Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Based on the short film series of the same name, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a full length film production featuring the iconic stop-motion and comedy.  The animation is top notch and the attention to detail is impressive, from the gloop on Gromit's hands slowly oozing to the distinctive strands of fur on the Were-Rabbit.  The film takes place when Tottington Hall's annual Giant Vegetable Competition is going to take place, but has a rabbit epidemic who is destroying all the vegetables.  Wallace and Gromit is tasked to get rid of them and all was going well until suddenly sightings of a giant Were-Rabbit appears.  Despite doubts on whether such a plot could carry through 90 minutes, it surprisingly does and it never became boring.  The constant visual humor, subtle touches and eccentricity of the characters makes is wonderfully charming to watch.

Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 16

Review:  #732
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 16
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 16th volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Read Before:  no
Comments:  The situation becomes tenser and tenser and Katsuragi is tested to his limits.  While the beginning of the volume was quite average as it focused on Shiori’s side of things, which is probably the tamest approach out of all the Goddesses so far, the second half was fantastic.  The focus turns to the remaining two candidates, only one of which has a Goddess inside them, being Ayumi or Chihiro.  Keima gets sick and taking advantage of this, he initiates an event to further the relationships with them both.  What made it tense is how the situation quickly spirals out of Keima’s control, and how he has to think quick in order to salvage it.  The situation keeps changing leading to some very interesting moments, and the author managed to also insert some humor into the whole thing which made it extremely enjoyable.  On the other side, Haqua is dealing with trouble on her own back in Hell where it seems Vintage is more ingrained into the Spirit Squad than expected.  A fantastic volume and you’ll be surprised at how disappointed you’d be when you finish it just because you wanted to read the next chapter.

Rating:  7.5/10

Is the Order a Rabbit? (2014)

The first season of Is the Order a Rabbit? is 12 episodes long and based upon the 4-panel manga of the same name.  It is set in a fictional town inspired by French design.  Despite the Western look, the culture is a mixture of Western and Japanese, such as the cast wearing kimonos, visiting hot springs and Japanese food.  The anime starts off with the main character, Cocoa, arriving at the new town to attend school.  She stumbles upon Rabbit House cafe, where it turns out was where she was going to stay.

It's established early on that Cocoa has a love of rabbits, which is perfect for her since the town has wild rabbits in the parks and streets.  It just so happens that Chino, who is the daughter of the owner of Rabbit House, has a rabbit, although this rabbit is not like any other that you've seen.  It is a ball of white fluff, and can talk, but hides this fact against everyone else.  The other thing Cocoa has a fixation on is having a younger sister.  She frequently spends time to try and convince Chino to call her "onee-san" but does not succeed which forms the basis of many gags.  Chino is cold towards Cocoa on that front but she likes Cocoa's company.

While unassuming, Cocoa actually has decent skills such as making latte art, baking and mental calculations.  She's mainly shown as clumsy and carefree though so these talents never get appreciated by the other characters.  Rounding out the trio is Rize, who works at Rabbig House as well.  Note that they are all working on a part time basis as they all need to go to school.  Rize was trained as a soldier when she was young and had an interesting introduction where she pulled a gun on Cocoa thinking she was a threat.  Rize is a bit rash on the outside but is a friendly and kind soul.

The plot is focused on slice-of-life within a cafe making it a relaxing anime as there is nothing intense going on.  Cocoa will meet various other girls that attend at her school or one of her friend's schools, who might also coincidentally work at another cafe.  Heaps of characters are introduced in the early episodes which make it hard to keep track of who is who, and what their relationships between each other are.  Once it stabilizes towards the halfway mark of the season, their personalities start to shine and they gain memorable characteristics.

Unfortunately, this means that there is no clear objective of where the plot is going and events can seem like they're not going anywhere at all.  Each episode is fairly random in its contents, one would have Cocoa and Chino struggling to overcome their dislike of certain foods, another would have the group going to a hot spring / swimming pool, while others have Cocoa and Chino arguing against each other.

