Posted on by Alexander Case

Wrestling Review: NXT Takeover – Wargames

It’s a little late, but I’ve finally gotten around to NXT TakeOver Wargames.

The Gargano/Ciampa feud is apparently currently on hold as Ciampa is injured. This is, by its very nature, a Low, as this would be a good place to continue this feud. Like, straight up, putting Ciampa with the Undisputed Era and Gargano with AOP and Strong, and making it a 4-on-4 WarGames would have worked – continuing to simmer the Gargano & Ciampa feud for one more TakeOver, instead of leaving it ice cold.

Lars Sullivan defeats Kassius Ohno

Backstory: Kassius Ohno interfered in one of Lars Sullivan’s (squash) matches, and asked for a match from William Regal. He got it.

High Points: Sullivan goes to the top-rope in this match, showing some nice agility in addition to his power moves, looking very much like a new Mike Awesome (but with hopefully less unprotected chair shots to the head.

Low Points: Sullivan pretty much no-sells all of Ohno’s offense early on, making him look really weak, with Ohno only able to get effective offense in after Sullivan misses a top rope move, making Ohno look pretty weak – with Ohno only able to do damage after Sullivan clobbers himself. Once Sullivan gets his wind back, the no-selling continues. I get wanting to make Sullivan a monster, but this hurt Ohno more than it helped Sullivan.

Rating: 3/5

Aleister Black defeats Velveteen Dream

Backstory: Velveteen Dream wants Aleister Black-senpai to notice him and say his name. Senpai will not do so. So Velveteen Dream has gone all yandere on Black (in a platonic fashion), and is demanding he say his name.

High Points: I appreciate how Velveteen Dream has been doing mind-games in this feud, without falling into the archetype of the “deranged homosexual”. Great mind technical wrestling and mind games by the two. I thought it was nice to hear a “Say His Name” chant from the audience. Dream’s modified DDT was really amazing.

First “This Is Awesome” chant of the night.

Velveteen Dream being in the middle of saying his name when getting KTFO by Black was a really nice touch. Also, Aleister Black saying Velveteen Dream’s name after beating the crap out of him was a very nice touch.

Low Points: I can’t help but think that “Say My Name” should have been part of the stipulation for this match – pinning Black wouldn’t make him say Dream’s name.

Rating: 4/5

Asuka is in attendance at the event (along with Finn Balor and Sho Funaki).

NXT Women’s Championship: Ember Moon defeated Kairi Sane, Nikki Cross, and Peyton Royce

Backstory: Asuka was called up to the main roster without losing the strap, so the belt has been vacated, and we have a match for the title – with Ember Moon going up against Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, and Kairi Sane for the vacant belt. I do appreciate that for the snippet of each person’s promo, Nikki Cross is just represented by insane laughter.

First in-ring appearance of SAnitY of the night.

High Points: Kairi Sane has the best elbow drop in the business. First “NXT” Chant of the night. Moon hitting the Eclipse on Royce and Cross at the same time was a great spot.

Low Points: Considering the relatively small number of matches on the card, I’d prefer this was an elimination match instead of a single fall Fatal Four-Way. Nikki Cross didn’t come out looking strong – Kairi Sane was fine, but Cross basically spent most of the match getting the stuffing beat out of her.

Rating: 4/5

After the match, Asuka bestows the belt on Moon – a nice touch considering that Moon was never quite able to get the win on Asuka. Samoa Joe is also in the audience.

NXT Championship Match: Andrade “Cien” Almas (with Zelina Vega) defeated Drew McIntyre (c)

Backstory: Image consultant Zelina Vega has helped Andrade “Cien” Almas find some discipline and clean up his act – so now he’s earned his NXT Championship shot.

High Points: Great contrast of styles between Almas and McIntyre. When you have two wrestlers with different styles, they’ll either clash horribly and not give you a good match, or they’ll counterbalance each other and make for something really entertaining. This felt like the latter case. Almas is a luchador and has a quick style, McIntyre is more of a power wrestler, and both have some good strikes in their arsenal.

