December 29th, 2010
End of Year Review 2010
Howdy to all who may be reading, well its almost the end of the year and it's blogging time once again. After all of these months this is the time of yeah where I review the year in my own little way and hope that someone happens to be checking it out haha. So 2010, it has been an interesting year full of memorabilia, we had games, films, television, music, news and sport of the good, bad and unnatural kind and as usual I shall cover all of it as best as I can. After half a decade of doing these blogs, this 6th instalment makes you feel like you're actually doing something important. Now before I get into this I have to mention the fact that this blog is really long, skim through if you have to or check out the parts relevant to you, but as long as you look at one bit I’ll be satisfied.
Video-games
Holy cow 2010 has been just an explosion on the video game scene with title after title being released with the majority of games delivering on their promise for good gaming experiences and then then some. The Wii despite the talks of sales going down and having a patchy list of released titles still triumphed in the face of adversity with a number of great 1st & 3rd party titles for the games console, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 excelled and advanced with their new hardware and great games joint and exclusively released. Many things happened this year and I probably won't get through everything but I shall do my best to cover what's what.
Firstly let me mention the fact that all home consoles of the 7th generation have turned to motion-sensed gaming, it was something that the Wii started back in 2006 and most hardcore gamers, critics and executive peoples at Sony and Microsoft said it would never take off or work and then 2-3 years after the Wii has done its thing Sony come out with Move and then Microsoft show up with Kinect... Anybody sensing a bit of irony at all? I'm not gonna go into detail about these 2 new pieces of hardware which are supposedly gonna check the way that gaming works, I’m just annoyed that everyone is jumping on this gaming bus, thinking that its all new stuff when it's been going for a fair degree of time beforehand. Sure since there are HD consoles which can also do motion-sensing as well it's gonna draw in new audiences because its new and since the Wii is loosing momentum this is the natural way for people to go. However I won't buy into it and it bugs me that there's all these annoying adverts for it when nothing out there at the moment is really saying anything. E3 2010 was also one of great high points of the year for gaming with the convention overall being a success for all companies involved showcasing new games that came out this year and the ones set to come out for next year.
Anywayz let's talk games. Firstly let me cover all of the Wii stuff coz that's where all my knowledge sides. Firstly Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, the latest in the Capcom crossover series was a blast, playing as Karas, Ryu and Ippatsuman dishing out the pain online was awesome and the Wii finally got its first proper fighting gaming. Then we had the sequel to the launch title Red Steel, in the shape of Red Steel 2 which was much more superior to the original with better gameplay, sporting full motion control with the use of Wii Motion Plus and a unique graphical style. Monster Hunter Tri which was worth the wait as it was the first game I proper got into playing continuously from spring into the summer. The game was graphically impressive, had a very deep online experience, great music and was a great continuation in the franchise critically. And with the summer came the awesome Sin and Punishment 2 which I got to try out at a convention and I enjoyed it and while it was stated to be a pretty short game it was still very received. But the big point of the summer for the Wii came in the shape of the critically acclaimed Super Mario Galaxy 2 which I picked up and enjoyed for a short time before I stopped playing lol. While that sounds pretty bad, I just wasn't down for the world of Mario like I was the first time round, but yeah this was the biggest game of the year for the Wii and it was been given perfect scores by so many reviewers too.
Metroid: Other M game along in September and was prised for the graphics, gameplay and innovative take on the Metroid series, although it was criticised for the switch between 1st person and 3rd person perspective, the story's take on Samus' character and not being as impressive as the Prime series. I should start playing again. No More Heroes 2 which was a highly anticipated sequel delivered more bosses, more style, better action and gameplay and I and started playing around June, but in the end I only played for about a fortnight due to the more streamlined approach of the game and lack of freedom that the first game had. Then my sister obtained Goldeneye 007 Wii and she's been plying through that, I got to try it out myself with a friend and enjoyed a lot and I’ve been working my way through Sonic Colours and I completed in style with Super Sonic around a week ago and definitely think that this game it is one of the better Sonic games that have come out in recent times!We also saw the return of Kirby, after 6 years in gaming limbo he returned with the cutest game ever; Kriby's Epic Yarn, while it was dubbed to be too easy and lacking challenge, the game was still a critical success and I loved playing it with Touka at the London MCM Expo and another game I played at the Expo was the critically acclaimed title Donkey Kong Country Returns which was the complete opposite of Kirby; pure brutality in platforming, full of pain, suffering and old-school gaming like the original on the Super Nintendo. Epic Mickey was another highly anticipated title on the Wii that I tried and liked, the overall game when it arrived was mixed in review with most critics and gamers enjoying the story, graphics and gameplay, but didn't like the controls, the lack of proper RPG elements and an awkward camera system.
Now for games outside of the Wii. There were some big releases for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Firstly we had the sexy Bayonetta, a game developed by Platinum Games that gave us crazy, over-the-top action of a different kind. Then we had the 2 highly anticipated sequels in the form of Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 which were both critically and commercially successful. After 2 failed attempts at making film adaptations of the Alien vs. Predator, they make a video-game that comes across as similar to the films with you being able to play as the Alien, Predator or humans. We also had one of the best PS3 exclusive titles show up, Heavy Rain was described to be one of the most interesting, exciting and innovative games to come out on the PS3 so far according to games critics. The Mega Man series continued to be released in its 8-bit style with the 10th game in the series being released as a downloadable title and the game added an easy mode, another playable character and even more retro fun! Another highly anticipated sequel came in the shape of Assassin’s Creed which improved on the original in nearly every way by having greater exploration, non-linear gameplay, improved character AI, better weapons and combat mechanics among other things. Final Fantasy XIII was another game which had been highly anticipated for around 4 years and while the final result had a much more different feel then the previous games in the franchise, it still sold well and for the most part was well-received in the area of graphics and presentation, the battle system and the game's soundtrack.
We then had the long-awaited God of War III for the PS3 which sported some of the most impressive graphics I’ve seen, with great gameplay and overall the game that was larger then life. The game was universally praised and showed that the God of War franchise is still rockin! Transformers: War for Cybertron was a fantastic third person shooter that finally gave us a good gaming experience as an Autobot or a Decepticon. There was also the big cheese that was known as Red Dead Redemption which was the first cowboy game to ever be cool, with one of the most diverse forms of gameplay, brilliant graphic and a number of thing to do online and offline with additional downloadable content to come too, Red Dead Redemption was one of the best games to show up this year. Crackdown 2 for the Xbox 360 had mixed reviews, while it updated several features from the original I was criticised for being to similar to the original. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was the downloadable title for XBLA that changed up the formula of gameplay for Lara Croft, but was still an enjoyable title and another downloadable title on PSN & XBLA which was pretty successful was the movie tie-in game Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game which was praised for its great retro style and awesome soundtrack. Mafia II was a pretty good action adventure game for the summer, and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions was a game which was praised for its story, variation in gameplay and combat, presentation and different costumes available. The battle of football games continued with FIFA 11 & Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 with FIFA seeming to win the battle again, Lost Planet 2 wasn't the sequel everyone was hoping for and after all the hype surrounding the release of Final Fantasy XIV as a new online experience as an MMORPG it turned out to be a terrible game with bad interface and quest restrictions as only the start of the problems. Then we had the first new 3D Castlevania game for a good few years and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow which was an action adventure that borrowed elements from games like Devil May Cry and God of War and while the game was a far cry from the originals it was still well-received.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was also a well-received action adventure game crafted by the brilliant people at Ninja Theory that gave life to Heavenly Sword back in 2007. Sonic's supposed return to form wasn't exactly perfect, in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 we had a decent attempt at recreating the classic 2D platforming elements that came with the Sega Megadrive/Genesis days of gaming, but had problems with the physics, length of the game and questionable level design and difficulty. Fable III also appeared this year and while it lacked innovation it made up for it with change in gameplay and overall RPG elements. And speaking of other thirds in a franchise we had Rock Band 3 and the long-awaited return of The Sims series with The Sims 3. When Wii owners got Goldeneye Xbox and PS3 owners though t that they were getting a better game when 007 Blood Stone showed up, however the game was noted as being short, repetitive and lacking an overall “James Bond” flair. Then came Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II which added some new elements for the gameplay in terms of force abilities and dismemberment, overall the game was seen as a failure due to the repetitive level design and lacking story. We had 2 fabulous first person shooters in the shape of Medal of Honor and the critically acclaimed Call of Duty: Black Ops which set the gaming world's heart alight. After almost forever of waiting Gran Turismo 5 finally showed up on the PS3 sporting some super realistic graphics, a good load of cars and a great driving experience offline and online. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit was a hot game full wonderful arcade gameplay and wicked graphics, while around the same time the next game in the Assassin’s Creed series game in the form of Brotherhood which had again improved the gameplay and even added a multiplayer element which was well-received as well as the visuals, voice acting and sound effects.7 And to finish up the year we had Tron Evolution, a game that was meant to tie up the ends between the last film and the latest film capturing the best elements of the movie and transferring them to the game, alas the game was interesting but just ended up being another bad movie tie-in game.
The Nintendo DS also had some good games too. Dragon Quest IX came out for the DS and was probably the biggest game of the year for the DS, there was also the other fabulous RPGs Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light and after 6 years, the return of of the Golden Sun games came in the form of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, both games were classic RPG gaming at its finest. The latest game in the Professor Layton series came in the shape of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future which was well-received and is considered the best game in the series so far so more power to developers Level-5 for crafting the game.
Film
My goodness, the year 2010 has been a very interesting year for films. There have been some true gems in this years catalogue, but there have been a number of bad titles, major disappointments and some films that different even need to come into existence. The were reboots, adaptations and sequels galore and just a few open spots for original films in the world of cinema this year. I can honestly say I must have seen at least 60% of the films out in this whole year, possibly a bit more due to my constant time spent at the cinema, but yeah there's a lot to get through so I’ll try to streamline this as much as possible.
So let's start with all the good films, well from the time I saw The Princess and the Frog earlier this year I was ready for a good year at the cinema and for the first 3 months I was treated to wicked, yet confusing Shutter Island, there was also the post-apocalyptic action film The Book of Eli and well-shot action thriller Green Zone. Then came April and so I got to check out the ultra-violent sweetness that was Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughan brought the comic to life with wonderfully filmed action, brutality and stand-out performances from Aaron Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and even Nicholas Cage. Then there was the unexpected gem that was The Losers; another comic book adaptation that did pretty well. There was also the beautifully told story of The Ghost Writer by Roman Polanski which was a well directed stylish thriller which featured one of my favourite performances by Ewan McGregor. I also liked the action comedy Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carell and Get Him To The Greek was the comedy film that started off my summer, smiling with the talents of Russell Brand, Jona Hill and Diddy. After that we had the reinvention of The Karate Kid called The Kung-Fu Kid aka The Karate Kid 2010 starring Jackie Chan. Now The Karate Kid didn't need the reboot treatment but it came and for what it was it was pretty good. Jaden Smith holds his own and busts out some fabulous moves, while Jackie Chan just look friggin awesome fighting on-screen.
And so came in my opinion the 2 biggest films of the year which rocked the house both critically and commercially; Toy Story 3 and Inception. Toy Story 3 showed us once again that Pixar know how to do sequels and make truly emotive pieces of work that make you cry regardless of your age and Inception showed us that Christopher Nolan knows how to make great films other then The Dark Knight. Inception was a jigsaw puzzle that required multiple viewings just to put all the pieces together and understand what was going on, but it was all worth it to see the action, story and brilliant film score by Han Zimmer just hit ya when your in the cinema screen. Then came the brutal, all-action film The Expendables featuring almost every action-based movie star you could fit into a film and while the film was anything innovative or super fantastic you have to be open minded and once you let the carnage take over the film was a joy to watch. Then in middle of August came the explosion of awesomeness which was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which was one of the best films I have ever seen in the cinema. It was just a wonderful comedy crafted by Edgar Wright full of heart, a good story, fabulous characters and was set in a world where video-games and the real world collide in spectacular fashion! Then in the summer came the wonderfully brutal action film done by Robert Rodriguez which was just so unnaturally bloody and messy, but hell it was bloody sweet, B-movies like these need to be supported! Then Emma Stone came along and wowed us with her comedy film Easy A which I was really hoping to check out this year, while people looking something a little more hard-hitting came in the form of The Town, a crime thriller by Ben Affleck that shows that this genre of film still does well and I enjoyed it greatly. While smaller films like Buried when it did get released outside of the Sundance Film Festival did enjoy some success critically even if it commercially did work out so well. Anther good film I heard about which I missed at the cinema was the dramatic horror film Let Me In, which was a remake of the brilliant Swedish film Let the Right One In. And then came the film about Facebook entitled The Social Network, well at least that's what everybody thought it was gonna be about. The film tells a story about social interactivity between people and how it changes when computers are involved and so continues a tale of friendship, betrayal, greed and power. Unstoppable was a fun little action film, while Monsters was a great little indie film about aliens similar in style to 2009's District 9. Then came the first half of the 7th instalment in the Harry Potter series entitled The Deathly Hallows and once again we head into deeper, darker territory with more character development great action and CGI and overall this film was a great improvement over last year's HP film. And the last film to hit screens which I had been following for ages was Tron Legacy, while I still haven't seen it yet I’ve heard it looks and sounds amazing but the story and characters are lame, but heck I’m going to see it on New Years Day so I’ll know by that point whether the film's good or not.
The disappointments of 2010 are big and its not as if they are small films you can just brush under carpet. These are films that promised you big things and then made you feel cheated once you left the cinema. The first came in the shape of Daybreakers which was the worst excuse of a vampire film I’ve seen in a while, it promised us a return to form for vampire films and yet it was pants. Next came The Wolfman, which I had been following for a while and hoped it would be good, however it felt rushed, questionably acted and downright awful in the action scenes and parts involving CGI. Then there was Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland which I had also followed very closely, I had big hope for this film, but all throughout the film I felt like I was being cheated out of my money. The film was okay a best, but the performances were underwhelming, the 3D wasn't that great either and overall I wasn't impressed at all. Another 3D load of rubbish was Clash of the Titans, the trailer promised action, great CGI and an overall improved film over the 3 previous films and yet it sucked so badly. The action was lackluster, the performances were half-arsed especially with the cast involved and the 3D in the film was invisible and unnecessary. Then came Iron Man 2 which I really wanted to be awesome but in the end it lacked a certain “feeling” that the first had and while the action this time round was more explosive, the characters, scenes and action felt too rushed and there was too much packed into the film, a darn shame too.
Ridley Scott's more brutal approach to Robin Hood didn't work out too well either. Then there was the film adaptation of the games series, Prince of Persia entitled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This film like all other video-game adaptations wasn't a great film but apparently some people like it while others didn't. Sex and the City 2? Really? Was there any point in that film? Moving on and then we had the film adaptation of the classic TV series The A-Team which was okay, but nothing spectacular and I believe the film would have faired better had it not had the name “The A-Team”. Jonah Hex another film on the list of fail films of 2010, if the trailer doesn't look hot then what hope does the film have? It failed and I don't think anyone was really bothered to be honest, I know I wasn't. Moving onto another butchered film and this came from ever-continuing disappointments of director M. Night Shyamalan in the form of The Last Airbender, he took the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender and stripped it of all its bells and whistles and brought it down to its most basic elements and then changed things around which was unnecessary. And so when the film was released it was hated by not only fans of the series, but also critics who knew nothing about the source material. Predators sort brought the series back to form and made the alien race something to fear again, well, sort of, it was a film that had a lot of history to live up to that just couldn't hit all the right notes. Then came that weird owl film with the title that no one could say, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole showed up looking pretty and all, but that's all it was as most people argued that the film was all style and no substance. Wall Street 2 was said to be a decent film but not a very good sequel to the 1980s original. The two horror films that came were near each other were Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw 3D. PA2 wasn't exactly necessary and after 6 Saw films no one was really expecting such from this one right? So it was no wonder that it failed miserably with the audience and critics. So the last film to hurt people this year in terms of its appearance in the cinema came in the form of 3D CGI/live action version of Yogi Bear which if you've seen the trailer, you know how dodgy this film looks.
The other films in the year that showed up was the redeeming, if a little boring Shrek Forever After, decent the 2010 remake of Death At A Funeral, Resident Evil got it's 4th film in the series with Afterlife which I personally didn’t need to come out and even bloody Avatar was re-released again in the middle of the summer so that James Cameron could get some more money. Red was mixed in reception, while the director of The Hangover gave us Due Date this year that wasn't nearly as funny, but was still pretty good in its own way.