It's interesting to see that the three different cafes that the cast works at, will occasionally swap their workers around which can seem random.  Granted, two of the cafes are owned by the cast and so they are employing friends, even if they worked at a rival cafe it isn't too out of the question...  Therei's a clear mystery surrounding Chino's grandpa as the weird looking rabbit that always perches on Chino's head though.  It continues through the whole season but we get some hints on what had happened.  Overall, Is the Order a Rabbit? is average.  The season just kind of ends with no bit resolution making the final episode seem like another everyday episode.  However, the final scene between Chino and Cocoa was perfect and fitting.

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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)

Grand Theft Auto:  Vice City is the sequel to Grand Theft Auto III, set in the 1980s and in the fictional Vice City.  Vice City makes numerous improvements to the previous game.  However, the camera is still automatic unless you go into first-person.  This makes it annoying when camera angles get in the way, especially after some cutscenes.  You can press the left shoulder button to recenter the camera to wherever the character is facing, but this doesn't work well when you need to face another direction quickly during shootouts.  Vice City itself is big and comprised of several islands.  Initially, you can only explore the west island but more is unlocked as the game progresses.  The game gives the player heaps of freedom after the opening cutscene.  It carries all the gameplay from III such as carjacking any car to drive it.  The car handling is still the same lightweight feel of III, as if you are driving on ice swerving like crazy whenever you so much as touch a pole.  Vehicles love to flip over if you don't release the accelerator 2 seconds before turning.

The problem with vehicle handling is that it seems the developer knew this was an issue since during certain missions where you can steal an opponent's vehicle, their vehicle handling is so much better and stable.  However, at least vehicles are a little more durable and can sustain more than a few hits before exploding.  One of the most touted additions to vehicles is bikes.  They are faster but they are also harder to handle at high speed and the slightest touch will fling you off the bike.  Another addition is that you can now accelerate a vehicle and then jump out with the vehicle keeping momentum to smash into things in front; this is very awesome and fun to do.  Lastly, there are flying vehicles in the game which is fun but creates massive lag in the game.  Getting into a car will play one of various radio stations (which you can toggle and change), complete with "ads" and talk shows, which can get extremely humorous.  Vice City nails the 1980s atmosphere, right down to the neon lights, sunset on the beach and the music (a lot of which are licensed songs).  The day/night cycle makes each location feel different, while there are different weather patterns such as rain and cloudy days.

The player can obtain various weapons.  You press the shoulder button to auto-aim against an enemy and then the circle button to shoot.  With certain guns such as sniper rifles, you can aim with the right stick.  Combat remains clunky and extremely frustrating when you are surrounded by enemies shooting at you, the PC version with mouse aiming is far superior in this aspect.  If you feel evil, you can go on a rampage destroying vehicles and killing bystanders.  However, performing crime in front of police will increase your Wanted Level.  This level can go up to six stars and each additional star will cause the police to use more resources in order to capture you.  If caught, you lose some money and the weapons you had on hand so the penalty isn't too big.  It's just more of an annoyance when they chase you when you wanted to do something else.  As expected, Vice City has heaps of collectibles and sidequests to encourage exploring the city.  There are 100 Hidden Packages which gives you tangible benefits once you finish it.  It's the same with sidequests which gives you bonuses if you fully complete them.  Most of the sidequests involve vehicles such as delivering pizza, carrying passengers in a taxi and quickly saving patients in an ambulance.

The story follows Tommy who has been released from jail after serving a 15 year sentence.  He travels to Vice City where he climbs from the bottom to the top, with him ending up taking over Vice City at the end of the game (not really a spoiler since you expect that to happen).  It is your typical Grand Theft Auto story.  The characters that Tommy meets can feel random and the way that he meets them is weak and contrived.  Then for no reason at all they immediately go ahead and give Tommy some errands to do.  The story is progressed via short-ish missions which are marked on the map.  A full sized map can be pulled from the Start Menu which is a fantastic addition.  Heading to the marked area will begin the mission.  There are usually more than one mission available at any point in time giving you some freedom to choose which one you want to do first.  Missions have cutscenes in front.  If you fail a mission's objectives, you have to travel all the way back to the location to restart it, which is annoying.  However, if you failed by dying, then a taxi appears when you respawn which takes you back to the starting point which is welcome.  At least you can skip most of the cutscenes.