Low Points: Shenanigans that doesn’t quite go anywhere. Vega interferes with a hurricanrana, and Almas follows up with a hammerlock DDT, but that doesn’t put McIntyre away. Almas still wins, but having the Shenanigans work would have set up a nice rematch and the continuation of the feud.

Rating: 4/5

WarGames Match: The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O’Reilly) defeated The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar) and Roderick Strong w/ Paul Ellering & SAnitY (Alexander Wolfe, Eric Young, and Killian Dain)

Backstory: Strong’s feud with Sanity and the Undisputed Era is clear-cut, as Strong was feuding with SAnitY back at NXT Takeover Chicago. SAnitY has also won the NXT Tag Team Championships from the AoP (though they are not on the line this match). The Undisputed Era debuted at the previous TakeOver (which I missed), and is currently terrorizing NXT. We have a temporary Face turn, apparently, for the AoP, as they’re teaming with Strong.

High Points: Mauro Ranallo describing the Authors of Pain as “Menacing as a mind flayer.” Great teamwork between Strong and the AoP, in spite of basically being a thrown together tag team.

The other two members of SAnitY being released, and bringing a boatload of plunder into the Cage, before locking their opponents in the cage with them (and Dain swallowing the key).

Speaking of which, everything Killian Dain does in this match (especially the Van Terminator). Even if Young doesn’t get called up, I can see Dain getting called up and being used in a similar way as Braun Strowman, as, say, Smackdown’s unstoppable monster.

First “Holy Shit” chant of the night. Second “This is Awesome” chant of the night. First “Please Don’t Die” chant I’ve heard in a while.

The Undisputed Era did need a big win in their first major match, and certainly this is a win they really needed.

Low Points: As much as I appreciate the Law of Karmic Tables, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s rather old, and maybe, at least a few times, the person who sets up a table shouldn’t be the person who goes through them.

Strong really should have gotten the pin off of the top-of-the-cage-superplex. That’s a spot you protect. If he wasn’t going to get the pin, then someone else should have come out on top with that spot.

Rating: 5/5

Not much of an after-match segment – just The Undisputed Era celebrating in the ring (as well as you can after having the crap beat out of you).

Posted on by Alexander Case

Video Game Review: Binary Domain

Now that I’ve beaten Binary Domain, now is as good a time as any to give my thoughts on the game.

Binary Domain, at the time of its release, felt like a game that was deliberately designed to be a Japanese response to cover-based shooters like Gears of War, to show that Japanese game developers could compete with Western Triple-A developers on their own turf. Having played the game now, with a distance in time from my original impressions, I can say with a degree of certainty that particular perspective isn’t that far off.

Where Binary Domain really differs from Gears is that Gears puts a lot of focus on its visual esthetic. Epic put a lot of work into what they described as the game’s “ruined beauty” style – the idea that the game’s world was very visually beautiful, before everything went bad, but without too much worldbuilding as to why things went bad in the first game. Instead, Binary Domain puts more focus on the narrative worldbuilding and storytelling instead of visual worldbuilding.

The plot is based around the idea that the future humanity has developed semi-sentient AI, and the nations of the world have signed the New Geneva Convention to prevent research into truly sentient AI. When a group of synthetic humans who don’t know they’re synthetic (like the Final Five Cylons on New Battlestar Galactica), known as “Hollow Children” are discovered, the US government blames the isolationist Japanese government in general, and an industrialist named Yoji Amada in particular for their development. A group of  anti-robot hit teams called “Rust Crews” are sent to infiltrate Japan to find Amada, confirm the development of the Hollow Children, and bring him to justice.