Top 5 films of the year:
1) Inception
2) Toy Story 3
3) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
4) The Social Network
5) Buried
Music
Honestly these days the world music doesn't mean much to me, most of it sounds the same and while a lot of people have said that for about 5 years but now its actually becoming fact. I mean music of the R&B, indie, hip-hop, rock, club and electronic genres all found their way into the “mainstream pop sound” that I heard on my radio. It's like nuff artists sold out and went for the easy option of creating music that catered to those who really don't have an ear for music. But hell I can't deny that some of the music has been addictive and I have found myself bobbing my head to some of the sounds of the new generation of music.
The artists I did enjoy this yeah was Everything Everything, Vampire Weekend, Timbaland and James Blake. I even found myself enjoying the sounds of Katy Perry, I mean before this year the only sound I liked from her was “Waking Up In Vegas” (the Manhattan remix), but her Teenage Dream album has been pretty good to sway me over. I was also loving the amazing sounds of one Willow Smith. Daughter of the legend (and my idol) Will Smith, she was leaked onto the internet in September with he single “Whip My Hair” and ever since I heard it I knew the sound was gonna be big. And it just continued to gain momentum over in the USA once the video came out and eventually everyone knew about her and she was getting played over here in the UK. So well done to the lass as she's only 10 years old and yet she's doing business and doing it with style I might add!
There were a lot of returning music artists including the long-awaited return of Gorillaz. After the awesomeness of Demon Days album, they returned after 5 years (part of which was speculated that the band had been discontinued), with the great sounds of Plastic Beach and while it wasn’t it didn’t have the same impact as its predecessors the album still sounded pretty good. Linkin Park also returned after 3 years away (discounting their contribution to the Transformers 2 soundtrack), their new album A Thousand Suns has been mixed in reception due to the continuation of the sound of Minutes To Midnight and lack of metal and use of synthesizers. However bad the album supposedly is “The Catalyst” was an addictive song for me this year and while it is a far-cry from the original sounds of Linkin Park and I didn't like it at first, it really has grown on me. And lastly there was the return of my favourite band Jamrioquai. It had been 5 years since their Dynamite album and 4 years since their last single “Runaway” was released. I'd followed every little bit of Jamiroquai info, just waiting for their new material to come around and so they have returned with the sounds of Rock Dust Light Star and it totally kicks ass! I fell in love with “White Knuckle Ride” immediately and “Blue Skies”, the follow-up single was wonderful too. It's just super cool to have Jamiroquai back in the world again.
But there was some bloody annoying music that made me want to blow my top. Alexandra Burke's music was bad, Flo Rida sold out with his terrible new music and collaborations with new artists and those Black Eyed Pees, just when I thought that they couldn't get any worse they kill the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" with some terrible butchered version of the song that they released off of their new album, The sounds of Rihanna was painful for me, I used to like her music but now its frustrating to hear. And for the love of man all that Glee music was killing me, ever since their cover of the song “Don't Stop Believing” by Journey they've been releasing all of their music and it hurts my ears so badly!! The only other thing besides the infuriating sounds of Glee that's made me question where the music industry is going is that Justin Bieber kid, ugh just mentioning his name makes me sad. Ellie Goulding was another artist whose music filled my ears with pain and the fact that Jedward were even alive to make any form of music this year was beyond me.
Anyway my top 5 songs of the year are:
1) White Knuckle Ride by Jamiroquai
2) Stylo by Gorillaz
3) One by Swedish House Mafia featuring Pharrell Williams
4) Miami 2 Ibiza by Swedish House Mafia Vs. Tinie Tempah (My anthem of the year)
5) Whip My Hair by Willow Smith
Other happenings of 2010
There have been many things that have taken place in the world over the course of 2010, snow has fallen, sports events have happened, elections for British government were in full flow, ash clouds stopped planes from flying and many sports events kept us staring at our television screens.
This year us in the UK had to vote for a new government and so we did, unfortunately it couldn't be avoided as it was everywhere, to only on the news but also on television with LIVE DEBATES!!! Woooooooooooooooo! FANCY!!! Labour seemed to lack supporters as Gordon Brown's words seemed to mean nothing to be honest, while David Cameron Promised many things with this group; the Conservatives and The Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg promised us proper change, something that I believed in. It just seemed like Gordon and David were just trying to score against each other while Nick was the sensible one. But over the course of 3 live television debates several people watched and made their opinions based on what they saw and what they believed to be right. Those debates were hella funny with some of the verbal exchanges from each of the government leaders, “Get real Nick!” will always be my favourite line from those live debates that my friend reminds me of on a few occasions. In I voted and as usual nothing turned out the way I wanted it to, it seemed most people were swayed by David Cameron and his questionable words as he turned out top dog, with Nick Clegg becoming a subsidiary member of Cameron's empire. And so after that followed budget cuts in the gaming, film and job departments and even funding for university and upped the tuition fees for university as well, how bogus is that? Well I never trusted government before this year and now after the way the David Cameron has handled things after the elections I don't think I ever will.
Unfortunately in February and March we had to suffer through the longest period of snow I think the UK has seen for many years, thank god it disappeared around 2 weeks before my birthday. But argh, again the snow returned in the mid point of December we had snow and boy did it come, firstly we had one full week of the stuff that made traversing on foot, by car, train or plane very difficult or completely impossible. There were constant weather warnings, flights cancelled, people stranded in airports and motorway roads completely blocked off. And while there was a little break in-between, the snow returned in the week before Christmas and ended just before Christmas rolled around, so while it was a white Christmas, it was white because of the remains of the snow that had fallen days beforehand.
There was the 2010 FIFA World Cup all over the summer this year and all the England supporters and media were in full swing with the new 3D viewing experience, a new theme song, lower prices on alcohol and hopes of winning the world cup after several failed attempts beforehand. Even I, who doesn’t have much interest in footy these days had to watch just to see how they'd fair. And was I surprised to see that they lost again? No. Not in the slightest. Believe me, I wanted England to fair better then they did, but after I watched their first 2 matches which were both draws against the USA & Algeria I hadn't had much hope. So then I heard they won their next match with Slovenia I wondered exactly what they were capable of. But then when they were decimated by Germany I was not surprised nor was I sad, I just shook my head and move on. I think the main problem with the England football team was that the team didn’t click as a team and certain players weren't utilized or put in the right positions and compared to other teams in the world cup several members of the England squad seemed very sluggish in movement. Anywayz congrats to Spain for winning against the Netherlands as they played some damn good football this summer.
My Experience
Well as with the last 2 years of my life 2010 for me was all about learning, but its more so been about experimentation, trying new things and seeing where it would take me. Overall for me this year has been pretty damn good with nuff things happening here, there and everywhere with some unexpected scenarios and great memories. However this year has seen me go through some dark times dealing with some horrible people and ugly situations that made me wonna hurt some people. But for what it's worth I guess some of the bad stuff was necessary to put me mind back into the perspective of the real world.
Let's start with all the times with my friends. My god, I have shared some fantastic memories with all peoples; my outings with my old friends were just nostalgic and wonderful. Some of my friends I hadn't seen for months/years and it was great just to see them. Whether we went out partying, hanging in town, playin football or chillin at each other's houses there was fun to be had. Now I gotta give big shout outs to my good friends Touka and Microdroid who as usual have been my associates for just over 3 years now; this year we've gone to the expo together, gone to the cinema, chilled and watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and finished our time in college as our team disbanded but stayed in contact. I also happened to make a lot of new friends this year and it's incredible how easily I’ve gelled with these people and I consider them pretty good mates for the short space in time that I’ve known them. I gotta give a massive holla to my Vtalent peeps who I met at the end of September, all of them I think are awesome in their own individual way and we've been out partying together, travelling to MK, hanging in town and all those lunchtimes together, it's all been beautiful.
I’ve done so much this year that it's actually been ridiculous, I’ve been going to the cinema around 70% of the year going down nearly every week, I’ve bought and played several new games this year, partied a lot less then last year but still had a crackin time and I tried volunteering for the first time too and got a lot from it. It's all been about trying new things and doing the good stuff. My uncle from Canada even came back to England for 2 weeks and even though I only saw him once out of the 2 weeks it was the best few hours I had spent with him and my family. Even going to the London MCM Expo twice this year brought on some new experiences, with the guests and cosplayers we saw, Touka and I even went outside for the first time in the 2 years that we'd been going to the convention. But the awesomeness of the Expo hasn't depleted and if anything it continued to sore, I went again in May with Touka and Microdroid and then again in October I headed down with Touka. I have to argue that the October expo was a bit better due to the fact that we were down there for 3-full days, the games, cosplayers, the guests were all just fabulous and there was some magic experienced at the Euro Cosplay Contest that will never be forgotten.
But it hasn't been all happy times and joy, I’ve still had to deal with crap this year. With college it's been assignment after assignment and it has been troublesome on my overall charisma, I’ve also had to deal with some punks in my college that have pissed me the hell off and I mean seriously these people have made me feel like shouting at the top of my lunges some filthy language. And with the run up to Christmas I had felt real grumpy and just fully feel the season as much as I would have liked, plus I have a cold to deal with that came 2 weeks ago that I still haven’t recovered from. I spent my bloody Christmas ill, how lame is that? But for the most part Christmas was awesome, cracking jokes around the table while eating dinner is always cool, plus I got all the presents I wanted because half of the them I bought myself haha!
But overall I’d say that 2010 was a pretty bad-ass year, I’ve had more fun I expected to have, living my life in the cinema and in the nightclubs of my home town to the hours spent sketching and playing video-games, its all been delightful. Now I look towards the year that is 2011 with the promise of great films, awesome video-games, new TV and music from both new and returning artists. So thanks for reading my look back in 2010 and I’ll see ya in the new year! Take care people!
Video-games
Holy cow 2010 has been just an explosion on the video game scene with title after title being released with the majority of games delivering on their promise for good gaming experiences and then then some. The Wii despite the talks of sales going down and having a patchy list of released titles still triumphed in the face of adversity with a number of great 1st & 3rd party titles for the games console, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 excelled and advanced with their new hardware and great games joint and exclusively released. Many things happened this year and I probably won't get through everything but I shall do my best to cover what's what.
Firstly let me mention the fact that all home consoles of the 7th generation have turned to motion-sensed gaming, it was something that the Wii started back in 2006 and most hardcore gamers, critics and executive peoples at Sony and Microsoft said it would never take off or work and then 2-3 years after the Wii has done its thing Sony come out with Move and then Microsoft show up with Kinect... Anybody sensing a bit of irony at all? I'm not gonna go into detail about these 2 new pieces of hardware which are supposedly gonna check the way that gaming works, I’m just annoyed that everyone is jumping on this gaming bus, thinking that its all new stuff when it's been going for a fair degree of time beforehand. Sure since there are HD consoles which can also do motion-sensing as well it's gonna draw in new audiences because its new and since the Wii is loosing momentum this is the natural way for people to go. However I won't buy into it and it bugs me that there's all these annoying adverts for it when nothing out there at the moment is really saying anything. E3 2010 was also one of great high points of the year for gaming with the convention overall being a success for all companies involved showcasing new games that came out this year and the ones set to come out for next year.
Anywayz let's talk games. Firstly let me cover all of the Wii stuff coz that's where all my knowledge sides. Firstly Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, the latest in the Capcom crossover series was a blast, playing as Karas, Ryu and Ippatsuman dishing out the pain online was awesome and the Wii finally got its first proper fighting gaming. Then we had the sequel to the launch title Red Steel, in the shape of Red Steel 2 which was much more superior to the original with better gameplay, sporting full motion control with the use of Wii Motion Plus and a unique graphical style. Monster Hunter Tri which was worth the wait as it was the first game I proper got into playing continuously from spring into the summer. The game was graphically impressive, had a very deep online experience, great music and was a great continuation in the franchise critically. And with the summer came the awesome Sin and Punishment 2 which I got to try out at a convention and I enjoyed it and while it was stated to be a pretty short game it was still very received. But the big point of the summer for the Wii came in the shape of the critically acclaimed Super Mario Galaxy 2 which I picked up and enjoyed for a short time before I stopped playing lol. While that sounds pretty bad, I just wasn't down for the world of Mario like I was the first time round, but yeah this was the biggest game of the year for the Wii and it was been given perfect scores by so many reviewers too.
Metroid: Other M game along in September and was prised for the graphics, gameplay and innovative take on the Metroid series, although it was criticised for the switch between 1st person and 3rd person perspective, the story's take on Samus' character and not being as impressive as the Prime series. I should start playing again. No More Heroes 2 which was a highly anticipated sequel delivered more bosses, more style, better action and gameplay and I and started playing around June, but in the end I only played for about a fortnight due to the more streamlined approach of the game and lack of freedom that the first game had. Then my sister obtained Goldeneye 007 Wii and she's been plying through that, I got to try it out myself with a friend and enjoyed a lot and I’ve been working my way through Sonic Colours and I completed in style with Super Sonic around a week ago and definitely think that this game it is one of the better Sonic games that have come out in recent times!We also saw the return of Kirby, after 6 years in gaming limbo he returned with the cutest game ever; Kriby's Epic Yarn, while it was dubbed to be too easy and lacking challenge, the game was still a critical success and I loved playing it with Touka at the London MCM Expo and another game I played at the Expo was the critically acclaimed title Donkey Kong Country Returns which was the complete opposite of Kirby; pure brutality in platforming, full of pain, suffering and old-school gaming like the original on the Super Nintendo. Epic Mickey was another highly anticipated title on the Wii that I tried and liked, the overall game when it arrived was mixed in review with most critics and gamers enjoying the story, graphics and gameplay, but didn't like the controls, the lack of proper RPG elements and an awkward camera system.
Now for games outside of the Wii. There were some big releases for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Firstly we had the sexy Bayonetta, a game developed by Platinum Games that gave us crazy, over-the-top action of a different kind. Then we had the 2 highly anticipated sequels in the form of Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 which were both critically and commercially successful. After 2 failed attempts at making film adaptations of the Alien vs. Predator, they make a video-game that comes across as similar to the films with you being able to play as the Alien, Predator or humans. We also had one of the best PS3 exclusive titles show up, Heavy Rain was described to be one of the most interesting, exciting and innovative games to come out on the PS3 so far according to games critics. The Mega Man series continued to be released in its 8-bit style with the 10th game in the series being released as a downloadable title and the game added an easy mode, another playable character and even more retro fun! Another highly anticipated sequel came in the shape of Assassin’s Creed which improved on the original in nearly every way by having greater exploration, non-linear gameplay, improved character AI, better weapons and combat mechanics among other things. Final Fantasy XIII was another game which had been highly anticipated for around 4 years and while the final result had a much more different feel then the previous games in the franchise, it still sold well and for the most part was well-received in the area of graphics and presentation, the battle system and the game's soundtrack.
