Top 10 of 2012 : Anime

#10 - Sword Art Online
Just barely beating out the honourable mentions is SAO, which had an incredible first few episodes and generally good first arc, but then the second arc started to become a little bit shit, and the ending was admittedly pretty bad. However the first arc was strong enough to carry the rest of it into my top 10. Had it kept going at the first arc for the whole 25 episodes this would probably rank much higher.


#9 - Lupin 3rd : The Woman Called Fujiko Mine
Highly stylized self contained episodes worked in this show's favour, and reminded me how badly we need more shows like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. This is a great standalone watch even for those completely unfamiliar with the Lupin 3rd series.


#8 - Psycho Pass
One of the more serious shows on this list, Psycho-pass is an interesting gritty take on the sci-fi police detective genre. Still only half way through the season as its a 2-cour but it has convinced me enough in 11 episodes to make it onto my top 10 of the year.


#7 - Sakurasou
Guilty pleasure of the year, with a formula and story which seems unoriginal and almost out of a newgrounds dating sim, this show somehow still manages to tick enough boxes to be a very entertaining 13 episode watch.


#6 - Chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai
Emotional rollercoaster, from straight comedy to romantic comedy, to romantic drama, to drama and all the way back. A good watch all the way, and very moeeee~


#5 - Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Schoolboy sketch show comedy, hit and miss jokes, but the hits can pack some serious punch (also, literary girl is the best background character this year)


#4 - Yuru Yuri 2

Still holds the award for most entertaining 'pointless schoolgirls doing fuckall' shows.

#3 - Binbougami Ga!


Fantastic comedy all the way through, brainless as fuck and with lots of needless fanservice, but i'll be damned if that ever stopped me from enjoying a show. Very lovable characters who get some good development as the show goes on.


#2 - Waiting in the summer

Lighthearted romantic comedy featuring an alien, with some not so lighthearted extra relationship drama thrown in. A few bumps here and there, but a great watch overall.

#1 - Kids on the slope

An amazing drama from start to finish, Friendships and relationships are formed and crushed, and the climax half way through features one of the best moments in anime.


Honourable Mentions: Another, Kokoro Connect, Tonari No Kaibutsu, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood, Spaces Brothers (which has been consistently good all the way through, but runs at a slower pace than the others)

A summary of everything i've watched in 2012, red blocks are shows uncompleted/dropped half way, green blocks are shows finished. 

Top 10 of 2012: Video Games

Lets do it.

#10 - Diablo 3
Didn't keep me engaged for as long as I would have hoped, but I cannot deny the time I spent with Diablo 3 playing with friends was great fun. It feels a shame the game was in such a broken state when it first came out, I believe they have made some significant changes now which I would love to go back and try but its too little too late really. Still though, a fantastic game for the first 2 playthroughs, and amazing fun with friends.


#9 - Guild Wars 2
I still haven't had time to explore all of tyria, dat value for money.
Read more here


#8 - Quantum Conundrum
Puzzle game from people who made portal, of course it was going to be good. Similar to the original portal however, the game suffered from being about 1 hour long (or it felt like it was seriously short anyway). But, for the short time the main game lasted, it was great fun to play and one of the better 3d puzzle games out there.


#7 - FTL (Faster than light)
Indie roguelike goodness, where every enemy encounter has a reasonable chance of killing you and ending all progress you've made on that particular playthrough.
its great fun though, maybe i'm just a masochist. Read more here


#6 - XCOM
A surprise which came out of nowhere for me, installed after being urged by a friend. The game hooked me into its addictive SRPG bullshittery. I lost many hours to this beast and regret nothing. You can read more here


#5 - Max Payne 3

Max payne 3 is a sequel to Max Payne 2, major differences being the lack of comic book panels and max's hair. But everything else is intact, the dry wit, the clever writing, and all the satisfying slo-mo shooting one would expect. Max Payne 3 does nothing special, but what it does, it does so very very well.


#4 - Hitman Absolution
Probably a controversial pick, but I really enjoyed this instalment of Hitman.
Yeah sure it wasn't blood money, but guaranteed if it was, a ton of people would complain that it was too similar to the past game. I really feel like most of the complaints on this are completely unwarranted though, i've seen reviews saying 'you only assassinate 5 people' or whatever and these people are dumb as shit, you get to assassinate loads of people - and there is always the online 'Contracts' mode if you want to assassinate more, infact - the online contracts mode is probably the Blood Money most people were looking for. And to those complaining the game is too easy with 'instinct vision' (which lets you see people through walls and so on), try to play the game on hard or expert, then complain.

#3 - Sleeping Dogs
An overlooked gem, Sleeping dogs absolutely nails the open world sandbox genre, whilst stealing all of the good features from a ton of other games, the result is a game which seems to do everything right.
Fun melee combat, Fun and actually skill based shooting combat, Driving mechanics which dont feel awful, a level up system, clothes shopping, car shopping, optional races, a bunch of collectibles which arent forced upon you (and can be found on the minimap for those achievement hunting), and most importantly a Story which wasn't complete garbage.

