Over in Akihabara, you’ll find one of many interesting events promoting the upcoming Gurren Lagann movie. There’s plenty to hype about since it’s one of the most awesome anime shows to come out of Japan in a long while. From August 22 thru November 15, the Cure Maid Cafe will be running a special Gurren Lagann Cafe menu and decor.
The dishes that have been designed for the event look absolutely delicious. Pictured above is the “Gurren Plate”. What I find most amusing is the use of Bugles snacks, which represent the drill theme that binds the show together.
Akibabana’s Cherry gives us a tour and a taste test:
Throughout the cafe, they’ve covered the walls with Gurren Lagann artifacts supplied by Gainax. While you dine, you can feast your eyes on storyboards, character model sheets, and other production materials.
The Gurren Lagann movie is due out in Japan September 6th, with a special exhibition to be held at the Tokyo Anime Center during the same week.
A couple weeks ago, we saw the emergence of a new downloadable game coming up on the PlayStation Network, titled Fat Princess. It has an amusing premise: A princess is kidnapped and grossly over-fed by her captors. So once the hero arrives to rescue yon fair maiden, she’s become so big and heavy that escaping with her alive is more of a challenge than normal. You have the option of playing either end of the scene, whether you wish to save the princess or ward off invaders wishing to reclaim what you’ve rightfully stolen…and engorged.
After the gaming community enjoyed a good laugh, this game quickly stirred up controversy with groups suggesting that it enforces an offensive stereotype of overweight women. Counterarguments aside, once I’d caught my first glimpse of some more detailed screenshots, I’m now very curious to see how the controversy wages on. Mostly because as sexist as the game may or may not be, it is incredibly violent. What should be a cutesy romp of “tee hee hee”-style capture-the-flag (with cake!), Fat Princess opens up the opportunity of a 32-player blood-pooling slaughter!
I’m sure that the consummate reaction by the gaming audience will rear its true head closer to the game’s release. Whether it be further outrage by chunky feminists, protest by conservatives weary of video games creating desensitization of violence, or if the entire matter fizzles into apathetic obscurity. As it stands, I find it quite telling of how our culture values the standards of discrimination, sex, and violence…the third appearing to be at the bottom of the obscenity totem pole.
It’s the mother load! After Sega’s recent move into a new facility, the product development department decided to snap a few shots of the Sega product archive. This room (which I may have to take a holy pilgrimage to see) contains a copy of nearly every Sega product ever made. From hardware to software…everything.
The picture above is a bit deceiving, however. Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that there are multiple copies of some titles. All the same, the sheer mass of such a collection, rife with coveted rare gems would send any gamer’s jaw crashing through the floor.
They better never open the facility up for tours. If this be my Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, I will steal Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Or at the very least, tip over all the stacks and shelves so that I can roll around, burying myself in the nostalgia of the good old days. I miss Sega… I know they’re still around, but in so many ways they’re not.
Independent video game developer Cliff “cliffski” Harris asked the consuming populous a very important question: Why do ya’ll pirate?? Suddenly he was flooded with responses from software pirates of every breed, pummeled with a full spectrum of political forum and downright whining. Once he’d collected enough data, he was nice enough to post his findings.
I think this is an incredible move! Finally, a developer addresses piracy and its cause rather than fight it head on. Most publishers waste millions of dollars inventing security techniques in order to foil the piracy of their products. Meanwhile, it’s clear that all consumers want is a good product. (Gee, haven’t we been telling them that for almost 10 years now??) I might almost assume that throwing money at a problem is more cost-effective than releasing fun, affordable, and completed software… But their method hasn’t exactly produced the desired results.
With this and the successful business model examples that Nintendo has presented in the current console war, I hope that game developers learn that the gluttonous use of technology is not the way to go. We need to go back to a simpler time when you just hook a console up to a TV, stick a game in it, and play to our heart’s content. Graphics were nice, but not as important as how a game played and nothing needed upgrades or patches…
Marking the 25th anniversary of the manga series, the producers of Hokuto No Ken (aka Fist of the North Star) will be holding a wedding ceremony for lead characters Kenshiro and Yulia. Free invitations will be distributed through Weekly Comic Bunch magazine as well as the official Fist of the North Star site. Along with the invited fans, various artists and celebrities are expected to attend the ceremony.
All things considered, it’s pretty bad-ass that such an event can be organized for the anniversary for such an awesome series. Though if you ask me, it’s a bit on the corny side. Throughout comic book history, it’s been easy to accept when a hero finds romance, but that romance is typically short-lived. In order to give a hero his (or her) drive, there needs to be an element of tragedy. A content hero has no reason to keep going because he’s exactly where he wants to be. A common method of this is to deny or rob him of love, as was the case of Fist of the North Star’s original story arc when Kenshiro walked the earth to reclaim Yulia, whom had been stolen from him by his rival, Shin.
That’s not to say that the dude doesn’t deserve a break. Hell, even his mortal enemy, Rao, received a fake funeral service just last year. My only hope is that this means there’s a possibility that Ken and Yulia may bear the next successor to the Hokuto Shinken. To which I’m sure fans will be treated to a fake baby shower.
You’ve seen pictures of “the Tron guy”. You may have even seen the trend of Gundam cardboard boxes. There’s a lot of baaaad cosplay out there. Even if the costume is crafted in precise detail, the person inside often lacks the physique to ever be mistaken for their alter ego.
Praise the heavens for the other side to this coin, for there exists a branch of our ilk–talented and beautiful–to generously feed us with eye candy at just about any geek convention. They are the fortunate few that have been able to merge their hobbies into lucrative careers. In this article, I’d like to spotlight some of the heavy-hitters in the cosplay community. They are ones that I find to be the most popular and virally circulated around the web. Your tastes may differ, but I also consider these to be my own personal favorites.