We then had the long-awaited God of War III for the PS3 which sported some of the most impressive graphics I’ve seen, with great gameplay and overall the game that was larger then life. The game was universally praised and showed that the God of War franchise is still rockin! Transformers: War for Cybertron was a fantastic third person shooter that finally gave us a good gaming experience as an Autobot or a Decepticon. There was also the big cheese that was known as Red Dead Redemption which was the first cowboy game to ever be cool, with one of the most diverse forms of gameplay, brilliant graphic and a number of thing to do online and offline with additional downloadable content to come too, Red Dead Redemption was one of the best games to show up this year. Crackdown 2 for the Xbox 360 had mixed reviews, while it updated several features from the original I was criticised for being to similar to the original. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was the downloadable title for XBLA that changed up the formula of gameplay for Lara Croft, but was still an enjoyable title and another downloadable title on PSN & XBLA which was pretty successful was the movie tie-in game Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game which was praised for its great retro style and awesome soundtrack. Mafia II was a pretty good action adventure game for the summer, and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions was a game which was praised for its story, variation in gameplay and combat, presentation and different costumes available. The battle of football games continued with FIFA 11 & Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 with FIFA seeming to win the battle again, Lost Planet 2 wasn't the sequel everyone was hoping for and after all the hype surrounding the release of Final Fantasy XIV as a new online experience as an MMORPG it turned out to be a terrible game with bad interface and quest restrictions as only the start of the problems. Then we had the first new 3D Castlevania game for a good few years and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow which was an action adventure that borrowed elements from games like Devil May Cry and God of War and while the game was a far cry from the originals it was still well-received.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was also a well-received action adventure game crafted by the brilliant people at Ninja Theory that gave life to Heavenly Sword back in 2007. Sonic's supposed return to form wasn't exactly perfect, in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 we had a decent attempt at recreating the classic 2D platforming elements that came with the Sega Megadrive/Genesis days of gaming, but had problems with the physics, length of the game and questionable level design and difficulty. Fable III also appeared this year and while it lacked innovation it made up for it with change in gameplay and overall RPG elements. And speaking of other thirds in a franchise we had Rock Band 3 and the long-awaited return of The Sims series with The Sims 3. When Wii owners got Goldeneye Xbox and PS3 owners though t that they were getting a better game when 007 Blood Stone showed up, however the game was noted as being short, repetitive and lacking an overall “James Bond” flair. Then came Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II which added some new elements for the gameplay in terms of force abilities and dismemberment, overall the game was seen as a failure due to the repetitive level design and lacking story. We had 2 fabulous first person shooters in the shape of Medal of Honor and the critically acclaimed Call of Duty: Black Ops which set the gaming world's heart alight. After almost forever of waiting Gran Turismo 5 finally showed up on the PS3 sporting some super realistic graphics, a good load of cars and a great driving experience offline and online. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit was a hot game full wonderful arcade gameplay and wicked graphics, while around the same time the next game in the Assassin’s Creed series game in the form of Brotherhood which had again improved the gameplay and even added a multiplayer element which was well-received as well as the visuals, voice acting and sound effects.7 And to finish up the year we had Tron Evolution, a game that was meant to tie up the ends between the last film and the latest film capturing the best elements of the movie and transferring them to the game, alas the game was interesting but just ended up being another bad movie tie-in game.
The Nintendo DS also had some good games too. Dragon Quest IX came out for the DS and was probably the biggest game of the year for the DS, there was also the other fabulous RPGs Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light and after 6 years, the return of of the Golden Sun games came in the form of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, both games were classic RPG gaming at its finest. The latest game in the Professor Layton series came in the shape of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future which was well-received and is considered the best game in the series so far so more power to developers Level-5 for crafting the game.
Film
My goodness, the year 2010 has been a very interesting year for films. There have been some true gems in this years catalogue, but there have been a number of bad titles, major disappointments and some films that different even need to come into existence. The were reboots, adaptations and sequels galore and just a few open spots for original films in the world of cinema this year. I can honestly say I must have seen at least 60% of the films out in this whole year, possibly a bit more due to my constant time spent at the cinema, but yeah there's a lot to get through so I’ll try to streamline this as much as possible.
So let's start with all the good films, well from the time I saw The Princess and the Frog earlier this year I was ready for a good year at the cinema and for the first 3 months I was treated to wicked, yet confusing Shutter Island, there was also the post-apocalyptic action film The Book of Eli and well-shot action thriller Green Zone. Then came April and so I got to check out the ultra-violent sweetness that was Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughan brought the comic to life with wonderfully filmed action, brutality and stand-out performances from Aaron Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and even Nicholas Cage. Then there was the unexpected gem that was The Losers; another comic book adaptation that did pretty well. There was also the beautifully told story of The Ghost Writer by Roman Polanski which was a well directed stylish thriller which featured one of my favourite performances by Ewan McGregor. I also liked the action comedy Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carell and Get Him To The Greek was the comedy film that started off my summer, smiling with the talents of Russell Brand, Jona Hill and Diddy. After that we had the reinvention of The Karate Kid called The Kung-Fu Kid aka The Karate Kid 2010 starring Jackie Chan. Now The Karate Kid didn't need the reboot treatment but it came and for what it was it was pretty good. Jaden Smith holds his own and busts out some fabulous moves, while Jackie Chan just look friggin awesome fighting on-screen.
And so came in my opinion the 2 biggest films of the year which rocked the house both critically and commercially; Toy Story 3 and Inception. Toy Story 3 showed us once again that Pixar know how to do sequels and make truly emotive pieces of work that make you cry regardless of your age and Inception showed us that Christopher Nolan knows how to make great films other then The Dark Knight. Inception was a jigsaw puzzle that required multiple viewings just to put all the pieces together and understand what was going on, but it was all worth it to see the action, story and brilliant film score by Han Zimmer just hit ya when your in the cinema screen. Then came the brutal, all-action film The Expendables featuring almost every action-based movie star you could fit into a film and while the film was anything innovative or super fantastic you have to be open minded and once you let the carnage take over the film was a joy to watch. Then in middle of August came the explosion of awesomeness which was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which was one of the best films I have ever seen in the cinema. It was just a wonderful comedy crafted by Edgar Wright full of heart, a good story, fabulous characters and was set in a world where video-games and the real world collide in spectacular fashion! Then in the summer came the wonderfully brutal action film done by Robert Rodriguez which was just so unnaturally bloody and messy, but hell it was bloody sweet, B-movies like these need to be supported! Then Emma Stone came along and wowed us with her comedy film Easy A which I was really hoping to check out this year, while people looking something a little more hard-hitting came in the form of The Town, a crime thriller by Ben Affleck that shows that this genre of film still does well and I enjoyed it greatly. While smaller films like Buried when it did get released outside of the Sundance Film Festival did enjoy some success critically even if it commercially did work out so well. Anther good film I heard about which I missed at the cinema was the dramatic horror film Let Me In, which was a remake of the brilliant Swedish film Let the Right One In. And then came the film about Facebook entitled The Social Network, well at least that's what everybody thought it was gonna be about. The film tells a story about social interactivity between people and how it changes when computers are involved and so continues a tale of friendship, betrayal, greed and power. Unstoppable was a fun little action film, while Monsters was a great little indie film about aliens similar in style to 2009's District 9. Then came the first half of the 7th instalment in the Harry Potter series entitled The Deathly Hallows and once again we head into deeper, darker territory with more character development great action and CGI and overall this film was a great improvement over last year's HP film. And the last film to hit screens which I had been following for ages was Tron Legacy, while I still haven't seen it yet I’ve heard it looks and sounds amazing but the story and characters are lame, but heck I’m going to see it on New Years Day so I’ll know by that point whether the film's good or not.
The disappointments of 2010 are big and its not as if they are small films you can just brush under carpet. These are films that promised you big things and then made you feel cheated once you left the cinema. The first came in the shape of Daybreakers which was the worst excuse of a vampire film I’ve seen in a while, it promised us a return to form for vampire films and yet it was pants. Next came The Wolfman, which I had been following for a while and hoped it would be good, however it felt rushed, questionably acted and downright awful in the action scenes and parts involving CGI. Then there was Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland which I had also followed very closely, I had big hope for this film, but all throughout the film I felt like I was being cheated out of my money. The film was okay a best, but the performances were underwhelming, the 3D wasn't that great either and overall I wasn't impressed at all. Another 3D load of rubbish was Clash of the Titans, the trailer promised action, great CGI and an overall improved film over the 3 previous films and yet it sucked so badly. The action was lackluster, the performances were half-arsed especially with the cast involved and the 3D in the film was invisible and unnecessary. Then came Iron Man 2 which I really wanted to be awesome but in the end it lacked a certain “feeling” that the first had and while the action this time round was more explosive, the characters, scenes and action felt too rushed and there was too much packed into the film, a darn shame too.
Ridley Scott's more brutal approach to Robin Hood didn't work out too well either. Then there was the film adaptation of the games series, Prince of Persia entitled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This film like all other video-game adaptations wasn't a great film but apparently some people like it while others didn't. Sex and the City 2? Really? Was there any point in that film? Moving on and then we had the film adaptation of the classic TV series The A-Team which was okay, but nothing spectacular and I believe the film would have faired better had it not had the name “The A-Team”. Jonah Hex another film on the list of fail films of 2010, if the trailer doesn't look hot then what hope does the film have? It failed and I don't think anyone was really bothered to be honest, I know I wasn't. Moving onto another butchered film and this came from ever-continuing disappointments of director M. Night Shyamalan in the form of The Last Airbender, he took the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender and stripped it of all its bells and whistles and brought it down to its most basic elements and then changed things around which was unnecessary. And so when the film was released it was hated by not only fans of the series, but also critics who knew nothing about the source material. Predators sort brought the series back to form and made the alien race something to fear again, well, sort of, it was a film that had a lot of history to live up to that just couldn't hit all the right notes. Then came that weird owl film with the title that no one could say, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole showed up looking pretty and all, but that's all it was as most people argued that the film was all style and no substance. Wall Street 2 was said to be a decent film but not a very good sequel to the 1980s original. The two horror films that came were near each other were Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw 3D. PA2 wasn't exactly necessary and after 6 Saw films no one was really expecting such from this one right? So it was no wonder that it failed miserably with the audience and critics. So the last film to hurt people this year in terms of its appearance in the cinema came in the form of 3D CGI/live action version of Yogi Bear which if you've seen the trailer, you know how dodgy this film looks.
The other films in the year that showed up was the redeeming, if a little boring Shrek Forever After, decent the 2010 remake of Death At A Funeral, Resident Evil got it's 4th film in the series with Afterlife which I personally didn’t need to come out and even bloody Avatar was re-released again in the middle of the summer so that James Cameron could get some more money. Red was mixed in reception, while the director of The Hangover gave us Due Date this year that wasn't nearly as funny, but was still pretty good in its own way.
Top 5 films of the year:
1) Inception
2) Toy Story 3
3) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
4) The Social Network
5) Buried
Music
Honestly these days the world music doesn't mean much to me, most of it sounds the same and while a lot of people have said that for about 5 years but now its actually becoming fact. I mean music of the R&B, indie, hip-hop, rock, club and electronic genres all found their way into the “mainstream pop sound” that I heard on my radio. It's like nuff artists sold out and went for the easy option of creating music that catered to those who really don't have an ear for music. But hell I can't deny that some of the music has been addictive and I have found myself bobbing my head to some of the sounds of the new generation of music.
The artists I did enjoy this yeah was Everything Everything, Vampire Weekend, Timbaland and James Blake. I even found myself enjoying the sounds of Katy Perry, I mean before this year the only sound I liked from her was “Waking Up In Vegas” (the Manhattan remix), but her Teenage Dream album has been pretty good to sway me over. I was also loving the amazing sounds of one Willow Smith. Daughter of the legend (and my idol) Will Smith, she was leaked onto the internet in September with he single “Whip My Hair” and ever since I heard it I knew the sound was gonna be big. And it just continued to gain momentum over in the USA once the video came out and eventually everyone knew about her and she was getting played over here in the UK. So well done to the lass as she's only 10 years old and yet she's doing business and doing it with style I might add!
There were a lot of returning music artists including the long-awaited return of Gorillaz. After the awesomeness of Demon Days album, they returned after 5 years (part of which was speculated that the band had been discontinued), with the great sounds of Plastic Beach and while it wasn’t it didn’t have the same impact as its predecessors the album still sounded pretty good. Linkin Park also returned after 3 years away (discounting their contribution to the Transformers 2 soundtrack), their new album A Thousand Suns has been mixed in reception due to the continuation of the sound of Minutes To Midnight and lack of metal and use of synthesizers. However bad the album supposedly is “The Catalyst” was an addictive song for me this year and while it is a far-cry from the original sounds of Linkin Park and I didn't like it at first, it really has grown on me. And lastly there was the return of my favourite band Jamrioquai. It had been 5 years since their Dynamite album and 4 years since their last single “Runaway” was released. I'd followed every little bit of Jamiroquai info, just waiting for their new material to come around and so they have returned with the sounds of Rock Dust Light Star and it totally kicks ass! I fell in love with “White Knuckle Ride” immediately and “Blue Skies”, the follow-up single was wonderful too. It's just super cool to have Jamiroquai back in the world again.
But there was some bloody annoying music that made me want to blow my top. Alexandra Burke's music was bad, Flo Rida sold out with his terrible new music and collaborations with new artists and those Black Eyed Pees, just when I thought that they couldn't get any worse they kill the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" with some terrible butchered version of the song that they released off of their new album, The sounds of Rihanna was painful for me, I used to like her music but now its frustrating to hear. And for the love of man all that Glee music was killing me, ever since their cover of the song “Don't Stop Believing” by Journey they've been releasing all of their music and it hurts my ears so badly!! The only other thing besides the infuriating sounds of Glee that's made me question where the music industry is going is that Justin Bieber kid, ugh just mentioning his name makes me sad. Ellie Goulding was another artist whose music filled my ears with pain and the fact that Jedward were even alive to make any form of music this year was beyond me.
Anyway my top 5 songs of the year are:
1) White Knuckle Ride by Jamiroquai
2) Stylo by Gorillaz
3) One by Swedish House Mafia featuring Pharrell Williams
4) Miami 2 Ibiza by Swedish House Mafia Vs. Tinie Tempah (My anthem of the year)
5) Whip My Hair by Willow Smith
Other happenings of 2010
There have been many things that have taken place in the world over the course of 2010, snow has fallen, sports events have happened, elections for British government were in full flow, ash clouds stopped planes from flying and many sports events kept us staring at our television screens.
This year us in the UK had to vote for a new government and so we did, unfortunately it couldn't be avoided as it was everywhere, to only on the news but also on television with LIVE DEBATES!!! Woooooooooooooooo! FANCY!!! Labour seemed to lack supporters as Gordon Brown's words seemed to mean nothing to be honest, while David Cameron Promised many things with this group; the Conservatives and The Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg promised us proper change, something that I believed in. It just seemed like Gordon and David were just trying to score against each other while Nick was the sensible one. But over the course of 3 live television debates several people watched and made their opinions based on what they saw and what they believed to be right. Those debates were hella funny with some of the verbal exchanges from each of the government leaders, “Get real Nick!” will always be my favourite line from those live debates that my friend reminds me of on a few occasions. In I voted and as usual nothing turned out the way I wanted it to, it seemed most people were swayed by David Cameron and his questionable words as he turned out top dog, with Nick Clegg becoming a subsidiary member of Cameron's empire. And so after that followed budget cuts in the gaming, film and job departments and even funding for university and upped the tuition fees for university as well, how bogus is that? Well I never trusted government before this year and now after the way the David Cameron has handled things after the elections I don't think I ever will.
Unfortunately in February and March we had to suffer through the longest period of snow I think the UK has seen for many years, thank god it disappeared around 2 weeks before my birthday. But argh, again the snow returned in the mid point of December we had snow and boy did it come, firstly we had one full week of the stuff that made traversing on foot, by car, train or plane very difficult or completely impossible. There were constant weather warnings, flights cancelled, people stranded in airports and motorway roads completely blocked off. And while there was a little break in-between, the snow returned in the week before Christmas and ended just before Christmas rolled around, so while it was a white Christmas, it was white because of the remains of the snow that had fallen days beforehand.
There was the 2010 FIFA World Cup all over the summer this year and all the England supporters and media were in full swing with the new 3D viewing experience, a new theme song, lower prices on alcohol and hopes of winning the world cup after several failed attempts beforehand. Even I, who doesn’t have much interest in footy these days had to watch just to see how they'd fair. And was I surprised to see that they lost again? No. Not in the slightest. Believe me, I wanted England to fair better then they did, but after I watched their first 2 matches which were both draws against the USA & Algeria I hadn't had much hope. So then I heard they won their next match with Slovenia I wondered exactly what they were capable of. But then when they were decimated by Germany I was not surprised nor was I sad, I just shook my head and move on. I think the main problem with the England football team was that the team didn’t click as a team and certain players weren't utilized or put in the right positions and compared to other teams in the world cup several members of the England squad seemed very sluggish in movement. Anywayz congrats to Spain for winning against the Netherlands as they played some damn good football this summer.
My Experience
Well as with the last 2 years of my life 2010 for me was all about learning, but its more so been about experimentation, trying new things and seeing where it would take me. Overall for me this year has been pretty damn good with nuff things happening here, there and everywhere with some unexpected scenarios and great memories. However this year has seen me go through some dark times dealing with some horrible people and ugly situations that made me wonna hurt some people. But for what it's worth I guess some of the bad stuff was necessary to put me mind back into the perspective of the real world.