#2 - SSX 2012
Winner of 'most underrated game of 2012' for sure, SSX was a blast to play, 80% of the tracks are a pure adrenaline rush to play when accompanied by the amazing soundtrack which suits the gameplay perfectly. The live audio mixing and visual feedback from linking a perfect set of tricks down the side of a mountain is as great to experience as it is to pull off. The online system is also fun and well thought out and the Single player story does well at keeping each set of levels fresh and challenging.

#1 - The Walking Dead
An easy decision here, and a well deserved win for The Walking Dead video game, whose great storytelling has already been recognized on sites larger than my own.
Though the game is a mediocre point and click adventure, its incredible characters and story will keep you glued to the game from start to finish. You can read more here

Honourable Mentions: Sniper Elite V2, Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja

Stuff which would probably be on the list if I had a chance to properly play them:
Assassins Creed 3, Far Cry 3, Zero's Escape: Virtue's last reward
Assassins creed in particular I feel has top 6-10 potential, and Virtues last reward could probably make top 5. I'll be getting the latter within the week I hope so I'll blog about it when I finish it.

End Note:
Its been a reasonable year for video games, and whilst sequel fever probably isn't going anywhere for a while (6/10 games on this list are sequels, 7/10 if you consider sleeping dogs was once intended to be part of the true crime series), its nice to see a few games changing it up.

Meng's Guide to Restaurant Customers

So whether I like it or not, i've been working as a waiter for about a year now, and the major categories of customers have become fairly clear.

Bare in mind that this obviously isn't a 100% indication of anything.
Tip stuff is roughly
Small = <5%
Medium = ~5%
High = ~/>10%

Really Young white couple (<20y/o):
- Bill: Small
- Tip: Small
- Other notes: Girl is usually friendly, guy is socially awkward, probably due to age

Young white couple:
- Bill: Small - Big
- Tip: Medium
- Other notes: Friendly, easy to deal with

Heavily drinking white couple:
- Bill: 20% food, 80% cocktails
- Tip: None - Low
- Other Notes: Constantly orders cocktails, impressive tolerence for alcohol. Usually friendly enough but you can tell they are scum.

Young white family (with actual children):
- Bill: Medium
- Tip: Low-Medium (way less than it should be considering the mess they have made)
- Other Notes: Make a mess, children liable to be a complete fucking nuisance

White family (grown up children):
- Bill: Medium-High
- Tip: Medium-High
- Other Notes: Friendly, easy to deal with, father cracks bad jokes, daughter is still embarrassed of family despite being over 20 now.

Business people (dudes in suits):
- Bill: High
- Tip: Medium-High
- Other Notes: The older they are, the higher the bill and tip become. Spend the whole dinner dickwagging about how much their turnover is.

Very young group of friends (<20y/o):
- Bill: Small
- Tip: None-Small
- Other Notes: always one asshole in the group that tries to act grown up, boys will pull a "what is this shit" face when asked for ID despite being 5 days above legal drinking age

Group of friends:
- Bill: Small-High
- Tip: None-High
- Other Notes: Pot luck here.

Europeans:
- Bill: Medium-High
- Tip: None-Medium
- Other Notes: Usually fairly heavy drinkers, not unusual for drinks to outprice food

Blacks - Type 1 (95%):
- Bill: Medium-High
- Tip: None
Blacks - Type 2 (5%):
- Bill: Medium
- Tip: Low-Medium
- Other Notes: I'm not really educated enough to tell the two groups apart, but I'm pretty sure the difference is where/how they are brought up. If they have any sort of accent of any sort you are almost certainly dealing with a type 1. Both types are equally demanding, and are likely to complain about everything and expect it all to be done instantly. Women will not drink without a straw. Loves chicken (this is an actual fact, not even a stereotype). Steak must be cooked well done. Literally a waiters worst nightmare.

Chinese:
- Bill: Medium (would be high for certain if they were drinkers)
- Tip: None-High (assumedly depending on where they were brought up, tipping isn't a thing in China)
- Other Notes: Above average chance of complaining, particularly if the food is bad/overcooked ,very particular about having clean cutlery and glasses.

Arabians:
- Bill: Medium-high
- Tip: Medium-Very High
- Other Notes: Very rude, can be shockingly good tippers, maybe they all own oil fields or something.

Indians:
- Bill: Low-Medium
- Tip: Low-Medium
- Other Notes: Surprisingly low sample rate at my restart, maybe they don't like steak/western food?

JLPT N5

So I had my Japanese N5 test today in London, it was a little different to how I imagined it, in my head it was going to be much bigger and professional - In actuality it was in a lecture theatre with those little  fold out desktop things, several people had to move because their desk couldnt support the weight of their test paper.

The variety of people in there was impressive, there were plenty of guys around my age, some older people (going into their 50's even by the looks of it), a few very very young girls (small adorable girl in pink who looked about 10), and a few very obvious otaku.

They made us swear to not reveal any of the test information on the internet, slightly odd because im assuming they will be changing the test paper yearly anyway.

I made a stupid mistake of essentially learning the wrong shit, the android app on my phone which I was basing most of my revision from (pro I know) basically had the wrong list of what is in each JLPT category, and hence I was hit by a few Kanji that I didn't revise, and a few words which I have honestly never heard before in my life. (The app is 'Obenkyo', which is great for learning and revising kanji, but not for revising particular levels of kanji apparently).

