All Otaku Magazine Issue 7

ANIME ADDICTS Issue 7 1st September 2013

SA’s Biggest Online Otaku Magazine INDIE GAMES: The debate

The Book of Bantorra Garden of words Stalag x One Half Prince Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou Next A Class Watamote And More...

THE ALL OTAKU DOTA 2 OPEN: SA Dota teams come together for the community.

The World Cosplay Summit’s Ed Hoff On the Cosplay Game

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Critically acclaimed and Too Awesome for Words

The Emotiv Insight Control your Environment with the power of your mind

FINAL FANTASY XIV

#7

VOCALOID NIGHT

Attack on Titan GOOGLE: The History

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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Next A Class.

Featured Anime

Mercedes use anime to advertise their

Next A class

“In the not so distant future, to cope with the traffic jams and verticalization due to the Increased population, the city of Tokyo was reconstructed under the theme of “city sharing” in which people share the urbane space by transforming the roads and city structure by time of the day. A woman named Nico is walking in the city. She is having her long-awaited day off; however, she does not know what to do and who to hang out with. She hopes an exciting thing suddenly happens--.

Then, a truck passed right before her eyes. The loud music and flashy decoration of the vehicle reminded Nico the car “it” that everyone’s talking about on the internet. As soon as Nico saw it, she ran after it, then ran into Gatsu and Makito. Nico get in the latest A-Class and they chase after the truck driving through the city that is changing its form rapidly.

See if they catch up with the legendary truck and reveal the true identity of “it”.”

Taken from Mercedes Benz website.

I have no idea how to react to this thing? I’d say it’s the most naked bit of cross promotion I’ve seen in a while but then I remember I’ve been marathoning Captain N The game master later and knock it down a spot. I have no idea how an anime endorsing an import car is supposed to be seen as anything other than the lamest possible merchandising plan. At least shows like Pokemon and Beyblade had some sort of kids connection but this is like the same but for upper-middle class. I guess it could be good, but I’m going to withhold judgement until I see more than a bit more, it seems like a bizarre little project to say the least. I guess it’s trying to counter the inevitability of poor sales that non Japanese brands of cars tend to show in Japan where brand loyalty is practically cultural law.

Also am I the only one who thinks the driver of the mystery truck looks a little like the owner of Toto books from Read or Die? Maybe this is the future of the ROD world.

It’s an odd little short to say the least.

Sensei

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

The Urban Legend to end all Urban Legends There’s a thousand stories in Ikebukuro, a mysterious gang called “the dollars” rule the streets yet no one knows who founded them, a large burly black man stands in the streets promoting the virtues of Russian sushi, vending machines are readily used as melee weapons and all the while streaking through the night a headless motorcyclist dispenses justice while searching for her head. Nearly the entire cast wear the main character hat at some point except the nominal lead Mikado Ryūgamine is a first year high schooler thrown into this world of mystery, but even Mikado has secrets in this city of a thousand stories.

When studio Brains Base met with widespread acclaim for their oddball hit Baccano a lot of anime fans, myself included, wondered what their next big hit would be. Yes they did other things including the second season of the excellent Spice and Wolf, but nothing really connected until they decided to take on the Light novel series Durarara and turn it into this interesting anime.

Durarara doesn’t really have a set narrative but rather it is a series of interlinked stories (Mostly based around urban legends) and characters that take place in the same location. The random nature of this meandering story would normally be confusing were it not for the really clever way that they link all

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

the characters together. The town of Ikebukuro is seen as a strange place where the paranormal and the mundane cross over in daily life and the ways that the stories leak into one another is really well done. In all honesty it feels like well made game of Vampire the Masquerade. Exposition is handled through myriad instant messenger conversations that are just infrequent to avoid causing issues and works well in exploring Ikebukuro’s wonderful mix of dark comedy and genuine intrigue as the story’s. The story even has clever little recaps in the intro sequence that help viewers keep track of earlier hinted plot threads.

On a technical note Durarara is clearly showing the fingerprints of Brains Base, the character models are a little more realistic than the norm, the series uses it’s yellow and blue colour pallets especially well to realise the intuitive character designs.

The Music for this series is stellar and shows a lot of polish, from the excellent jazzy and modern J-rock to the well timed sound cues everything really fits together perfectly.

In conclusion Durarara easily ranks third on my all time favourite anime list and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys mystery, drama or comedy anime.