Let's start with all the times with my friends. My god, I have shared some fantastic memories with all peoples; my outings with my old friends were just nostalgic and wonderful. Some of my friends I hadn't seen for months/years and it was great just to see them. Whether we went out partying, hanging in town, playin football or chillin at each other's houses there was fun to be had. Now I gotta give big shout outs to my good friends Touka and Microdroid who as usual have been my associates for just over 3 years now; this year we've gone to the expo together, gone to the cinema, chilled and watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and finished our time in college as our team disbanded but stayed in contact. I also happened to make a lot of new friends this year and it's incredible how easily I’ve gelled with these people and I consider them pretty good mates for the short space in time that I’ve known them. I gotta give a massive holla to my Vtalent peeps who I met at the end of September, all of them I think are awesome in their own individual way and we've been out partying together, travelling to MK, hanging in town and all those lunchtimes together, it's all been beautiful.
I’ve done so much this year that it's actually been ridiculous, I’ve been going to the cinema around 70% of the year going down nearly every week, I’ve bought and played several new games this year, partied a lot less then last year but still had a crackin time and I tried volunteering for the first time too and got a lot from it. It's all been about trying new things and doing the good stuff. My uncle from Canada even came back to England for 2 weeks and even though I only saw him once out of the 2 weeks it was the best few hours I had spent with him and my family. Even going to the London MCM Expo twice this year brought on some new experiences, with the guests and cosplayers we saw, Touka and I even went outside for the first time in the 2 years that we'd been going to the convention. But the awesomeness of the Expo hasn't depleted and if anything it continued to sore, I went again in May with Touka and Microdroid and then again in October I headed down with Touka. I have to argue that the October expo was a bit better due to the fact that we were down there for 3-full days, the games, cosplayers, the guests were all just fabulous and there was some magic experienced at the Euro Cosplay Contest that will never be forgotten.
But it hasn't been all happy times and joy, I’ve still had to deal with crap this year. With college it's been assignment after assignment and it has been troublesome on my overall charisma, I’ve also had to deal with some punks in my college that have pissed me the hell off and I mean seriously these people have made me feel like shouting at the top of my lunges some filthy language. And with the run up to Christmas I had felt real grumpy and just fully feel the season as much as I would have liked, plus I have a cold to deal with that came 2 weeks ago that I still haven’t recovered from. I spent my bloody Christmas ill, how lame is that? But for the most part Christmas was awesome, cracking jokes around the table while eating dinner is always cool, plus I got all the presents I wanted because half of the them I bought myself haha!
But overall I’d say that 2010 was a pretty bad-ass year, I’ve had more fun I expected to have, living my life in the cinema and in the nightclubs of my home town to the hours spent sketching and playing video-games, its all been delightful. Now I look towards the year that is 2011 with the promise of great films, awesome video-games, new TV and music from both new and returning artists. So thanks for reading my look back in 2010 and I’ll see ya in the new year! Take care people!
Posted by hiruma55 | Dec 29, 2010 6:18 PM | 0 comments
June 25th, 2010
The Late MCM London Expo May 2010 Review
Anime Relations: Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou
The Expo was an event that I had been looking forward to for ages, going to the October Expo was great but the time between that one and this one was still too long, so my pre-expo hype had started. Now after going to the MCM London Expo 3 times over you'd think the love for event may have died down or the hype may not be as high. But funnily enough the Expo rose to the challenge, met my expectations and surpassed them in many ways and as usual it ended as fast as it came. Now before I get into this review I have to mention that my memory is real hazy so firstly this review will be a lot more condensed then previous installments, secondly there may be information lacking in-between so just bare with me lol. Also unlike last year’s review I won’t be covering the events that took place on the Friday, all that needs to be known is that we travelled through London, got lost again, got some manga and sake, chilled in the park, it was a hot day and for dinner we dined at the Premier Inn Hotel and got pizza and had to wait nearly an hour for it. Bad dinner service. Now onto the Saturday.
Saturday: Expo Day 1
This was a day that felt unnatural to me, to be at the Excel that morning felt like an incredible feeling of something indescribable. So we went in and my god I looked and looked around some more, I just felt like going everywhere. I literally wanted to run off on my own and take it all in but Touka said to stick together for a bit and that we did, eventually Micro drifted off and then it was just Touka and I. I was itching to get some pictures in but was constantly on the move so I didn’t start, we saw the Rising Star Games around I saw that they had No More Heroes 2 on sale and the man saw me looking at it and he was like “Go on, you know what to.” But wanted to explore some more so I said that I’d be back. Touka went off to explore on his own so I broke out my camera a took a god deal of pictures. I ran around and took as many pictures as I could trying to get the more interesting and stranger cosplayers lurking around, it was still easy to move around so I used the space around me to move from one side of the hall to the other, I did have some lighting issues with my camera and had to constantly readjust the lighting and shutter speed on almost each occasion, but for the most part I found y pace and rushed around. I saw that they had No More Heroes, Sin and Punishment 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2 out on the floor to play (the last two games I wasn’t expecting), but there was so many people there I could touch it.
Obviously this wouldn’t be an expo experience unless I went crazy and bought a whole load of stuff would it? After Touka found me again we went to the Viz Manga section where they were doing 5 for 20 deals on manga that normally cost £5.99, the first thing I got was manga and the ones I got were 4 volumes of One Piece and the first volume of Karakuridōji Ultimo. I said I’d go back for more later as there looked to be loads of manga left over. Touka and I then went to the expo theatre to see what the deal was and saw the creators of The Losers comic serious talking about the film adaptation, we came around half way in but we sat there and checked it out. I’m not sure when it happened but me and Touka when into the expo theatre for the event that would put us in the record books, we entered the Nintendo DS World Record. We were gonna beat Australia who held the record for the most DS’s played in one location, we had to stand in one of the chunkiest lines ever, registered people found their surnames on paper, got the raffle ticket and then left while unregistered people would have to write down their surnames and email and get the raffle ticket. We sat down and I think it was before the world record began we were treated to some music by Bentley Jones, the dude is so extra and yet there’s a coolness about the dude that has be seen to be understood. His songs were pretty good and after he said his little quote at the end of his performance, “No compromise, be true!” Touka absorbed it like a sponge and was obsessed with the quote forever. When the contest just go started I played Mario Kart, but I dunno what Touka was playing, I think it was Jump Ultimate Stars. But yeah we did it! WE set a NEW Guinness World Record for the Largest Handheld DS Party! Woooo! Then I can’t recall what I did, me and Touka split again I decided to try out Sin and Punishment 2 and heck it was so fun, the controls took few minutes for me to get into because there’s so much stuff flying at you and so much evasion and quick-fire shooting needed, but once I got into the swing of things everything flowed.
Me and Touka met up again decided to headed back to drop some stuff off and then we went back in and we cruised and separated and then got tickets for the masquerade, but then when it came to the time of lining up for the masquerade I had lost my ticket and I was gutted beyond belief but I told the guys to go on without me. And so I trailed off and took many more pictures, I must have circled the expo hall at least 3 times, I also did a little gaming with Mario & Luigi 3 and finally got to touch Mario Galaxy 2 which was super tricky but hella fun even if I died loads of times lol. I also bought two t-shirts (Kaioken Goku and the other alien costume Spider-Man) and I did come back to the Rising Star Games stall and got my game and the dude who I saw before was grinning and I said, “I told you I’d be back!” Then I got a call from Touka telling me that they had gotten me another ticket and so I waited at the entrance but didn’t see them, so then I thought they may have gone in already but the lines had started showing up so I waited a bit longer. Eventually the lines came and I couldn’t see them, so after seeing around 6 or 7 lines of about 30 – 40 people pass by me and waiting around 20 minutes they finally showed up, got me the ticket and we went in and I was happy. The masquerade was also very jokes this time around and offered up some different acts this time round. Surprisingly though when we left the Excel Center that day it was a heartbreaking experience knowing the first day was already over, it was like a blur to me really and it started raining and the 3 of us remained silent and took out my phone and played ‘Falling Down’ by Oasis and it looked like a scene from a movie, so dramatic, but so sad too. I bought many things that day and while it wasn’t as much as last time I was very satisfied with my goodies.
Sunday: Last Day of Expo
Now on Sunday I was woken up to an early alarm, which woke up Touka as well, so I got ready eventually and so did Touka. I rearranged my belongings in my bag and Touka sorted out his bags and we headed out leaving Micro to sleep in, as he couldn't be arsed to get up early. Me and Touka headed to the Excel Center carrying our stuff and when we got in we headed to the cloakroom and dropped off our heaviest items and I got me some money out from the cash machine and then we got in line and waited to be let in at 10am.
When we got inside the Expo hall me and Touka hanged around with each to explore certain areas that weren’t looked at on Saturday purely because there is a lot to see and take in and we don't believe that one day is enough to see it all. Touka came with me to the comic village and I looked at the art from different artists, I think I got talking to one of them for a bit and Touka decided to head off because he wanted to see the rest of the Expo hall so we split again. I bought some art here and there and went to see Lee Townsend again for the 3rd time and we talked and he remembered me again so I was pretty happy about that. He gave me useful information about sketching and books to use and events to go to and I got a Spider-Man head sketch from him, but I didn't show him my sketches. I then came face to face with my sworn comic book artist enemy, Andy Tong. I had my sketches ready to bust out, but I couldn't bring myself to bring them out because being in his presence is like standing in front of someone who is of a god-like status. I made a quick-fire decision in my head to not show my pictures, as I didn't feel that enough had changed yet. So I just bought one of his A3 prints and headed off.
As with the previous day I travelled around the Expo hall trying to get pictures of cosplayers anywhere I could. Since the games I had played yesterday were more then enough for me I didn't feel the need to do much else besides take as many pictures as possible. I got 2 more volumes of manga and Cromartie High School from the ADV stall and o had to go back to the Funimation place to try and work out whether the DVDs were region compatible or not. I must have circled the hall at least 2-3 times before Touka found me again and we walked around to the areas Touka hadn't been to yet and it was around just after midday that we decided for the 1st time in 2 years to go outside and see what was going on out there. Obviously we had gone outside before but not hanged around and seen where the rest of the cosplayers and other people had chose to chill out. We came outside and found many people outside, even the Spider-Man and Batman dudes posing outside for people, the Spider-Man guy even stood on top of the railing for a bit posing like the movies before quickly jumping down. We moved towards the stairs and literally saw hundreds of people on the stairs in the area below and in the square grass part further along. We moved along and I got a few pictures here and there and then for the 3rd time we saw Spider-Man and Batman posing near the Thames and next Spider-Man tried to climb a structure but didn't go very high up and just jumped down. I reckoned that he was loosing his powers again like the 2nd movie haha. We moved along and saw a huge gathering of Kingdom Hearts cosplayers all posing for a massive picture, both me and Touka went over and got some pictures. It was at this point that my camera died because it had been overused and didn’t bring the darn charger.
I didn't think it would run out of juice because it was charged this time, but I guess my excessive use of the camera lead to it's battery running out. So in good spirit Touka allowed me to take pictures with his camera and we went along and saw a conga line, a Canadian and British-based set of cosplayers posing for pictures and a group of cosplayers being lead by a cosplaying drill sergeant. After taking a break on the benches for a bit we headed back round and saw the longest line of cosplayers doing a dance, Touka got it on video and I did on my phone but the quality looked a bit dodgy. After the line broke apart there was a whole load of Pokemon fans singing the intro song of the first series and I ran over and joined them and it was so much fun. After moving around outside a bit and realizing that Micro wasn’t actually gonna come outside we went back inside and went through the Expo hall and using Touka’s camera I took many pictures. We then took a break from movement to see the Writers vs. Artists panel thing that was going down, it was very funny and pretty ridiculous in terms of the answers that some of the team members came up with.
We then did some other stuff and then eventually watched the Sunday masquerade, which had one of the most epic performances ever, staged, just gone on Youtube and search for the “MCM London Expo Masquerade Tekken” and you’ll know what the deal is too. While there was some other stuff that I had been bought, certain events that had taken place beforehand and complicated train ride home involving Micro jamming his money in the machine and not getting a ticket, otherwise everything was incredible. The London MCM Expo experience is still there and still feels fresh, there’s still so much to do and so much more to be known and hanging with my friends Touka and Microdroid was just as fun as ever, the best partners you’ll ever need on a trip to an event like this. And finally I know I have to be back there again coz if I don’t go I feel like I’d be doing myself a disservice.
Well I know its been over a month since the actual expo weekend but there has been many complications since that weekend that has prevented me from doing this review, but I hope that now that its complete you’ll take the time to read it or skim read it. Well until next time ladies and gentlemen, goodbye.
Saturday: Expo Day 1
This was a day that felt unnatural to me, to be at the Excel that morning felt like an incredible feeling of something indescribable. So we went in and my god I looked and looked around some more, I just felt like going everywhere. I literally wanted to run off on my own and take it all in but Touka said to stick together for a bit and that we did, eventually Micro drifted off and then it was just Touka and I. I was itching to get some pictures in but was constantly on the move so I didn’t start, we saw the Rising Star Games around I saw that they had No More Heroes 2 on sale and the man saw me looking at it and he was like “Go on, you know what to.” But wanted to explore some more so I said that I’d be back. Touka went off to explore on his own so I broke out my camera a took a god deal of pictures. I ran around and took as many pictures as I could trying to get the more interesting and stranger cosplayers lurking around, it was still easy to move around so I used the space around me to move from one side of the hall to the other, I did have some lighting issues with my camera and had to constantly readjust the lighting and shutter speed on almost each occasion, but for the most part I found y pace and rushed around. I saw that they had No More Heroes, Sin and Punishment 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2 out on the floor to play (the last two games I wasn’t expecting), but there was so many people there I could touch it.
Obviously this wouldn’t be an expo experience unless I went crazy and bought a whole load of stuff would it? After Touka found me again we went to the Viz Manga section where they were doing 5 for 20 deals on manga that normally cost £5.99, the first thing I got was manga and the ones I got were 4 volumes of One Piece and the first volume of Karakuridōji Ultimo. I said I’d go back for more later as there looked to be loads of manga left over. Touka and I then went to the expo theatre to see what the deal was and saw the creators of The Losers comic serious talking about the film adaptation, we came around half way in but we sat there and checked it out. I’m not sure when it happened but me and Touka when into the expo theatre for the event that would put us in the record books, we entered the Nintendo DS World Record. We were gonna beat Australia who held the record for the most DS’s played in one location, we had to stand in one of the chunkiest lines ever, registered people found their surnames on paper, got the raffle ticket and then left while unregistered people would have to write down their surnames and email and get the raffle ticket. We sat down and I think it was before the world record began we were treated to some music by Bentley Jones, the dude is so extra and yet there’s a coolness about the dude that has be seen to be understood. His songs were pretty good and after he said his little quote at the end of his performance, “No compromise, be true!” Touka absorbed it like a sponge and was obsessed with the quote forever. When the contest just go started I played Mario Kart, but I dunno what Touka was playing, I think it was Jump Ultimate Stars. But yeah we did it! WE set a NEW Guinness World Record for the Largest Handheld DS Party! Woooo! Then I can’t recall what I did, me and Touka split again I decided to try out Sin and Punishment 2 and heck it was so fun, the controls took few minutes for me to get into because there’s so much stuff flying at you and so much evasion and quick-fire shooting needed, but once I got into the swing of things everything flowed.
Me and Touka met up again decided to headed back to drop some stuff off and then we went back in and we cruised and separated and then got tickets for the masquerade, but then when it came to the time of lining up for the masquerade I had lost my ticket and I was gutted beyond belief but I told the guys to go on without me. And so I trailed off and took many more pictures, I must have circled the expo hall at least 3 times, I also did a little gaming with Mario & Luigi 3 and finally got to touch Mario Galaxy 2 which was super tricky but hella fun even if I died loads of times lol. I also bought two t-shirts (Kaioken Goku and the other alien costume Spider-Man) and I did come back to the Rising Star Games stall and got my game and the dude who I saw before was grinning and I said, “I told you I’d be back!” Then I got a call from Touka telling me that they had gotten me another ticket and so I waited at the entrance but didn’t see them, so then I thought they may have gone in already but the lines had started showing up so I waited a bit longer. Eventually the lines came and I couldn’t see them, so after seeing around 6 or 7 lines of about 30 – 40 people pass by me and waiting around 20 minutes they finally showed up, got me the ticket and we went in and I was happy. The masquerade was also very jokes this time around and offered up some different acts this time round. Surprisingly though when we left the Excel Center that day it was a heartbreaking experience knowing the first day was already over, it was like a blur to me really and it started raining and the 3 of us remained silent and took out my phone and played ‘Falling Down’ by Oasis and it looked like a scene from a movie, so dramatic, but so sad too. I bought many things that day and while it wasn’t as much as last time I was very satisfied with my goodies.