The exam is divided into Vocabulary, Grammar and Listening.
To my surprise, the vocab one gave the most trouble, with plenty of tricky questions.
The grammar one thankfully doesn't actually contain that much grammar (although the grammar questions kicked my ass), half of this section are comprehension questions, which weren't too bad but you really had to haul ass in terms of reading speed, I didn't finish this paper in time and had to rando-select a few answers.
The Listening one I found easy enough, felt like free points to me, but perhaps this is because of the way ive been learning (via Rosetta Stone, Anime and Music), those who have been taught strictly through books (are there such people?) might have more trouble with this.

Overall, the test was pretty fuckin' hard. Like... way harder than I imagined, for the bottom tier examination which is supposed to infer basic command of the Japanese language.
I kind of took the test lightly, and if it kicks my ass, it'll be for this reason.

Im not even sure what % you need to pass, but I really hope I end up above it.



(Rubbish and obvious) Tips for others doing the JLPT:

- Your best bet for the style of questions really is on the JLPT site itself
- Ensure you know what you are expected to know (obvious perhaps? Make sure you are learning N5 Material and not simply JLPT 5 material)

Still a better love story than twilight

Felt this was good enough to warrant its own post.

Best Before Date:

<<<< Warning: Depressing IRL Post >>>>

My life is going to shit and im beginning to lose all hope of it ever picking up.
A Depressing summary of my current life situation:

- I work 2 seemingly dead end jobs, as an accounts assistant and as a waiter. Shit pay at both
- Live at home, not enough money to move out
- No girlfriend, no hope of getting one because the girls I work with arent my type and I rarely go out
- Rarely go out because my primary friend group are all fucking useless at keeping in contact or doing anything, even playing or chatting online is too much effort for them
- Uni friend group are spread too far and too thin to do anything
- Restaurant friend group are too different (raised on drugs and alcohol rather than books and vidya)
- Can't find a 'good' job, so many applications declined i've lost the motivation to continue trying
- Distract myself from how shit life is by playing video games and learning to play the piano, though recently even my online friends seem to be disappearing
- Way worse at Japanese than everyone believes
- Write a blog that nobody ever reads

Lets put it this way, if the mayans are right, fuck yeah.

I need to get my life back on track, I just don't know quite how ._.

I feel like my time is rapidly running out, nothing seems more pathetic than a 23 year old Biomedical Science graduate (from a National top 5 University) who is working as a fucking Waiter.
If anyone fancies chucking a £20k job and a wife my way, that would be awesome.


ps. Its sort of crazy to think how much this JET programme would change my life around if I got a place, fingers crossed.

The Walking Dead (Video Game)

Despite the theoretical ease of it, not many game developers seem keen on bridging the gap between movies/TV and video games, There have been a few good attempts like the (probably) award winning Heavy Rain, and lesser known Farenheit (or Indigo Prophecy, depending on region), as well as a few series from Telltale Games, who have also made the recent Tales from Monkey Island, Sam and Max, and back to the future games.

As one can assume from the name, Telltale games are specialists in storytelling games, and their experience and speciality is starting to show off.
The walking dead video game is incredible, at current, almost half way through November, this is my game of the year, and if im honest, its probably also my 'media of the year', because whilst its technically game, it could easily double for a 10 hour long film or TV drama.

This might sting a little...

Gameplay is a mix of old school point and click adventuring with some easy puzzles, and then interactive movie sequences were you pick dialogue or actions, the latter is the star of the show here. As the game begins, it gives a very clear statement summarized as 'this game series tailors the story to your actions', what you say or do in episode 1 can easily come back to bite you in the ass, tell a guy you hate him? maybe he'll be in charge of your life later. This form of storytelling is incredible, even conversation options where you dont pick something in time and abstain from the conversation can be picked up, with other characters recognizing your silence. This combined with certain action and decision sequences will have you quickly roleplaying yourself in the game, what would YOU do? how would YOU react? and so, you get involved in the constantly twisting story that is the walking dead, which in turn gives the game further more impact when someone dies or doublecrosses you.

Don't ever leave me Clem ;_;

I feel this is a good time to introduce you all to the 8 year old that is going to make you wish you had a child of your own. Don't have any paternal instinct? You do now!
Clementine is the most lovable character in video game history, by the end of episode 5 you will be apologising profusely to her for your past mistakes, please don't hate me clem, he had to die! It was all for you! I would shoot every other character in the face if it meant Clementine were to stay safe

tldr; This is the game of the year, Clementine needs you.

The game is currently 50% off in the Steam Autumn Sale, bringing it down to £10.49, approximately £1 per hour of godlike storytelling and dialogue, or £0.50p per tear you will shed.

XCOM : Enemy Unknown

So XCOM Enemy Unknown is apparently a remake of a game from 94 which ive never heard of (although realistically, 94 isnt even THAT old). I was very unimpressed with what I saw at Eurogamer expo, and as such had virtually no urge to play the game, however, a push by a friend made me download it, mostly so I could properly critique how boring the game was (because talking about why games are shit is a fun pasttime for me)

After putting it off for a day or so because I couldnt be bothered to even install it (which i think effectively demonstrates just how much I wanted to play the game), I gave it a go.

