I've been spending quite a lot of time with family this year. While it's often firmly in serious business territory, a bit of fun rears its head now and then. The best example I could possibly provide lies on the shoulders of the handsome Halloween dummy above. Don't mind the googly-eyed felt spider; he's cool.
The end of August is always a magical time. Summer and its nasty humidity-filled heat are slowly dying down, and the Halloween season is right around the corner. I'm about to friggin' squee.
In fact, the glorious fall holiday has already begun to rear its head. I'm seeing beautifully tacky decorations and fun candy assortments pop up all over the place. It would be impossible to keep my excitement in check, so I might as well share it with the internet! Here are some of my first spooky sightings of Halloween 2015!
In the wild world of 3rd Party Transformer toys, it's not uncommon for several companies to release their own versions of the same characters. However, the practice has been most common with "sexier," high-concept ideas like combiners. That's now completely out the window. Within the same day, new images surfaced of two different nods to the oft-overlooked and under-appreciated Hound.
Begun, the Hound War has.
Does Castle Geek-Skull really need another feature? You bet it does, and I can't think of anything more perfect for the inaugural installment of "Wacky Wonders" than the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Prop Replica Mug. This thing reaches glorious heights of "dumb" and I absolutely love it.
During my routine bouts of frenzied internet browsing, I've noticed more and more targeted ads creeping their way into the margins of each page. I shouldn't be surprised, as pretty much everyone is bound to get bombarded with advertisements related to their recent search history these days. Still, it seems more prevalent than ever, and I've become increasingly amused at the niche various networks have filed me under.
So, in a classic display of over-sharing (and posting shit no one cares about), here are a handful of the targeted ads recently thrown my way!
During my latest visit to a local retail store's wall of Mario amiibo, I did an amazing thing. I turned around.
Arranged before me was a beautiful display of Skylanders with a degree of variety I no longer thought possible. While I've found plenty of items in the line's history intriguing, I've always been more than happy to admire them from a distance. I'm afraid that might be out the window now. I have witnessed the full glory of Krypt King, up close and personal. I have the sneaking feeling that his allure may be inescapable.
I think I'm going to finally buy a Skylander. I think I'm going to buy a Krypt King.
As featured in Castle Geek-Skull's latest Weekly Want post, Takara Tomy is bringing an actual Slingshot our way. "Combiner Wars" Superion has always looked promising, but it was definitely a bummer that one of the original crew had been replaced. I chalked up the inclusion of placeholder 'Bot Alpha Bravo to necessary cost cuts, but now I'm not sure what to think!
In a recent interview, Street Fighter V producer Yoshinori Ono mentioned hoping the title would bring younger players into the series. The statement pretty much ended there, but it still managed to spark several discussions online. Some have had a sense of respectable back and forth, with various viewpoints and overall grounded opinions being shared. Of course, there were also overly-reactionary responses that assume the quote means the game might be "aimed towards kids."
Yesterday, Takara Tomy updated their website with some new information on the 2015 Robots in Disguise series. The overseas name of the upcoming Prime sequel is Transformers: Adventure. I can't help wishing that was universal. I usually try not to immediately jump on board the "Japan does it better" train, but here I am doing exactly that. Sigh.
Entertainment Earth recently sent me an e-mail filled with thumbnails of the upcoming Big Trouble in Little China ReAction figures, and I'm pretty certain it's the best one I've ever received. I've already thrown ol' Jack Burton a nod in the latest edition of Weekly Want, but the entire assortment deserves some time in the spotlight. Here they are in all their glory:
Some of you stumbling across this probably already hate me from the title alone. Hear me out!
One of today's hottest topics is Marvel's announcement that the upcoming Secret Wars event will bring the Ultimate and 616 Marvel Universes together. One of the most commonly reported phrases is that the "Marvel Universe is coming to an end." How dramatic!
Even from the earliest glimpses at E3 2014, I thought Mortal Kombat X looked like a promising progression for the franchise. My last real MK experiences were with the clunkier PlayStation 2 era games like Deadly Alliance, none of which really did it for me. I find the faster paced 2.5D approach of the upcoming installment much more appealing. MK X has only looked better with each new reveal.