Sunday: Last Day of Expo
Now on Sunday I was woken up to an early alarm, which woke up Touka as well, so I got ready eventually and so did Touka. I rearranged my belongings in my bag and Touka sorted out his bags and we headed out leaving Micro to sleep in, as he couldn't be arsed to get up early. Me and Touka headed to the Excel Center carrying our stuff and when we got in we headed to the cloakroom and dropped off our heaviest items and I got me some money out from the cash machine and then we got in line and waited to be let in at 10am.
When we got inside the Expo hall me and Touka hanged around with each to explore certain areas that weren’t looked at on Saturday purely because there is a lot to see and take in and we don't believe that one day is enough to see it all. Touka came with me to the comic village and I looked at the art from different artists, I think I got talking to one of them for a bit and Touka decided to head off because he wanted to see the rest of the Expo hall so we split again. I bought some art here and there and went to see Lee Townsend again for the 3rd time and we talked and he remembered me again so I was pretty happy about that. He gave me useful information about sketching and books to use and events to go to and I got a Spider-Man head sketch from him, but I didn't show him my sketches. I then came face to face with my sworn comic book artist enemy, Andy Tong. I had my sketches ready to bust out, but I couldn't bring myself to bring them out because being in his presence is like standing in front of someone who is of a god-like status. I made a quick-fire decision in my head to not show my pictures, as I didn't feel that enough had changed yet. So I just bought one of his A3 prints and headed off.
As with the previous day I travelled around the Expo hall trying to get pictures of cosplayers anywhere I could. Since the games I had played yesterday were more then enough for me I didn't feel the need to do much else besides take as many pictures as possible. I got 2 more volumes of manga and Cromartie High School from the ADV stall and o had to go back to the Funimation place to try and work out whether the DVDs were region compatible or not. I must have circled the hall at least 2-3 times before Touka found me again and we walked around to the areas Touka hadn't been to yet and it was around just after midday that we decided for the 1st time in 2 years to go outside and see what was going on out there. Obviously we had gone outside before but not hanged around and seen where the rest of the cosplayers and other people had chose to chill out. We came outside and found many people outside, even the Spider-Man and Batman dudes posing outside for people, the Spider-Man guy even stood on top of the railing for a bit posing like the movies before quickly jumping down. We moved towards the stairs and literally saw hundreds of people on the stairs in the area below and in the square grass part further along. We moved along and I got a few pictures here and there and then for the 3rd time we saw Spider-Man and Batman posing near the Thames and next Spider-Man tried to climb a structure but didn't go very high up and just jumped down. I reckoned that he was loosing his powers again like the 2nd movie haha. We moved along and saw a huge gathering of Kingdom Hearts cosplayers all posing for a massive picture, both me and Touka went over and got some pictures. It was at this point that my camera died because it had been overused and didn’t bring the darn charger.
I didn't think it would run out of juice because it was charged this time, but I guess my excessive use of the camera lead to it's battery running out. So in good spirit Touka allowed me to take pictures with his camera and we went along and saw a conga line, a Canadian and British-based set of cosplayers posing for pictures and a group of cosplayers being lead by a cosplaying drill sergeant. After taking a break on the benches for a bit we headed back round and saw the longest line of cosplayers doing a dance, Touka got it on video and I did on my phone but the quality looked a bit dodgy. After the line broke apart there was a whole load of Pokemon fans singing the intro song of the first series and I ran over and joined them and it was so much fun. After moving around outside a bit and realizing that Micro wasn’t actually gonna come outside we went back inside and went through the Expo hall and using Touka’s camera I took many pictures. We then took a break from movement to see the Writers vs. Artists panel thing that was going down, it was very funny and pretty ridiculous in terms of the answers that some of the team members came up with.
We then did some other stuff and then eventually watched the Sunday masquerade, which had one of the most epic performances ever, staged, just gone on Youtube and search for the “MCM London Expo Masquerade Tekken” and you’ll know what the deal is too. While there was some other stuff that I had been bought, certain events that had taken place beforehand and complicated train ride home involving Micro jamming his money in the machine and not getting a ticket, otherwise everything was incredible. The London MCM Expo experience is still there and still feels fresh, there’s still so much to do and so much more to be known and hanging with my friends Touka and Microdroid was just as fun as ever, the best partners you’ll ever need on a trip to an event like this. And finally I know I have to be back there again coz if I don’t go I feel like I’d be doing myself a disservice.
Well I know its been over a month since the actual expo weekend but there has been many complications since that weekend that has prevented me from doing this review, but I hope that now that its complete you’ll take the time to read it or skim read it. Well until next time ladies and gentlemen, goodbye.
Posted by hiruma55 | Jun 25, 2010 4:01 AM | 1 comments
December 31st, 2009
End of Year Review 2009
Hey Hey ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have reached the end of another year, many good games, films and music have showed up this year and there has been a lot of bullshit to put up with in this year too. I've been doing these reviews now since 2005 and this is my fifth one and while they are different in cone=tent this is the first I've done on New Year's Eve for 4 years. This year as been a learning experience, I'm still single but have been around more booty then I care to remember and sexy girls have been obsession this year and it didint help when I went down to London on a few occasions. I found out that going to the MCM London Expo a second time was hella fun and still jokes a third time round too and the anime all nighter and the Apollo Theatre in London was great although I wish I hadn't fallen asleep so many times haha. At the time of writing this I am at my dad's house, not in my own house because of my busted computer! Argh! Nevermind anyway let's sort this out and get on with the review.
Games
This year in terms of gaming has been great; some have had better results than others. The PS3 has finally gained some momentum, while the Xbox 360 continues its success and the Wii kept up what it did best although it has lost a lot of its credibility. There have been games like Street Fighter IV, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Resident Evil 5 and Halo 3: OST. In terms of gaming myself I've been playing Dragon Quest V on the DS, Jump SuperStars, Jump Ultimate Stars, Kingdom Hearts 385/2 Days, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, No More Heroes and Boom Blox: Bash Party. Sorry people but I'm short for time so this section is realy short.
Movies
The films that have graced our cinemas this year have been a load of good stuff with a load of bad stuff and some unexpected surprises good and bad. Overall it was a good year to reflect on, we had some giant blockbuster titles with some of them doing well as expected, while others failed not in terms of money, but in terms of content and while that was a crazy mix-up it gave the independent films a chance to shine with some coming out of nowhere and gaining loads of cash and critical acclaim. Now as I talk about the next set of films it will all be from what I heard and experienced so please if there is stuff I missed out, it’s purely because I wasn’t there to check it out.
So the good films 2009, back in January I saw Slumdog Millionaire and thought it was sweet, some say it was overhyped and to a degree I can understand that statement but then you can say the same thing about The Dark Knight and people will tell you “hell no, the film deserves it’s hype”, so you can only understand how good the film is until you see it and it deserved to win the 8 Oscars it obtained earlier this year. Moon, good gravy I’ve so much about this film and still have yet to see it, it was a sleeper hit that has gained a lot of steam as time has gone on and think it has done very well for a film that was done on a small scale. The Hangover was a another film I missed out on this summer, I was totally pissed off coz the trailer looked hella good and then film has been regarded as one of the best comedies to be released in ages so I am annoyed that I missed out on that. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, ah man I thought this film was going to be bad-ass but it wasn’t that good at all the fact that it focused on character development was all and well, but when the characters aren’t that interesting and gives you lacklustre performances and not enough action it leave you unsatisfied. This is by no means the best film in the series and has got nothing on Order of the Phoenix, FACT. Paranormal Activity was one of the films I was interested in but didn’t see because I wasn’t sure if it would gain my full curiosity level, but enough people have seen this small budget film and it has become a very big film.
Star Trek now that was an awesome film, now many people may think of me as a nerd for saying it but I don’t care. I saw it three times and thought it kicked as, sure it feels more action-oriented and the film doesn’t have the full scientific techno babble that avid fans of the old TV series was used to and there were continuity issues with the series. But overall it worked out for the best and gave a dying franchise some new life. Coraline, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Pongyo, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Planet 51 was just a set of the animated films that came out this year (Although Coraline and Pongyo were the only good titles there), but the master of the animated world had to be Up, Pixar won the public over again with their imaginative storytelling and humour and great GCI. Lastly Fantastic Mr. Fox was another animated film and was the only other stop motion animated picture to be released this year and I have to say I enjoyed that film a lot and visually it was a treat. The Informant!, Public Enemies and Me and Orson Welles were just another handful of the film that I enjoyed this year and Where the Wild Things Are was fabulous little piece of filmmaking that engulfed you in a world of a child that was emotionally connecting and featured a great soundtrack to boot! Although Sherlock Holmes was released last week and I have yet to see it, the main hype before it focused around Avatar, the James Cameron film that had been in development for what 10 years or more, the film was very good it was visually great in terms of artist design and attention to detail and while it won’t set the film industry ablaze it still does the job of being a great film to watch. District 9 was a film that literally came out of nowhere and became something big, the trailer looked interesting but you were unaware as to what was happening and when you saw the film, you saw something completely unlikely. The film works so well as to take the science fiction and thriller genre and fuse them together to create a fantastic film that just gets better as you continue to see it. I would go on to say that it was the best film of the year purely because of its hidden talent.
The questionable films of 2009, there were many films destined for greatness and some that had pre-hype before the main hype was created. Films like Watchmen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen all had everything or something going for it, but just didn’t deliver the goods in one department or another. Let’s start with Watchmen, this film was adapted from a graphic novel which was released in the 1980s, for years people and critics agreed that this film couldn’t be made and yet it did eventually. For the most part it was good; the cast do an admirable job of portraying their characters with some weak links here and there. The film definitely won’t rival that of Spider-Man or Batman, but it wasn’t crap either like Elektra or Ghost Rider. Then come Wolverine, this film was meant to be the big cheese and all those who complained about not seeing enough of Wolverine in the X-Men trilogy were going to be put to in their place, but unfortunately most people jumped up and were devastated by what they saw, me included. The main problem with the film was he narrative was lost because there were too many characters, bad scripting and continuity issues with the X-Men films that fans and critics weren’t too pleased about. Look at what they done to Deadpool and then you’ll see. Nuff said. Moving on swiftly to Terminator 4, now we all knew that this was going to be a controversial film from the start, I mean what else could the filmmakers do to franchise that wouldn’t hurt it more. You had the third film that wasn’t that good, the TV series that was through in too much new without establishing the old and now you had a new film that wasn’t being handled by James Cameron again. What we got was something more gritty and closer to the original film’s story, but this version of John Connor was a bit odd, Sam Worthington was an awkward fit which some liked while others loathed and it just didn’t have a good enough story to carry the film to greatness.
The bad films of 2009, there were some of the films could have been left where they were and shouldn’t have seen the light of day, films like Dragonball Evolution and Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li once again prove that when you don’t know how to film a famous anime series or game franchise then DONT TRY! These are the films that were doomed from the start and even though most people would have forgotten I would just like to point them out as films you shouldn’t watch EVER!
Music
In terms of music I would say that this year has been pretty bad, but there were a good number of tunes that came out this year that had me singing along throughout the year so let’s call it a mixed bag. There has been a lot of new talent appearing out of nowhere this year, but since I didn’t pay attention to any of it and don’t recall anything significant we’ll leave that part out. There were a lot of artists returning this year with new albums and they have come up with some great sounds, artists like Dizzee Rascal, Calvin Harris, Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend, JLS, Friendly Fires, Empire of the Sun and U2. In terms of music I have been listening to a lot of N.E.R.D, AFI, Alkaline Trio, Dizzee Rascal and U2.
Other News
Many things have happened in the world of news, after last year I actually started watching it daily and staying up-to-date with many of the famous news stories that have taken place over the year. Sure I won’t be able to mention all of them in this end of year review because 1: it would be too long and 2: I don’t remember everything that happened haha. So many things have taken place all over the world like Barak Obama becoming the 44th President of the USA, we had to deal with the government’s incompetence when we all found out about tax expenses scandal which was all over the news and Jordan and Peter finally broke up and she turned into a nutter and Peter eventually became loved by the public. X-Factor this year happened to e the worst one ever with the voting system feeling rigged with several of the good acts being voted out before they should have been and then we had to deal with the devil pair known as John and Edward who ruined TV for several weeks of my life. TV also created another star in the shape of Susan Boyle, now everybody thought that she was going to be terrible, admit it people she didn’t look like anyone special and the she sang and she became a big star. Some say it was out of sympathy and other generally liked her, either way she became massive on YouTube and her album became the fastest pre-ordered album ever. Unfortunately there was much news this year concerning the deaths of the soldiers in Afghanistan thanks to the bomb attacks and all we good do was watch as the number of deaths intensified. There were also deaths of another kind it came to the deadly disease known as Swine Flu, it infected many, killed many people and it spread like wildfire, luckily it died down but we did have to be far more cautious about our hygiene. Many celebrities died this year and it caused so much pain for the fans in the different areas of the media that they worked in, people like: Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, Wendy Richard, Britney Murphy, Jade Goody, Stephen Gately from Boyzone and the legendary Michael Jackson died just before his comeback tour in the UK. When the King of Pop died I was in a state of disbelief, something I never thought would ever happen so soon happened and it was so surreal I still don’t completely believe he’s gone though. And lastly the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt legend became a three-time Olympic gold medallist, I even got to see him in action at Crystal Palace and good gravy was he fast.
My Experience
This year has a been mixed bag with loads of good times that will last an eternity while there were the really cruddy moments that sucked like hell and then there were the points where I thought that things could have been a little more exciting or interesting. I’ve been doing a lot of partying this year much more than last year, it went to the point where I’d go out partying when no one else was out haha. But yeah some of those nights have been fabulous hanging out with Francis, Jade, Danielle, Andy, George, Grace, Ria and Connor. And for the short time we were out I can’t forget Craig Sav, Bobby, Dave Foxen and Carl. And going to the MCM London Expo with Touka and Microdroid again was some good times and happened to be the best 3 day weekend ever. I've had a great obsession with Sword of the Stranger, One Piece, Dragonball, BECK and Hajime No Ippo. But I’ve also had to deal with a load of crap too, I’ve had bad times in college trying to sort out work, I’ve had to deal with deceitful friends, my computer died like 3 months ago so I don’t have internet in my house or a computer period and I didn’t get all of my ALG this year thanks to the postal strikes. So yes there have been many things that have gone wrong for me. I did try to grow me hair out this year and while it did get pretty big, during the later months things this hair has become hard to manage and it hasn’t been totally massive coz my day kept gutting fractions off so it had to be re-grown.
Well happy new year people and cya in 2010!
Games
This year in terms of gaming has been great; some have had better results than others. The PS3 has finally gained some momentum, while the Xbox 360 continues its success and the Wii kept up what it did best although it has lost a lot of its credibility. There have been games like Street Fighter IV, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Resident Evil 5 and Halo 3: OST. In terms of gaming myself I've been playing Dragon Quest V on the DS, Jump SuperStars, Jump Ultimate Stars, Kingdom Hearts 385/2 Days, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, No More Heroes and Boom Blox: Bash Party. Sorry people but I'm short for time so this section is realy short.
Movies
The films that have graced our cinemas this year have been a load of good stuff with a load of bad stuff and some unexpected surprises good and bad. Overall it was a good year to reflect on, we had some giant blockbuster titles with some of them doing well as expected, while others failed not in terms of money, but in terms of content and while that was a crazy mix-up it gave the independent films a chance to shine with some coming out of nowhere and gaining loads of cash and critical acclaim. Now as I talk about the next set of films it will all be from what I heard and experienced so please if there is stuff I missed out, it’s purely because I wasn’t there to check it out.
So the good films 2009, back in January I saw Slumdog Millionaire and thought it was sweet, some say it was overhyped and to a degree I can understand that statement but then you can say the same thing about The Dark Knight and people will tell you “hell no, the film deserves it’s hype”, so you can only understand how good the film is until you see it and it deserved to win the 8 Oscars it obtained earlier this year. Moon, good gravy I’ve so much about this film and still have yet to see it, it was a sleeper hit that has gained a lot of steam as time has gone on and think it has done very well for a film that was done on a small scale. The Hangover was a another film I missed out on this summer, I was totally pissed off coz the trailer looked hella good and then film has been regarded as one of the best comedies to be released in ages so I am annoyed that I missed out on that. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, ah man I thought this film was going to be bad-ass but it wasn’t that good at all the fact that it focused on character development was all and well, but when the characters aren’t that interesting and gives you lacklustre performances and not enough action it leave you unsatisfied. This is by no means the best film in the series and has got nothing on Order of the Phoenix, FACT. Paranormal Activity was one of the films I was interested in but didn’t see because I wasn’t sure if it would gain my full curiosity level, but enough people have seen this small budget film and it has become a very big film.
