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Showing posts from May, 2010

Wolfbreed by S Andrew Swann: AKA Elfen Lied The Novelization

I'm probably going to sound pretty harsh in my opinion about this book, but really, it was a very entertaining read, and I've not had a book for a long time that sucked me in like this one did, I literally spent every free moment turning it's pages until I was done, rather than watch TV, play video games, or read comics. So, there you are, the one paragraph review. Here's a bit of a synopsis though, the story revolves around a female werewolf who has been captured by a sect of knights of the teutonic order during the time of the crusades, and been raised into their service as a weapon to defeat the pagan tribes of Prussia in order to bring them to the light Christianity (part of what makes this story so compelling is that I can readily believe that that would happen). The story kicks off with the werewolf, Lilly, escaping from the order when their leader is called away, and she's left in the care of a relatively inexperienced/uninformed group of knights. She brea

Supernatural: It's Over, Or At Least It Should Be

Let me just get it out of the way that I loved every second of Supernatural to date, it had wit, humor, cleverness, action, drama, and of course, the supernatural. All in pretty consistently enjoyable proportions. This last week, the finale of the most recent season aired. There be spoilers comin' so avert yer eyes if you've not seen it and you want to be surprised. During the previous season the brothers unwittingly kicked off the apocalypse, and set Lucifer free from his prison. This last season mostly dealt with them trying to thwart the full on apocalypse, and trying to find a way to kill the devil without having to wipe out half the planet. It's further revealed that the brothers are both destined to be the vessels for Lucifer and Michael to possess and do battle to determine who wins. The eventual scheme that could succeed is to collect a ring from each of the four horseman, which when used together, form the key to the prison where Lucifer was confined, Sam lure

Final Fantasy XIII: I may not finish this

The latest installation in Square Enix's flagship series, Final Fantasy XIII does a number of really cool things. I don't want to take a lot of time going into the mechanics under the hood, but you need to get the basics in order to get a feel for the game. The battle system is real time, the battle constantly goes on even while you're deciding what to do, you're only in direct control over the party leader though, keeps you from being overwhelmed, the other two party members are only controllable only insofar as you can dictate what class they use. Class management is an important part of the battle system, only commandoes can physically attack enemies, and ravagers deal elemental damage, along with a myriad of other classes, each character starts off with access to a small selection, and by the end of the game will have extensive access to three classes, as well as marginal access to the remaining classes. Which classes you use are determined by paradigms, sort of pre

The Shadowline Saga: Before It's Time

A good friend of mine got me back into comics a few years ago, and after going to conventions with him and seeing his sketchbook of Punisher drawings by various artists, I started thinking that I might like a character sketchbook as well, but who to pick? I didn't have a favorite character really, I'd been a fan of Deadpool, but as he was on the rise in popularity, there were going to be a lot of sketches of him out there. Then I remembered an old Marvel character from the 90s named Terror. Terror had the unusual ability of being able to graft various limbs onto his body, and gain their memories and abilities. A frequent application of his abilities was to take the ear and the eye of someone who was recently deceased, which would grant him the ability to see and hear the person's memories. Additionally he could use the hands of a locksmith to gain the ability to pick locks, or a helicopter pilot, and so on. His gimmick was interesting, but even better for the purpose

Micmacs: I Think... I Think This Is Kinda Awesome

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure if this was a good movie or not. I certainly enjoyed it, but it was so very, very bizarre. It's written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Amelie, Alien Resurrection), so I supposed that's to be expected. Our hero is Bazil, as a young boy his father was killed by a landmine, later as an adult, he is shot as the innocent bystander of a gun fight, in the head. In the operating room the conversation goes: Doctor: "The bullet is lodged in his brain, if I go in to remove it, there's a fair chance he could die, but if I leave it as it is, he'll constantly be on the brink of death." Nurse: "Better to live on the knife's edge than to die on an operating table." Doctor: "This is philosophy, not medicine, who has a coin to flip?" Coin flips Doctor: "Leaving it in then." Bazil is then left with a tendency to have hallucinations, which can be stopped b

Y: The Last Man: Even Spambots Cry After Reading It

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that Y is the saddest story I have ever taken in, with an emotional punch like a locomotive (or a bomb if you will). No work of fiction has ever destroyed me emotionally like this has. That being said, the story may be a tragedy, but gettin there was a lot of fun. The story starts off with every male mammal on the face of the Earth being almost simultaneously wiped out by some kind of illness. With the exception of English major/escape artist Yorick Brown, and Ampersand, a capuchin monkey that he's volunteered to train to help people with disabilities. There's no apparent reason as to why they survived, they just did. At the time the plague hit, Yorick's girlfriend, whom he was about to propose to, was on a trip in Australia, while he was in Chicago. Naturally he sets out to find his true love. Along the way he picks up the companions 355, an agent of a secret government organization called the Culper Ring, and Dr. Allison Man

The Losers: The movie this time

As you know, I had pretty good things to say about The Losers comic book, so I was really excited to go see the movie this weekend. I wasn't excited because I thought the movie was going to be particularly good , but because the book had a lot of very well laid out action scenes, and a visual presentation that I really wanted to see represented on the screen. In that sense, the movie was a tremendous success, this is definitely a turn off your brain and enjoy the ride kind of show. All of the main characters are well cast, being fairly faithful to their comic counterparts, with two exceptions: One is Aisha, played by Zoe Saldana, doesn't really look like a pakistani child commando all growed up. The other shake up being Idris Elba as Roque, replacing the guy in the comic that I always confused with the team leader Clay (they looked and dressed fairly similar) with a very large black man really worked for me. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian/John Winchester) pulled off C