On paper, this is an interesting narrative concept, as New Battlestar Galactica (nBSG) demonstrated. However, the game doesn’t quite take the time to do anything with it. The story has a few moments where it uses the concept fairly well – taking the idea that Amada is able to take control of any Hollow Child at any time, without the original being able to do anything to stop it – showing that the Hollow Children are a threat. However, however, the game’s main narrative drops its big story bomb very late in the game, and then absolutely proceeds to do anything with it in this game. It introduces the idea that the Hollow Children can have kids, and that they would be a sort of human-robot hybrid, stronger, faster, more resilient than normal humans – and that one of the members of your team is one of these hybrids.

This comes up extremely late in the game, and the reaction from most of the members of your squad is incredibly racist. Further, the governments of the world come to the conclusion that all of these hybrids must be hunted down and killed – in spite of the fact that these hybrids cannot be controlled by Amada. The repercussions of this decision are not explored or discussed, and outside of our immediate squad, we see no dissenting voices. This feels like something that was meant to setup a sequel that never actually got made.

As far as the game itself goes – it’s a fairly conventional cover-based shooter – with a few notes that make it different from Gears – some for the better, and some for the worst. Unlike Gears, killing enemies generates currency, which you can use to buy upgrades for your gun. By the end of the game you can get some very precise shots off with your gun, with some heavy damage, and lots of ammunition in the weapon, along with more power for the weapon’s alt-fire and more ammunition for that. Compared to the fact that your standard lancer in Gears pretty much operates the same way at the end of the game that it did at the start, that’s a rather nice shift.

Additionally, the game provides a lot of options for you to command your squad. While you can’t command your squad members to take cover behind particular points or to attack particular targets, it’s a good first execution. Related to this – in theory you can give your squad orders using a connected microphone and voice commands. However, as I was playing the game for a LP (which readers of my blog might have noticed), I was not able to experiment with this, so I can’t tell you how well it worked.

Binary Domain also uses a “trust” mechanic, where you build trust with your squad mates based on your responses to dialog prompts and your actions in combat. Being a prat with squadmate Big Bo will build your trust with him but may reduce your trust with female squad members, but mowing down a whole bunch of attacking robots in short order will give a massive boost to your whole squad. Accidentally attacking or firing on your squad members, however, reduces your trust. This is an issue, because your squadmates lack the sense of self-preservation to avoid stepping into the path of a firing weapon.

High trust may determine what ending you get, and apparently determines if your squadmates will follow your commands. I never got low enough trust to have squadmates who wouldn’t come to my aid, but I also didn’t actively attempt to reduce my squadmates trust either. There are a couple hinge points in the final boss fight that vary based on your trust level with a couple characters, but aside from one I had to find out what those were after the fact.

Otherwise, the characters are fairly bland. Big Bo is your bro-tastic Black friend who is large, boisterous, and kinda racist and misogynistic. Charlie is the overly professional Brit. Dan is your protagonist who has a reputation as “The Survivor”, and who tends to be put-offishly bro-tastic. Rachel is also British and Professional (though not as overly professional as Charlie). Faye is the designated love-interest and is Chinese (and is frequently shown from the view of the male gaze).

Binary Domain is interesting as a historical curiosity. Some of the narrative ideas are interesting but not executed on. The characters are handled poorly, the game mechanics are fairly standard, and while a few of the level environments are interesting, a lot of them are fairly generic, and the enemies often blur together outside of a few environments. I did enjoy playing the game, but I’m also glad that I rented the game.

The game is currently running around $15 on Amazon right now, which is probably the right price for it, considering the amount of enjoyment I got out of it.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Legends of the Force: Episode XVI – Dark Apprentice

We return to the Jedi Academy trilogy to see how Luke starts to train his students. Spoilers: Not everything goes well.

Opening Credits: Star Wars Theme from Super Star Wars on the SNES.
Closing Credits: Chiptune Cantina Band from Chiptune Inc. – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvJtiGFudFlvYMfjiU1NKJg

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Demon City Shinjuku

Probably the first anime I ever saw any of as a kid was Demon City Shinjuku. I saw the opening sequence of the anime on the Sci-Fi channel on Saturday mornings. The opening of the anime was exciting, and the conclusion of that opening (with the protagonist’s father failing and Shinjuku being transformed into the titular Demon City) hooked me in.