Star Trek now that was an awesome film, now many people may think of me as a nerd for saying it but I don’t care. I saw it three times and thought it kicked as, sure it feels more action-oriented and the film doesn’t have the full scientific techno babble that avid fans of the old TV series was used to and there were continuity issues with the series. But overall it worked out for the best and gave a dying franchise some new life. Coraline, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Pongyo, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Planet 51 was just a set of the animated films that came out this year (Although Coraline and Pongyo were the only good titles there), but the master of the animated world had to be Up, Pixar won the public over again with their imaginative storytelling and humour and great GCI. Lastly Fantastic Mr. Fox was another animated film and was the only other stop motion animated picture to be released this year and I have to say I enjoyed that film a lot and visually it was a treat. The Informant!, Public Enemies and Me and Orson Welles were just another handful of the film that I enjoyed this year and Where the Wild Things Are was fabulous little piece of filmmaking that engulfed you in a world of a child that was emotionally connecting and featured a great soundtrack to boot! Although Sherlock Holmes was released last week and I have yet to see it, the main hype before it focused around Avatar, the James Cameron film that had been in development for what 10 years or more, the film was very good it was visually great in terms of artist design and attention to detail and while it won’t set the film industry ablaze it still does the job of being a great film to watch. District 9 was a film that literally came out of nowhere and became something big, the trailer looked interesting but you were unaware as to what was happening and when you saw the film, you saw something completely unlikely. The film works so well as to take the science fiction and thriller genre and fuse them together to create a fantastic film that just gets better as you continue to see it. I would go on to say that it was the best film of the year purely because of its hidden talent.
The questionable films of 2009, there were many films destined for greatness and some that had pre-hype before the main hype was created. Films like Watchmen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen all had everything or something going for it, but just didn’t deliver the goods in one department or another. Let’s start with Watchmen, this film was adapted from a graphic novel which was released in the 1980s, for years people and critics agreed that this film couldn’t be made and yet it did eventually. For the most part it was good; the cast do an admirable job of portraying their characters with some weak links here and there. The film definitely won’t rival that of Spider-Man or Batman, but it wasn’t crap either like Elektra or Ghost Rider. Then come Wolverine, this film was meant to be the big cheese and all those who complained about not seeing enough of Wolverine in the X-Men trilogy were going to be put to in their place, but unfortunately most people jumped up and were devastated by what they saw, me included. The main problem with the film was he narrative was lost because there were too many characters, bad scripting and continuity issues with the X-Men films that fans and critics weren’t too pleased about. Look at what they done to Deadpool and then you’ll see. Nuff said. Moving on swiftly to Terminator 4, now we all knew that this was going to be a controversial film from the start, I mean what else could the filmmakers do to franchise that wouldn’t hurt it more. You had the third film that wasn’t that good, the TV series that was through in too much new without establishing the old and now you had a new film that wasn’t being handled by James Cameron again. What we got was something more gritty and closer to the original film’s story, but this version of John Connor was a bit odd, Sam Worthington was an awkward fit which some liked while others loathed and it just didn’t have a good enough story to carry the film to greatness.
The bad films of 2009, there were some of the films could have been left where they were and shouldn’t have seen the light of day, films like Dragonball Evolution and Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li once again prove that when you don’t know how to film a famous anime series or game franchise then DONT TRY! These are the films that were doomed from the start and even though most people would have forgotten I would just like to point them out as films you shouldn’t watch EVER!
Music
In terms of music I would say that this year has been pretty bad, but there were a good number of tunes that came out this year that had me singing along throughout the year so let’s call it a mixed bag. There has been a lot of new talent appearing out of nowhere this year, but since I didn’t pay attention to any of it and don’t recall anything significant we’ll leave that part out. There were a lot of artists returning this year with new albums and they have come up with some great sounds, artists like Dizzee Rascal, Calvin Harris, Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend, JLS, Friendly Fires, Empire of the Sun and U2. In terms of music I have been listening to a lot of N.E.R.D, AFI, Alkaline Trio, Dizzee Rascal and U2.
Other News
Many things have happened in the world of news, after last year I actually started watching it daily and staying up-to-date with many of the famous news stories that have taken place over the year. Sure I won’t be able to mention all of them in this end of year review because 1: it would be too long and 2: I don’t remember everything that happened haha. So many things have taken place all over the world like Barak Obama becoming the 44th President of the USA, we had to deal with the government’s incompetence when we all found out about tax expenses scandal which was all over the news and Jordan and Peter finally broke up and she turned into a nutter and Peter eventually became loved by the public. X-Factor this year happened to e the worst one ever with the voting system feeling rigged with several of the good acts being voted out before they should have been and then we had to deal with the devil pair known as John and Edward who ruined TV for several weeks of my life. TV also created another star in the shape of Susan Boyle, now everybody thought that she was going to be terrible, admit it people she didn’t look like anyone special and the she sang and she became a big star. Some say it was out of sympathy and other generally liked her, either way she became massive on YouTube and her album became the fastest pre-ordered album ever. Unfortunately there was much news this year concerning the deaths of the soldiers in Afghanistan thanks to the bomb attacks and all we good do was watch as the number of deaths intensified. There were also deaths of another kind it came to the deadly disease known as Swine Flu, it infected many, killed many people and it spread like wildfire, luckily it died down but we did have to be far more cautious about our hygiene. Many celebrities died this year and it caused so much pain for the fans in the different areas of the media that they worked in, people like: Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, Wendy Richard, Britney Murphy, Jade Goody, Stephen Gately from Boyzone and the legendary Michael Jackson died just before his comeback tour in the UK. When the King of Pop died I was in a state of disbelief, something I never thought would ever happen so soon happened and it was so surreal I still don’t completely believe he’s gone though. And lastly the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt legend became a three-time Olympic gold medallist, I even got to see him in action at Crystal Palace and good gravy was he fast.
My Experience
This year has a been mixed bag with loads of good times that will last an eternity while there were the really cruddy moments that sucked like hell and then there were the points where I thought that things could have been a little more exciting or interesting. I’ve been doing a lot of partying this year much more than last year, it went to the point where I’d go out partying when no one else was out haha. But yeah some of those nights have been fabulous hanging out with Francis, Jade, Danielle, Andy, George, Grace, Ria and Connor. And for the short time we were out I can’t forget Craig Sav, Bobby, Dave Foxen and Carl. And going to the MCM London Expo with Touka and Microdroid again was some good times and happened to be the best 3 day weekend ever. I've had a great obsession with Sword of the Stranger, One Piece, Dragonball, BECK and Hajime No Ippo. But I’ve also had to deal with a load of crap too, I’ve had bad times in college trying to sort out work, I’ve had to deal with deceitful friends, my computer died like 3 months ago so I don’t have internet in my house or a computer period and I didn’t get all of my ALG this year thanks to the postal strikes. So yes there have been many things that have gone wrong for me. I did try to grow me hair out this year and while it did get pretty big, during the later months things this hair has become hard to manage and it hasn’t been totally massive coz my day kept gutting fractions off so it had to be re-grown.
Well happy new year people and cya in 2010!
Posted by hiruma55 | Dec 31, 2009 1:46 PM | 0 comments
July 8th, 2009
The Late MCM London Expo 2009 Review
Good evening. Now I know this review is like almost 2 months late, but believe I have had many things to take care of and trying to write this thing up was so hard. So yeah there maybe certain things that go amiss or seem out of place, but it’s only because it was so long ago and that the weekend had a lot happening in it.
It seems that there are always going to events in your life that are gonna stay with you, those irreplaceable and all so glorious memories that you’ll share with either friends or family which just kick ass and for me one of the those memories was when I went to the MCM London Expo last year. I know that doesn’t sound that exciting, but for me it was everything I’ve ever liked in life all in one place: anime, games, films, comics, manga and everything else under the sun. I travelled there on the Friday and the went to the expo for that weekend with two guys from college I’d only known around just over half a year, it seemed like in that one weekend at that event I had more fun with these two mates then I had with about 2 years of my school life.
And so when 2009 came along, me and my two comrades Touka and Microdroid just had to be there again this year. The event took place on May 23rd and May 24th and those were days we were looking forwards to for months, it felt like ages coming, but when the Friday finally came little did we know the whole tree-day weekend would be so dam difficult. And so friends let me tell you the tale of our little adventure…
Friday
Well this year I decided to stay at Micro’s house only for me to miss my alarm and wake up behind schedule and have a late arrival at the location which Touka was waiting at. After meeting him around 20 minutes after the predestined time we took a few pictures and took our train and expo tickets. Touka had a terrible cold that week and although he looked fine, I wasn't sure if he was gonna make it, but yes he held up. We then went to the train station, boarded the train and headed into London. After going through the underground to get off at Lester Square, we found a legendary shop known as “Orbital Manga”, it had manga as far the eye could see, toys, accessories, books and fan art sketches on the wall. Touka bought so much manga in there, it was ridiculous, he had a mountain of books in his hands lol, I got some manga there meself (more then I thought I would I might add). Moving from there we went to some place right next to it which had a whole load of posters, signed pictures, magazines, toy statues and other stuff based on big films like the Bonds films, Watchmen, the Dark Knight, Iron Man and a whole load of other bits and pieces.
After that we went to this cool shop known as “Fopp” and got some DVDs. And then came the longest part of the day, trying to find the comic shop known as “Gosh” which we went to last year. Now let me tell ya, it took us so dam long to find a shop which was relatively easy to find. I suggested a direction to go in just because I had a hunch it’d be in that direction, however Touka and Microdroid decided to follow the map and with it we got lost. We walked past two turnings, walked down the same street twice, asked for directions twice and after around an hour of walking we finally found the place. Touka again bought so much manga it was like looking at someone’s small collection with all the bags he had, me and Micro bought our share of things in there too. Then we decided to sit down in a mini restaurant with a French theme (I think), me and Touka had a well-deserved cheeseburger and when we paid for it we left a tip for the girl but she refused it and I was like “nani!?”
Then we went to the other comic shop known as “Comica” or “Comicmania” I cant remember the exact name, but yeah I happened to get my Sonic comics from there just as I had done last year along with Street Fighter and Spider-Man comics. Then we headed done to the last location known as “Forbidden Planet” and that place was so friggin big and it had so much manga and anime done there that I was shocked beyond belief, however with collections that big there’s always gotta be a catch right? And there was indeed and it was that most of the stuff was incredibly over-priced and had the bad habit of having the numbers “£19.95” on there, I mean imagine having to pay that much for the film Kung-Fu Hustle, a film that’s around 4 years old!! Anyway me and Microdroid chilled outside and would you guess it, Touka bought even more manga and after packing it away in Micro’s suitcase we headed back only to find we came back in the direction I told us to go to in the first place! It was the direction I suggested to go in when we first started looking for “Gosh” and we walked some long-ass way around, got lost, had tired feet, got annoyed about trying to find the place when all we had to do was go straight where I said to go! So yes ladies and gentlemen I was right! LET ME REPEAT THAT, I WAS RIGHT!
Moving on from that, we went on the train, but we stayed on too long coz we didn’t know that the train split off into two different directions, so we went four stops too far into nowhere, so then we got off and went back four stops and changed lanes and in the process we had to call the hotel we booked to hold our place. And after another 30 minutes and changing train and going another 3 stops we finally got to our location and we walked the rest of the way to the hotel. After waiting for the manager for like 10 minutes and paying for the place we went into our room. Exhausted, stressed and needing rest we chilled out with Microdroid reading manga, Touka going through his stuff and me sketching picture for the comic artists at the expo while we all watched Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. None of us went to sleep until around 2am… And then the momentous day came, again…
Saturday: 1st day of the Expo
And so it came, the 1st day of the expo, the day me, Touka and Microdroid had been waiting for, it’d be such so long. But stupidly I missed my 6am phone alarm and didn’t get up until Microdroid’s 7am phone alarm. We got ready and headed out to the Excel Centre, but with the place being reconstructed from the side we came in last year, we had to take some long-ass road to get to the other entrance and so when we got there we went to the cash point and got in line and then saw the line. DAM YO! That line was long and waiting in there was a right bitch coz my camera went all funny and the shutter speed kept letting too much light into the pictures. I was trying all kinds of things with it for a good 30 minutes and yet it came to no avail, so I decided the camera was labelled unusable. And 10 minutes after 9am the doors opened and we headed in. We quickly looked around diligently for the Afro Samurai section, now all three of us knew that Afro Samurai: Resurrection sucked, but we wanted to find those guys based on the fact that they said they’d be there and that we just wished to talk to them again. However, we didn’t find them, but me and Touka found someone 10x better. I mean we didn’t even know in advance that he was gonna be there. We saw the legend that was Craig Charles, master commentator of Takeshi’s Castle, funny man of sitcom Red Dwarf and regular man of TV soap Coronation Street. Me and Touka got Red Dwarf books and got them signed by the legend himself and I even got a picture with him too. BEST. MOMENT. EVER!
After that I went straight back to a stall I saw before and bought series 2 & 3 of the remastered DragonBall Z DVDs, SECOND. BEST. MOMENT. EVER! And with the rest of the day came exploring through the area seeing and hearing the wonderful sounds of the expo. I also got a stuffed Kirby toy; it was soooo cool I just had to have it. There was soooooo many games on display that it was ridiculous, there was: Naruto Ultimate Ninja 4 & Ninja Storm, DBZ Burst Limit, Battle Stadium D.O.N, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Street Fighter IV, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Little King’s Story, We Ski, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s too bad that we never got to play any that day, there were just too many people, you couldn’t even get near it and when you could, the person who was playing would be standing there for hours!! After me and Touka got a considerable amount of stuff we decided to head back to the hotel to drop some stuff off and told Micro we’d be back in a bit. However we chilled out for about a good hour or so, I was sketching and Touka was going through his stuff while we listened to Jonathan Ross on BBC Radio 2. When we did head back we happened to see Micro coming up and I started laughing after we had left him at the expo on his own for so long.
Me and Touka convinced Micro to come back in with us and in there I went and got another two seasons of the remastered DBZ DVDs (seasons 4 & 5), the boxset of Utawarerumono and a DVD copy of the 20th Century Boys. Man, everything was going my way. Alas, I had spent all my money right there and then before the second day of the expo had come just like last year XD and so after walking around in circles for ages and briefly watching a lightsaber fight between cosplayers we went back to the hotel again. We ordered pizza and watched the Blues Brothers on TV, the pizza proved almost too much for us, we were only just about able to finish the margarita pizza, but left four slices of the meaty one for later. After doing some more sketches and waiting for movement to come back to our bodies, me and Touka headed back to the expo for the 3rd time hoping that the game booths would be a little less crowded, but nooooooo! Even at 4pm just around 2 hours before the place closes people are still crowded round the game booths like its life support or something, Touka and I couldn’t even get near it. So I decided to meet the comic artist known as Andie Tong, I brought some of my work over to him to analyse and his response was surprising. Basically I had o show him my work pretty quickly since it was close to closing time, but basically he said that I had the technique of a comic artist down, he basically told me that my work was too clean and that a lot of my work lacked construction lines. He also highlighted where the problems were in my work instantly, I mean this guy was fast, like quick fire shots of a handgun. He could even tell the difference between my copied and freestyle material. I was shocked. But in the end he did say I have technique, I just need construction line to make in better, but even so I had hoped for a more a positive response... I didn’t even show the whole of my wok because it seemed that he had summed it all up. Me and Touka left the Expo and talked about my encounter with Andie Tong and other things as we headed back to the hotel.
We came back to the hotel to find Microdroid sleeping in the bed, “Ha, what a bean!” I thought. And so later on we chilled, I wanted to sketch but after Andie’s harsh constructive criticism I found it hard to start so I played me DS, Micro eventually woke up and me and he finally finished the pizza from before while watching a little telly. When it came to Mission Impossible II coming on telly later that night Micro totally freaked out, Touka and I didn’t really care so Touka went back to his music and I went back to Dragon Quest. Several hours later near bedtime which was around 2am Micro was still reading manga while me and Touka wanted sleep. Microdroid was being such a punk he kept saying that he wanted to finish a chapter in his book, but me and Touka still demanded sleep. Touka went and turned the light off, but then Micro turned it back on and some light switching battle broke out and then Touka just kept flicking the switch on and off over and over and it looked like strobe lighting. But then he stopped, Micro eventually finished his book and then we finally slept...
