, 1997, but it has never been made available on home video despite being nominated for an Oscar. It is a rather unexpected production, it doesn’t feel like Disney all that much. The animation is more stylized and they even use photographs of objects in certain pieces. I can’t say I really liked it, but it was interesting to see.

Hisui’s picks:

Oscar will always be a man among men, even though she is a woman.

Posted in All Points Bulletin | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #148

December 16, 2011

I’ve started playing Professor Layton and the Last Specter which is the start of the prequel arc featuring the first meeting of Layton and Luke. Since this is the case, the game begins with Layton meeting his new assistant Emmy who quickly became a favorite of mine. She is a new addition with her high energy and physical nature. At times she even acts as the audience to the strange happenings making comments like these villagers are so weird and the like. And it is a good thing I fell in love with her quickly, I just started a new chapter where she has broken off from Layton and Luke to go solo in London. So far the story has been in line with previous games which is a positive; I’ve been able to deduce small mysteries but the Specter remains elusive. The town seems more sprawling complete with canals and boat transportation but like the last two games it tends to box you into a path and only lets you explore at its discretion which I always take issue with. Puzzles are Layton puzzles and nothing has stood out though there does seem to be more real math than before. I’m happy to say the car path mini-game is back, but made way better because it is with trains! I haven’t gotten to London Life yet. If you’ve seen the movie Eternal Diva you know a little more about this game, but I’m looking forward to now go back and watch it with a fuller knowledge.

Mass Effect is a series that has a rich back story and world building aspects that can be totally ignored if you wish to play the game as a straight sci-fi action game. I being a Type-Moon fan of course am the sort of person who will pour over all the in-game encyclopedia entries and journals. So that fact alone won the game major bonus points with me. That aside I think the game lives up to all the praise the fans give to the series. It has a solid plot that you can play through fairly quickly if you skip all the side material. But half the fun is all the side missions you can do. The main plot line maybe be the entrée but the side dishes are equally important to the meal in its entirety although you might not want to do all the silly collect all the tchotchkes missions like I did. But the cool thing is so many of your decisions carry over to the next two games be it huge decisions you make in the main plot line or little choices you make in side quests. It gives you a reason to seek out missions just so you can impact the world as opposed to just collecting more money and experience. Knowing that the people you kill or tasks that you accomplish carry over give every decision you make a satisfying weight and consequence. The dialog and charterers are not War and Peace or Citizen Kane levels but you will get attached to most people and the writing is usually pithy. The morality system is one of the best for a modern video game. There are still some kick the dog ridiculously evil choices but most of the time picking the renegade choice is an acceptably gray moral decision. It makes playing the path other than the white knight choices viable to people who don’t just shoot the scientists in Half-Life because it is cool. As for the two biggest complaints I always hear about the game I agree with one and did not really care about the other. The Mako is sort of annoying as everyone says it is. It’s hardly unbearable but it is clunkier than it needs to be. When you are moving along it is fine but when you spend 10 minutes getting from one location of the map to another when is should have taken 30 seconds because of the terrain you quickly understand why people were glad they removed the tank driving from everything but some optional missions in the second game. The other major complain it’s the inventory system. I thought that about 90% of gear you pick up was just vendor trash but I did not find it that hard to deal with even on the 360. I just wish the shops were not just filled with random inventory as opposed to a fixed stock. I almost always had mediocre to poor armor because of this. Those flaws aside Mass Effect was pretty amazing. I beat it in about a week and missed quite a bit of sleep due to it keeping me up. If you any sort of American RPG fan it is worth trying it out.

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Posted in Anime, Comics, Detectives, Favored Topics, Manga, Ongoing Investigations, Type-Moon, Video Games, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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