Upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Hidden Characters Leaked

This is old news, especially if you're looking forward to this game. Someone datamined TTT2 over the weekend and unearthed six characters. These characters were meant to be revealed at a later date but they're out there now.

Dr. Bosconovitch

Miharu

Sebastian

Slim Bob

Unknown

Violet

Longtime fans of the series already know who most of these characters are, but here's a quick description for those of you who don't:

• Dr. Bosconovitch - Alisa's "father". First playable in Tekken 3.
• Miharu - A friend of Ling Xiaoyu's who was a palette swap for her in Tekken 4.
• Sebastian - Lili's butler, who until now did not appear in playable form.
• Slim Bob - Bob, sans FAT.
• Unknown - First appeared in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, until now was only a rumored playable character.
• Violet - Lee Chaolan as he appeared in T4 before he was "revealed" to be Lee Chaolan.

Originally I wasn't going to post these screenshots, but they're all over the internet now and anyone who was even remotely a fan of the game has seen them. When the characters are made playable I'll be posting plenty of footage over on my YouTube® channel. You can find the link at the top of this page.

R.I.P. Michael Clarke Duncan

Just now heard that he died Monday morning. Completely unexpected. The news said he had a heart attack two months ago, but I can't say I ever read about it. His fiance/wife/girlfriend apparently saved his life when that happened.

R.I.P. Michael Clarke Duncan. You'll be missed.

Getting Ready for Tekken Tag Tournament 2

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 comes out in a few weeks, and I'm pretty rusty at Tekken, so I've started playing Tekken 6 again. Just uploaded a new video: Back to Basics - Rusty Player Matches Please stop by if you haven't seen it! Leave a comment and subscribe if you like the content, there's more on the way!

Yet Another Review of "The Dark Knight Rises"

Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors, so I went into The Dark Knight Rises with reasonably high expectations. Even with this being the third film of a trilogy I figured Nolan would be able to finish on a high note.

For the most part I think he did. TDKR is a very good film, but it does suffer some minor missteps here and there.

As other reviews have pointed out, it's a good idea to watch Batman Begins before seeing this film. Several elements of that film's plot come into play here(Ra's Al Ghul, The League of Shadows, and fear, to name a few). There are also some references to The Dark Knight, but not as many as there are to Begins.

The story begins eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne has retired as Batman and cut himself off from the world, his body broken down due to his days of crimefighting. Gotham City is threatened and Batman is needed once more.

Tom Hardy's performance as Bane is exceptional. His Bane is cold and calculating, completely ruthless and without mercy. A more than worthy adversary for Batman.

Anne Hathaway is damn near pitch perfect as Catwoman. She stole a good number of the scenes she was in and it had nothing to do with her looks.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake is well played, which is exactly what you'd expect from Levitt.

Marion Cotillard is also very good as Miranda Tate.

All the key players from previous installments in the series(Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, et al) turn in great performances. There are also a few cameos that fans will get a kick out of.

Where the missteps come into play has to do with the pacing, and to some extent the plot. Whenever you're dealing with significant changes in time, there can be a lot of jumping around and it can confuse the viewer. To his credit Nolan did a pretty good job of keeping the confusion down, but there are still a few scene changes that I felt could have been handled better. Some reviews I've read complained about the film's two hour, forty plus minutes, but for the most part I didn't think it was a problem.

Overall I really enjoyed it, glad I watched it in IMAX. Can't wait for the Blu-Ray later this year!

Whitney Cummings' Twitter Hacked

Whitney Cummings' Twitter was hacked a few hours ago. She has(had?) over 600,000 followers, so I'm sure Twitter will shut it down soon if they haven't already. Screen captures provided.

So IGN gave Lollipop Chainsaw a 5/10?

(This was originally a post over on IGN's website under their review of Lollipop Chainsaw. I've modified it slightly to add it here to my blog.)

IGN gave Lollipop Chainsaw a score of 5, or "Mediocre". Here's a link to the review if you'd like to read it for yourself.

I'm not entirely surprised at the score from IGN. When there was no review day one I figured their score would be low.

Yakuza 4 and Deadly Premonition also come to mind. IGN gave those games less than favorable reviews(particularly Deadly Premonition), and I really enjoyed them both.

I'm glad I had Lollipop Chainsaw reserved and bought it through Amazon for $45. Personally, I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty short, but it has replay value. There are two endings, a good number of moves and combos to unlock, costumes and collectibles. There's also a Ranked mode with leaderboards, though I may not bother with it too much.

The art style is well done. The reviewer here thinks the animations are "janky", but I think they're consistent. Nothing took me out of the experience graphically at all.

Tara Strong(Juliet) is arguably the most well known voice actress out there. I was really surprised that the reviewer filed her voice work under "bad". Michael Rosenbaum(Nick) was pretty solid overall, but honestly I felt like a few of his lines could have been delivered better. One that stuck out was "Awesome.", which you'll hear him say occasionally during a Sparkle Hunt. It's unenthusiastic monotone, barely audible. It only happens on occasion but whenever I hear it, it sticks out like a sore thumb. You also hear Nick repeat lines many times at certain points. Maybe they couldn't get Michael Rosenbaum for as long as they initially planned, so they couldn't redo some of his lines?

