Friday 27 September 2013

1980s Bad guy Goodness–Classic Mumm-Ra!!!

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Although I never watched much of Thundercats, nor did I get many of the original toys, somehow I ended up with an original Mumm-Ra (as a kid) and somehow, it disappeared somewhere.  Sad days because as I think back to it now, Mumm-Ra was actually my favourite 1980s cartoon bad guy.  He looked cool!  As a result, I really really, really wanted a Classic Mumm-Ra.  They did Lion-O, so why not Mumm-Ra??

Eventually, Bandai did make a Classic Mumm-Ra.  Sadly though, while my first release Lion-O was made in the 8 inch scale, Old Mumm-Ra here has been relegated back to six.  Of course they then released a shrunken 6 inch Classic Lion-O.  He did have an angrier face, but (funnily enough) that wasn’t enough for me to care.  Sadly my Classic Mumm-Ra is a good 2 inches shorter than Classic Lion-O.

Sunday 22 September 2013

Toys that make ya go Woooooooo!

That’s what I like!
I bought this guy and Mr Sinister together from a pal online and interestingly this guy was an add on.  I didn’t care for him and only added him on to make the postage more worthwhile.  Mr Sinister was at the top of my list. 

Yet when I got them out of the box, he was the first one that I played with.  Best of all, I felt the need to do this:
Proffessor X
Things are looking good!

Thus I bring us to the review for Toy Biz, Professor Xavier from the Marvel Legends.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Great Gaming Moments: Journey


Today I was cruising around the shops and saw some games on sale.  One of them was Journey Collector’s edition, which comes with a bunch of stuff as well as ‘Flower’ and ‘flow.’  I had already bought  Flower a while ago and found it a fascinating experience and knew that reviews of Journey were pretty good.
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Crappy phone pictures inc.

Since I chase a different game experience, I decided to buy it for Journey.  Flow is a bonus.  When I got home, I booted up the PS3, played something on the hard drive to warm it up.  It seems to not read Blurays until it’s been on for a while.  Shame on you Sony.  My PS3 is only 4 years old and the bluray laser is a bit buggered.  My Sega Saturn on the other hand is 18 years old and works like the day I bought it…

Back on topic.

While playing, I think I got to the second level and there was another little fellow running around the place.  At first I thought that it was an NPC there just to help guide me along, I knew that the game was designed to have a bit of multiplayer and wasn’t too sure whether it was a real person or not.  It would make sense to have an NPC there though, just to guide you to things and let you know, exploration is one of the aspects of the game.

Turns out it was a real person.  With your limited communication abilities, which is essentially a ‘ping’ you go along helping each other through the level.  I came to the conclusion that my helper was another person, as they kept leading me to power-ups that would help my flying ability.  Curious.

Then the feelings that came with that realisation, I kept playing, I originally had no intention of playing for so long, but the thought of abandoning my companion was a tad distasteful.  Hell, I felt bad when I paused it to go boil the kettle and make a cup of tea…

Anyway, long story short, this other guy and I went along and he led me through the levels, it was strangely fun.  Occasionally his character would trip over in the sand, I’d hang around, ping him some help.  It was strangely fun.  No proper communication.  And yet we worked well. And Strangely fun.

We ended up finishing the game in that sitting.  The end, looked a bit bleak, but at a moment, you come good again.  My first thought was, “Where’s the other guy?  I hope he’s ok!”  Yup, he was fine.  We knocked off the final level and got to the obviously final point, and drew some thanks in the snow.  Then walked to the final gate together.

Game finished.  Now, it may sound a little bit drab as I describe it now, but I have to tell you, it was a rather moving moment.  Watching the credits, I sat through all of them thinking about the whole game.  It was truly something special! 

Amazing.

I haven’t had a game have such a profound effect since I finished Shadow of the Colossus. 
It’s interesting, as I think back on it, I suspect I wouldn’t have stuck with it so long in one go (because it might have been a bit samey) without meeting the other player.

At the end, it informs you of the the other players that you met on your journey through Journey.  I had such an enjoyable time, I felt compelled to send a little thankyou message to the other player.   Turns  out so did he.  I ended up playing through the game with a guy from Japan!

So the Great Gaming Moment of Journey is the Multiplayer.  Well implemented and it made the game!

I highly recommend this game, it is an amazing experience and despite it’s simple premise is pretty cool and very well done.  The graphics are pretty good and I was impressed that they managed to make various types of desert look so good.  Give it a crack!  Trailer embedded below for good measure.

Friday 13 September 2013

Yet another Bumblebee

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Dodgy Paint applications aside, I found this little fellow reasonably interesting.  As part of the latest Generations figures and packaged with an IDW comic book to help with the um, production of yet another Bumblebee toy, I was curious to see how it goes.  Other reviews of these Generations figures have generally been of the conclusion that they aren’t bad, but rather small.  My recent adventures with Transformers (Prime and FOC) have been less than exciting sort of making me float towards other figures that don’t transform.

Can these new Generations tickle me back to the shape shifting wonderful-ness?  After all, that is part of the reason why I bought this guy.

Thursday 5 September 2013

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom Character Collectin’

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Crazy Old me and my fascination for figures from video games.  Sort of going along the lines of attempting to get the characters from the good old Vs. Capcom series of games (X-Men, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel etc.) I had the rather pleasant opportunity to play Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom on the wii in both it’s original Japanese iteration and the rather changed English release.

Sadly though it also opened up my needs for a whole butt load more characters to add to my growing list of video game toy needs.  Most of which I did not know. I’d never heard of Gold Lightan, Tekkaman, Hurricane Polimar and a bunch of others before from the Tatsunoko side of things.   Luckily there were a couple I did know such as Ken the eagle and Jun the Swan from Gachaman (Battle of the Planets/G-Force) which I have always liked and the Capcom Roster was pretty good with Megaman and Roll added in for good measure as well as Yami from Okami and I always though Ammy was a shoe-in for this game, but she appeared in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (Yay!). I also liked how they adapted for the 3 button attacks and the slight changes to certain character’s move sets, such as Ryu.  But this isn’t a post about the game, this is about this toy.

I hadn’t heard of Tekkaman Blade until that game.  I also hadn’t had much to do with Bandai figures at the time, except for my limited knowledge of Chogokin (which was good), as a result, it was in my brain that this guy was a part of the Chogokin line.  Which he isn’t.  Sadly this affected my view of the toy somewhat as I was expecting some chunky metal awesomeness…