NGamer Mario Magnets!

Last month I was confused by the foam shield thing. It didn’t seem to have any purpose! I was ill too so couldn’t get some crazy story going on it’s history. Ah well. This month sees Super Mario magnets! I like the free gifts which aren’t posters or books (I do like the posters though as I like to hang them on my uni walls) as I can play about with them and post the on here.

I had to use the lower portion of the fridge as the top is conquered by towels. People will notice the little Mario level playing out I’m sure! I wonder how long it will last? Maybe someone will try and do a different version by mixing the pieces up. Maybe someone here despises Mario?

From my magnet level I decided that the New Mario game has lots of powerups and blocks. Toad’s Yoshi has missed the Goomba and Luigi is about to stomp on the other un when he falls. Mario is just trying to finish the level quickly but the bullet bill will kill him. Such is life.

One Piece Volume 18- Ace Arrives

Covers chapters 156-166
One Piece is perhaps the biggest Shonen in Japan at the minute. A story about pirates with crazy powers, what’s not to like? It looks like a slightly lankier Dragon Ball full of laughs, great story telling and fights. Rubber pirate Monkey.D.Luffy gains a crew and goes off to find the legendary treasure One Piece. B Volume 18 he has three swordsman style Zolo, cook Sanji, navigator Nami, Liar Usopp, talking doctor reindeer Chopper and Princess Vivi in his team. They have set off to desert country Alabasta to stop a rebellion the evil Baroque Works are trying to start!
     Volume 18 is a nice chunky volume; it seems fuller and bigger than the other manga volumes I’ve been buying recently. Ten chapters which cover far more than a volume of Bleach or Naruto ever would. The tiny panels full of dialogue probably help with this but it is mainly down to being well paced. A lot happens in a chapter and the art is great, detailed backgrounds and a strange lanky drawing style for the characters. It has charm though and things do look surprisingly cool despite how daft they are. Who’d have thought a transvestite ballerina villain and a nagging Nan could be so badass? 
     Plot wise this volume is full of flashbacks, little scuffles in the street and some nice progression as Luffy and co go to hunt down Crocodile the mastermind behind the upcoming troubles. No major fights take place, it is all build up, but the build up is so  entertaining you aren’t left frustrated waiting for the big action to take place. One Piece has character you don’t really find in the other mangas so frequently. Watching Luffy and his team-mates mess about is as fun as any battle and the fact that each chapter contains so much; you never feel things are dragging along. The desert story is also interesting with the whole rain powder stuff which leads to a rather believable reason for the rebellion within the One Piece universe. It isn’t silly and is does feel like a good reason to rebel over.
     One slight complaint about the volume is the volume focus seemingly being on Luffy’s brother Ace appearing. He only pops up for a couple of chapters and we won’t see him again for another 20 or so volumes. You may have forgotten about it by then!