“What do you think a truly unusual life would be like? Something really unique. It’d be the kind of life where every single day, nothing new ever happened.”

Sensei

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

Featured Manga

SAO and Hack Sign Ain’t got nothing on

One Half Prince For every person who has seen anime such as Sword art Online, or the .hack// series, this is a must read. Well as you can probably deduce, the series is similar in the sense that the main character finds herself playing an online game, which similarly transports her consciousness into the game. It has a little gender bender twist in thrown into the fact that she decides to make her avatar male, (not too uncommon nowadays anyhow) which the GM decides to allow. After setting all of the parameters the game creates a breathtakingly cute/handsome elf and she is thrown into the game world. Upon having her character wake up, it’s quite obvious that all the ladies find the elf really attractive, putting her in a bit of an unexpected pickle. The GM that helped her in character design show up as a hidden GM and decides to tag along and help “Prince” as the avatar was named.

Prince decides to take on a light warrior as his/her class and starts training, well, were we all start in MMORPG games. With the easy stuff. So she runs around whacking some wolves, until the game takes offence and sends

out the wolf king... After nearly getting killed (the GM being no help) she finally manages to beat the wolf king and gets quite a unique sword as a reward. The sword levels up along with the character, making it quite possibly the most powerful weapon in game. The GM is surprised at the turn of events, but tells Prince to keep the sword and keep training.

Along the way Prince makes some really good friends, a healer, a mage, a heavy warrior, and they come in all shapes and sizes (the GM being a thief). So after some teaming up, and some shuffles, they decide to make their own team, called the Odd Squad. Not too creative, but strangely fitting. You will understand when you read the manga. The Odd Squad have some pretty cool adventures of their own, until they decide to enter a big tournament, with a whole country (in game ofc) as first prize.

Prince, who by this time has trained to a pretty decent level, enters as pretty much a dark horse. Nobody takes the Odd Squad seriously in the competition, and the big names all target the other big names. You see how that goes. The tournament takes an unexpected turn however, when the Odd Squad sticks their odd noses into everyone’s business and quickly show that they are a force to be reckoned with. Prince (who is still a girl at heart), for some odd reason , decides that it’s a courtesy to other players to at least smile at them when you kill

them. So somewhere along the lines he earns himself a nickname, the Blood Elf. The game takes a strange turn however, when he decides to take on a lvl. 100 quest. The boss at the end of the quest is a samurai called “Kenshin”. Being one of the games’ superbosses, Prince has pretty much zero chance in defeating him. By some strange twist of fate, Kenshin becomes a partner to Prince, and with his help rescues two more NPC characters. These characters seem to have consciousness of their own, and yearn for freedom.

Prince decides to help them any way he can, and enlists the help of several other powerful factions in game to invade the dark continent, where the Creator of Life is found. I think I will stop there, but I highly recommend you read this manga. It came before Sword art Online, and I think would have been just as good if not better.

About the only downside to this gem is the last chapter releases. The manga is clearly almost done, but for some reason the last chapters are being released quite far apart. Other than that, read it, fall in love with it, and then bribe some executive in Japan to have this made into an anime. ‘Nough said. ~Beleran.

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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Anime Reviews and Previews

Watamote

Garden of words Episodes: 1 Directed by: Makoto Shinkai Status: Movie Aired: May 31, 2013 Studio: CoMix Wave Films Distributed by: Sentai Filmworks (North America) Genres: Romance

Garden of Words Dipped in a coat of deep emotional atmosphere, the Garden of Words movie is set to waltz to feelings to the verge of heart break over the life of a boy yearning to be a shoemaker against the wishes of his family. Released on 6th of August this year for English speaking regions but having already premiered at the Gold Coast Film Festival in Australia on the 28th of April. The trailer does what a good trailer does and gets you interested in how the story will be painted across your imagination. The movie is directed by Makoto Shinkai; who also worked on the award winning film 5 Centimeters Per Second and the unforgettable Children Who Chase Lost Voices. Making us expectant for another great anime movie title we can watch over and over, with a refreshing astonishment.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou Hoo boy, my wacky sense is going at full FLCL levels, try this story on for size. Harumi Kazuhito is a high school boy who loves books and is a fan of novelist Natsuno Kirihime.

One day, he finds her writing at a cafe, about to be shot by a robber (I sense contrivance). Being a decent sort, he protects her from the attack but is killed instead of her.

