Monday, September 1, 2014

App Shark Review: Crunchyroll Anime and Manga


When you live in America you can imagine that it’s not the easiest thing to watch the latest anime and read the latest manga.  You would often have to find some kind of unreliable online source that couldn’t be depended on like Youtube where you wouldn’t know what you were getting sometimes.  So I was very surprised when I was told about a service that would give me massive amounts of this Japanese entertainment for an affordable price and all completely legal.  The one-two punch of Crunchyroll and Crunchyroll Manga gave me access to just about everything I wanted to watch and read.  

Starting with the Anime, there isn’t much more I could ask for from it.  Thousands of Anime shows are displayed with a friendly interface that includes a popular page, simulcasts, easy access to new episodes, and various easy ways to find exactly what you’re looking for and then some.  I started a free trial for the purpose of checking out Gurren Lagann and got caught up in Jo-Jo’s Bizarre Adventure instead and have yet to watch what I actually wanted to watch after being swept up in the catalog.  There’s quite a bit to watch is the main point I’m trying to make.

Crunchyroll also extends into a separate Manga App dedicated exclusively to everyone’s favorite backwards literature.  The selection while not as extensive as one would like, it still provides enough to justify getting in the package with the Anime membership.  What you will have access to is worth the price tag of under $5.  The interface for this aspect is also very user friendly and has a feature that guides the reader through what they are supposed to be reading in the proper order for those unfamiliar with how to maneuver through as manga.  The free trial gives you select chapters of some very well known books and some I had never heard of before.  Worth a monthly subscription.

The combo package of a Crunchyroll Anime and Manga subscription will run to a total of about $13.00 per month for everything they have in their catalog. The diehard anime fan will find this to be a small price to pay while they are watching things that would otherwise be very difficult to find proper versions of on the internet.  And while there are some aspects of the catalog that i hope will be increased in the future, I know that Crunchyroll is frequently adding new material to watch and read.  If you have any interest at all in Japanese entertainment, this may be a very good investment if you have some spare money each month.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Gamer Shark Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim


Far too many times have I passed on the RPG experience due to my own laziness of not wanting to dedicate the time.  Yes,  I know it’s a poor way of thinking and when I decided to pick up Skyrim about seven months ago, I wanted to see things from a different point of view.  My mind was open to the idea of having this second life in the form of the greatest hero the land of Skyrim has ever known through his rise to legendary status.  I missed a great deal ignoring the Elder Scrolls series as month after month passed and no interest was lost in the adventures of my reptilian hero and his fate driven quest to save his world from a great evil.  My friends, this is the role playing concept at it’s finest and while the game is not without flaws, this must be acknowledged as one of the examples brought up when discussing what makes video games great.


Where to begin when summarizing the plot Skyrim?  An Imperial prison carriage is currently making it’s way to the village of Helgen so that the convicted fugitives it has been charged with delivering can be put on the chopping block for their crimes.  This is where you come in.  For reasons unbeknownst to the player your character is among these criminals on their way to death.  Upon arrival events take place including a few vicious displays from the Imperial soldiers all culminating in what were intended to be the final moments of your life thankfully interrupted by what you will come to know as the greatest threat to your way of life, Alduin.  The menacing black dragon ravages the settlement giving you an opportunity to escape your imprisonment thus beginning an adventure the likes of which even the most seasoned of warriors have never experienced.  You are Dragonborn.  I will not spoil what that means exactly but the world rests on how you decide to use the mysterious powers that have been bestowed upon you.  So the choice becomes yours.  Will you unselfishly sacrifice to better the land you call home?  Will you forsake all selfless thoughts and fight to better yourself alone?  Or will you walk the line between the light and the shadows?  In the end, it’s all up to you.