Gintama Volume 8- Just Slug Your Daughter’s Boyfriend and Get It Over With

Covers chapters 59-67
Gintama is a little different from the likes of Naruto, Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, D.Gray-man and the like in the way that it is a skit comic. Storylines tend to last only one chapter and the ideas are usually just gags rather than action packed fights. It is a different type of Shonen which is fun to read randomly as you don’t need to think too hard on the story. Sometimes it does have arc crossing numerous chapters though and this volume features an arc which continued on from last volume.
     Gintama is basically about a samurai called Gintoki who works with Shinpachi who wears glasses and delivers pretty bad punchlines and Kagura a Chinese dressed girl who is from a super strong alien race. There is also a giant dog who likes to bite peoples heads called Sadaharu. They run an odd jobs thing. That is the main cast while a police force called the Shinengami are the second main lot who govern the land with Kondo the leader and vice commander Hijikata and Okita who always tries to kill Hijikata for the Vice-commander spot. It is also set in a futuristic Edo with aliens living there too. Breathe.
    That’s the general plot line and cast of Gintama, they do all sorts of crazy things. Here is the arc this volume covers. Kagura meets her dad again and there is a space alien on the loose. After causing some trouble Gin tells Kagura to go back home with her father. She’s a bit sad and then the alien attacks the spaceship they are in. Time to save her which will obviously result in her coming back to the cast in the end. It is an action packed arc with some serious bits, some funny bits but I have always felt the arcs are a little out of place in Gintama. This arc has run on for about a full volume if you include last volumes chapters which are too long for a comedy skit series. I mean there is nothing wrong with them but I don’t look for story driven arcs of emotion and fighting in Gintama, I have Naruto for that!
     Once we pass this arc we do get some funny skits though! Argument over who will be the next heroine, police force trying to assassinate bosses daughter’s boyfriend at an amusement park and trying to deliver a signing sheet to a terrifying new neighbour! I love the chapter titles to with such gems such as ‘You only live with your father for about 20 years… so be nice to him!’ and ‘Why are Masochists So Tough?’ being favourites of this volume. Question time also makes me spit out coffee. If I drank coffee.
   Gintama is a good series then, well worth getting into! The art can be a bit scruffy at times, the serious arcs feel a touch out of place sometimes but all in all this is one big laugh after another. Just remember… always knock before opening the bathroom door.

Naruto Volume 37- Shikamaru’s Battle

Covers chapters 330-339

Shikamaru’s revenge begins as he plans to take down the evil Hidan who took out Asuma last volume. Yeah!
    Again I want to give props to the volume cover; it looks like a movie poster kinda thing! You know the volume is going to be full of action from seeing this! I think the covers have definitely got better since part 2 got into swing, no more simple character pictures, something a little more exciting!
    The volume itself is one giant battle to the death between Shikamaru’s formed team with Ino, Choji and Kakashi vs Hidan and Kakuzu who are looking for the nine tailed demon inside Naruto to take back to base. It doesn’t take long for the action to get started too with one chapter of Shikamaru carefully thinking out a plan (beautifully done as you can see his grief for Asuma as he plans it out and the lack of words makes for a feeling words just can’t deliver, silence of bereavement.)
    Then bang! We have the fight. Apart from a few dull scenes of Naruto training this is the majority of the volume and the fight is tactical, fast paced and drawn with loads of gusto and energy! I mean look most of my sentences here are ending with exclamation marks, it makes everything more exciting. I love how everything is carefully planned out though, every exchange means something, the monsters are complete freaks and we get some depth thanks to the dialogue which is exchanged. I am completely satisfied with how the fight goes and how it ends (well only one fight ends this volume). Naruto as a series seems to have stemmed away from one and one battles now choosing to have team fights instead and while the minor characters don’t get as much screentime it still makes things feel fuller when they do small actions which help out. Sure Shikamaru ends up going it alone by the end of the volume (as it is his fight against Hidan) but even then counting the previous actions and what continues to happen, it is all a team effort. The end of the volume is also a good way to end the volume as Naruto finally finishes his boring training and is ready to use his new technique! It made me wish I bought the next volume of Naruto today so I could immediately continue on (I read it online weekly anyway but I still get exciting for some reason).
    One big complaint about the volume though is the damn censoring. I had a go at this when I discussed the last volume and it feels even worse here. Removing Shikamaru smoking may make sense for the fact he is under the smoking limit but it makes some panels seem pointless now and with just removing the cig you can actually see his fingers are in a holding a cigarette position. It looks unnatural without it! Very disappointed with this aspect of the localisation but this is the last time he smokes so hopefully the manga won’t receive any mega edits. Still find it strange you can’t have him taking a smoke when he can cut someone’s neck and blow them to bits. Double standards!