And so middle the first part of the Expo and when the sun rose on that morning we’d be entering the last day of the expo.
Sunday: 2nd and Last day of the Expo
When we woke on this Sunday morning we were in a state on partial disbelieve, we knew it was gonna be the last day of the expo and of our hotel fun, but the thing was we just weren’t ready for the fun to end just yet and I was wanting the day to end because I had nothing to spend money on and yet Touka and (somehow) Microdroid had money to throw away. Touka looked well as if the cold was never there, although he still looked kind of dodgy at certain points. We headed into the Excel building again passing by a whole load of people and cosplayers, moving along with all our stuff from the day before and since we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us (especially since me and Micro had suitcases) we dropped them off in a holding area nearby. We and then drop into a line and wait there for almost 30 minutes and then the line moves into the giant holding area again, so I was like “What the hell!? We just stood in a line just to move into a larger one? That’s bullshit!” Okay so I wasn’t that extreme but with us moving from one line to another, I was pretty annoyed. We stood in the line for a while and I even played a wireless game of Mario Kart DS with some random dude standing next to me, I slaughtered him, it was the best 2 out of 3 and I won both matches with ease. After sitting down for a bit longer the place was finally open again.
I stepped in there with one main intention – to play games! Since I had even got to touch one game the day before, it was time for payback! So I headed straight over to the area where they had Smash Bros. but some lame lady was on there, she went into classic mode and from what I saw she wasn’t that good anyway but was on there for ages!! I couldn’t bear to stand there for that long so I went to try and play something else and then I found Battle Stadium D.O.N. Now people, please understand, I had wanted to play this game for AGES! This was the only other game ever made to be an anime version of the Super Smash Bros. series, so I wanted to see how this title matched up. I tried me had at using Goku and went up against CPU Luffy and hell I was having fun, the game’s button set up was partly similar to Smash Bros. and there was a lot to love about the gameplay and environments. Putting Goku’s Super Saiyan abilities against Luffy’s stretchy arms was just plain old fun. I continued my fun with me picking Zoro and fighting against CPU Sasuke, again I was having fun using Zoro crazing sword attacks and blocking Sasuke’s fire attacks. Unfortunately I was in such a hurry to play Smash Bros. that I only had 3 rounds of fun on the game and then ran over to Smash Bros. when I saw that lame lady finally move off it.
And so I, the master of Smash, took a sit and played against two other Bleach cosplayers… the following fights were intense. I won the 1st match pretty nicely with Captain Falcon, then followed the next match with Fox and kicked some more arse, then I used Wolf in the 3rd match and amazingly I lost, but used him again in the fourth round and done what was meant to be accomplished the time before. After that match I was thinking I should give it a rest before I do get beaten, plus there was many other things that I needed to take care of. By the point I left Smash Bros. too many people were crowded around SF4 for me to get near it and so I travelled round the area searching for something to do, I went to the Viz manga section and there was a lot of stuff on show, but I was only interested in the opposite side which the DVDs. I was looking for the Bleach DVDs, mainly looking for season 2 and if there had season 3 in boxset yet. I found season 2, but it was way too much and season 3 was still in 2 halves and there were £24.99 each! I was like screw that for a laugh and I kept on moving. I must have walked through the place twice before going back to the Wii section and there it was, Muramasa: the Demon Blade.
I had followed the game endless on IGN, Gamespot and on GameTrailers too, I just had to touch it. There was some middle-aged dude in front of me and he was taking well long yo, I was totally getting pisses, I just wanted to push him out of the way and play it myself because he sucked so bad! Eventually the plum guy got stuck at a place in the forest and couldn’t move so he handed over to me and then the fun began… I jumped, I slashed, I kicked ass! The game moved with great responsiveness to my button presses, the game moved in its glorious animation just as well as it does in all of the gameplay videos online. It was like living magic in motion yo, toally sweet. You took on enemies from ninjas, to bats, to frogs in a number of different locations including: Caves, forests, mountain sides and towns too. They all feel unique and wonderful, even though the demo was 10 minutes long I took time just to stop and observe the game, its just like those moments in Super Mario Galaxy where you just have to stop and enjoy what has been created. I talked to one of the girls there who was from Rising Star Games and we talked about the game and when it was going to be released, it was a fun conversation and while we were talking I went through the demo twice. While playing Touka found me and checked out my awesome skills in action, he seemed impressed. I felt that after the second runthrough I had done enough gaming to be able to explain how the game works and how it felt in my hands when I eventually bought it lol. And so me and Touka left and went on the move again.
We walked through the area like 4 or 5 more times and saw Craig Charles at his desk a few times and then we decided to see what was going on in the stage area. There were some guys talking about the distrubution of the Slayers anime in the UK and then after that we waited Linda Hamilton to take to the stage in a Q&A with the microphone man. She looked well for her age and she talked about her role in the Terminator films and what connection she had to Terminator Salvation. People asked her questions about her other films too and the future material she planned to do in her career. After that me and Touka went to the comic artist section to look for Lee Townsed, we had searched a few times before but couldn’t find him, but then we found him, he was snuck over in a area away from the main booths. And so meeting him again was grand, I showed him my work and he remebered me and my work and I was like yay! He said that my work was good and that I had very good technique, but suggested some tips of on drawing hands and told me that drawing storyboards would help advance my style of art. He even wrote me a list of books to buy to help me out, it felt grand to be getting that give of help (unlike that bastard Andie Tong grrrr.). I also talked this woman who had beautiful coloured manga work and got her contact and I also talked to this Scottish man who gave me some amazing tips on facial sketching. I also showed him my sketches and he said that I was good too and he said that he really like my Wolverine sketches, but suggested that my Spider-Man sketched needed webbing (because some of them didn’t have it on) and I got his card too. Touka bought some stuff there while I bought this mini comic called Ninja Bunny, it was the best thing I’d ever read so simple and yet so badass.
We also looked at the TOKYOPOP manga section, the amount of manga there was pretty big. On that day I only had around £25 and I had bought the Ninja Bunny mini comics for £9 and then bought the first volumes of +Anima and Blade of Heaven for £5 each. At this point Touka must have still have around £200 or more and I was totally annoyed, he had obtained his Evangelion DVD boxset earlier that day and also obtained Gurren Lagann on DVD and still he had cash! The mere thought of it, plus the manga he had gotten (he talked about Genshiken a lot), ah he's just a man with no shame! We eventually got the tickets for the mascrade show, we then found Microdroid and decided to chill outside for in the long hallway of the Excel Center. It was very warm that day and after carrying our stuff around for a while we had to take time out to recuparate our strength. I was also waiting for an old school friend of mine to show up on that day and evtually she did show up with her brother and boyfriend who happened to be a good mate of mine, they were heading off to the toilet and that’s where I needed to go so I followed them in. I caught her by surprise when I walked next to her and she was well happy to see me and after we left the toilets we caught up briefly before they headed in. I went back to where Touka and Microdroid were sitting only to see that my seat had been stolen! Those two didn’t even try to save my seat, what a bunch of punks. After sitting for a while we decided to make one final trip back inside and we walked around for a while trying to look for things we hadnt seen before, I tried to find Region 2 version of the One Piece DVDs they were selling but I got nothing, they didn’t even have the first season in Region 1!
We all seperated for a while and I found Microdroid somewhere and then we walked to the Batman: Arkham Asylum. After waiting for the dudes in front of us to finally get off we finally got in and man, that demo was hard! Probably the hardest and longest demo I’ve ever played! The demo I played consisted of four rounds inside one room, fighting off the jail goons as they try to beat you up. The game as you must have seen from the GameTrailers footage looks great and it looks better when you play it, the lighting effects and attention to detain in the character modelling his grand and the voiceover work from Mark Hamill is just perfect. When you fight you have one button for attack, one that you use to counter attacks, one which you dazzle people with your cape and a grab button and which puts you into an other the shoulder view to throw your Batarang at enemies. The button respnsiveness was very good, but when I played I felt like I was pressing the attack button and that’s it, although I also had to counter a lot because of the number of guys constantly attack me. But the thing was that he had these cool animated attacks and nice slow motion finishers but you didn’t know how to control it, you just run around, attack, counter and repeat. I understood that it was demo but I wasn’t exactly moved by the game. I realised halfway through playing on my third turn that someone had put the game on the hardest difficulty and I didn’t wonna look like a wuss so I contiued and loose I did and after the fifth time I was like “I’ve had enough of this, it’s a good game, but where’s the flexibity?” And after that me and Micro decided to line up for the Mascarde show.
We left the Expo floor and joined a line for the Mascarade show and Touka called me to see where we were and i told him out to join us, when he came along he was astonished to see how long the line was. We stood in the line for around 40 minutes or more and even after playing Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk American Sk8land for a while I ran out things to do. Eventually we got in and sat down. And the performances that followed in the show ranged from dances, to musical numbers, to cosplayers just coming up and showing off their costumes with to commentators who were really annoying (one more then the other who was in the frog suit). There were a load of annoying girly dances, some I wish I never saw and the people that went to show off their cosplay costumes we: a little Naturo dude who was too young to understand what he was doing, got stage fright, did one pose and stumbled off. There was some people from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann which me and Touka were partly critical of, there was a musical number from some nutters dressed as chaarcters from Saint Seiya. There was even a dude dressed in the armour of the main bad guy fron Final Fantasy XII and I also forgot to mention how many bloody Final Fantasy people were in this show, there were peopl from VI, VII, IX, XI and as I mentioned already XII. But there was a load fron Final Fantasy IX and XI most people didn’t even know who the hell they were, those two FF titles have the least amount of fanbase in the gaming world as far as I’m concerned. And throughout the entire thing there some some random guy who looked in his late teens sitting on my right who continued to talked to me about several of the cosplayers and performances that came up, geez man he was annoying! But the highlight of the show was me and Touka’s favourite part, the Team Rocket music number. Using full theme song from the first Pokemon series, you had Jessie and James along with a Meowth stuffed toy and a munch of dancers behind them. Me ad Touka were totally eating it up and I was singing along to it with Micro staying at us in awe lol. After the winners were annoys the goodbyes were said by the announcers we left and that was it… The Expo was officially over.
Me, Touka and Microdroid got our bags from the places downstairs and tried to think of a stratergy to get home. I tried calling my auntie, but she said she wouldn’t be able to take us because she was in another part of London and also we had too much stuff for her car and so she gave me directions instead. And so me and guys got our tickets from a machine, got a bus and got dropped off at a station that looked like it was closed from what Micro told us and we were stranded in an unknown area of London, tired and frustrated and just wanting to find the right way to get home. I even called my mum for help and while I was doing that, someone how the station which we thought was closed actually had trains running there, so we rean up and got the train and make our what back to the London Underground. It was a long-ass process but we eventually got back to King’s Cross St. Pancras train station and were heading back home. We were just so knackered that it was unatural, Touka and Micro were having jokes while I sat on the otherside of the train all crumpy, I was mainly just pissed off with how long it took to get home and the fact that the Expo while it was great and all lacked the original flare of last year’s experience. I called my dad to pick me up from the station and when we got there I told Micro to head off home and I’ll come over to get my stuff later. They left while I waited for my dad, I had called him 30 minutes prior to that moment and yet he wasn’t there, I decided to walk to the Mc Donalds near by to get a burger and then he finally shows up. We loaded my suitcase into the car and then we headed out to Micro’s house. I gave him back his camera bag and then I got my other bag back and that was it.
After the longest, stressful, enjoyable and memorable three day weekend that I had ever had, the Expo was actually over. Surprises were had all around, but the content this time round was far more then I could have imagined so it was better for that small reason. We decided that the Expo next time wont require us there for two days and that we’ll take a totally different approach to the next journey.
Well thanks for reading , that is if you were able to read it all. I know it was long and it was late, but it’s all here for you to read.
It seems that there are always going to events in your life that are gonna stay with you, those irreplaceable and all so glorious memories that you’ll share with either friends or family which just kick ass and for me one of the those memories was when I went to the MCM London Expo last year. I know that doesn’t sound that exciting, but for me it was everything I’ve ever liked in life all in one place: anime, games, films, comics, manga and everything else under the sun. I travelled there on the Friday and the went to the expo for that weekend with two guys from college I’d only known around just over half a year, it seemed like in that one weekend at that event I had more fun with these two mates then I had with about 2 years of my school life.
And so when 2009 came along, me and my two comrades Touka and Microdroid just had to be there again this year. The event took place on May 23rd and May 24th and those were days we were looking forwards to for months, it felt like ages coming, but when the Friday finally came little did we know the whole tree-day weekend would be so dam difficult. And so friends let me tell you the tale of our little adventure…
Friday
Well this year I decided to stay at Micro’s house only for me to miss my alarm and wake up behind schedule and have a late arrival at the location which Touka was waiting at. After meeting him around 20 minutes after the predestined time we took a few pictures and took our train and expo tickets. Touka had a terrible cold that week and although he looked fine, I wasn't sure if he was gonna make it, but yes he held up. We then went to the train station, boarded the train and headed into London. After going through the underground to get off at Lester Square, we found a legendary shop known as “Orbital Manga”, it had manga as far the eye could see, toys, accessories, books and fan art sketches on the wall. Touka bought so much manga in there, it was ridiculous, he had a mountain of books in his hands lol, I got some manga there meself (more then I thought I would I might add). Moving from there we went to some place right next to it which had a whole load of posters, signed pictures, magazines, toy statues and other stuff based on big films like the Bonds films, Watchmen, the Dark Knight, Iron Man and a whole load of other bits and pieces.
After that we went to this cool shop known as “Fopp” and got some DVDs. And then came the longest part of the day, trying to find the comic shop known as “Gosh” which we went to last year. Now let me tell ya, it took us so dam long to find a shop which was relatively easy to find. I suggested a direction to go in just because I had a hunch it’d be in that direction, however Touka and Microdroid decided to follow the map and with it we got lost. We walked past two turnings, walked down the same street twice, asked for directions twice and after around an hour of walking we finally found the place. Touka again bought so much manga it was like looking at someone’s small collection with all the bags he had, me and Micro bought our share of things in there too. Then we decided to sit down in a mini restaurant with a French theme (I think), me and Touka had a well-deserved cheeseburger and when we paid for it we left a tip for the girl but she refused it and I was like “nani!?”
Then we went to the other comic shop known as “Comica” or “Comicmania” I cant remember the exact name, but yeah I happened to get my Sonic comics from there just as I had done last year along with Street Fighter and Spider-Man comics. Then we headed done to the last location known as “Forbidden Planet” and that place was so friggin big and it had so much manga and anime done there that I was shocked beyond belief, however with collections that big there’s always gotta be a catch right? And there was indeed and it was that most of the stuff was incredibly over-priced and had the bad habit of having the numbers “£19.95” on there, I mean imagine having to pay that much for the film Kung-Fu Hustle, a film that’s around 4 years old!! Anyway me and Microdroid chilled outside and would you guess it, Touka bought even more manga and after packing it away in Micro’s suitcase we headed back only to find we came back in the direction I told us to go to in the first place! It was the direction I suggested to go in when we first started looking for “Gosh” and we walked some long-ass way around, got lost, had tired feet, got annoyed about trying to find the place when all we had to do was go straight where I said to go! So yes ladies and gentlemen I was right! LET ME REPEAT THAT, I WAS RIGHT!