There are a variety of missions from races, deliveries, shootouts, sniping and placing bombs.  Nearly all missions will involve driving of some sort.  However, Vice City has disgusting mission designs.  It's like the developers didn't test play their own designs.  Some missions are so frustrating with no checkpoints resulting in you having to start it again and again, toughing through it each time.  Not only is there a friggin short time limit to kill everyone quickly, then you have to race to a destination using the terrible vehicle controls, WITH five cars smashing into you all at once and exploding your car, WTH.  It is one of the most frustrating pieces of gaming ever and the fact is, it feels cheap.  Vice City is hard because it is cheap.  There are plenty of missions where you are always put on a handicap such as you having to get into a race but you start with a slow crappy car while the opponent has one of the fastest cars.  Therefore you have to replay the mission a few times, pre-plan ahead by getting a nice car and parking it in such a way that it is close to the starting point but doesn't disappear when the mission loads and then quickly swap and catch up.

In other missions, you will then have a checkpoint race using a boat but the boat is designed for high speed at straight lines yet the checkpoints are planted in twists and turns.  Finally, the final story mission is also a frustrating mission due to the clunky controls and overwhelming disadvantage.  Tommy has to face off against unlimited spawning enemies toting machine guns firing away at him.  Tommy himself dies easily, there is no easy way to take cover, no checkpoints so that you have to repeat the early sections again and again and again (which aren't easy), it's complete bullshit.  The fact is, when a game has such a reliance on arbitrary time limits with terrible controls, then it is no fun at all.

You can only save at specific locations.  There is initially only one save point but you can eventually purchase property which can also generate periodic income.  Unfortunately, if you are playing the PSN version on PS3, it is prone to frequent crashing which will literally kill your PS3 requiring a reboot of the machine, hope you saved!  It seems to be caused by driving fast, and the game can't load it quick enough.  Overall, Grand Theft Auto:  Vice City has improved on a lot of aspects from Grand Theft Auto III.  However, just like III though, time has not been kind to Vice City and it has not aged well at all.  The game has clunky controls, terrible vehicle handling, repetitive mission designs too reliant on arbitrary conditions and frustrating difficulty that feels cheap.  Vice City was ambitious in its day and did a lot of stuff, but many games since has improved upon the formula and improved on the style of gameplay such that going back to Vice City can be tough.  It's still worth a play and roaming around the map is fun, just maybe not so much with the missions and getting 100% completion.

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Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 15

Review:  #731
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 15
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 15th volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Read Before:  no
Comments:  This volume has some of the funny scenarios that we have seen within the series.  The plot is moving forward nicely with resolution for two of the Goddesses.  Not only has Keima unlocked the one within Tsukiyo, foiled Vintage’s plot so far and released the goddess within Yui, he is making progress towards Shiori.  Keima, with his infinite charm, has made various characters show their affections for them, and the characters’ surprise at that, and their denials, make it even funnier when they take it out on Keima.  While the things that Keima had to do in order to achieve such success would be labelled as extremely weird and perverted in real life, it works well within this world.  The artwork continues to improve and we even get a few glimpses of other supporting characters turning out once in a while, although it can get confusing with the various concurrent conquests going on.

Rating:  7.5/10

Toy Review: Transformers Masterpiece MPM-5 Barricade

Review:  #437
Name:  Barricade
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  Masterpiece
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  Masterpiece
Mold Status:  new

PACKAGING:

The Masterpiece rendition of Barricade from the live-action movies comes in the same black packaging.  You can tell that the vehicle mode is licensed thanks to the large Ford logo.

The back only shows off the robot and alternate mode, and the face gimmick.  A far cry from the numerous stock photos from mainline non-Movie Masterpiece figures.

VEHICLE MODE:

Barricade transforms into a fully licensed Saleen S281 Extreme Ford Mustang police car.

This is a fantastic vehicle mode.  The only robot kibble that sticks out are the robot heels underneath the rear (it seems that exposing robot feet at the rear of the vehicle is a common issue).

There are plenty of painted detailing here making Barricade worthy of the Masterpiece moniker.  While the black is not painted, the whites are.

