Shadows of the Damned Review

I gotta admit, I was not interested in this game when I first saw it at my local Hastings. To me, it just looked like another supernatural FPS like Clive Barker's Jericho or Darkwatch. I should pay more attention to the names on the game boxes. If I had, I would've noticed that this game was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and produced by Suda 51, the ones responsible for a few of my favorite under-appreciated games.

Also, Shinji Mikami worked on it who also worked on Viewtiful Joe and, as Wikipedia put it, "created" Resident Evil 4(one of the best, most influential games EVAR) and Vanquish.
This game has quite a pedigree.

The game seems a lot like Devil May Cry at its basest level. You play as a demon hunter named Garcia Hotspur(rattlesnake sound), who has to rescue his girlfriend Paula from the demon lord Fleming.

As I said before, I assumed that this would be an FPS. Actually, it's a third person shooter akin to RE4, but it's a bit more like Gears of War(minus the cover system).

The demon world is one of my favorite things about the game. It's just such a wacky and interesting place where everything kind of works in opposite ways. Garcia asks Johnson why, if demons love darkness so much, they don't shroud all of the demon world in it. Apparently, too much darkness is harmful to demons just as too much sunlight is harmful to humans. Liquor heals you, or, as a support character says, "unkills" you. This leads to some hilarious in-game animations where Garcia grabs Sake bottles by the pack and stuffs them into his coat. Then there's the magical goat heads that protect you from darkness. Didn't you know goats are a source of light?

I don't know if a sense of humor improves the gameplay, but it does make the game a lot more enjoyable. In game dialog between Garcia and Johnson is pretty good, with Johnson being one of the funnier characters I've seen in a game.

The main villain, Fleming, is another aspect of design that I quite like. I wonder if I'm the only one who's tired of the usual dark lord type who wears a cloak and has a flaming helmet with flaming horns with kittens impaled on them.

I like Fleming's toned down design. It's a lot less cliche to me. Not that he's not creepy. Jesus, look at him. He's like a reverse Asura from the neck up. Yay! Hindu reference! Also, inside his coat seems to be an infinite void. Who knows what might come flying out of it later on?

I played the game on normal difficulty(Demon Hunter level, the highest being Legion Hunter and the lowest being Lemon Hunter), and I found it pretty easy, but not effortless. It's kind of like how in Bayonetta, the game is fun when you fight a lot of weak enemies, but not as fun when you fight a few big guys. This game eschews that and you mostly fight numerous weak enemies. I found this more enjoyable. Especially when you pull off a headshot on your first try and you get a little zoom in cutscene of the enemy's head exploding.

As for the downside, the game is a little short. I beat it in less than a day. (Or maybe that's just because I played it so much). Also, I hope you like that paper cutout art style on the loading screen, because you're forced to sit through it in three interminable sidescroller levels. You even fight a boss in it...it's not the best.

I very much enjoyed this game, though. It's a great little bit of inspired wackiness that you don't see enough of these days. Garcia is an awesome hero(not as interesting as Travis Touchdown, but still fun), and I think Johnson should go down as one of the all time great video game sidekicks. Nothing revolutionary, but it's great fun. Go to hell in Shadows of the Damned.

Shonen Jump Chapters: Week of June 20

One Piece, Chapter 629: An Ex-Warlord Stands in the Way.
It's well known that One Piece is my favorite manga series and well...my favorite serialized story EVAR. Anyway, that's not to say that I don't have any problems with the series. They're very minor and mainly just come down to pacing. It's nowhere near as badly paced as Bleach, but the recent story arc has gotten a little slow and complicated at the same time. Luffy, Franky, Sanji, Nami and Chopper met Jinbei and we get a few chapters worth of flashbacks(par for the course), it comes back to the present and I honestly forgot that Zoro, Usopp and Brook had been captured by Hodi Jones and Van Der Dekken hasn't even been seen or mentioned for like, twenty chapters!

