Welcome!

Hello, everyone! This is SHiN and welcome to my… uh… place where I write down amateur game and anime reviews, anime previews, first impressions, and some other random stuff. Basically when I’m bored, I just write down something here and go away. If you’re looking for professional reviews, etc., this is not the right place. Please be reminded that whatever I say here are my own personal opinions. If you don’t like my opinions, too bad for you!

Starting April, I will write down my first impressions for the upcoming Spring Anime Season 2011. Every now and then I will also do quick reviews on other anime shows. From OVAs to movies and to hentai. And uh… that’s about it.

See ya!

- SHiN

My First Four Days in the TF2 Trading Business

Yep, three TF2 relate posts.

I decided to try out the item trading thingy in Team Fortress 2 after reading about “scrap banking.” Scrap banking is you sell scrap metal (the game’s currency) for two random weapons and it’s very useful for players who are having trouble smelting their weapons (two weapons used by a class = one scrap). To start scrap banking, you have acquire scrap metal first. You do this by smelting your own weapons or sell them for a scrap or two if the weapon is popular. Once you have the scrap metals, you now go to trade servers sell them for weapons.

Let’s say you have 9 scrap metals and you sold each for two random weapons, and you earned 18 random weapons. After you sold out your scraps, you then sell the weapons you earned for one scrap each. So if you’re successful at selling all 18 weapons, you earned 18 scrap metals. Rinse and repeat and you may end up with hundreds of scrap metals. You can also buy some cheap strange-type weapons and sell them at a higher value.

What’s the point in collecting scrap metals? As I mentioned before, the metals are the game’s currency and you can use the metals to buy those rare hats, tools, and crate keys. After four days hopping trade server to trader server, I acquired some strange-type weapons and two hats.

I saw a guy selling his Softcap for 2 refined metals. With that, my Tank Buster set is complete!

I completed the Croc-o-Style Kit by buying the Ol Snaggletooth hat for 2.33 refined.

Hard work finally paid off. My next target is buying the turban to complete my One Thousand and One Demoknight set for the Demoman. Or 4 crate keys… or more hats, or those Deus Specs.

Now, be warned that this is no walk in the park. Selling your scrap metals for weapons is easy, but selling weapons are very hard especially if you’re selling the same weapons that are acquired through achievements or you got the “crappy” ones, and you must contend with scrammers and opportunists. I had a hard time. Scammers sell over-priced hats and to avoid them is simply study the pricing of each item or consult other traders in the server. Opportunists are one of those people who are paying uncraftable weapons for your scraps. These weapons/items are bad news because they cannot be smelted to metals. Always check to see the items are legit or not.

That’s it.

- SHiN

Team Fortress 2 – Scream Fortress 2011 Final Thoughts

Halloween is over and I managed to complete the Halloween sets. Behold:

The Infernal Imp is surprisingly the most popular and you can trade the haunted version for 1 refined per piece.

You don’t have to be an archeologist to figure this out.

Aside from his howl taunt, he’s looks like MJ in the Thriller music video.

An obvious costume for the Heavy. Pair him up with the Medic’s Mad Doktor set, you’ll start yelling “It’s alive. IT’S ALIVE!”

My favorite set! ‘Nuff said.

Too bad these are holiday restricted and can be used in every Halloween event and every full moon. I’m not really too familiar with the trading routine in TF2 and I’m guessing trade value will increase over the years assuming they can’t be found in the next event.

My experience with the event is not so good and actually I’m not too impressed at how they managed things. All these gift hunting ruined the point of Team Fortress 2. Instead of accomplishing an objective with teamwork, the gift hunting encourages you to go solo. Message prompt pops up, all Scouts come out of their hiding places, drink their Bonk! drink, run around and go on a pushing war over the gifts. Sure there are exceptions, but again, the gift drops forces you to go solo. It’d be better, I think, if the gifts were available via the item drop system or it is acquired based on team work (assist kills, point defending, etc.) or the team’s over all performance. That way people are rewarded for team coordination. Solo gift hunting is just stupid.

I’ll give the 2011 Scream Fortress a 5/10 score.