Perhaps I'm being too easily swayed by the editing, but the latest trailer featuring Kung Lao and Princess Kitana has some of the best looking Mortal Kombat gameplay I've ever seen. If you look past the goofy story bits and ridiculously violent Fatality teases, the characters appear to have tons of maneuverability with a decent sense of momentum in tow. Feel free to check out the footage below if you're curious:
In 1993, the wonderfully cheesy tokusatsu program Denkou Choujin Gridman erupted onto the scene. Each episode of its Brave-meets-Ultraman goodness found the titular hero battling various Kaiju alongside the kick-ass GodZenon and DinaDragon in a digital world. DIC Entertainment soon adapted the series into the short-lived Power Rangers competitor Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad. While I was never a huge fan of the show itself, I've always loved the obligatory toyline and its corresponding mecha designs.
For the recent Japan Animator Expo, Studio Trigger (best known for Kill la Kill) has produced a Gridman anime short that pays glorious tribute to the "Giant Hero" classic. The kinetic animation style is right up my alley, and I can never get enough mecha versus Kaiju battle scenes. You can check it out on Youtube below:
With Super Smash Bros. for Wii U all the rage, there's more demand than ever for Wii U GameCube controller adapters. Unfortunately, many of the listings from various online retailers and third party sellers veer well into "overpriced" territory. Ever the penny-pincher, I recently stumbled across a variety of affordable and thus-far well reviewed options from Play-Asia. If you've also been on the look out, you might want to consider one of the following:
The Duck Hunt dog is often considered one of the most annoying video game characters ever. After every failed shot, the little devil famously pops up on screen to laugh at your ineptitude. This two frame animation has haunted millions:
Several years before taking notice of Greg Capullo's artwork in the pages of Spawn and Wizard Magazine's monthly "Krash Course" instructional features, I received this framed X-Men poster as an unexpected gift. It was hung proudly in my room where I admired it day and night, and I still have it all these years later. Behold:
If you pay attention to any sort of social media buzz, you've surely seen that Awesome Games Done Quick 2015 is now underway. For the handful of you in the dark, this is a bi-annual event with a nonstop barrage of video game speedruns held to raise funds for charities such as Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. An ongoing Twitch stream shows off the gameplay (complete with commentary) and the status of the donations so far.
Games Done Quick events tend to have a lot of entertainment value if you care about seeing the likes of Super Mario Bros. and other classics played on an expert level. There are also a lot of runs that take advantage of oddities like super specific glitches, offering up strategies you may have never seen before. Every now and then the runners or commentators are pretty humorous as well. There might be some awkward moments here and there, but the positives (such as helping raise millions of dollars for great causes) outweigh such issues significantly.
While the limited availability of various amiibo figures helped draw me towards the craze, staring at pegs filled with nothing but Mario is really starting to wear me out. Online retailers like Entertainment Earth and Amazon have helped pick up the slack, but I can't shake the preference of tracking down collectibles in person. It's a shame that there's no variety in my local stores right now.
I know amiibo figures are only two waves in, but there are plenty of characters that feel completely mythical at this point. I'm not only talking about the elusive Marth, Wii Fit Trainer, and Villager either. I've seen Peach and Pikachu around...and that's pretty much it. Otherwise, I'm drowning in a sea of Marios.
I haven't been the most diligent in keeping up with the developments of the upcoming Transfomers: Robots in Disguise series, but I was stopped dead in my tracks when clips of the cartoon's intro hit the Youtubes. The all-too enticing thumbnail consisted of what you see above: Thunderhoof, an impossibly magnificent new Decepticon with giant freaking antlers.
I'm sure I'm the last person alive to notice given the scarcity of my sign-ins, but PlayStation Network's store has a "Just For You" category now. It looks to be inspired by the practices of online retailers like Amazon that suggest products based on recent orders. Whereas the big A-Z is usually spot on, the PlayStation Store recommendations need a bit of work.