And then my parents got up and I had to turn the TV off because my dad didn’t like the TV on early in the morning.

I wasn’t able to watch the film again, and with it see the whole story, until I was in high school, and I was able to get the film from the library. Since then I’ve watched the film a few times, and while I still view the film with a degree of nostalgia, I’ve developed a bit of distance from that original viewing, so I have a degree of emotional distance from the film, and can see some of the flaws that I overlooked before.

Demon City Shinjuku is a film that makes a lot of assumptions, and expects you to just roll with them. There’s a Global President who has managed to craft a lasting peace agreement in the Middle East, because why not? He comes to Japan with his daughter by space shuttle because why not? Further, the force responsible for Shinjuku’s transformation, the sorcerer Rebi Ra, targets the Global President for attack, in spite of him not planning to launch a spiritual attack against Rebi Ra, because why not?

None of those points, among numerous others are explained. While the film is based on a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi, creator of Vampire Hunter D, the first book is effectively a stand-alone story (though there are later sequels), so there’s prior reading you can bring with you into the story, to help explain things. It’s a story that asks you to take everything at face value, while leaving an undercurrent of mystery underneath everything, with no promise that the questions asked by those mysteries will be answered.

That said, the film is a visual feast. This is one of the films directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (who would go on to direct adaptations of some of Kikuchi’s other work), and Kawajiri has a profound sense of visual style. His action is incredibly fluid and dynamic, without causing the viewer to lose track of the scene. Kawajiri is undoubtedly one of the best directors of action in anime (and sword fights in particular), and this film is a great example of why he’s earned that reputation.

That said, because this film is an OVA from the ’90s, it does run into the problem that it feels visually restrained. By which I mean it was made with a 4:3 TV aspect ratio in mind, so we get numerous sequences where as a view I want to see a little more beyond the edge of the screen, but we don’t get that. It makes me wish, somewhat, that this film had gotten a remake that could take advantage of the fact that everyone has widescreen TV sets these days.

Also, the film has many of the other problems that adaptations of Kikuchi’s work have with female characters. Women are generally written as either predators or passive. Even if they’re somewhat active characters, they’re still weak and vulnerable in the face of larger threats in the way that male characters aren’t – and such is the case here.

I still liked the film, but I simply cannot recommend the film without reservation. Demon City Shinjuku isn’t as openly hostile as, say, Ninja Scroll is. However, it’s still harsh and oppressive, and the way that the film’s female lead is written is rather eye-roll inducing. However, I think it’s more newbie friendly than Ninja Scroll is.

Demon City Shinjuku was license-rescued by Discotek Media a few years ago and is currently available from RightStuf and Amazon. Amazon and Rightstuf also have the novel as well, in a physical edition, and Amazon has it through the Kindle store.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: Viva Amiga!

If the The 8-Bit Generation was a documentary that had the unpleasant habit of painting over the truth of Jack Tramiel’s run on Commodore in an appeal to fans of the Commodore 64, Viva Amiga is a documentary that makes a much more sincere attempt to appeal to fans of the Commodore Amiga, in terms of their love for the system. However, due to a runtime that goes over just one hour, it’s attempt to serve two masters – telling the story of the Amiga itself along with the story of the devotees who adopted the system and who are keeping it alive to this day – leaves the film under-serving both.

I understand that this is a documentary that was funded on Kickstarter, and you can only make as much documentary as you have money for. However, it tries to serve two masters and serves neither well. There are really interesting portions of the documentary with great development stories. There’s the story of how the Amiga almost didn’t come out, and they took out a loan from Atari – then headed by Jack Tramiel, with the Amiga Hardware and OS as collateral – and they got bought-out by Commodore at the last minute, with the CEO of Commodore personally delivering the loan payment to Tramiel just to twist the knife a little bit more (perhaps explaining why The 8-Bit Generation chose to downplay the Amiga, considering the film’s view on Jack Tramiel).