Through the supernatural power of a book-worm, he is reincarnated as a dachshund dog. In his new existence Kazuhito is suffering from life without books, when a sadistic woman brandishing a pair of scissors offers him help. She is Kiri-

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Watamote Episodes: 12 Director: Shin Oonuma Status: Currently Airing Aired: 9 July 2013 Producers: Sentai Filmworks Genres: comedy, romance, slice of life

hime herself.

Based on the novel of the same name I am optimistic but cautious about this little offering. It’s a unique premise and the characters look very appealing, but I can’t help but worry that this may fall into the same trap a lot of light novel based content does and become trapped in waiting for the next volume. Colour me interested.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou Episodes: 12 Written by: Shunsuke Sarai Status: Currently Airing Aired: July 2, 2013 Producers: Gonzo, Avex Entertainment, Genres: Comedy, Supernatural

Sensei

Kuroki Tomoko is a young girl starting her debut in high school. She has 50 years of dating experience with over 100 boys, it’s a pity that they’re all 2D and Kuroki is possibly the most awkward and socially maladjusted person on the planet.

When I first heard that there would be an anime adaptation of Watamote or “It’s Not My Fault That I’m Not Popular!” I wondered how they were planning on converting the awkward and stilted character of the popular manga onto the screen. Wow did they succeed although I’m not sure success is somehow failing as this series is one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to watch.

Kuroki is a “Mojo” or “creepy girl” who desperately yearns for human contact, but hasn’t the first clue how to engage with people socially, she has detailed her research on popular people through the internet and is conscious of every little detail around her. This however has manifested in her complete inability to handle society. “Mokocchi” as Kuroki is called is so desperate for human contact that she goes to extremes for any form of recognition On a technical standpoint the art and music of this show are top notch, the animation really catches the disturbed nature of Mokocchi’s perception of the world. While there are moments when the art becomes choppy and very visual betraying the story’s roots as a manga these are usually used for good effect.

However the earnestness is part of why watching this series was painful to me. While Mokocchi clearly fictional and many of the exaggerations that are played for humour are genuinely funny. The whole series just sits uncomfortably with me. Characters like this are usually set up with either a redeeming arc like Welcome to the NTR or are played with a lighthearted optimism like in Lucky Star, Watamote has neither and suffers for it. Watching the show, all I feel when I see poor Mokocchi is a great deal of sympathy. Most Otaku have been lonely at some point and the way that Mokocchi reacts to situations just pulls at my heart strings and depresses me. The problem is that the show seems to be playing it for laughs with Mokocchi being the butt of said jokes and all I feel is shame that I’m not finding it funny. Instead the desperation and sadness that pervade her just makes me feel like an ass on the few occasion I do laugh.

Technically this is a B but I’m never watching any more voluntarily it’s an F in my book.

Sensei

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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Attack on Titan: one of the best anime of the year

When all is lost How will you defend the human race?

“Overall, Shingeki no Kyojin is an enjoyable watch and lives up to the hype it has been receiving recently. It’s a high octane, action packed anime with so much intrigue and drama in it that it makes you want to watch more. It might even make you want to read the manga in the middle of the series, just to find out what happens next. I would recommend this anime to those who are looking for a good story line, filled with action, intrigue and excitement. “

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s most of you have noticed these past few months, Shingeki no Kyojin has been getting a lot of attention from people around the world. It is currently one of the most popular anime out there. The series has received a lot of praise from people. According to Rebecca Silverman from Anime News Network, the series “is both gorgeous and appalling in its visuals”, and “an excellent mix of what 18th century Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe defined as horror versus terror: the one is physical, making you want to look away, and the other is intellectual, making you want to know what’s going to happen next.” I never thought much about the series initially, but I was curious to find out why the show has been popular thus far.

Shingeki no Kyojin follows

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the story of humankind’s survival against the Titans, gigantic humanoid creatures who attack and eat humans for no apparent reason. The humans have built massive walls around their cities to prevent the Titans from attacking them. At the beginning of the series, the humans are living in peaceful times, as there have been no Titan attacks for almost a century. The main characters of the series are Eren Jaeger and his adoptive sister, Mikasa Ackerman. One day, when returning home from their usual, everyday routines, the town is suddenly attacked by Titans.