I never like it when people make apologies for delayed content. Things happen. If the content is good, then it’s worth waiting for. So rather than make weak excuses for why my posts have slowed down a bit, I’ll instead offer a heads-up.
Over the next couple months, I’ll be writing articles for GotGame.com. I’ve been accepted into their summer internship program and I’ll be working with them over the next couple months. In fact, my first article is due up this week! Thus my attention will be divided between that and continuing to write articles here.
I’ll try to post my usual quick bits on news articles that I see through the week, but I’m much more eager to direct my energy toward deeper articles (quality over quantity and all that jazz). News articles are fairly easy to comment on, but researching the heady stuff is kinda killer.
The good news is that I’m allowed to post the articles that I write for GotGame here as well, at least in their pre-published form. Think of them as my “director’s cut” before my editors dig their claws into them. I already have about two ready and outlining a third, so being ahead of schedule (assuming they jive with whatever I’m assigned) on that end will hopefully also free me up for here.
For those fortunate enough to have picked up Capcom Classics Collection 2 for the PlayStation2, one of the unlockable prizes is a game called Capcom Quiz, which is a revision of Quiz & Dragons that themes its questions specifically on the Capcom brand. It’s a fun exercise of trivia for Capcom fanboys like myself who love the company’s games enough to have purchased this collection.
During my own quiz quest, one of the questions I was challenged with regarded from where the company name “Capcom” was derived. One possible choice was “Captain Commando”, a character who is known for his own title as well as making appearances in more recent titles in the Versus fighting game line. This would have been the choice entered by most of my peers, however they would be tragically incorrect. If I may invoke a spark of righteous in-dork-nation, this strikes as one of the many pet peeves among my Capcom and overall game-loving brethren.
First of all, the correct answer to the question above is “Capsule Computers”, condensed into CapCom, in the similar fashion of Japanese names stemming from abbreviations of phrases such as Sega (Service & Games) and Nintendo’s Famicom (Family Computer). Rather than lending his name to the company moniker, it was the other way around for Captain Commando. Years after the company was established, his character was developed and appeared as Capcom’s mascot inside their video games’ instruction manuals. It’s an easy mistake to make, but it’s akin to those who believe that McDonald’s was named after (or founded by) Ronald McDonald.
To make it easier, let’s do a bit of math. The Capcom company was founded in 1979, not even producing their first arcade game until 1984. Assuming you’re not as big a trivia nerd to know those tidbits, just think back to some of their more familiar mainstream games that carried the Capcom logo… The first Mega Man game came out in the 1987 and Final Fight was released in 1989. Captain Commando’s feature title (which most game nerds will claim is where the name connection was first established) didn’t hit the arcade scene until 1991.
I wish I knew why these things trouble me. I’m usually much more tolerant of elitist dorks spouting garbage as if it’s relevant or factual. It may even be related to myself being a stickler to the use of proper English to the effect of applying correct terminology.
To expand a bit–and let me preface this by explaining how I categorize breeds of geek–I see a “geek” as someone who is passionate about the obscure and fantastic, whether it be technology, fantasy, or pop-culture. A “nerd” is someone who is not only passionate, but knowledgeable…often having one or two areas of expertise. A “dork” (as I associate to most fanboys) is someone who has the passions of a geek, but is far less what I’d call clever. They lack the knowledge and wit that their geek cousins possess, yet often assume they possess both in abundance. Lastly, a “spaz” is a dork with waaaay too much passion, but let’s try to move forward in this tangent, shall we?
Dorks, being less clever, can’t seem to present anything truly inspiring, try as they might. In fact, I often sense my own IQ dissipate after long exposures to these poor souls unable to think outside the box. For they’re the ones who romantically indulge in ideas that never go much deeper than their own novelty. Much like the never-ending conversations I’ve witnessed expressing the demand of a Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Marvel Vs. DC, or any kind of bloated crossover fighting game. Sure, the premise may sound exciting, but if that’s as far as you can go in terms of exploring the depth of how or if it’s truly a worthwhile fighting game concept, then it doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And if you notice, about 9 out of 10 ideas pitched by dorks are crossover-themed, involving two already established entities, few of which would either be appropriate for a video game setting nor easy to execute on the level of licensing. The remaining 1 out of 10 is either a rehash or a combination of currently existing concepts.
Back to my own irritation, I feel that it’s painful enough that dorks are imaginatively lame would be so much less so if they could at least get their facts straight before building upon these pipe dreams.
Another example of recurring misnomers that twist my nipples is I can’t tell you how many fanboys keep referring to Darkstalker’s Morrigan as “Morgana”. Why do they do that? How are those wires getting crossed? You can see not only the in-game text, but her name is also printed in any game-related document. Most of the recent games will provide a sound bite announcing her name as “Morrigan”. How does one–not just make that mistake once, at first–but continue to factually and unapologetically state her name as “Morgana”?
I mention that example because I believe I’m not alone in that experience. Certainly someone reading this has as well! I’ve personally overheard it pass the lips of people across the country, spanning the past 10 years or so. As if from some kind of peculiar collective consciousness! Is it because it’s the only name (having the sound of “morgue” in it’s accented syllable*) that dorks can call upon for a female horror monster, regardless if she does or does not resemble the bride of Frankenstein? It’s come to be one of the signals that I use to recognize that I’m dealing with someone who falls into my own “dork” category. To this day, it’s yet to fail me. I hope I’ve passed on a useful tool to you as well.
Thus concludes this episode of my alienation of my peers. As well as an illustration why I’m at home playing Capcom trivia video games instead of being surrounded by my fellow geek friends.
*Ironically, I find that another term for “accented syllable” is “mora”, which would be a good mnemonic device, since that is the accented syllable in “Morrigan”.