Further, the documentary bounces all over on the user side of things. There’s a few seconds discussion of modern Amiga user groups, and a few seconds of discussion of how it was used in video production back in the ’90s (with 2 seconds of footage from Babylon 5), and a couple minutes of discussion of use of the Amiga in electronic music, giving the implication that there’s room for, if not a much larger documentary, then at least more time in this documentary on the modern Amiga user scene – especially considering that part of the point of the film is that there is a modern Amiga user scene,  and that the platform is still a living, breathing viable platform.

It feels like there was enough material here a 90 to 120 minute documentary, but for various reasons, possibly in part due to the amount of Kickstarter funds brought in, there was only enough room for the hour that we got. It’s a bummer, and, honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Viva Amiga 2.

Viva Amiga is available on DVD and Digital from Amazon.com.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime (Video) Review: Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

This week I’m taking a look at a Gundam series that I think is a little underrated.

Footage Property of Sunrise and Namco-Bandai

Gundam ZZ is available for legal streaming on the Gundam Official Channel
Gundam ZZ is also available on DVD or Blu-Ray from these referral links:
Collection 1 DVD: Amazon
Collection 1 Blu-Ray: Amazon
Collection 2 DVD: Amazon
Collection 2 Blu-Ray: Amazon, Crunchyroll

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: The 8-Bit Generation

I like retro computing – I grew up on Apple II computers at my school and an Atari 800 computer at home, with a Commodore 84 & Atari ST at the houses of relatives so in addition to watching YouTube channels dedicated to old computers and games like PixelMusement and Lazy Game Reviews, I also love documentaries about the history of computing like Triumph of the Nerds and Revolution OS (which I think I reviewed on a previous blog, but which I am currently unable to find). When I found about about this particular documentary on the history of Commodore, I was very interested in checking it out.

The 8-Bit Generation focuses almost exclusively on Commodore computers, with a perspective from within the company, and in particular from the view of Jack Tramiel and his boosters within Commodore. From the view of this documentary, with Jack at the helm, Commodore can do no wrong, and their opponents could do no right. Apple never gained any real market share while Commodore dominated the market (Wrong – the Apple IIe was solid rival for Commodore), Atari had no 3rd party publishers and actively fought them for the PC (Wrong – their main opposition to 3rd party publishers was on the video game console front, they had plenty of 3rd party developers and publishers for PC), and once Jack was ousted from Commodore, they never accomplished anything ever again (Wrong – The Amiga says “Hi!”). Particularly damning is the claim that Atari didn’t get VisiCalc until a year after Commodore did, which is clearly false.

It’s really rather disappointing. While the documentary has interviews with Tramiel himself, I get the strong impression that the reason the director was able to get these interviews in the first place because they were already a booster of Tramiel.  The majority of the interview footage comes from Commodore employees and Tramiel supporters, with the only exceptions from that being a brief interview with Howard Scott Warshaw about Atari Corporate culture (which appears to lean towards the 2600 and the home games division), and an tragically even more brief interview with Steve Wozniak.

For a documentary that bears the title of The 8-Bit Generation, and which does give a fair amount of time on the MOS Technologies 6510 processor architecture, it is a very strong disappointment that the film wears its slant on its sleeve, and I think it’s very much to the detriment of the film. I’d really have enjoyed a more even-handed take on the various systems from this computer generation, with a serious take given on, for example, the TRS-80 and the TI-99. Instead, we get a pep rally for the Commodore 64, with some flagrant mis-truths. I wanted to like this documentary, but I cannot recommend it in the slightest.

If you do decide to get this documentary in spite of my recommendation to the contrary, it is available from Amazon.com.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Dancouga (1985)

Dancouga (with the alternate full English titles of either Super Beast Machine God Dancouga or God Bless The Machine Dancouga – depending on who you ask) is a hybrid Super Robot/Real Robot anime, taking the serious tone of the Real Robot anime of the mid-to-late 80s, and combining it (har har) with a Super Robot anime of the Combiner variety.