Moving on from that, we went on the train, but we stayed on too long coz we didn’t know that the train split off into two different directions, so we went four stops too far into nowhere, so then we got off and went back four stops and changed lanes and in the process we had to call the hotel we booked to hold our place. And after another 30 minutes and changing train and going another 3 stops we finally got to our location and we walked the rest of the way to the hotel. After waiting for the manager for like 10 minutes and paying for the place we went into our room. Exhausted, stressed and needing rest we chilled out with Microdroid reading manga, Touka going through his stuff and me sketching picture for the comic artists at the expo while we all watched Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. None of us went to sleep until around 2am… And then the momentous day came, again…
Saturday: 1st day of the Expo
And so it came, the 1st day of the expo, the day me, Touka and Microdroid had been waiting for, it’d be such so long. But stupidly I missed my 6am phone alarm and didn’t get up until Microdroid’s 7am phone alarm. We got ready and headed out to the Excel Centre, but with the place being reconstructed from the side we came in last year, we had to take some long-ass road to get to the other entrance and so when we got there we went to the cash point and got in line and then saw the line. DAM YO! That line was long and waiting in there was a right bitch coz my camera went all funny and the shutter speed kept letting too much light into the pictures. I was trying all kinds of things with it for a good 30 minutes and yet it came to no avail, so I decided the camera was labelled unusable. And 10 minutes after 9am the doors opened and we headed in. We quickly looked around diligently for the Afro Samurai section, now all three of us knew that Afro Samurai: Resurrection sucked, but we wanted to find those guys based on the fact that they said they’d be there and that we just wished to talk to them again. However, we didn’t find them, but me and Touka found someone 10x better. I mean we didn’t even know in advance that he was gonna be there. We saw the legend that was Craig Charles, master commentator of Takeshi’s Castle, funny man of sitcom Red Dwarf and regular man of TV soap Coronation Street. Me and Touka got Red Dwarf books and got them signed by the legend himself and I even got a picture with him too. BEST. MOMENT. EVER!
After that I went straight back to a stall I saw before and bought series 2 & 3 of the remastered DragonBall Z DVDs, SECOND. BEST. MOMENT. EVER! And with the rest of the day came exploring through the area seeing and hearing the wonderful sounds of the expo. I also got a stuffed Kirby toy; it was soooo cool I just had to have it. There was soooooo many games on display that it was ridiculous, there was: Naruto Ultimate Ninja 4 & Ninja Storm, DBZ Burst Limit, Battle Stadium D.O.N, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Street Fighter IV, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Little King’s Story, We Ski, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s too bad that we never got to play any that day, there were just too many people, you couldn’t even get near it and when you could, the person who was playing would be standing there for hours!! After me and Touka got a considerable amount of stuff we decided to head back to the hotel to drop some stuff off and told Micro we’d be back in a bit. However we chilled out for about a good hour or so, I was sketching and Touka was going through his stuff while we listened to Jonathan Ross on BBC Radio 2. When we did head back we happened to see Micro coming up and I started laughing after we had left him at the expo on his own for so long.
Me and Touka convinced Micro to come back in with us and in there I went and got another two seasons of the remastered DBZ DVDs (seasons 4 & 5), the boxset of Utawarerumono and a DVD copy of the 20th Century Boys. Man, everything was going my way. Alas, I had spent all my money right there and then before the second day of the expo had come just like last year XD and so after walking around in circles for ages and briefly watching a lightsaber fight between cosplayers we went back to the hotel again. We ordered pizza and watched the Blues Brothers on TV, the pizza proved almost too much for us, we were only just about able to finish the margarita pizza, but left four slices of the meaty one for later. After doing some more sketches and waiting for movement to come back to our bodies, me and Touka headed back to the expo for the 3rd time hoping that the game booths would be a little less crowded, but nooooooo! Even at 4pm just around 2 hours before the place closes people are still crowded round the game booths like its life support or something, Touka and I couldn’t even get near it. So I decided to meet the comic artist known as Andie Tong, I brought some of my work over to him to analyse and his response was surprising. Basically I had o show him my work pretty quickly since it was close to closing time, but basically he said that I had the technique of a comic artist down, he basically told me that my work was too clean and that a lot of my work lacked construction lines. He also highlighted where the problems were in my work instantly, I mean this guy was fast, like quick fire shots of a handgun. He could even tell the difference between my copied and freestyle material. I was shocked. But in the end he did say I have technique, I just need construction line to make in better, but even so I had hoped for a more a positive response... I didn’t even show the whole of my wok because it seemed that he had summed it all up. Me and Touka left the Expo and talked about my encounter with Andie Tong and other things as we headed back to the hotel.
We came back to the hotel to find Microdroid sleeping in the bed, “Ha, what a bean!” I thought. And so later on we chilled, I wanted to sketch but after Andie’s harsh constructive criticism I found it hard to start so I played me DS, Micro eventually woke up and me and he finally finished the pizza from before while watching a little telly. When it came to Mission Impossible II coming on telly later that night Micro totally freaked out, Touka and I didn’t really care so Touka went back to his music and I went back to Dragon Quest. Several hours later near bedtime which was around 2am Micro was still reading manga while me and Touka wanted sleep. Microdroid was being such a punk he kept saying that he wanted to finish a chapter in his book, but me and Touka still demanded sleep. Touka went and turned the light off, but then Micro turned it back on and some light switching battle broke out and then Touka just kept flicking the switch on and off over and over and it looked like strobe lighting. But then he stopped, Micro eventually finished his book and then we finally slept...
And so middle the first part of the Expo and when the sun rose on that morning we’d be entering the last day of the expo.
Sunday: 2nd and Last day of the Expo
When we woke on this Sunday morning we were in a state on partial disbelieve, we knew it was gonna be the last day of the expo and of our hotel fun, but the thing was we just weren’t ready for the fun to end just yet and I was wanting the day to end because I had nothing to spend money on and yet Touka and (somehow) Microdroid had money to throw away. Touka looked well as if the cold was never there, although he still looked kind of dodgy at certain points. We headed into the Excel building again passing by a whole load of people and cosplayers, moving along with all our stuff from the day before and since we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us (especially since me and Micro had suitcases) we dropped them off in a holding area nearby. We and then drop into a line and wait there for almost 30 minutes and then the line moves into the giant holding area again, so I was like “What the hell!? We just stood in a line just to move into a larger one? That’s bullshit!” Okay so I wasn’t that extreme but with us moving from one line to another, I was pretty annoyed. We stood in the line for a while and I even played a wireless game of Mario Kart DS with some random dude standing next to me, I slaughtered him, it was the best 2 out of 3 and I won both matches with ease. After sitting down for a bit longer the place was finally open again.
I stepped in there with one main intention – to play games! Since I had even got to touch one game the day before, it was time for payback! So I headed straight over to the area where they had Smash Bros. but some lame lady was on there, she went into classic mode and from what I saw she wasn’t that good anyway but was on there for ages!! I couldn’t bear to stand there for that long so I went to try and play something else and then I found Battle Stadium D.O.N. Now people, please understand, I had wanted to play this game for AGES! This was the only other game ever made to be an anime version of the Super Smash Bros. series, so I wanted to see how this title matched up. I tried me had at using Goku and went up against CPU Luffy and hell I was having fun, the game’s button set up was partly similar to Smash Bros. and there was a lot to love about the gameplay and environments. Putting Goku’s Super Saiyan abilities against Luffy’s stretchy arms was just plain old fun. I continued my fun with me picking Zoro and fighting against CPU Sasuke, again I was having fun using Zoro crazing sword attacks and blocking Sasuke’s fire attacks. Unfortunately I was in such a hurry to play Smash Bros. that I only had 3 rounds of fun on the game and then ran over to Smash Bros. when I saw that lame lady finally move off it.
And so I, the master of Smash, took a sit and played against two other Bleach cosplayers… the following fights were intense. I won the 1st match pretty nicely with Captain Falcon, then followed the next match with Fox and kicked some more arse, then I used Wolf in the 3rd match and amazingly I lost, but used him again in the fourth round and done what was meant to be accomplished the time before. After that match I was thinking I should give it a rest before I do get beaten, plus there was many other things that I needed to take care of. By the point I left Smash Bros. too many people were crowded around SF4 for me to get near it and so I travelled round the area searching for something to do, I went to the Viz manga section and there was a lot of stuff on show, but I was only interested in the opposite side which the DVDs. I was looking for the Bleach DVDs, mainly looking for season 2 and if there had season 3 in boxset yet. I found season 2, but it was way too much and season 3 was still in 2 halves and there were £24.99 each! I was like screw that for a laugh and I kept on moving. I must have walked through the place twice before going back to the Wii section and there it was, Muramasa: the Demon Blade.
I had followed the game endless on IGN, Gamespot and on GameTrailers too, I just had to touch it. There was some middle-aged dude in front of me and he was taking well long yo, I was totally getting pisses, I just wanted to push him out of the way and play it myself because he sucked so bad! Eventually the plum guy got stuck at a place in the forest and couldn’t move so he handed over to me and then the fun began… I jumped, I slashed, I kicked ass! The game moved with great responsiveness to my button presses, the game moved in its glorious animation just as well as it does in all of the gameplay videos online. It was like living magic in motion yo, toally sweet. You took on enemies from ninjas, to bats, to frogs in a number of different locations including: Caves, forests, mountain sides and towns too. They all feel unique and wonderful, even though the demo was 10 minutes long I took time just to stop and observe the game, its just like those moments in Super Mario Galaxy where you just have to stop and enjoy what has been created. I talked to one of the girls there who was from Rising Star Games and we talked about the game and when it was going to be released, it was a fun conversation and while we were talking I went through the demo twice. While playing Touka found me and checked out my awesome skills in action, he seemed impressed. I felt that after the second runthrough I had done enough gaming to be able to explain how the game works and how it felt in my hands when I eventually bought it lol. And so me and Touka left and went on the move again.
We walked through the area like 4 or 5 more times and saw Craig Charles at his desk a few times and then we decided to see what was going on in the stage area. There were some guys talking about the distrubution of the Slayers anime in the UK and then after that we waited Linda Hamilton to take to the stage in a Q&A with the microphone man. She looked well for her age and she talked about her role in the Terminator films and what connection she had to Terminator Salvation. People asked her questions about her other films too and the future material she planned to do in her career. After that me and Touka went to the comic artist section to look for Lee Townsed, we had searched a few times before but couldn’t find him, but then we found him, he was snuck over in a area away from the main booths. And so meeting him again was grand, I showed him my work and he remebered me and my work and I was like yay! He said that my work was good and that I had very good technique, but suggested some tips of on drawing hands and told me that drawing storyboards would help advance my style of art. He even wrote me a list of books to buy to help me out, it felt grand to be getting that give of help (unlike that bastard Andie Tong grrrr.). I also talked this woman who had beautiful coloured manga work and got her contact and I also talked to this Scottish man who gave me some amazing tips on facial sketching. I also showed him my sketches and he said that I was good too and he said that he really like my Wolverine sketches, but suggested that my Spider-Man sketched needed webbing (because some of them didn’t have it on) and I got his card too. Touka bought some stuff there while I bought this mini comic called Ninja Bunny, it was the best thing I’d ever read so simple and yet so badass.
We also looked at the TOKYOPOP manga section, the amount of manga there was pretty big. On that day I only had around £25 and I had bought the Ninja Bunny mini comics for £9 and then bought the first volumes of +Anima and Blade of Heaven for £5 each. At this point Touka must have still have around £200 or more and I was totally annoyed, he had obtained his Evangelion DVD boxset earlier that day and also obtained Gurren Lagann on DVD and still he had cash! The mere thought of it, plus the manga he had gotten (he talked about Genshiken a lot), ah he's just a man with no shame! We eventually got the tickets for the mascrade show, we then found Microdroid and decided to chill outside for in the long hallway of the Excel Center. It was very warm that day and after carrying our stuff around for a while we had to take time out to recuparate our strength. I was also waiting for an old school friend of mine to show up on that day and evtually she did show up with her brother and boyfriend who happened to be a good mate of mine, they were heading off to the toilet and that’s where I needed to go so I followed them in. I caught her by surprise when I walked next to her and she was well happy to see me and after we left the toilets we caught up briefly before they headed in. I went back to where Touka and Microdroid were sitting only to see that my seat had been stolen! Those two didn’t even try to save my seat, what a bunch of punks. After sitting for a while we decided to make one final trip back inside and we walked around for a while trying to look for things we hadnt seen before, I tried to find Region 2 version of the One Piece DVDs they were selling but I got nothing, they didn’t even have the first season in Region 1!
We all seperated for a while and I found Microdroid somewhere and then we walked to the Batman: Arkham Asylum. After waiting for the dudes in front of us to finally get off we finally got in and man, that demo was hard! Probably the hardest and longest demo I’ve ever played! The demo I played consisted of four rounds inside one room, fighting off the jail goons as they try to beat you up. The game as you must have seen from the GameTrailers footage looks great and it looks better when you play it, the lighting effects and attention to detain in the character modelling his grand and the voiceover work from Mark Hamill is just perfect. When you fight you have one button for attack, one that you use to counter attacks, one which you dazzle people with your cape and a grab button and which puts you into an other the shoulder view to throw your Batarang at enemies. The button respnsiveness was very good, but when I played I felt like I was pressing the attack button and that’s it, although I also had to counter a lot because of the number of guys constantly attack me. But the thing was that he had these cool animated attacks and nice slow motion finishers but you didn’t know how to control it, you just run around, attack, counter and repeat. I understood that it was demo but I wasn’t exactly moved by the game. I realised halfway through playing on my third turn that someone had put the game on the hardest difficulty and I didn’t wonna look like a wuss so I contiued and loose I did and after the fifth time I was like “I’ve had enough of this, it’s a good game, but where’s the flexibity?” And after that me and Micro decided to line up for the Mascarde show.
We left the Expo floor and joined a line for the Mascarade show and Touka called me to see where we were and i told him out to join us, when he came along he was astonished to see how long the line was. We stood in the line for around 40 minutes or more and even after playing Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk American Sk8land for a while I ran out things to do. Eventually we got in and sat down. And the performances that followed in the show ranged from dances, to musical numbers, to cosplayers just coming up and showing off their costumes with to commentators who were really annoying (one more then the other who was in the frog suit). There were a load of annoying girly dances, some I wish I never saw and the people that went to show off their cosplay costumes we: a little Naturo dude who was too young to understand what he was doing, got stage fright, did one pose and stumbled off. There was some people from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann which me and Touka were partly critical of, there was a musical number from some nutters dressed as chaarcters from Saint Seiya. There was even a dude dressed in the armour of the main bad guy fron Final Fantasy XII and I also forgot to mention how many bloody Final Fantasy people were in this show, there were peopl from VI, VII, IX, XI and as I mentioned already XII. But there was a load fron Final Fantasy IX and XI most people didn’t even know who the hell they were, those two FF titles have the least amount of fanbase in the gaming world as far as I’m concerned. And throughout the entire thing there some some random guy who looked in his late teens sitting on my right who continued to talked to me about several of the cosplayers and performances that came up, geez man he was annoying! But the highlight of the show was me and Touka’s favourite part, the Team Rocket music number. Using full theme song from the first Pokemon series, you had Jessie and James along with a Meowth stuffed toy and a munch of dancers behind them. Me ad Touka were totally eating it up and I was singing along to it with Micro staying at us in awe lol. After the winners were annoys the goodbyes were said by the announcers we left and that was it… The Expo was officially over.
Me, Touka and Microdroid got our bags from the places downstairs and tried to think of a stratergy to get home. I tried calling my auntie, but she said she wouldn’t be able to take us because she was in another part of London and also we had too much stuff for her car and so she gave me directions instead. And so me and guys got our tickets from a machine, got a bus and got dropped off at a station that looked like it was closed from what Micro told us and we were stranded in an unknown area of London, tired and frustrated and just wanting to find the right way to get home. I even called my mum for help and while I was doing that, someone how the station which we thought was closed actually had trains running there, so we rean up and got the train and make our what back to the London Underground. It was a long-ass process but we eventually got back to King’s Cross St. Pancras train station and were heading back home. We were just so knackered that it was unatural, Touka and Micro were having jokes while I sat on the otherside of the train all crumpy, I was mainly just pissed off with how long it took to get home and the fact that the Expo while it was great and all lacked the original flare of last year’s experience. I called my dad to pick me up from the station and when we got there I told Micro to head off home and I’ll come over to get my stuff later. They left while I waited for my dad, I had called him 30 minutes prior to that moment and yet he wasn’t there, I decided to walk to the Mc Donalds near by to get a burger and then he finally shows up. We loaded my suitcase into the car and then we headed out to Micro’s house. I gave him back his camera bag and then I got my other bag back and that was it.
After the longest, stressful, enjoyable and memorable three day weekend that I had ever had, the Expo was actually over. Surprises were had all around, but the content this time round was far more then I could have imagined so it was better for that small reason. We decided that the Expo next time wont require us there for two days and that we’ll take a totally different approach to the next journey.
Well thanks for reading , that is if you were able to read it all. I know it was long and it was late, but it’s all here for you to read.
Posted by hiruma55 | Jul 8, 2009 5:12 PM | 1 comments