You get his iconic "to punish and enslave" motto on the back along with "643", "9-1-1" and "POLICE" tampographed at the appropriate spots.

While at the front are Decepticon police badges.  The insignia is subtle and works well for a robot in disguise.

The headlights are painted as well as the indicator lights.  The vehicle is well proportioned and there are not obvious robot hinges sticking out.

There are no gimmicks in vehicle mode apart from the rolling wheels.

Barricade is approximately the size of a Voyager, although he is much heftier thanks to the density of parts and also the die-cast.  Above is a comparison against Classics Voyager Optimus Prime.

This is a wonderful alternate mode with only one nitpick flaw which you don't really notice too much anyway.

TRANSFORMATION:

While Barricade can still be classified as complicated, it is not too bad.  There are a few areas where you need to manipulate smaller pieces to achieve screen accuracy but on the whole, the concept is quite simple and effective.  The sides form the arms, while the hood forms the torso, the legs from the vehicle's body and the windows and roof compacts into the robot mode's backpack.

ROBOT MODE:

Barricade's robot mode is the most screen accurate we've had but it is still not perfect.

He carries the roof and windows of the vehicle on his back but they peg nicely together and everything is so compact that it is very elegant.

The head is painted silver and looks awesome.  There are gold and blue highlights in addition to the red to his eyes.  It is extremely detailed with intricate sculpting.

The gimmick here is that his mouth can open.  You can actually tilt the head all the way back and you can only tilt so far before it looks unnatural.

Size-wise, once again, he is approximately the same as a Voyager.

Above is a comparison against MPM-3 Bumblebee.  While Barricade is still an awesome figure, you can't help but feel that not as much love was put into this toy as Bumblebee since there are still a number of screen inaccuracies and while Bumblebee looked as screen accurate from the back as the front, that cannot be said for Barricade.

Articulation is absolutely fantastic.  He has joints for ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and neck.  Due to transformation, his wrists are fixed although you can open and close his claws.

Due to how the arms form together from multiple parts, moving them may dislodge and disconnection one piece or another, which is slightly annoying.

The ankle tilts goes a long way in allowing Barricade to balance in various action poses.  He has die-cast in his torso and also parts of his feet, stabilizing him.

Barricade really looks a lot better in hand and you can appreciate the various clever design choices to achieve this look.

He comes with his wheel-spike weapon.  When not in use, there is a clear stand which you can attach the weapon on for display.  This is because the piece cannot store in vehicle or robot mode when not in use.

The way the weapon connects is terrible and lazy.  You fold the claw arms back and unfold the forearm.  Then you attach the weapon as an extension.

The biggest flaw to the way it attaches is that it makes his forearm pretty much non-existent and insubstantial.  It looks okay if you're looking at him at an angle but view from the other side and it is horrendous.

The other issue is that the connection point is weak meaning it's easy to accidentally detach the weapon when moving his arm.  Add to the fact that the wheel is too heavy for the elbow joint and his arm will most likely sag.

Despite those flaws, this is a pretty cool weapon and the wheel spins as it is on a pin joint.  All in all, the robot mode does carry a premium feel with plenty of paint highlights, intricate sculpting and plenty of articulation.

OVERALL:

Like the others in the line, Masterpiece Barricade is the ultimate rendition of the character in toy form.  This is a fantastic figure well worth the higher premium price.  His vehicle mode is superb and the robot mode, while it has its own issues, is still really good and feels great in-hand.  Barricade is highly recommended for fans of the movie.

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Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)

The third in the Madagascar series, and as per usual, it throws away all pretence of plausibility.  It starts off with the gang still in Africa and Alex is still determined to return to New York City.  Thus they track down the Penguins who had flew away on a plane a while ago and they end up in Europe.  They join a circus and will eventually find their way to New York.  This wouldn't be a proper animation film without an over the top villain, and this time is a French policewoman with exceptional skills with a grudge against Alex.  Europe's Most Wanted is the best in the Madagascar series yet (which isn't saying much when the first two were very average), with more exciting events, better humor and strong voice work.  Despite that, the plot and film overall still feels tired, as if the writers had run out of ideas and is struggling to fill in the runtime.