見たmorphosis

I went to the grand old Civic Theatre and sat on my arse from 11am to 6pm, watching three movies (with breaks in between, of course). I figure since no one in their right mind would want to see Flight of the Red Balloon and anyone who wants to see Be Kind, Rewind will already have some idea of what it’s like, the first film I review will be Ben X.

Ben X is about a boy called Ben with Asperger’s syndrome (a type of autism). Online, he’s a powerful warrior called Ben X, but in real life he’s a shy, misunderstood bullied teenager, and the film details his struggles.

Personally, while it was ambitious, I thought it failed on a number of levels. There were a few neat factors – most notably the incorporation of the MMORPG ArchLord and it was reasonably competent, but it just wasn’t mindblowing on any level. And I expect mindblowing from my festival films dammit!

Read more »

Tags: gaming, MMO, movies, ramblings

I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed for most of these past two weeks. I finished all of the main quests and only really have the Templar killing and flag collecting side quests left to do, which I may or may not bother with. I’d heard a lot of negative opinion about it, but in spite of that I’ve really been enjoying it. It helps that I’m a medieval history geek of course.

Read more »

Tags: gaming, Playstation 3

I promise I won’t post every time he does a review, but seeing as I’m just playing it now, it’s nice timing. Click here to view the Zero Punctuation review of Oblivion. If you haven’t seen his reviews before, they’re worth it.

He picks up on most of the bad things, though I haven’t noticed the landscapes so much because I’ve been hanging around in a reasonably small area. I don’t mind the lack of immersion too much, because I like the slightly artificial “I’m off to play a fantasy RPG full of numbers and hit points and goblins and so on” feel.

Though I’m having a rather unique problem in that I’m playing a North American PS3 version on a Japanese PS3. I hit [X] to talk to a character, then I have to hit [O] pick a menu item to say, because if I hit [X] again I exit out of the menu. Basically at times it’s [X] to use/talk/pick up and other times it’s [O] and it makes for a bit of a mess, though I guess it’s kind of my fault.

And yeah, the NPC voices do drive me a bit nutty at times.

This is just an amusing mistake:

Tags: gaming, Playstation 3, video

Here’s a review of the game Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles I wrote for a local gaming site. I kinda gave up on the whole game reviewing gig when I realised that I don’t play nearly enough games to be trustworthy when writing about them. I know that doesn’t stop most people (free games, woot!), but most people suck. I care about these things dammit. And I doubt I’ll ever write another proper review like this again.

Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles

5.0 / 10

The game is worth a play for the diehard Naruto fan who wants further adventures of the characters,but proves an unrewarding experience for everyone else.

Ups: The game has an easy to use combat system and the ninja powers are fun to play with. The appearance of many familiar characters from the TV show gives a real sense of immersion in the Naruto series. The stats system gives a unique way of levelling up that rewards experimentation.

Downs: The random battles and the non-essential missions get repetitive and boring, and that isn’t helped by the bad enemy AI. The lack of explorable areas means the game gets quite old quickly, and there is very little replay value in the game.

Read more »

Tags: boring, gaming, Playstation 2, Sony, sucks to be me

It’s been a while since I’ve written this review – two years ago to be precise. Taro Aso became foreign minister and started pushing anime tourism so there’s a hell of a lot more information available now. When I first started seriously buying up on anime stuff in Tokyo, there was only really the Cheap Bastard’s Tokyo Anime Shopping Guide. I knew nothing of Patrick Macias before writing this review, though I’m a bit more knowledgeable about the scene and the fandom and so on now (admittedly one of the things that makes Randall appropriate as a host is his slight Macias aversion).

I’ve updated and rewritten this review as appropriate – some of the links were dead, for starters. I’m planning to start offering shopping tips in future entries, so don’t fret that this entry doesn’t give you any help – the idea is that it will be forthcoming.

Anyway, here it goes.

Read more »

Tags: books, merchandise, shopping, tokyo, travel