Imagine my surprise, when the boring game I anticipated turned out to be an addictive, deep, multilayered experience.
While its presentation could be a little better (mediocre music, graphics and voice acting), the core gameplay elements were all present and the game as a whole is pretty satisfying to play.

XCOM is, at its heart, a turn based strategy game a little similar to chess. Possible other ways to describe the combat gameplay are: "disgaea with only pistol rangers". "turn based mass effect" or "Company of Heroes without needing to be an RTS god"

Your soldiers have skills and classes, perks and so on, and the game works on a kind of double turn system, where you can move and shoot in a turn, or haul ass - which I rather like.
The cover system is very similar to that in company of heroes, with light and heavy cover, flanking and all that good shit.
Shooting/Combat takes on a typical SRPG percentage to hit thing (always skewed in enemy favour I might add)

Dashing is a double turn move btw, although that alien is pretty well dressed as well.

Pewpew (snipers are overpowered , especially Cynthia here.)

After you do your fighting and progress the story, you go back to base, which then turns the game into a base management sim, building power and facilities, doing research, building fighter planes and weapons and launching satellites to help you track the enemy. It all works and comes together very well, and is likely what will keep you shooting aliens as kills = cash/materials which you can put towards that new exotic plasma sniper rifle.

The base starts to get pretty big after a while

Thats about it for this short rambly review, I would like to add you should definitely play on ironman mode, which is sort of bullshit, but at the same time I feel like that is the way the game was designed to be played. This basically enables permadeath for your soldiers should you fuck up, and will make you play like tom clancy as opposed to just sending your dudes in all 'come at me bro', because when your soldiers level up and you name them, you start to develop a strange bond with them, and it can be a little emotional when you make a wrong move, send in a scout who gets molested by an ambush party or so on.

A moment of silence for the dead please.

And a moment of silence for the soon to be dead as well I suppose.

Skyfall (2012)

Before I start, im going to go ahead and say Skyfall isnt a bad film.
Its easy when writing reviews to always focus on the things that annoy you about the film and skyfall had these little annoyances by the truckload, but the film itself wasnt bad.

The review also contains spoilers, highlight over them to read.

Infact, i dont think ive ever watched a truly 'bad' bond film, some of them arent great, but generally a bond film is a bond film.

My problem with skyfall then, is the plot, which for the most part is simplistic and boring, and then for the other part, riddled with good ideas which werent followed through. Many parts of the film feel like the writers had a really good idea for something and then got halfway and didnt have a clue how to continue the idea or resolve it, leading to it just kind of disappearing without a trace.

Prime examples of this are [ the death of the woman bond meets in the casino, or the counter-hacking-hacking started by Q ]

The main villain in skyfall also doesnt feel very bond like, with his grand scheme simply being to kill M, whatever happened to giant orbital space lasers or plutonium bombs.
Did I mention there are no gadgets in the film either? Did they lose their deal with aston martin or something?

My other massive MASSIVE issue with the film is the lack of intelligence displayed throughout, both by 007 himself and by the baddies, maybe its just because ive been playing Xcom recently, but were these people not trained to fight? to take cover? to not [walk through a field in a horizontal line towards a fortified house without prior knowledge of whats inside the house?], what about that scene with [the sniper, why wait for him to finish shooting and walk into melee range, he was ordered to terminate him afterwards anyway, shoot him in the arms and legs from afar and then interrogate the bastard]

Oh, and don't even get me fucking started on the ending.

Infact, the more i think about it, the more I am starting to get angry, maybe it WAS a bad film. idk.

It was alright  and infact if it were a standalone film or anything but a James bond film I think I would have enjoyed it more, but it just didn't feel like a bond film, which was kind of a downer for me.
After looking through some 'professional' reviews, seems im not alone in this sentiment, here are some quotes from metacritic

"With gadgets, girls and globe-trotting held to a minimum, Skyfall, could, for long stretches, be mistaken for just another 21st-century thriller, albeit a well-made and intelligent one."

" Skyfall, in the recent mode of Christopher Nolan's "Batman" films, is a gloomy, dark action thriller, and almost completely without the cynical playfulness that drew us to the series in the first place."

ps. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes or so immensely, particularly the opening, which was very slick. (and I dont even like adele or the skyfall theme song)

The Raid : Redemption (2011)

So 'The Raid' is the sort of action movie made for people like me, people with short attention spans, who probably dont watch films very often, and arent too bothered by a lack of cohesive plot solong as the film is entertaining.
The film ticks all these boxes, it runs about 90 minutes, with the first 15 minutes and last 5 minutes being more or less all of the story - the rest, is all action.
It is an indonesian film before it was brought over to the US, a man with a sharp eye obviously hoping to bring over the next 'ong-bak', the US version of the film also features a new soundtrack written mostly by the dude from Linkin Park, and its a good one - a hard hitting electro/DnB/dubstep soundtrack which complements the raw action perfectly.