While they are quickly trying to return home, they find their mother caught under the rubble of their house. Their mother pleads for them to escape the town without her. While Eren and Mikasa are escaping the town, the catch a glimpse

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

of a Titan picking up their mother from the rubble and devouring her right in front of them. Their lives change forever on that day and Eren vows to get revenge on the Titans by enlisting into the army. Later in the series, it is discovered that Eren has the power to transform into a Titan himself. Some people find him a threat to humanity, while others find him as humanity’s hope. With his friends close by him, Eren tries to find answers to the mysteries of the Titans, his powers and the walls surrounding the cities.

From what I have watched so far, Shingeki no Kyojin has been an enjoyable watch so far. The story is very captivating in its own right, showing the hardships of the humans living under fear of the Titans. When a town is attacked by the Titans, the humans have to suffer with famine and turmoil while

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) Episodes: 22 Written by: Hajime Isayama Status: Currently Airing Aired: 6 April 2013 – Genre Dark fantasy, Tragedy, Dystopia

searching for a new town to take refuge in. Each soldier in the military is equipped with 3-D Maneuver Gear, which allows the humans to quickly pinpoint the Titans’ weak point, their necks.

What Shingeki no Kyojin does well is that it showcases that humans aren’t on top of the food chain anymore. The animation is very well done and of a high standard. The fight scenes look very impressive and there is almost one in every single episode you watch.

Overall, Shingeki no Kyojin is an enjoyable watch and lives up to the hype it has been receiving recently. It’s a high octane, action packed

anime with so much intrigue and drama in it that it makes you want to watch more. It might even make you want to read the manga in the middle of the series, just to find out what happens next. I would recommend this anime to those who are looking for a good story line, filled with action, intrigue and excitement.

“The only thing we’re allowed to is to believe that we won’t regret the choice we made.” ― Lance Corporal Rivaille”

Trailer: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=v7sVsQlfDf0 More information on the series: http://shingekinokyojin.wikia.com/wiki/Shingeki_no_Kyojin_Wiki

Potatoes are much more delicious when they’re hot — Sasha Braus All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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Manga Reviews and Previews

Sun- Ken Rock:

One Punch Man Often with super hero style comics/manga you expect a long drawn out origin story explaining how said hero falls into batch of uranium or comes from outer space... do not expect this from One-punch-man. This manga ditches an overly complicated origin story and focuses mainly on the good stuff, the action.

Saitama is a regular guy who does hero work part time, bitch slapping huge monsters on a daily basis while reading manga and watching TV. His biggest problem in life is finding someone strong to face him, as most of his opponents fall in a single glorious punch. How did he become this powerful? After an unsuccessful attempt at getting a job Saitama encounters a villain (a dude who looks like a crab) and after ripping out this unfortunate dude’s eye (along with his brain) he decides it would be pretty cool to be a hero. After training for three long years, doing all the push ups and sit ups he could, he lost all is hair but not only that, he became unbelievably strong.

Given One-punch-man’s unique ability the villains never last long however Saitama manages to get a disciple, Genos, who is your typical super hero cyborg (massive origin story blah blah blah). Together they take on many weird and wonderful villains in some seriously comical situations (excuse the pun). As Saitama battles to come to terms with the fact that he isn’t famous and has never received any credit for his work.

One-punch-man is a unique manga and has a refreshing approach to the genre. The violence is glorious and you can look forward to seeing plenty of blood and guts. The drawing is extremely well done (some of the best I’ve seen) and each moment is beautifully defined almost giving of the illusion that you are watching a movie but meanwhile you just reading a manga. The result is a very graphic and extremely hilarious piece of... awesomeness (haha got you there).

If I said anymore I’d be giving it away, so to round it off in a very cliché manner... Will Saitama find someone powerful enough to face him? Will his hair ever grow back? Will he become famous? Who is this guy? Am I salesman? Find out in One-punch-man Dan the Man First Issue: July 3, 2009 Illustrated by: Yūsuke Murata Written by: One Published by: Shueisha Volumes: Ongoing

The Book of Bantorra Part 1 In a world where when you die your soul crystallizes and becomes a book, where anyone who possesses your book can read your whole life story. An elite organisation known as the Armed Librarians store and protect all books in the Bantorra Library. Armed Librarians are exceptional people who have great fighting skills and knowledge of the books. A religions group called Shindeki Kyoudan is causing problems – they want to use the books in the library for their own selfish gain. They are using humans and treating them like cattle, brainwashing them and using them for experiments and to become suicide bombers

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

in their sick game. The battle has begun and neither groups plan on backing out. With the direction of the powerful Acting Chief Librarian Hamutz Meseta, the Armed Librarians are standing strong to protect the Library at all costs.

