Kategoriarkiv: International

Dear Atlus: go to hell

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Apparently Persona 4: Arena will be released for digital download this week… in North America. Which is obviously no help to us European bastards since Atlus decided to make this game the only region locked game on Playstation 3, and I’m assuming that the same applies to this release. Even if it wouldn’t, and even if the game eventually makes its way over here, I won’t be buying it.

Look, Atlus. I love you for Persona 4 Golden and Catherine (even if I had to import both of those to get them in a timely manner) and for pushing Demon’s Souls to notoriety in the west, but region locking Persona 4: Arena was the most immensely stupid business decision you’ve ever made and hopefully will ever make. As someone who considered Golden the best game of last year (as an import, no less) and who is into fighting games in a major, major way, I’m the bullseye of your target audience. And even I can’t in good conscience buy this game, since the principle of screwing you over for this is more important than getting to play the game. ... Läs hela texten

The northern Sweden Lego experience

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Finding cool Lego stuff can be a bit tricky if you live in Sweden. There are no official Lego Stores, so it’s usually crammed together with any old toys, although usually in a prominent place. Places that are actually dedicated to Lego are few and far between. I’ve recently heard about Brixit in Örebro, and apparently Lego has a dedicated space at Åhlens City in Stockholm, but the one I visited this Christmas is quite something.

HB Adventure is a store/Lego museum created by Hans Brettschneider after his winning of Robinson Karibien (a 2009-2010 spinoff of the Swedish Survivor TV series). Situated on a backstreet near the center of Skellefteå, it’s a fairly small location but packed to the brim with Lego, buyable sets and glassed displays anywhere you look. Hans is particularly into Star Wars Lego, so there’s a ton of that. It’s hard not to notice the gigantic Millennium Falcon display at the entrance, but around the store you can also find most of the UCS collectible Star Wars sets with all the major spaceships, a Darth Maul bust, the awesome R2-D2, custom displays of the Hoth battle, the Endor Battle and a huge Tatooine scene, as well as a collection of every single commercially released Star Wars set sorted by year, going back to 1999. I didn’t spot the biggest version of the Super Star Destroyer, but apart from that they’re all present and accounted for. ... Läs hela texten

My Lego hoard recovered

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I dug out all of my old Lego and, well, I have a lot. When I have more time I’ll build the major models – mostly Space and Pirate – and store them separately.

Most of it was stored in a big box, with a separate box for the pirate ship and the base plates. The big box is 10 kgs of unsorted Lego goodness.

Luckily I was rather careful with the instructions, so most of it is still around. Aside from the main City, Space and Pirate stuff I have some Technic, some Castle and most interestingly a lot of really old stuff. My first Lego was bought second hand, and some is very early. We’re talking serial numbers in the 100s and 200s, and a few in 300s and 600s. ... Läs hela texten

Custom Transformers Classics Streetwise

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Streetwise certainly isn’t the most important of characters. He’s pretty much low on the C list, hanging around with Bomb-Burst and Fizzle. If he wasn’t part of Defensor, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have seen any customs of him at all.

But even then, is it too much to ask to actually have a figure that LOOKS like Streetwise? The original figure transformed into a Nissan 300ZX police car, so it makes sense to have his car form similar to Prowl (who went from a Datsun 280Z to a Nissan 350Z-ish Classics form). But hello? Has anyone ever taken a look at the robot mode? ... Läs hela texten

Transformers Classics Goldbug

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Being brought up on the Transformers comic, Goldbug is much more relevant to me than Bumblebee. His (mis)adventures with Blaster and the rivalry with Grimlock is one of the most important arcs in the comic, and I always felt there was an interesting dynamic with Goldbug, a small golden robot, replacing Scrounge as Blaster’s friend.

Like with many of my customs, Goldbug is the repaint I had waited for that never happened. The Classics Bumblebee was released in 2006 and has received a huge number of repaints, but always as different variations on Bumblebee himself. There’s even Goldbug-coloured versions of the Alternity and Legends figures, although they both use the original head. With Hasbro happily making new heads for repaints, I had thought Goldbug was a given. Apparently not. ... Läs hela texten

My gameplay trailer for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

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Back when I worked for Gamereactor, I made a gameplay trailer during the World of Warcraft beta to show off what the game was all about. At that time, in 2004, the success of the game was probable but not certain, and I like to think that I helped introducing the game to many new players. After that, I made sure to create a trailer for each of the expansions, as much for my own enjoyment as anything else.

Well, here we are, eight years later, and I’ve just finished my first trailer exclusively for The Bearded Nerd. But you can expect more of the same: my old characters visiting the new world, a peek at the new race and the new class, some pet battles (although I apologize for not bothering to level up my pets to Pandaria levels) and even some of the brand new in-game cinematics. ... Läs hela texten

The lovely Figma Samus Aran figure

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It took almost a year from when I first saw it, but the Figma version of Samus Aran is finally here. Slightly delayed and after a turn through customs, I got two of them from HLJ.com, one of them mostly as an investment. I mean, even the crappy old Gamepro figure of Samus was ridiculously expensive to get in the secondary market (I was tempted several times), so this one should be money in the bank eventually.

So, was it worth it? Oh yes.

Figma is a line of super-posable high quality action figures, rivalling the similar Revoltech and Play Arts figures in terms of detailing and posability. This is my first Figma so I can’t say how well it compares to the rest, but it’s a very good sculpt based on the-game-that-mustn’t-be-mentioned. Well, if that game did any good, it’s that it made Samus important enough to finally get two excellent figure representations (this and the Zero Suit statue, which I declined to get). ... Läs hela texten

Some lore thoughts on Dark Souls

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Obviously, I would expect you to finish the game before reading this, as some info might be considered spoilers.

So I was watching the lore videos of EpicNameBro on Youtube, which are highly recommended by the way. And I was thinking about the ”furtive pygmy” mentioned in the introduction. From dialogue in the game, it’s more or less stated that the pygmy was the first human. Kaathe mores or less says as much. Unless he’s stating that the pygmy was specifically your ancestor, which doesn’t make sense. The pygmy received the Dark Soul and divided it among his followers/children. It seems that Humanity is a fragment of the Dark Soul. Note that the item itself is a black sprite, a little piece of darkness. We use this in-game to resurrect into a human form, to regain what we lost when we got killed in the first place. ... Läs hela texten

Universal Game Crossover Chart 1.15: Sega/Koei/Taito chaos

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The crossovers just keep on coming, with some high profile ones like Bayonetta being included along with Madworld in Anarchy Reigns. This, along with a couple of finds in the Phantasy Star games, particularly the PSP versions, made me expand Sega’s space. Now, for Phantasy Star I’m having problems sorting out actual crossovers, since it includes costumes from games like Valkyria Chronicles and Sakura Wars which aren’t listed. However, Toro and Kuro from Mainichi Issho and Colonel Sanders (!) actually appearing in person do count. ... Läs hela texten

Dark Souls dual screen co-op

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Dark Souls can be a terrifying place to be. Slightly less so when you have someone to guide you along, and even less so when it’s someone sitting right next to you. In an attempt to finally get somewhere in this game, I set up two tv:s (my old one along with the 47″ LG 3D) and two Playstation 3:s, and invited a friend who has finished the game a few times already.

For this to work, we needed two characters at roughly the same level so we simply started from scratch. This time I went for a cleric, intending to play a support role with healing and ranged attacks. Well, obviously there are plenty of places where I need to fend for myself. In some cases you simply can’t summon help and some places it’s not worth the hassle, since Dark Souls isn’t intended to be co-oped. ... Läs hela texten