The jist of the plot is an elite police team are sent into a highrise building to sweep the building of threats and kill the boss at the top floor (which, funnily enough, is basically the final level or two of the original Streets of Rage)
The review then?

The film is fucking raw. They enter the building in stealth, kill some dudes, and then the alarm gets set off... And shit gets real. The guns come out, the snipers assemble, the machetes and knives are unsheathed.
The raid at its heart is about an hour of impressive fight choreography, flitted with guns, knives and folk getting their spines and necks broken.

If you like these sort of martial arts films, you'll love this, because, like the guy below, its executed very, very well.

Hotline Miami

A fairly out of nowhere indie game which has taken many by surprise.

It caught my eye when I saw it at the eurogamer expo this year, and a week or so ago I finally managed to have some time with it (and finished it today)

Its a fun little game, with simple graphics and concept - the concept being 'kill everything', which in itself is probably not a particularly unique concept, but the way in which it is carried out is certainly different and hasn't been done much.
It plays from a top-down view, and is a little similar to counterstrike2D (if you were old school enough for that), that is to say you aim with the mouse and move your character with WASD. The enemy AI is predictable enough, but this is probably part of the game, as if they were any smarter the player would be completely fucked in most scenarios - as is most enemies are professional sharpshooters and musclemen who will murder you in 1 hit.

The story is sort of complex in a way where most players will not have a clue what the ending is or indeed what they have just spent the past few hours witnessing, this isn't really helped by a final 4 chapters after you beat the game telling the story from an alternate universe or a different perspective or SOMETHING (i dont even know). I personally had a little google and saw some theories for the story of the game, all of which make more sense than my own - jist of which is that the dude is batshit insane.

The music is probably the standout in the game, and really brings it all together. Loud chiptune tracks which will get your heart going and have you charging into rooms full of armed thugs whilst you yourself are armed with nowt but a metal pole and a giraffe mask.

The game is £7 on steam currently, this is personally probably slightly more than i'd want to pay for the game given the short length of the story and repetitive nature of the game, however there are certainly far worse things you could spend £7 on. I'd price it at £5, a figure almost guaranteed to be offered come Christmas time.

tldr; Hotline Miami is a fun, frantic topdown action game with great music but a confusing plot.

What you should be watching this season (Autumn 2012)

New Shows:

Psycho Pass

A future world where law enforcers can arrest/kill individuals based on their likelihood of committing a crime in the future, and the law enforcers are criminals themselves. Im enjoying this one mostly for the universe it has been set in, where you can change outfits at the press of a button, and your future can be dictated to you by the system. Its a slow moving action sci-fi with great art. Also gore if you get shot in the arm by one of those enforcer guns...

Tonari no Kaibutsu Kun (My little monster)

This is my personal favourite of the season by a landslide.
Romantic comedy with a very lovable cast of characters. not really much else to say here, Romantic comedies are pretty standard in their method but this one is well executed. Also an amazing Ska intro.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Follows the first series of manga (the phantom blood arc), Its fucking Jojo vs Dio at its best, the art style is pretty cool in that it goes all manga style every now and then. The anime thankfully skips most of the boring stuff in the manga and condenses it mostly into the first episode, bare this in mind if you start watching in that the first episode is pretty boring but necessary to establish Dio as a complete asshole. I've read this arc in the manga and the action is going to keep ramping up until people are setting their hands the fuck on fire and punching through people.

Robotics;Notes

Another season, another school club. This time the robotics club in their attempt to build GUNVARREL, a giant robot, to enter into a competition. Seems pretty slow starting for now but is very watchable. This is also from the same writers as Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, both of which contain some ridiculous twists as the series goes on, its been revealed in episode 2 of robo;notes that the main girl suffers from a syndrome where occasionally 5 minutes will pass by in a second for her - so something tells me shit is going to get crazy later on.

Suki-tte ii na yo (Say I love you)

A Romantic drama, which seems to be progressing pretty damn fast with confessions flying by 2nd episode, which is a nice change of pace for anyone who watches these sort of series (for comparison in Kimi ni todoke I think it took a 26 episode season). Its a decent watch so far, although the central male in this seems like kind of a rapist. This one is mostly a serious show, so if you want something more lighthearted watch Tonari no kaibutsu (above) instead.

Those fucking eyes.

Chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai
Regardless of my adolescent delusions, I want a date!

Moeblob of the season, from the studio that made K-on I believe. A comedy which reminds me a little of haruhi, with a straight man and a girl who is obviously high as hell. A fun watch if you can stomach the moeeeee~
Also, she has an eyepatch, because people are into that apparently.

Sequels:

Hidamari Sketch Honeycomb (S4)
Season 4 of hidamari apartments, if you've watched any of the previous seasons  you know what to expect, if you havent, and want a very chill slice of life comedy, check out the previous 3 seasons first.
When I started watching from S1 I finished all 3 seasons in 3 months (that is to say, it was good enough for me to come back for more)

Bakuman S3
Its Baku again. Still good. This is the one that was originally based on a manga about making manga.


