Thursday, 3 March 2016

Combiner Wars: Peace is but a brittle thing for them

Encase it might not be obvious, I have no intention on doing arcs in the order they were released, simply being because of how old some arcs are. I'd rather bounce between old and new arcs, as to me, it would be more interesting, and may shine a new light on older arcs. For now, we go back to Cybertron, and while there are many arcs between Autocracy and Combiner Wars I want to talk about, such as Dark Cybertron, Last Stand of the Wreckers and All Hail Megatron, let's see what the toy line has been up to lately, the Combiner Wars.

Saturday, 27 February 2016

Mediaholics Review: Pokemon Generation 1 review

... /Episode 0 of the podcast... we're working on it...
We wanted to be, the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them was our real test, to train them was our cause. Now after 20 years, two critics, who are barely any older then the franchise, analyze Pokemon Red, Green, Blue, Yellow... Fire Red, Leaf Green, the tcg, the anime and pretty much anything Generation 1. How well does it hold up after 20 years, 16-18 main series games and more.

Thursday, 25 February 2016

D.C.M.M.M: The Dark Knight: Simple isn't always easy

Regarded as the best in the trillogy, and has gone down in infamy thanks to their lead villain dying of depression thanks to his role in the movie, sufice to say, people were happy with how it turned out. At the time, I was too, though times change, so lets see if it still holds up.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Mediaholics Podcast Episode 1


Download the .mp3 here: http://adf.ly/1XMPna
Sit back as we talk about random things like
A lot of Legend of Zelda thanks to Zelda Week on the Mediaholics website
DLC and Microtransactions, along with other things in the gaming industry
Dumb change.org petitions
Fanart
Guardians of Harmony
And more

Images used in the call
Hoopa thinking with portals: http://img05.deviantart.net/248e/i/2015/107/b/5/now_you_re_thinking_with_portals__by_jmonkey2105-d8q3uxk.jpg

Guardians of Harmony promo image: http://sad.hasbro.com/b10b77f453fe5962fc27125f1ee152caa2ed10ff/2774ed922bfc33f601b5dcf59af3169a.png

Chrysalis riding into battle?: https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/2/10/1084769__safe_queen+chrysalis_changeling_hasbro_that+was+fast_artist-colon-klondike_wheel_wheelbarrow_guardians+of+harmony.png

Thursday, 18 February 2016

#WTFU

On the Facebook page for the site, I posted my stance on this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI

The following, is a direct copy from the page, I am sharing it here because... well there are only 12 people following the page.

I completely agree with this, speaking as a content creator. Right now, ignoring the Youtube side of future content, my reviews fall under Fair Use. As the site grows, with more and more content going up, I run the risk of these claims coming to me, and it'll become worse when I can do more video content. I've been paying attention to what happened with Youtube recently, and it is absolutely disgraceful how easily that system can be, has been, and will probably continue to be abused. To say that it's broken is an understatement, it barely worked in the first place.
I've seen channels almost taken down because of mistakes, and Youtube not responding to both the channel, and the one trying to remove the claim. I've seen the examples in this video as they were happening. That's on top of content creators trying to copyright words in the english dictionary, for the sake of taking down content, which they easily did because of how broken it is. I'm not kidding when I say I'm sitting on constant backups of content and a reserve site, just encase I have to deal with this shit, with it being on the verge of new video content coming soon, on a new channel. So yeah, I'm with them, I'm with the content creators, where is the fair use?

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

D.C.M.M.M: Batman Begins: Read at whatever volume you want

Welcome to the Detective Comics Mini Movie Marathon, or D.C.M.M.M for short. With DC now finally deciding to play catch up with Marvel in terms of a cinematic universe, I figure it might be interesting to see how they've gone with that concept previously. At first, we're covering the beloved Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, then the live action Green Lantern, and then the start of the DCCU, Man of Steel... This is going to be fun... oh yeah, it can't be, no comedy policy for these movies, dam.

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Fire Emblem Awakening: Will you help defend their flock?

In one game, they went from a dying franchise, to one of the must have games on the 3DS, and a game that helped and continues to help sell the system. I won't lie, that's an achievement. Now with Fire Emblem Fates released in the US, and a release still unknown here (which gives me time to get the money for the special edition so that I have the three on the one cartridge), let's see the previous game in the series, Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Deadpool Killogy: Some want to see the world burn, others bathe in the world's blood

So with the Deadpool movie coming out this month, I thought it would be a good idea to look at a Deadpool arc, to get an idea of the character. Or in this case, what happens when the character breaks. Care to see your beloved and loathed characters, both in the Marvel comics and out of it? Well, this is the arc for you, the Deadpool killogy. Though to be warned, as the books themselves say, THIS IS NOT FOR YOUNG KIDS.

Saturday, 30 January 2016

Blaster Rants: Localization vs Censorship

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING! THEY DO NOT MEAN THE SAME THING! I could end this post right there, but even then I know people will still keep interchanging the two, so let me explain why.