Aside from storytelling, this game also shines in the category of personalizing your experience.  There are endless possibilities to what your character can end up being.  Will you be a juggernaut, a sneaky thief, a devout mage, or some blending of all those ideas and then some.  There is also no penalty to trying new things in the middle of one specific type of build.  For example, a character who has reached level 50+ on a solid heavy build can feel comfortable trying out a more agility oriented approach at any point in the game.  The ability to make skills legendary was one of the keys to my personal experiences in changing my build.  This means that once a skill reaches level 100 it can be reset, thus returning all of the skill points that have been invested into it up until that point and then allowing you to reallocate them to any other skill you want.  If you've grown tired of heavy armor after maxing it out, you can throw everything you put into it into something new like light armor which warrants a completely different play style.  


As with other games in the Elder Scrolls series, the amount of things to do at any given time is endless with an ongoing supply of side quests and various tasks to be accomplished aside from any aspect of the main quest line.  One thing I will say is that you should not start this game and like it if you aren't going to be willing to dedicate endless chunks of time to it because this game is played at its best when you are dedicating hours at a time to everything from leveling up to completing side quests.  Your experience will be severely lacking if you power through the main storyline and nothing else.  


Gameplay, while nothing special, does indeed satisfy me as a player with various types of weapons and projectiles that each have their own pros and cons.  Two handed weapons, while powerful, are slow and eliminate the ability to use anything else.  Magic is nearly useless in close combat and should be reserved for distance.  One handed weapons can be dual wielded for damage but this eliminates to ability to block unless you use a shield on one of your hands rather than another weapon.  This all provides some very interesting decisions for the player as they weigh all of these factors in choosing the play style that they would be happy with.


One thing that should not be overlooked is the musical aspect of Skyrim.  The main title theme alone was enough to induce chills and this is also the main theme for any dragon battles providing some epic moments as it plays while you mount a dragon and slash at it from the third person perspective.  Even something as simple as walking through a peaceful city is beautifully scored to be calming undertone to your actions


All of the most impressive parts of the game have been covered so all that’s left is to talk about what I don’t like.  The most obvious is that since I’m playing on a PS3, the level of game threatening glitches are becoming critical.  On several occasions I've had to force my system to shut down because of a crash.  Not to mention all of the horror stories I've heard of where progress has been destroyed because of some bug that makes it impossible to progress.  I've experienced a few myself.  Entire quest lines become unfinishable so you have to learn to abuse the save button.  The bugs don’t stop there either.  Though none are as threatening as the ones I just described, they become extremely frustrating during your playing experience.  It also doesn't help that no efforts seem to be being made to patch these issues.  Every time a patch comes along, the things that are affected make me wonder what the the developers priorities are.  Minor glitches have been fixed but none of these gamebreakers have.  I hope some consideration is put into these fields soon.


Well it’s time to conclude this review.  I've explained the good, the bad, and the ugly and everything in between.  I really love this game and play it very frequently.  Everything I've told you here are my personal views on a former game of the year candidate and I hope I've been able to influence someone to give a truly great game a try.  


Final Score
9.0/10

Monday, August 25, 2014

Blogging

As I type this I really have no understanding of how blogging works.  I know it is a way for people on the internet to express opinions and views to the world, but how does one get started on having a blog.  How do people find what you have written and if they do why should they even bother reading.  I have been a prominent blogger on various websites in the past but after a year-long absence from those communities, there doesn't appear to be anyone left that I had been communicating with is the past.  That brings me to wondering how I got there in the first place all those years ago.  And the answer is that I just got started.  I typed up the first blog about a topic I was interested in and people read it.  So lets see how that works on this particular format.  I haven't blogged in a year so I don't know exactly what I'm getting in to or if anyone will even care but I've got nothing to lose in just spending some time feeling out the waters to see if anyone is interested in what I have to say, whatever that may be on any given day.  I got my start with blogging on Gamespot.com where I posted weekly video game reviews under the title Gamer Shark Productions.  I would very much love to bring that back and with more aspects of entertainment involved just like I used to.  Now all that's left is to post this little idea of mine and see what anyone who comes across this thinks about it.