'Okay' Tier:

Zetsuen No Tempest 
Semi-generic battle style anime, watch magical talismans. Guy trying to avenge his dead sister. Its okay. I'm probably going to stop watching this after watching episode 3 this morning.

The Pet Girl of Sakurasou
Comedy about.... Honestly I've watched 2 episodes and i dont have a clue what im watching. Its not bad, but its not very memorable either

Shin Sekai yori (from the new world)
From a future world where people have esper like abilities, bad students get murdered? Or something? Its okay. I've stopped watching though.


Hot Garbage Tier:

Onii-chan dakedo ai sae areba kankei nai yo ne!
Anything with onii-chan in the name is generally trash, this reaffirms.

Hayate no gotoku: Cant take my eyes off you
A reboot of a series which used to be good. Watch the original instead of this crap.

Btoom!
Guy gets sucked into a desert island which is also a call of duty 4 server, that is to say, everyone its battle royale and everyone has grenades.

K
Fuck knows what this is. Watched 2 episodes and I want my 45 minutes back.

Payday: The Heist

Note: Readers in the UK can get this game for cheaps/free by buying/photographing this months edition of PC Gamer magazine. There is another code in there for DOTA2 beta invite too.

Payday has been out for about a year now, and is probably a game you've heard of, but never tried playing or felt interested in looking into. I was the same, until I activated my copy of the game and started my first heist.

The game premise can be simplifed down to something along the lines of...
Get in -> Get the money -> Get the fuck out
However, 'get the money' is usually easier said than done, being protected by vault doors, keycodes, buildings and so on.

Gameplay feels like a very objective focused Left 4 Dead, those who have tried gas grab mode (or whatever its called) will have the best idea of what to expect here, the difference of course being that instead of fighting off waves of undead, you fight off gunmen, and instead of special infected you have special forces (SWAT, Shields, Snipers, CoD Juggernauts).
Its fun and frantic, fighting off police assaulting the building whilst juggling health, ammo, teammates, objectives and trying your best to keep hostages detained, all the while drum and bass is pounding your desk (if you're playing with the volume up like I was anyway)

Music sample from the 'panic room' level - where you blow a hole in the top of a building and have a helicopter airlift their safe out
Music sample from 'Diamonds' - pictured below, where you rob a vault for diamonds

As far as replayability goes, The upgrades system is sort of cool, where you can level up to 145 (or maybe higher) and can pick what upgrade path you want to take for unlocks, skill upgrades and gear upgrades. The game also seems to use something similar to the director AI in L4D, changing up the level slightly each time - an example I encountered is one of the helicopter pilots who drops C4 for you, he is supposed to drop it on the roof but sometimes he is completely shit and drops it off the side of the building, whereby you'll have to go from the roof down into the alley on the side before you can continue. Its also worth noting that the game is hard as balls, the game announces the average success rate for each heist on each difficulty, the average success for normal across all heists is around 35%, and with 4 difficulties, 'overkill' mode (the hardest) drops that down to single digits.

If you have 3 friends and are looking for co-op style games similar to L4D, Payday is a pretty fun and surprisingly difficult excursion. Defo worth it if you ever see it on sale, and possibly worth it as long as you have a dedicated group up for a challenge.

Eurogamer Expo 2012 Overview

http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/whats-on

The Good:
(Games which were fun, surprising, looked good or were creative)

Aliens Colonial Marines - We got to try the multiplayer, which was a team deathmatch Marines VS Alien, played out kind of like L4D versus mode, was a lot of fun running around with the shotgun and having aliens jump off from rooftops and trying to murder you (Had a sweet moment where I had a shotgun double kill, switched to pistol for a 3rd and shot him out of the sky as he was trying to leap away).

Chompy Chomp Chomp - (hyperlinked because its an obscure ass indie game for 80MSP) Pretty fun, frantic multiplayer game for 4 people, Its pretty much 'the ship' but sped up by about 100x, You have a target to kill, a player has you as their target, run around a maze, juke enemies, eat target. Its fun, and for 80 MSP seems pretty reasonable.

Hitman Absolution - Its obviously hard to judge this sort of game from a short play, but I have faith in this one, graphically amazing, the demo stage had about 5 ways to achieve the objective, seems like everything you would want from a hitman game.

Luigi's Mansion 3DS - Looked incredible for a handheld game, and looked like it was luigi's mansion, I didnt actually get to play this one, instead looking over my brothers shoulder, its a shame there is not right analogue stick, but the game lookd pretty good for sure.

Metal Gear Rising - Didn't get to play this one because of the massive queue, but holy shit this game looks amazing. 60fps, fluid slicing action, robot dogs with chainsaws, slice legs off metal gear rex? So annoyed the queue for so big.

Rocksmith - aka. Real life Guitar Hero. It works, Its good, Its also hard as shit. Goes through stuff like tuning all the way to power chords and probably way more.

SimCity (2013) - Looks good, didn't play it but watched some of the 'pre-alpha build' and seems to be a pretty version of the old simcity you knew and loved, mixed with a nice refined UI and 'the sims' aesthetic look. Seems like it has some fair depth as well, saw some guy looking at (what i think was) sewage pipe layout mode

Tokyo Jungle - Not sure what I was watching, but holy shit looks amazing fun.