Charne First Issue: September 22, 2005 Illustrated by: Shigeki Maeshima Written by: Ishio Yamagata Published by: Shueisha Volumes: 10

First Issue: 2006 Written by: Boichi Published by: Shōnen Gahōsha Volumes: Ongoing

Ah, love does the strangest things to the best of us. Rash decisions, impulsiveness, day-dreaming etc. Ken however, really didn’t see what came his way until it was too late. Following his girlfriend from Japan to Korea after high school, his intent was to ask her for her hand in marriage... Instead, he caught the attention of a gang boss looking to expand his empire. Much to his surprise, the gang boss asks him to take over as boss of the gang! Ken accepts and starts building both rep and his group at the start, purely because he needed an income.

Things are looking good until he runs into his former girlfriend again. She decided to join the Police force.

You can see the pickle that he’s gotten himself into.

Now poor Ken finds himself between a rock and a hard place. His gang is quickly gaining popularity and they are rapidly expanding their empire throughout Tokyo.

His second in command is a genius when it comes to financial management and business expansion. He chose Ken purely because Ken is the ultimate figure head in the underground scene. Ken is both the muscle and the inspiration in his gang. However, Ken’s troubles do not end there. Rival gangs are starting to take note of the progress from the Ken Rock group. Major players in the Korean underground are not happy with the invasion into their turf. To complicate matters, the police is looking for the leaders of the Ken Rock organization, putting him at odds with his girlfriend. The Italian mafia also hears about his prowess and decides to send along a lackey upon his visit to Italy to test if he is the genuine article or just another pretender.

He is gambling everything on a hair-fine line. If he wants to succeed he needs to make some serious choices. Will he leave the gang and pursue a career in order to be with Yumin(his girlfriend)? Will he admit to Yumin that he is the leader of the nefarious Ken Rock organization? Things get even more troublesome when Ken finds out the Yumin is the daughter of the biggest crime syndicate back in Japan, and they are not about to let her just run off. Will he be successful as a crime lord, or will a greater power be his downfall?

The manga is action packed to the brim with fights, plots, drama and suspense. It is quite the thrilling read from start to the most current chapter. If you have read the previous All otaku editions, you will know that I have a soft spot for Korean based manga. One more of the excellent series that will probably never see anime.

The Japanese really need to look beyond their borders and see the talent that is out there! A must read for all mafia fans!

Beleran

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

1st Place - Energy Esports 2nd Place - Bravado 3rd Place Liberty

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s the time drew closer to the actual tournament tensions were high among the All Otaku team as we tried our best to gather teams and organise admin.

And then it happened, at 3pm on Saturday the 17th the tournament began and we collectively breathed a sigh of relief as Ryan took the reins and began his masterful planning. Over the next two days we watched in anticipation as 16 teams battled it out to win a spot in the top 8. By Monday morning we had our quarter finals competitors and we were ready for the next stage in the first ever All Otaku Dota 2 Open.

Life settled back into the usual humdrum of every day life with the occasional team contacting us to reschedule a match or add another sub to the list of players.

On Thursday the 22nd we got back into it, HellbirD and his crew of casters along with Ryan began making preparations for the busy weekend ahead and on Friday the 23rd the real best of 3 battles began as Bravado played Solo(RCG), Veneration played Liberty, Energy played Sounds Legit, and IM Mega played against their sister team IM Bashers.

By Saturday afternoon four teams were left and fans were sitting on the edge of their seats when Liberty were able to beat Veneration to make it to the top four. That evening Bravado fought Liberty and Energy fought IM Mega to take the top two spots in the Grand Finals.

All Otaku Magazine and Ryan Kingwill Host The First Ever All Otaku Dota 2 Open All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

On Sunday afternoon at 3pm many an SA Dota fan tuned in to watch the two top teams in South Africa play a best of 5,the sweet sounds of Noxville and HellbirD filled many an ear as excitement bloomed and people cheered, and finally after three intense rounds Energy immerged to claim victory over Bravado and they were crowned champion to our little event.