Currently Listening To: Royksopp The Understanding

Because of The Knife I bought this. The singer features in one of the songs ‘What else is there’. Great song I’ve already heard before, all her stuff tends to be awesome. I’m glad I got the album though as I discovered a whole load of other great tracks!
   Another chill out album I think for me. It goes well with my chill playlist of ‘Fever Ray’, ‘Gorillaz’, ‘The XX’, ‘The Knife’ e.t.c. Yeah nothing loud and in your face here, it’s all cool beats and soft voices. It is music best suiting my mood at the moment, work heavy, recovering from being ill and depressed. It may be a sombre album but this stuff makes you better rather than horrid cheese which fills the charts.
    I love it, beautiful dance music, well it isn’t something I’d dance to but it fits into that genre. I would call it techno but someone said that was old fashioned so I won’t. Favourite track is split between either ‘Beautiful Day Without You’ and ‘What Else Is There?’ both tracks have perhaps the most lyrics within the album and are quite dark in nature. What Else Is There could definitely have been on Fever Ray (same singer and all) due to the nature and feel of the track while ‘Beautiful Day Without You’ is something a bit different.
   European dance seems to be my place to go when it comes to the genre, easy listening too, I enjoy how the album starts off slow paced, speeds up then explodes by the end. I’m certainly going to get more albums from this lot.  

One on the right is also a man. Just in case you get a little confused.

Wii Fit

Format:  Nintendo Wii
Players: 1
Genre: Fitness

 I am not going to buy into this casual rubbish! I said. But things change and stuff like this feels more important to me than a new Mario game (Really!). I was ready to get fit and because I couldn’t afford the gym here in Liverpool Wii Fit would suffice.
     It is a fitness program rather than a game. It goes on and on about perfect balance and how if you stand funny bad things will happen down the road of life. Upon my first go my balance was just slightly to the right, my BMI expected of my height as was my weight, ideal it tells me. What is in it for me then as I can’t really make a target as I’m slap bang in the middle of good health according to the game. Then I checked my Wii Fit age… 40. Ouch.
    The Wii Fit age is what gave me incentive to play, you do a couple of minigames each day and it comes up with an age, the close you are to your own age the better. But it won’t be long before you learn the few task games on offer and that age you want is acquired. I think if you are under or over weight according to the game you won’t lose or gain much, I played it for an hour each day for a month and didn’t see any significant change.
   Apart from one fact, the games training mode. It calls it training mode but this is actually the core part of the game in which you can do yoga, muscle workouts and minigames separated into two things but they are minigames. A majority of the games use the balance board, a few just the wiimote and some nothing at all! It’s all about the balance board though.

 The Balance Board

 Main reason I got Wii Fit was for this piece of kit. A gigantic slab of plastic in which you stand and control games with your feet/bum/shifts of weight! It is pretty amazing and feels quite accurate, I was messing all the games up the first two days but that was because I was standing on it the wrong way. Silly me, but nowhere told me which way to stand on it, maybe I wasn’t paying attention? Once I put it the right way round I loved it and more than just Wii Fit support it so I can get some use out of it after I’ve decided not to work out like a lunatic possessed by some former wrestler. I don’t know! It’s the only game I own at the moment which uses it and its good, can’t say anything about other games. I did order Wii Music for the drum mode but, well it isn’t here yet. Amazon tells me 31^st December the earliest I’ll get it. I’d order elsewhere but elsewhere isn’t ten quid. I’m a student! So ahem, anyway… thumbs up the balance board! It does seem to get dirty though (my feet/socks to blame here?) and it uses enough batteries to run a small factory.

7/10

 Yoga!

 I never thought I’d do yoga ever. Yoga is for girls! But to experience everything the game has to offer I gave it a go. They stretch you and make you hurt I can tell you that! Some even caused me to fall over, damn you tree! The idea to score well in these is to stay within a red dot and breathe through your nose. I breathed through my mouth and maybe cheated to get the top scores. I have myself to blame on not getting perfectly fit. Some don’t even use the balance board which seems a bit pointless but then I remember this isn’t a game. Think more like a workout DVD so you just have to presume you are doing those well. I did get some inspiration from this yoga mode, the names are incredibly daft for some and I used it with a character in Death Save. Runner who does yoga poses to work himself up! Remember him? Probably not.

 Muscle workout!