The premise takes elements from some of the iconic premises for both sub-genres. Earth is attacked by alien invaders whose weapons outmatch those of humanity, lead by an evil Overlord and commanded by their Four Generals (Super Robot). The invaders steamroll Earth’s defenses and crush humanity before them, leaving Humanity fighting a guerilla war with whatever high-tech weapons they can get (Real Robot). Humanity’s secret weapon is a team of hot-blooded young pilots piloting a team of mecha that transform into beast machines, and then humanoid robots, and also into a larger humanoid robot – the titular Dancouga (Super Robot). However, there is a connection between one of the pilots of Dancouga and the Four Generals – one of the Four Generals is a Human traitor who is the fiancee of one of the Dancouga pilots (Real Robot).

Now, just mashing a bunch of concepts together will certainly get your foot in the door, but ultimately it comes to the execution to determine if the show is any good, and Dancouga is a mixed bag. Most of the the main characters – the Dancouga pilots, are archetypal. The show’s normative lead, Shinobu Fujiwara, is the Hot Blooded Impulsive Pilot, Masato Shikibu is the Jokester Youngster, and Ryo Shiba is The Spiritual Guy.

On the other hand, the team’s female member, Sara Yuki, has much more narrative depth. Her fiancee was the Human traitor who joined the Four Generals, which makes her role in the story much more personal, than just wanting to save the world. Most of the other characters – aside from their connections to the team – don’t have as much of an outside motivation. They want to save the world from the Alien Zorbados invaders because that’s their job. On top of this, Yuki often demonstrates a wider emotional range than her fellow pilots, and more proficiency than her fellow pilots (even beating opponents in martial arts combat that Ryo fail at). I get the feeling that while Shinobu Fujiwara is the Normative protagonist, from a narrative standpoint, Sara Yuki is the de-facto protagonist.

Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of stumbles through the production. As with many other contemporaneous anime series, characters of color are very, very poorly written. Some of the Hispanic characters have very stereotypical names, and a depiction of some African American characters in Harlem later in the series could just as easily be taken from a minstrel show, with the clothing updated to the mid-’80s. Additionally, the quality of the animation is across the map – with some vehicle explosions being very well done, while a larger (and more narratively important) fight scene ending up very disappointing.

Finally, the pacing is rather poor. The titular Dancouga is not formed until the series 25th episode, which implies that they were shooting for a 52 episode runtime, but as with Mobile Suit Gundam, the series has a 35 episode length, which leads me to suspect that they got canceled early. The ending of the show goes along with this, giving a “Watch the OVA/Movie” ending, which is especially disappointing since, as of this writing, the Dancouga OVAs currently aren’t included on Discotek Media’s release of the TV series.

Speaking of which, the show has gotten a DVD release from Discotek Media and is available from Amazon.com & RightStuf. The story doesn’t get concluded until the OVA, but that hasn’t been licensed yet – hopefully Discotek will get the rights so we can get the end of this story, but I can’t otherwise recommend it.

Posted on by Alexander Case

6 Tabletop RPGs for Anime Fans

It’s time for another RPG Roundup video. This time I’m making my recommendations based on Anime series!

Whycalibur’s Log Horizon Actual Play

RPGs Recommended:
13th Age: Amazon, DriveThruRPG
Maid: Amazon, DriveThruRPG
Champions: Amazon, DriveThruRPG
Icons: Amazon, DriveThruRPG
Mutants & Masterminds: Amazon, DriveThruRPG
Wild World Wrestling: DriveThruRPG

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Footage Credits:

  • Sailor Moon – Toei
  • Serial Experiments Lain – Pioneer
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion – Gainax/Studio Khara
  • Armored Trooper VOTOMS – Sunrise
  • Bubblegum Crisis – Pioneer
  • Log Horizon (Season 1) – Satelite
  • Hayate the Combat Butler – Manglobe
  • Tiger & Bunny – Sunrise
  • Goseiger – Bandai
  • Tiger Mask W – Toei