Category: Amish Otaku

All the stuff I published when I ran a nerd blog

Amish Otaku, PS1, Video Games

Bushido Blade: Mortal Combat, the Honorable Way

 

Bushido Blade is not an RPG, but it is on my top-three list of games Square ever created. It is easily one of the most subtle and nuanced fighting games ever produced.

Unfortunately, it only ever saw one sequel, which didn’t live up to the original in my opinion, and both were only available for the original Play Station.

Contrary to most fighting games where you have a health bar to determine how close you are to defeat, any attack had the potential to be a one-hit kill. It was also one of the first, and still only, fighting games to incorporate body-specific damage. Continue reading “Bushido Blade: Mortal Combat, the Honorable Way”

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Amish Otaku, PS3, Video Games

MotorStorm: Demo Review

 

MotorStorm is being readied for a February 2007 launch; quite a long time away. However, PlayStation 3 owners are able to get a first glimpse at how this game is coming along via a downloadable demo available on the PlayStation Network. This demo has a lot to say about the state of the game and upcoming PlayStation 3 launch titles.

The demo, being around 300 megabytes in size, takes a while to download via wireless connection but is relatively quick to install onto the hard drive. The demo contains two different types of vehicles; trucks and bikes. The trucks don’t seem to have as much acceleration as the bikes and are hulking masses of metal, so are less agile than the bikes. However, the trucks’ mass becomes an advantage when you feel like bullying other racers into, say, a wall. The bike is lacking in this area and is more easily susceptible to being smashed up but its small size and agility can get it out of a tight spot if it were to ever occur. Continue reading “MotorStorm: Demo Review”

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Amish Otaku, PS3, Video Games

Resistance: Fall of Man

To say that gamers have been expecting much from the PlayStation 3 launch lineup would be quite an understatement. Unfortunately for video game consoles as a whole, launch titles are usually not the most spectacular or enjoyable. However, Resistance: Fall of Man may have changed that for the Playstation 3 launch.

Resistance: Fall of Man takes place during the 1950’s in an alternate reality where a race of beasts called “Chimera” have taken over all of Europe, with a last stand being made in Great Britain. The main character, Nathan Hale, is part of a task force sent by the United States to assist the British in fending off the Chimera. This task force is soon wiped out and Hale, the only survivor, is left to fight with the British. Continue reading “Resistance: Fall of Man”

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Amish Otaku, Video Games, Xbox 360

Gears of War

Gears of War is the embodiment of all the hype over the current generation of consoles and what they’re capable of.

Maybe we had just become too complacent with Sci-Fi shooter genre (Halo, Quake, Unreal, Doom . . .) to expect any really new or surprising innovations.

Finding cover has always been important in 3-D shooters, but it’s never been integrated so seamlessly into the game play. Before, you could just “run and gun” your way through a game with a healthy margin of success, but in Gears if you don’t cover, you die. Continue reading “Gears of War”

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Amish Otaku, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

What else can I say about the new Legend of Zelda other than “Wow.” This is director Eiji Aonuma’s third Zelda title to date and with this installment in the series he has truly lived up to the work of Shigeru Miyamoto’s Ocarina of Time.

For the first time in the series we have a very realistic looking Link exploring much more realistic looking world. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been pleased with the art direction and character design of the Zelda series – I loved the look of Wind Waker – but this game out does the lot of them. In fact, this is the first Zelda title to have a T for Teen rating instead of an E for Everyone due to the animated blood and violence.

It just looks and feels the way it was always meant to be played. The Wii imbues the game with a new sense of verisimilitude both with the Wii remote and the graphics. Continue reading “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess”

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Amish Otaku, Anime, Features, Villain's Exposition

Villian’s Exposition: Yamato and Nadesico

Ahh, the space opera: an epic tale of conflict and human emotions told in the timeless backdrop of the space between the stars; the modern-day successor to the classical romances of the middle ages, featuring such names as King Arthur and Sir Lancelot.

Although the quintessential space opera, Star Wars, is American, it is a genre that works especially well when animated, and as such it is a common setting for anime. While there are many that stand out, for the purposes of brevity – and to better adhere to the material I’ve already bothered preparing for this article – I’ve decided to focus your attention on two this month: Space Battleship Yamato and Martian Successor Nadesico. Continue reading “Villian’s Exposition: Yamato and Nadesico”

Andrew Yager
Amish Otaku, Features, Kosher Kuts, Manga, Viz

Kosher Kuts: Eyeshield 21

Japanese manga and American football: can two different tastes taste great together? Both forms of entertainment have their rabid devotees and people who indulge in fantasy scenarios with their favorites, but the similarities basically end there. Well, Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murate apparently felt the gap should be bridged between the two mutually-exclusive fanbases and created Eyeshield 21. It began publication in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2002 and has since come stateside courtesy of Viz Media. There is also an anime version of the running that is sponsored by NFL Japan. There is no information yet about the anime coming to the United States.

The focus of Eyeshield 21 is Sena, a freshman at Deimon High School who tends to get bullied into running errands for people. Apparently, this constant harassment since childhood has provided Sena a pair of “Golden Legs”. Sena’s speed gets the attention of the school’s only two regulars of the high school’s football team, who recruit him on the spot as a running back. In order to mask Sena’s identity from rival teams and his over-protective friend, it is suggested that he wear an eyeshield with his helmet to completely cover his face. Sena is given a uniform with the number 21 on it and the saga of the Deimon Devil Bats football team begins.

Continue reading “Kosher Kuts: Eyeshield 21”
Joshua Goldberg
Amish Otaku, Comics, Devil's Due

The Legend of Drizzt: Bane of the Spider Queen

 
 

Originally published in 1990, R.A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf Trilogy set in the Forgotten Realms shone like a beacon in the fantasy genre. It was, and still is, comparable to Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s Dragon Lance series and – like those – is still being sold in nearly every major bookstore today.

Then, in 2005, Devil’s Due Publishing (traditionally known for their G.I. Joe and Transformers comics) began releasing a comic adaptation of the story with a script by Andrew Dabb and wonderfully detailed pencils by Tim Seeley. Continue reading “The Legend of Drizzt: Bane of the Spider Queen”

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Amish Otaku, Comics

Wanted: No More Heroes

The super-hero comic is something I normally stay away from. Maybe I just got bored with all the spandex, good intentions and the fact that you almost always knew the good guys were going to win. But a comic about super-villains? Now that I’ll give a chance.

Mark Millar’s Wanted is the story of 24 year old Wesley Gibson. He’s an average, under-achieving, timid loser. He goes about his life getting picked on by his boss, spit on by his neighbors and cheated on by his girlfriend (with his best friend no less).

But everything changes when he finds out he’s the son of one of the world’s most feared assassins and super-villains “The Killer.” And if that’s not enough The Killer’s been killed and Wesley stands to inherit everything – the name, the millions and his father’s place in the world-wide criminal fraternity – if he can fill the shoes. Continue reading “Wanted: No More Heroes”

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