The guy is a great actor and has done some awesome voice work before(Nishki in the first Yakuza for PS2, Flash in Justice League:DOOM), so it sucked that he was the one guy who stuck out in a bad way, even if only for a line here or there.

I liked the boss battles. Like any other boss battle, you figure out the pattern and you do it. The reviewer complains about one hit deaths during boss battles. There are some instances where you can get killed during a level (or boss fight I guess, but that hasn't happened to me so far), if you don't fire at something fast enough or race somewhere quick enough. When that happens you continue from a nearby point. It might be frustrating for someone who can't figure out what to do and keeps dying, but once you know what to do it's not bad at all. Even then, I'd be surprised if anyone got "stuck" on this game. it leads you from point A to point B pretty easily, and you've got Nick telling you how to beat bosses even when you're already doing it sometimes.

The combat certainly isn't God of War or Ninja Gaiden, but it does more than get the job done. The lock-on system works well. By the end of the game you'll have a variety of attacks that make mowing through zombies go by faster. If you're eager to set up big Sparkle Hunts it'll still take a little time, but it's still a solid combat system.

Even with this game's short length, I think "mediocre" is a tad harsh. I won't sit here and bash IGN like I don't stop here everyday and read an article, but I will say that they are not the only opinion out there. For games like this(well ALL games, but especially "niche" titles) it's really important to get multiple opinions.

Xbox Live: What Are We Paying For? (Part 1)

Last week was one of the best weeks Playstation Plus members have ever had.

Sony released several high profile games for free at once, including the all new Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown.

I look at that, and what Sony's been doing with their Playstation Plus service, and it makes me wonder just what we're paying for over on Xbox Live.

For years they've had gamers paying for the "privilege" of playing their online games, even though the vast majority of them are peer-to-peer, not on dedicated servers.

So just what are we paying $60 a year for?

Exclusive demos and betas? Maybe, but Playstation Plus offers that.

Cloud Saves? Microsoft was getting our money for years and didn't offer Cloud Saves until Sony started offering them with Playstation Plus. Before that, it took them several years to stop forcing gamers to buy Memory Units to transport their saves, and let them use their USB sticks instead.

Party chat? This is one of the few areas where Microsoft has the clear advantage. Being able to chat with up to 7 of your friends at once across all games and apps is something all systems should have.

Voice Messaging? Again, having the option to send a voice message instead of typing out one is great.

How about text chat and text messaging? No advantage there, PS3 also offers those, with the added ability to send pictures that aren't taken with a special camera.

So aside from party chat, which wasn't part of the original Xbox Live service before the 360 by the way, just what are we paying $60 a year for?

Access to digital entertainment?

Apps such as Netflix, ESPN and HBO GO, all of which you already have to pay for access to anyway, get more support from Microsoft than their own Community Games. If you're not a Gold Member you can't access them, or play the games you paid for.

Along with our $60(originally $50, before ESPN) a year, there are advertisements on every blade of the dashboard except "Settings". Obviously those ads bring in revenue. That revenue should be used to improve whatever we're paying for, and provide exclusive content to those of us who pay for it, but really have you seen anything worthwhile from Xbox Live lately?

Maybe we're paying for the right to use an outdated system of bartering?

If you want to buy games or DLC for games, you have to buy Microsoft Points. In most cases, you end up buying more points than you need, which of course will more often than not lead you right back to the Marketplace to (hopefully) find something else you want to buy.

At the end of it all, you're usually left with a few points that you can't really use anywhere else. It's a carnival type system that has been called out by many for years. Microsoft claims to be phasing it out, meanwhile they're giving away 1,000,000 points and "paying" Xbox Live Rewards members 20 points a month to take quick surveys. Somehow I don't think that system is going anywhere come January 1st, 2013.

So what are we really paying for?

If all you want to do is play your games online, Sony and Nintendo don't charge you for that privilege. Microsoft does, and likely will continue to do so until enough people complain about it. Thing is, so many people are content to pay for Xbox Live even though they shouldn't have to.

When you pay for Playstation Plus, it's because you want more games and features to improve your service, it's not because you want to unlock the online feature of the game you just bought.

If you agree with this post, take a moment(or many, as their customer service sucks) to call Microsoft's 800 number and ask them what we're paying for. Maybe they'll be able to tell you.

Lollipop Chainsaw Pre-Order Sale!

Been a long time since I've posted here. I'll update soon, but for now I thought I should post a quick entry about Amazon's sale price for "Lollipop Chainsaw". You can pre-order it for $44.99, here's the link: Lollipop Chainsaw for $44.99 through Amazon This game is dropping on 6/12 on Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. It's made by "the twisted mind" of Suda 51. Looks pretty interesting :).