Tomb Raider (2012) - Looks like a good reboot, an emphasis on survival rather than doing... whatever it was tomb raider used to do, graphically amazing, good voice acting and facial capture/mo-cap stuff. The demo we played was half platformy and then had a survival/hunting bit at the end and was pretty cool, I can see the game getting better later on fo sure.

Warface - Looks like a free call of duty, but on cryengine 2... Aint even mad.

The Wii U - Big one here, it works. It feels like you would essentially need 4 other friends to be with you for this to be worth it, but with the maximum amount of players, and the asymetrical gameplay on the screen thing, its pretty fucking sweet. We played 3/5 of the nintendoland games (luigi's mansion, animal crossing, zelda), all of which were clearly designed to showcase the strong points of the controller. Luigi's mansion was a hell of a lot of fun (I won when I played ghost obviously), the animal crossing one which was kind of like tag was cool as well, the zelda one was maybe my least favorite, but was in no means bad, the archery-move-the-controller-around thing worked fairly well and was accurate as long as you have sexy steady gamer hands like myself, the game did however have some issues with calibrating which meant that I was essentially standing backwards to aim forwards (not that it matters because you have your own screen anyway, but you arent going to be sitting down for this). We also played NSMBwiiU, where the new controller and block placing mechanic seems great for dicking over your friends like we do all the time. The wonderful 101 looked awesome, Rayman looked awesome, ZombieU looked awesome.

The 'Bad':
(Games which need polish, you've already played once, etc)

Crysis 3 - Looked pretty much identical to Crysis 2

DmC - A great Devil may Cry sequel, and its great fun, however it seemed to have some pretty serious framerate issues, shambling around at around 15-25fps, this is pretty much the only reason why its in this section and not 'the good' section. I hear its getting a PC release which I guess will sort this problem out, in which case I look forward to playing through the game when it comes out.
Also, Devil Trigger mode looks INCREDIBLE. The whole screen goes kind of white-out high saturation and blood and dante himself turn blood red.

Dust514 - Looks like Battlefield 2142 I suppose, my friend says it has some control issues, it also looked like it had some framerate issues, and no PC version for this one...

Fable the journey - Bare in mind I didn't play it, but looking from the sides, many players seemed to be having some serious controller issues. Dudes flailing their arms around clearly trying to hit a switch or something and just not being able to, gameplay itself seemed meh.

Gears of war judgement and God of War Ascension - Oh look, its this game again. (looked identical to all 3 other GoW games)

Halo 4 - Looked a little too similar to Halo Reach to me, polished up again for sure, but developers have to do more than just a graphical touchup to earn my money and respect these days.

Natural Selection 2 - Looked a little boring from what I was watching, maybe I just need to give it a go though. Graphically looks very nice however.

Buddha Finger - (Iphone App, linked 4 indie) A mix between elite beat agents and the fist of the north star arcade cabinet (Fighting Mania). You have to hit XYZ button prompts to 'fight' your opponent, its kind of cool I guess and probably fun for short bursts, needs some polish though - I tried to give some tips on how they could improve it, whether or not she gave a shit about anything I was saying is another matter completely - Also needs an android version, which she says is coming after the Iphone version.

The Ugly:
(Won't buy, were very disappointing, didnt make sense, etc)

Dishonored - Very very disappointing. Bioshock above ground, where combat seems less effective than stealth, and stealth is boring and uninventive. Graphically mediocre, melee combat defense seems sketchy, ranged weapons lack impact. The powers didn't seem particularly interesting either, on offer from what I remember was blink, see through walls, mindjack, fus-ro-dah.

Didn't properly look at - Looked Good:
AC3, BLOPS2, Dance Central 3, Company Of Heroes 2, Forza horizon, GRID2, Hell Yeah (dead rabbit), Hotline Miami, Criteron NFS:MW, Ni no Kuni, Pikmin 3, Rayman Legends, Wonderful 101, Ratchet and Clank, Unfinished Swan, When Vikings Attack, ZOE HD, The Cave

Didn't properly look at - Looked Bad:
Far Cry 3, Air buccaneers, MOH warfighter, Merlin, Prison Architect, Strike Suit Zero, XCOM

Faster Than Light (FTL)

FTL is an odd game, introduced to me by pyrion flax from le youtubes, whose video review is probably better than the mini-review im about to write.


Your ultimate goal in the game is to journey from Sector 1 to Sector 8,and kill the enemy mothership - easier said than done because you are constantly being chased by 'the empire'  and the final enemy mothership is a cheating bastard and you need a crap-ton of space-xp to even stand a chance.

Maps are randomly generated, and as you can see, the empire closes in on every warp, and you really, REALLY don't want any part of their shit

The game is a roguelike, which is a fancy way of saying 1 life/perma death - Stressful for obvious reasons, which is made more stressful by the general difficulty of the game, where random ships in space will happily carve you up, set your medbay on fire, board you and rape your crew.
Sometimes you'll die not even to other ships but just by the world itself, run out of fuel? you die. Run into an Ion storm unprepared? you probably die. Randomly get boarded by 4 mantis troops? You die. Starting to see a trend here?