Team Fortress 2 – Third Annual Scream Fortress

Woah… It’s been a while since I last updated this… To those actually waited for me to do anime previews — I’m sorry. I will man up and write some articles probably, PROBABLY the first few months of 2012. For now, I’ll talk about Team Fortress 2.

Right.

For the past three days, I participated Team Fortress 2′s Halloween event for the first time and let’s just say it’s not what I expected and/or is extremely flawed. Of course, the update included more hats, weapons, the haunted version of King of the Hill map Viaduct, a new boss, new Steam Achievements and random gift drops containing one piece of a three-piece set Halloween-themed costume. One set for each class. You are first given a cauldron with a ribbon tied over it and once you opened it, you’ll be awarded one Seal Face Mask/Hat (wtf) and one random piece of Halloween costume. So far I acquired four complete sets:

The Soldier’s Tin Soldier set goes perfectly well with the Cow Mangler 5000 and the Righteous Bison

The Engineer’s Brundle Brundle set is a head turner! Oh and I love the Widowmaker!

The Medic’s Mad Doktor set isn’t bad. The hair looks awful.

The Spy’s Invisible Rogue set and its reference to the Invisible Man film is awesome!

The other sets are yet complete and the hardest to get item is the Sniper’s Holy Hunter (Hat). As of this writing, I’m still missing Demoman’s paws, Heavy’s head, Scout’s hat and shoes, Sniper’s vest and hat, and Pyro’s head and tail. Getting these items is somewhat-ish easy. Either you wait for the gift to pop up in Viaduct, or trade it for metals/weapons/hats in various trade servers. The hardest items to get are the haunted version. They are gifts that appears in the Underworld.

Here’s my problem with this update: It’s a just a plain gift scavenging hunt. Go enter a server and and 90% of your teammates are Scouts. Some players (including me) don’t even fight the opposing team or the boss! We just waited for the gift to appear at a nearby house, and when the onscreen message pops out, we all pull out our Bonk! to give us a few seconds of invulnerability and scour the map for those gifts. Just wish you win in the pushing war. Admittedly, I desperately want to complete the sets and I “camp” on servers with all players agree not to shoot each other. Oh and you have to deal with annoying people. I encountered one guy who’s getting gift streaks and I initially thought he’s just good at finding those gifts, but I was shocked to see he appears in front of the gift out of nowhere. I swear, I was there first and there were no other players and he just popped up over the gift, right in front of me, even. He was a Scout. The second encounter was even more suspicious: I’m the only one over the gift and when I saw the confetti (confirmation the gift was taken) and ran for cover, onscreen message announced it was the other guy who got the gift. What the hell… Either he’s cheating or I’m just lagging. Nevertheless, I hit F7.

This is the closest thing I can get inside the world of MMORPG. Fight and argue for a bunch of pixels!

On an unrelated note: I got the High Five! taunt via drop and I consider myself lucky. This is one of the most expensive items to trade, I believe. I thought about selling my taunt for Left 4 Dead 2, but I changed my mind. Celebrating your victory with a high five to your teammates is awesome!

Happy Halloween!

- SHiN

Steam Profile: http://steamcommunity.com/id/shingx/

P.S.

I entered a server called {COW} for the purpose of gift hunting. It was monitored by Admins and everyone are friendly. Unfortunately, I didn’t know they follow this first-come-first-served idea, so I ended up “stealing” the other guy’s gift. Admins and the guy got disappointed and demanded I give him the gift (it was a Heavy boots). Admin kicked me out before doing anything and my game crashed and prevented me from remembering the guy’s name. I got IP banned and I didn’t go back on the server. All I can say is that I’m very sorry. I’m willing to give the item back, but I can’t. Unless you got my profile and added me.

Alice: Madness Returns – Preview PC

I’m now playing Alice: Madness Returns and I’m past Chapter 1 and my experience with the game is very good. The graphics are nice, the audio is great, and the combat system need a little getting used to. Default scheme is you use the Caps Lock and Tab to lock on and cycle targets. Now, it’s not generally a bad thing, it’s just I’m not used to it. Other things to point out? Dresses! And Alice is simply beautiful. <3

Expect a review soon. Sorry, Duke, I have to play this game first and put you on hold. More screen shots!