 This is more like it. I went to the gym over summer and this is more akin to what I did there, but with wiimote and balance board. These ones hurt like hell. Press-ups are all well and good but they add some weird leg flailing! What the hell is this?! I just can’t do them! I love the wii mote elbow pumping one best, feels so satisfying and tricks me into thinking I have muscles. An hour of this nearly killed me though. Not for the faint hearted!

 The minigames!

      The fun portion of the game. Here you punch things, dodge things, jump things and catch fish in a penguin suit. They are… mixed. Hula Hopping is awesome and makes you look a bit daft (though pretty much everything on this does) while the penguin suit game is dreadful and the sitting still game boring. You can’t play these in multiplayer either, well you can take them in turns but there isn’t much competitive spirit unless you have other profiles playing this game, but noone I know will join me on this fitness regime. So it is a lonely experience of looking like an idiot and falling off the board to little enjoyment and lots of pain!

Game does not make you look daft. I already look daft. Fact

      So Wii Fit then, it gave me little to achieve, virtually nothing. Some will get things to aim for more than others and if you aren’t here for the fitness this is a waste of money. It isn’t like Wii Sports in which you’ll have loads of fun, you won’t. Even as a fitness device it falls short on not displaying calories lost and making your own routines. The clean menus remind me of a hospital, I associate hospitals with death. It feels grim to me. But, I did feel healthier after each workout, I was achieving something the game couldn’t tell me but I could feel it. Almost made me a new me and I know it did something when I stopped playing it for two weeks then got ridiculously ill! The balance board chap cursed me!

6/10

I Choose You: Darkness Neosphere!

Don’t panic! I’m not starting a sudden card review feature on rare cards and their abilities in a game. I’ve never played card games, briefly Pokemon but we never played that properly at all. This card I just happened to obtain. I can’t remember why, did I do something good? Was this what karma delivered to me? I know if you do good things something will come back to you, maybe Lord Karma thought I loved card games so popped this under the door. He was wrong, I hate card games, I can barely tolerate snap! Uno is alright though but that is for another day. For paying for my KFC a month ago (they gave me the meal without charging my card, I told them the mistake as I felt guilty) I have this then.
     It’s from Yu-Gi-Oh! if that means anything to anyone. I know what Yu-Gi-Oh! is, kid with awesome hair plays card games with mates and it confuses the hell out of me. I never bought any cards before, or played the game, or watched the show. I did briefly read the manga though when it was about table top board games and knifes, when it changed to card games I had to stop, there was just me nodding unaware at what was going on. A confusing and disturbing experience.
    This card is shiny so quite clearly awesome. I figure the blobs at the top are it’s rarity like you see in some RPG’s that like cards (Baten Kaitos and PSO III is me delving into card video games, I managed to fluke through BK and could not do the other) and it’s power? God knows, even he probably doesn’t keep an eye on the card game scene actually. I’m surprised Yu-Gi-Oh! is still about, I know the manga finished ages ago, even it’s spin off! The I learn it has tournaments still, had an anime recently featuring motorbikes and even has a new manga! Crazy stuff, like Pokemon I guess you can’t bury Yugi, he won’t have it, pulled up from the grave each time with some new gimmick.
     The monster itself looks a bit crap, I’m sure I’ve seen a million things looking like this before. Tyrant from Resident Evil meets angel man, dyes hair red and has weird claws on the right. He looks a bit like a clown, is that really cool?

I can’t believe I’ve just discussed one card for with so many words. I need a lie down. Hope I don’t activate a trap card on the way out.

Oh and if anyone wants it, you can have it.

Ill Chronicles

There isn’t one but I’ve been ill. Not mega ill, but ill. Cold, runny with a bit of sick feeling. Made the last week hell! I think it lasted a week. Ever since the Egg In The Cup entry anyway. Why do people get ill? Viruses are such annoying things, I had plans, big plans but the ill got me and I didn’t complete them.  Feeling better now however which is all good and roses.

It is strange being ill though, you lose the energy to do anything. Watching TV or playing a game can feel like a chore. Hours of just sitting around doing nothing are much easier despite not being preferred. It shows how seperate the soul and body can be. I wish I was going to parties, writing my blog with crazy gusto ideas, eating good food and getting my work done but I just sat about in my room getting by on tissues and bed. Lot’s of it.