Anyway, I was hoping that this one would start off with a bang, and it does. As the previous chapter set up, Luffy and Jinbei do have a brief scuffle; though it's not as satisfying as I'd hoped. The battle ends fairly quickly, which, I guess, is kinda smart on the characters' part. Those two guys could've destroyed the entire island had they continued.

The coolest thing though, is Brook's new astral projection power. He can remove his soul and fly around as a ghost. Pretty cool actually.

Overall, I thought this chapter was rather short(it just goes quick) and there was very little plot development. If there's anything I know about One Piece, though, it's that it will all come together eventually.

Hey...what's Caribou doing?

Bleach, Chapter: glahkhtq8378
I didn't read it.

Naruto, Chapter 544: Two Suns!
This chapter was pretty good, as Naruto been lately. Naruto finally persuades the Raikage to let him fight in the war.

Madara has created a new Six Paths of Pain by using six previous Jinchuriki and has endowed them with the power of the Rinnegan and the Sharingan. Interesting development.

Is Bee's rapping bugging anyone else? I mean, it's a cool quirk, but...it doesn't work for dramatic situations for a character to rap EVERYTHING.

Toriko, Gourmet 146: Surprise Apple.
I've said before that I don't like Toriko when Toriko and Komatsu just kind of dick around and eat for a few chapters. That said, this one is sort of like that, however, it's a lot of fun.

Our heroes make their way to Surprise Island where the Surprise Apple grows(it previously grew on Battle Island). See, the Surprise Apple gets tastier the more you surprise it. So people constantly shoot guns and fire missiles to make them surprised.

This chapter doesn't have any plot development(that I noticed) but it is very funny and Zongeh shows up again and I always get a chuckle out of him. The importance of the Surprise Apple will probably come to light as the arc progresses. Or maybe it's just a side story like the BB Corn arc...though Grinpatch did show up at the end of that...I'm rambling.

The Five Killers

Adding another thing to the pile of, "Could have been awesome" is The Five Killers.



This series began production sometime in the 2000's, with Studio Gonzo(Afro Samurai, Samurai 7) in charge of the animation. But nothing has been released about it since '07. The website is still up, for some reason. Take a look.

I can't find the Wikipedia page anymore, though. It seems to have been deactivated, along with producer Eric Calderon's page. Huh.

Anyway, the best of what I could glean from this series, I got from the website, which I will quote here:
"The story begins on a rainy afternoon in Boston, when four of the estranged killers gather for an unexpected funeral. Knife is dead, and no one knows who murdered him. Since they've all been out of the game for a long while, Knife's death comes as a shocking surprise--but one they all know to be possible given their line of work.

The funeral doesn't go smoothly. Immediately, uncomfortable glances, sudden arguments, and old accusations begin to fly as the remaining four confront one another with the bitterness and jealousies that originally drove them apart--

--until a fifth mourner arrives. Dressed in white and announcing himself as "The Droid," he cheerfully takes credit for Knife's assassination--and declares the other four to be his next targets. On the run, forced together in self-defense, the four race around the world trying to find who--or what--is behind this mysterious "Droid" and why they're marked for death.

With an explosive ending, life death, immortality, and love all converge in an emotional and shocking final conclusion."

Though I am suspicious of anything that touts the power of its own ending, I did want to see this get made. It kind of reminded me of Killer 7. In a good way. Plus, I wanted to hear the Droid's cold, echoing, metallic voice gloating about Knife's death. Plus, damn it if I weren't intrigued by the premise: "Three die, two survive, one lives...forever." That's the kind of tagline that sticks with me.

Sadly though, it looks like we'll never get to see The Five Killers.

Damn. That's a lot of broken stuff.

I've never played any of the Saint's Row games, but I think that might change with Saints Row: The Third. I dunno. A lot of sequels this year at E3. Maybe this will be a fun one.