Sorry I don’t have any combat screenshots. It’s kinda hard to move your hands away just to hit the screen cap button during the heat of battle. =)

Prey – Review PC

If you mix together Doom 3, Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and Portal in a blender while watching the X Files, Prey would be the result. “Is the drink good?” you say? In a way, yeah. Prey is a sci-fi with mysticism first person shooting game that borrows a lot of ideas from the mentioned games, and at the same time made some interesting game mechanics.

Oblivion – Preview

After playing a lot of Fallout 3 and New Vegas (technically not finished because the last two DLCs are not yet available), and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in the horizon, I decided to play Oblivion, one of Bethesda’s older works, and eventually review it. For now, I’m gonna give a quick preview on the features and stuff only.

Before anything else, I am obviously using mods limited to a custom race, few custom armor and swords, and misc. mods like enhanced textures and an unofficial game patch.

Oblivion is a massive single-player RPG with a very huge map, stunning visuals, fully customizable and lots of things to do – talk to various people, treasure hunting, vampire slaying, etc. The map, Cyrodiil is very huge and on my first 24 hours of gameplay alone, I barely covered the entire map.

Leveling up is somewhat unique – Before you start, you get to pick one of the 10 races available in Oblivion. Each race has their own advantages and disadvantages like superior strength or high resistance to magic, etc. You then select a brith sign and character type to finalize your character. As you level up, certain attributes like strength or intelligence will increase faster than the rest. You can further customize your character depending on the skills, weapons, tactics you use.

Combat is similar to a first person shooter and instead of shooting them with guns, you hack and slash using an assortment of one-handed and two-handed weapons. Or shoot them using your bow and arrow if you prefer long-distance encounters. You don’t just stand there and repeatedly mash the mouse button like other MMOs – you have a stamina meter and you can get knocked back by enemies if you don’t block or avoid their attacks. A fantasy RPG isn’t complete without magic! Magic range from healing, offensive, defensive, manipulation and summoning.

Oblivion in action.

So far the game is very addicting and exploring Cyrodiil is very fun. Expect my review within a few months.

Spring 2011 Preview – Tiger and Bunny

He’s more like a cross between the Tick and Beast from X-Men

Imagine a world where super heroes scouring the city for crime and bring justice to the wrong doers and at the same time money makers, banks, soda companies, TV stations earn money, ratings, fame, and recognition by sponsoring these heroes as mobile advertisement. Yes, this is the world of Tiger and Bunny where super heroes are the big source of profit and Coca-Cola never existed. Set in the far future, Tiger and Bunny is a story of Kotetsu Kaburagi, is a super hero known as the Wild Tiger, fighting crime, at the same time bring entertainment on prime time TV and bring food to her daughter’s plate. He is one of many heroes protecting the city who has their own special abilities and personalities. These heroes are called NEXT or a special type of human that has special supernatural traits. There is a problem with Wild Tiger though — he is at his prime  and is facing unemployment due to his sponsor losing money and his diminishing popularity. A hero’s job is never easy.

First Impressions:

I really like the first episode — the premise, the settings, the characters, there are all very interesting.  I mean, companies took advantage of the heroes’ popularity by sponsoring them is interesting. It’s vaguely similar to that X-Men episode where the X-Men were taken into a different dimension and they were forced to fight for their lives on public TV. In Tiger and Bunny, the TV station hosting the live hero broadcasts are monitoring the hero’s exploits, gave them scores, rank them, like a reality game show.

Kotetsu is just a simple man with super human strength who wants to save the city and at the same time provide food and shelter for his daughter. He is very likable at best but sometimes he’s a bit uh… for the lack of a better word, “screwy.” I didn’t like the CG animation at all. The CG are okay to look at but they seem out of place and distracting. Other than that, production value is definitely high with detailed looking characters and vibrant environment. If you’re into super heroes and futuristic stuff, this one is worth checking out.

I give this episode a 9/10

Spring 2011 Preview – Nichijou

Meet Yomi-Sakaki and Tomo-Chiyo

Uh… There’s nothing much to say about this one. 3 girls doing girly things to extremes.