Sleep seemed to pan from 3am till 2pm, numerous waking ups during the night. Being more vunerable, it is harder to sleep well, each noise makes a difference and the mind starts playing tricks. 6am on Saturday morning I swore I could hear mysterious tapping. Scared me to death almost! Which wouldn’t be good, I want to at least leave something to the world when I’m gone rather than a sickly corpse with no achievements.

I did get a little inspiration from the experience though, rooms can look so unwelcoming and haunting when ill, little things urk you more and I came up with the story for my Intro to Prose project which I’ll get done tomorrow. It isn’t all bad!

It’s been a bad week though, I’m not even using paragraphs properly as I’m still on the recovery stage and the only thing I’d like to do is eat a massive burger or something. I got meatballs but they just aren’t the same! I wonder if it is possible to avoid getting ill… I’ve been doing something but maybe not enough. I’ll have to get back to it!

So from being ill this last week and a bit I’ve learned:

Eggs are good
Coco Pops in hot milk are just a memory, coming back to them destroys the memory
Still Light by The Knife is how I felt when I woke up at 4am or 6am…

Being ill is rubbish! No more, I have to say it’s good to be away from the ill. Time to make things shine!

Naruto Unleashed Series 5:2

Covers episodes 118-130
Battles! That is all this volume consists of. Fight after fight after fight as Naruto, Shikamaru and Kiba try to rescue Sasuke from the clutches of the evil Sound 5 heading to Orochimaru. Fun times as we see the gang go one on one against monsters and lots of surprises await! I love the entrances from other characters in this and the big back-story at the end of the volume is aces.
    One thing I think could be called a problem of the volume is the huge range of rather pointless flashbacks. With each character you pretty much get their whole life story which we’ve seen in the series driven back to you. They go on far too long and are such a drag in between the exciting fights, adding little despite trying to add emotion. It is a good form of stalling without adding filler scenes.
    It also shows how much more exciting the first part of Naruto actually is. I think it’s the numerous fights going on at once thing with a set aim, everything feels to one sided and wishy-washy these days. I also love the opening used in this time, nice yellow colour with excellent music, and I’m not a bit J-Rock fan! Just a shame have to get 6:1 to see the conclusion of the arc, the fight in progress by the end is all building up then bam… the end.

I wonder indeed!
Art and animation holds up well this volume too, though Naruto looks a bit funny when he unleashes his fox state. I even saw glimpses of Chuckie from Rugrats in his face at times. Strange. There is also an out of place trippy bit with Naruto running and seeing himself being lonely before Neji tells him he has nice eyes. Not really needed, it didn’t make sense.
    Highlight of the volume is perhaps a certain character appearing for a fight who we haven’t seen for a while and lightening to dark mood up a little bit. Sake and Naruto characters seems to be a good mix! Shikamaru also provides some excellent strategy as does Kiba surprisingly, though not to the same degree of course. The Sound 5 despite only being here for the service of this one arc with little backstory, are actually pretty good villains. You really do feel they are tough cookies especially after they ‘offed’ Chouji and Neji in the last volume. Sasuke’s laugh is a bit funny though and the music is tacky in places, like out of some Super Nintendo game.
    The highlight arc of part 1 for me though!

Paul

Hi Paul, how are you doing? You look a bit creepier than the other times I’ve seen you. Did you know you are my favourite Beatle?

Yeah I don’t have Hey Jude, Magical Mystery Tour ok though? Where are you even looking? I was making a plan to buy the other Beatles abums with everyone else in creepy finger puppet form but they seem to have vanished on the back of the cases. I had an epic Beatles tour around Liverpool in finger puppet form planned! I’m so upset.

Maybe if I ever find the rest I’ll do that feature? Get out of the camera Paul! Don’t bite me! Argh!

EDIT: After looking at him from a different angle, I’ve noticed it is actually Ringo. Oh my god. Sorry about that, the crappy blur face got me confused.com.