Actual gameplay itself is fairly simply, float along to sector 8, try to get as much scrap as you can so you can upgrade your ship, this can be done by killing other ships, or random encounters in space (helping people, distress signals, mercenary work). Then spend your scrap on stuff at space-shops, where you can buy new bays (giving access to drones, cloaking, boarding) or new weapons/drones (lazers, missiles, boarding drones, defense drones, sentries).
Combat itself is mostly just firing onto the enemy shields, and then going for their weapons bay, the problem occurs however when your ship is underequipped - and by that i mean some combination of...
A) You do not have enough damage to get through their shields
B) Your shields are not strong enough
C) You are being boarded and your crew is getting slaughtered
D) Your ship does not have enough energy
Option B is most common, with enemy weaponry damaging your bays, when a bay is damaged it does not work, meaning you now have to direct your crew to fix stuff, put out fires, or fight boarders. Remember that you can't attack if your weapons bay is damaged, and you have no shields if your shield bay is damaged.
If you are having option D, then you now have to reroute power to the areas which need it most.... do you want oxygen, or do you want weapons? Tough choice? but if you don't kill the enemy ship, they'll eventually tear through your hull and you die anyway.
You can also manually control the doors to vacumn out fires and things like that, assuming your door controls are working.



Now im probably not really selling the game too well here, but it is strangely fun and will sap hours away from you, and you wont really understand why or how you are still playing, or why you are restarting the game again. There is a fair bit of re-playability, with various achievements and 8 ships to unlock, so there is always that
I'd definitely recommend it, the game itself is only £7 at the moment on steam, I bought it the other day and have clocked 8 hours already, and at £1/hour it's already cheaper than half the xbox experiences you'll have.

Owl City - The midsummer Station (2012) review

Just a little plug for ol' owl city since im 'borrowing' the album

'The midsummer Station' is good. Surprisingly good.

Not that his older albums were bad (ive listened to them all), but this album has more of a grownup feel to it, utilizing heavier beats and effects usually saved for dance/dubstep artists.
Songs in this album seem to be divided into pop-rock stuff and what is essentially dance/club music, both of which are pretty catchy.

For example, bombshell blonde (linked below, cant embed as copyrighted and stuff)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sREbkI2gcE

Like... wat.

Remember this is the pansy that made fireflies.

Give it a try, turn it up, you might actually enjoy it, although you probably still wont tell your friends about it, nobody wants to be that guy listening to Owl city after all.

Guild Wars 2 First Impressions

Meng is gon' fuck you up son.

This game is the shit.
Like. Seriously.

I dont even know where to start with how satisfying this game is. This post is a VERY SHORT look at the game, from an early impression.

The world:
Is beautiful, vivid, and begging to be explored. If you ever played assassins creed and felt yourself wanting to climb up the guard posts to synchronize you will have a goddamn field day in guild wars 2 where you can spend hours just exploring the world, finding viewpoints, doing world puzzles and so on. I have spent about 10 hours playing, and i feel like I have just scratched the surface, my world explore % is at about 8% now, the zones are so massive its awesome.

One of the more irritating jumping puzzles

A little jumping puzzle to get to the viewpoint

The world is gigantic.

The Combat:
Is mmo combat, they have tried their best to make it more action based, and to some extent they have done so, its not quite on the same level as Age of Conan, but the active dodge system and active skills with fast cooldowns are a little more exciting than the combat in WoW for example.

The PVP:
World vs World vs World is pretty much as cool as it sounds, 40v40 battlegrounds are so last season, a bigass world where you can be in a small or large group and rock objectives is awesome, there are always people around, and the fights are crazy. Servers will protect their castles when they come under attack, and will go on the offensive to take castles/supply depots when they have enough people. You also gain exp, money and even drops from fighting in PVP, and its a reasonable amount too. I have no doubt that there will be level 80's who level purely from fighting in WvWvW.

There are random raid boss things in WvWvW as well

We failed a push against a tower, and about 30 players jumped us, those in frontline got dunked.

The 'Story' :
Its an mmo, yet it has a singleplayer style story and narrative - the quests are pretty optional as far as i know, but its a nice touch. Maybe you arent massive on the whole teamwork thing, no problem, solo the game and pretend its a singleplayer game.

Game mechanics:
The game really did a few mechanics right, for example, there is no killstealing or loot stealing, if you are soloing a mob and then 8 dudes come over and kill it, you all get xp and loot, everyone wins.
This little change in mechanics means everyone is now on the same team, if you all help each other out, everyone gets more xp and drops, lets form an impromptu party and slay everything! - this is much easier than forming an actual party, requires no talk between players, and has no commitment. Awesome. The same goes for skill bosses, special elites which when defeated, give a skill point, everyone that participates will get the point, and the mob is generally too hard to kill alone, so help each other out!
I really like the random event system they have going as well, a particular example which sticks out is bears randomly coming out of the forest to attack a town that I was in, whilst I was using a vendor. All nearby players are informed of the event, so help is usually quick to come.

I guess this will help with Meatoberfest at least (an actual ingame event)

tldr: Get the game and come and fucking play with me, my playername is Mengplex