First Impressions:

It’s not as simple as it sounds because I can’t really describe this sort of uh… “style.” There’s this one crazy scene where they try to catch a falling sausage, a scene with a nuclear blast occurred, etc. It’s hard to take a deep attachment to these characters because, quite frankly, what they’re doing are very random. It’s like School Rumble on steroids meets Lucky Star …or whatever. Maybe I’m missing the point here.

The art and animation are comical in nature, the opening and ending themes are well made and songs are catchy. The production value is very high too — There were no skimps on the animation and the voice casting is nice too, though I admit there were no familiar voice actors.

If you’re into slice-of-life shows cute, moe-esque characters doing random stuff and doing things to the extreme, Nichijou is the anime for you. Is it an anime for me? Not really sure. I’ll give it a few more episodes.

I give this episode a 7/10 score.

Spring 2011 Preview – X-Men

Leon S. Kennedy and his laser visor

The series start during the battle between the X-Men and Phoenix. In an unfortunate twist, Jean Grey, also known as Phoenix died and dear old Cyclopes turned emo. One year later the X-Men veterans are reunited once again to save a teenage mutant from overseas. Care to guess where this troubled teen is? Yep! She’s in Japan! There is more to Japan than just saving a cute girl in traditional mini-skirt uniform though and Professor X, for some reason is unable to communicate with the mutants there. Something diabolical is brewing in Japan… as always.

First Impression:

The show reeks of budget animation — lots of stills and some awkward animation. It gives me this Devil May Cry TV vibe that this show is more on talking and less on the action. The art is technically beautiful seeing it’s a MADHOUSE production but the rest was sacrificed due to budget. Wolverine is suffering from roid-rage, Storm is somewhat less serious and doesn’t look the second leader of the X-Men, and Beast looks like a blue dog in a suit. The voices are another turn off. I can’t seem to adapt to the Japanese voices and often times I wish I could switch to the English dub. Not saying the Japanese voices are bad, I’m just not too used to watching a western-based show with Japanese voices. Another complaint is there are corny parts. Talking squid? What? And something is telling me this said Japanese girl will end up with the X-Men. Where the hell is Jubillee, Gambit, and Rogue?!

Other than that, the story is okay and it got me interested …not because the damsel in distress is cute with the hime cut! Plus, I used to be a regular in the old X-Men cartoons.

I give this episode a 7.5/10

Spring 2011 Preview – Dog Days

Kaname Madoka and her rare breed of Chocobo

Where to begin… There’s this place where dog-like people are waging war against cat-like people and the dog people are at a disadvantage. The dog princess with the pink hair is gonna summon their trump card, their hero to turn the tide of the war. Try to guess where this hero is from? Yep, in good ol’ Japan, Earth. Enter Shinku, the protagonist. He’s your, as usual, regular high school student with some acrobatic skills. He disregard safety by jumping off windows, etc. He was sucked in by a huge flashing pink magic seal after leaving school and strangely enough, no one noticed a towering beam of light popped up in front of a school in middle of town and in day time, and he ended up in Frownland-something — the world of cats, dogs, chocobos, floating rocks,  magic, and known for kidnapping people.

First Impression:

The episode is vaguely a kiddy version of Utawarerumo; it’s generally light-hearted and colorful but I’m not fond of it for some reason. It feels like this show is aimed to the younger audience, the tongue-twister names of the characters are hard to remember and their humor is half-assed resorting to cute facial expressions, wagging their tails, etc. Production value of the episode is average at best with standard animation and unimpressive fight scenes. The music is pretty much forgettable, the opening theme was nice because of NANA MIZUKI but not as good as the rest of her songs. In my opinion, SCARLET KNIGHT is one of her weakest songs. The ending theme is simply… plain cute.

On the plus side, Dog Days is being produced by the same folks that did Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha so, we can pretty much expect some flashy fight scenes in the future. The voice cast is surprisingly strong with Norio Wakamoto, Nana Mizuki, Yui Horie, etc.

I give this episode a 7/10 score. I will watch a few episodes to see if Dog Days is really the show for me. Expect a review from me if I do follow this.