Right now, the current punching bag for this is Fire Emblem Fates, all three versions of the game (that part is something I want to save for if I review it or not), specifically, how parts of games are being changed in localization for a western audience. I will say that Fates isn't the only game I'm using for this example, I have a few more, but for now, let's start with the recent one, the petting mini game. Now I don't mind a petting mini game in games, I've played one in Nintendogs, in Pokemon Generation 6, and it's something common in anything that has some form of pet, so I don't see a problem in those examples. Petting an anime girl? That's creepy, and many in the west see it as disgusting and objectifying. Me? A cheep stunt as I hadn't herd of it before, and from what I've sen, it does absolutely nothing. I should say, all I've been able to find is articles saying "Why it should be removed" or "Why it should stay", which is why my knowledge of it is limited. I'm not here to come on a side, what I will say though is "If it has no purpose, why is it there in the first place?". Now as for the point I'm going to make, the reason why it's being removed is, in simplest terms, gender roles between the two demographics. The views of gender differ between Japan and the western world, in japan, something like that is seen as appropriate, normal (to an extent). In the west however, views on gender are very different, and are changing every day, even to the point where many can't agree on gender portrayal, most of it thanks to the portrayal of the genders over history. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be a factor, however we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a scrap world, where objectification of women in anyway is going to have negative repercussions. Now again, to state my personal view on the matter, if you can provide an in story valid explanation for a character looking the way they are, then I don't have an issue with it, as it is there to serve the story. This from what I've seen, is not serving the story, its a way of cashing in on the Japan Pop Idol culture, something that isn't a thing in the western world. So why would they keep it if

  1. There's no reason cuturally to keep it in thanks to a lack of Pop idol culture.
  2. There's no reason in terms of sales to keep it in because the moment obnoxiously loud people find out about it, your PR manager is going to be in tears because of all the abuse it would have gotten.
On that second point, let's bring out another game that isn't being sold in the west for that reason, Dead or Alive: Xtreme 3, I told you I'd be using a few examples. This one is a game not being sold in the west for a few reasons, but one that got the most attention was because they're afraid of the social backlash. What's the more realistic reason? The games probably haven't sold well here, as it is a very niche game made primarily for Japanese audiences because again, that's more acceptable there then it is here. The reason they gave, to put it in internet understanding terms, "they were afraid of Social Justice Warriors". I could probably go into a whole other rant on my views of that culture, but suffice to say, the one's I see get the most attention, don't deserve the attention as it comes off as more "doing this for personal gain". Most people, myself included, do see eye to eye with them on several points, however the culture has become so toxic, so overbearing that people stay away, see them as trolls, people just there to abuse people in the name of social justice. That community almost went to war with the companies involved by that statement, meanwhile all I could see was people who had no interest in getting the game or even caring about the game slamming it because of the game having girls in bikini's. My stance on that? "Wasn't going to get the game anyway, don't care, why bother getting angry about something like that?". Please note though its the same kind of people who got Target and K-Mart Australia to stop selling Grand Theft Auto 5, and in all the cases above, people called it censorship.

NONE OF THOSE ARE CENSORSHIP!!! And trust me, I can say that with a level of certainty as I live in a country THAT DOES CENSOR GAMES, its why I've been limiting my examples to games. Up until January 2013, three years ago, Australia didn't have an R18+ rating for games. For comparison, that means we didn't have an M or AO rating in comparison to the ESRB and a PEGI 18 for European readers. The most we had was MA15+, which as a base comparison would be about PEGI 12, maybe PEGI 16, and T by the ESRB. Anything higher was either censored, or not released here at all. Even games released after January 2013 were censored like Saint's Row 4 (which I think might be looking too deep but it was a simple change, changing drugs to caffeine) and South Park the Stick of Truth, yes there really are crying koala's. For more, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_in_Australia and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia yes I use Wikipedia, but I cross reference. Censorship is a government body saying "Either change this, or you cannot sell it here, at all"
  • IT IS NOT a company changing aspects to help the product do better in other countries, which happens both ways, the only reason you don't hear it as much going from a western to eastern release is because the US can't stand not being the center of attention (that was a joke).
  • IT IS NOT a company not selling a product in a country by their choice.
  • IT IS NOT a store refusing to carry a specific product because some people signed a petition.
Before I close, there is actually a difference between censoring and censorship. I told you what censorship is, censoring is changing something by one's own accord in order to, basically protect themselves from people who are offended. For example, I do things like "f#!@%(%" that, that's me censoring myself, in order to not have to deal with parents sending me angry messages about how little Jimmy learned about words like that from my site. The bleep censor is another case of that. Nothing is stopping me from not using those, I choose to use those as the majority of my reviews are on child friendly things, and if something is for a more mature audience, I use more "mature" language as I'm assuming that little Jimmy wouldn't be reading my first impressions of the red band trailer for Deadpool, for example. I will always try to make the use of "mature" language obvious before it's used, to cover myself. Again, this ISN'T censorship, no one is making me do it, and right now, no one cares, people have actually been telling me not to do it. I do it of my own accord, its not being afraid of something, its saving me from a headache.

If you're going to call foul on censorship, MAKE SURE IT'S ACTUAL CENSORSHIP!!! Localization and censoring one's self is NOT CENSORSHIP. See you all on Wednesday, as I need to calm down after this.

Post release edit: the feature from Fire Emblem fates was not limited to female characters. I was unaware of this at the time of release as I have not been paying attention to spoilers, and the only information I could get was focused more on the objectifying women side of it. I am aware of this now.

Also, I am aware of times when localization and censorship are intertwined, and I should have brought that up. The reason I didn't was because I didn't have any solid examples that blured the two, instead of just either one or the other.

Friday, 29 January 2016

Spaceballs:... I genuinly can't come up with something to say here

The short version of this review could be summed up to that as well. I'll try to go into detail, but its the main reason why I don't really watch spoof movies. Let's see how well this goes, Spaceballs.