The Best of Video Game Music

Just as the name implies, Metal Gear Saga combines the themes of the four main series Metal Gear games into one fantastic medley. This music plays over the final battle between Snake and Liquid Ocelot and it is freaking awesome!


One of my favorite games of last year also had one of my favorite tunes in it. If you haven't given Deadly Premonition a try, then go and play it. It's only twenty bucks. You won't be disappointed.


Now this is some boss fight music. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia may not be my favorite game of the series, but this is my favorite bit of music.

Super 8

If there's any movie this year that I think could serve as the great escape that Inception was last year, it's Super 8.

I don't see many movies that I like. That might be surprising if you know me in real life. If you've ever watched a movie like Versus with me, I can gush about sound effects or just how freaking cool it is. But, conversely, I can hate on a movie like Priest for being utterly generic and so dull that you couldn't cut butter with it.

This year has had a few good movies, but not really any that I would call great. Sucker Punch was a hell of a lot of fun, but it didn't really live up to its premise in the plot department. X Men: First Class and Thor are some of the better superhero movies I've seen in ever and Captain America is still coming down the pipe, so, yeah. As fun as all those movies were, they didn't wow me as much as Super 8.

I really had to nag my friend to go see this movie, too. She wanted to watch Pirates again, and then we compromised by deciding to see Bridesmaids. Eventually, she decided to just see Super 8 and she liked it. She should just accept that I only like to see good movies and wouldn't drag her to see a bad one.

Anyway, going back to my whole "I can gush about sound effects" thing, a good amount of Super 8 is about a group of misfit kids making a movie(hence the title) for a film festival.
The scenes of the kids shooting the movie are so goddamn funny, I would've been happy if it were only about that. Seriously. Some of the scenes would have been at home in an episode of Darkplace.
I think I'm one of the few people who actually finds making movies funny since I've made movies. A few of which turned out about as good as The Case did. I think that may be why I was the only person laughing uproariously in some of the filming scenes.

Anyway, a monstrous...monster escapes from an Air Force train as the kids are filming out near the railroad tracks, as all kids were allowed to do back in the 70's. Afterwards, people begin disappearing and the kids try to hide from the soldiers who come looking for the creature.

I don't want to spoil anything, but know that it's a really good show and if you're like me, in that you like anything with a monster in it, then you should go see Super 8.

And, for the love of Eneru, stay for the credits.

Toriko, Episode 8: That Which is Passed Down! Activate, Gourmet Cells!

I've really only been into manga for the past five years or so. And for a time, I only read series' that had started before I got into it, like One Piece, Naruto and Bleach. But then came Toriko. A manga by Mitsutoshi Shimabakuro which follows a "Gourmet Hunter" named...Toriko.

A good chunk of the series revolves around the capture and preparation of delicious food. So think of it like a version of Yu Gi Oh! where the card game have been replaced with sandwiches.

Seriously though, I really didn't like this series at first. But it started to grow on me as I went on. At first, Toriko is a rather unbeatable hero, as most Shonen protagonists start out. He is much more seasoned than characters like Monkey D. Luffy or Ichigo Kurosaki and knows his way around in the Age of Gourmet. But, as drama dictates, must face stronger opponents, and, as powerful as Toriko appears, he's not up to par with some other characters.

The real heart of the series is a young chef named Komatsu. He's accompanied Toriko on nearly all the missions he's been shown on. He's not a superhuman, but his cooking skills do come in handy if you're preparing something extremely volatile. Also, he seems to have an instinctual ability to find rare ingredients.

As I mentioned earlier, a good chunk of the series revolves around catching rare and delicious foods because, in the world of Toriko certain foods can increase your abilities and make already powerful people even stronger.

An anime adaptation of Toriko has gone into production from Toei animation famous for animating One Piece and the Dragon Ball series. I have mixed feelings on the series mainly because of Toei's decision to massively tone down the level of violence and the introduction of the character Tina.
The face that haunts my dreams. Anyway, a more recent episode has at least given us a good fight. Toriko vs. GT Robot.