With Energy winning R1500, Bravado taking second place and R1000.00 and Liberty taking third with R500.00 that was the end of the event, we could now sit back and toast to our first successful Dota 2 tournament.

Ed

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

Writers Rant Dan the Man YouTube Hype Rave To any normal person the mention of the word steam refers to the thin and hot gases state of water that makes shower scenes, well.. steamy. However to your average PC gamer the word steam is the online software that pools all your gaming needs into one program conveniently providing you with a simple way of downloading, updating and launching games it then proceeds to every now and then lose your saves, destroy installed copies of games. Knowing how it works, having an account, and knowing the ins and outs are cool and all, but who doesn’t enjoy a good origins story.

Circa 2000 AD Valve had major complications issuing patches and updates for its online game titles, CounterStrike being one of them. An attempt to patch the game, would cause a disconnection of the larger part of the online user base for several days. Gabe Logan Newell the cofounder and managing director of video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation and the company decided to make a platform which would update games automatically, and implement better anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures.

Akin to many great people and revolutionary changes, when Valve presented the idea to many large companies including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks – to build a client with these features, they all turned the idea down.

The Steam platform was officially announced at the 2002 game developers’ conference, and two years later a partnership had been formed with AT&T, Acer and GameSpy Industries and several other companies to begin catapulting Steam’s success which was made apparent from 2007, when the Steam Community was launched, followed by the release of steam works in 2008 as well of the establishment of the Steam Cloud.

Each one of these steps leading to the industry backbone that Steam currently is for gamers and game developers alike.

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

Lyle Arends Before today, I never heard of Dan the Man, which is odd, seeing as I’m a denizen of the internet, but I blame my internet colleges for that. However, I was caught up soon enough and after watching a few episodes – or “levels” – I actually found I liked the charm, wit and even the more ludicrous aspects of the show and I got why it has so much love, support and more importantly: hype behind it (although not enough hype to reach me apparently).

So what is Dan the Man? Well it’s hard to explain, but I shall try: Dan the Man follows Dan – I’m assuming that’s his name – an 8-bit martial arts expert/video game hero and his adventures through his pixelated world as he fights ninjas (using an AK-47 while riding a jet), rescues princesses who gold dig him (pick up them gold coins, yo), parties with kings (and fight dragons) and learns how to love a girl from two dirty old men (hint: hit A+C and wiggle the joystick as fast as you can). It’s a mixed bag (of cats) but it’s damn enjoyable.

Now the reason it won me over is that although there are hundreds of thousands of YouTube users pumping up their own original content, this is just so incredibly well done and so outlandish that you can’t help but like it. It’s something you can’t really take seriously, but can’t resist watching at the same time and to me, that’s an impressive feat to achieve. Some people have been offended by the content, but it’s the internet and as that one dude from that one film about those other dudes who wanted to destroy one’s ring on a mountain top or something, “You have no power here.” Seriously, you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, so let us who do live in peace.

As I said, the show is completely stupid (for a lack of better worlds) but it’s just such a wonderfully animated and well produced feat of human ingenuity, that you’ll be a fool not to love it. Don’t not love it; baby don’t hurt me like that.

Watch it. Seriously.

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Gaming Arcades of the Future

By Salazar224

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Gaming arcades and lounges have been around since, well since as long as games have been around. Strictly speaking arcades began in the early 1900 with Midway’s amusement parks, with the first coin operated pinball machine debuting in the 1930s.

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

nd over that century games moved from electromechanical arcade games such as Sega’s Grand Prix, Duck Hunt and several other Sega releases, to electronic video games as the 1900s came to a close. The electronic games era was spear headed by Atari’s internationally famous game Pong in 1972, and furthered by the arrival and outstanding popularity of Taito’s Space Invaders in 1978.

Arcade game centres had, by the late 80’s integrated with traditional restaurant and bar environment giving a more chill area rather than strictly game and get out, signifying the beginning of the game lounges era. However, with the emergence of the home gaming consoles the end of arcade lounges drew close.

Today, in the US and other western countries faced a decline in popularity of arcade games leaving very few venues with the arcade experience and making arcade machines a thing of collectors. However in the East the arcade scene is still blooming, with games like Dance Dance Revolution still having raging popularity.

As for the future of gaming areas? More often than not the greatest change is the one that has occurred over time, without anyone’s notice. Gaming arcades came at the dawn of the video game era and are the precursors for the games we enjoy today, and could not help being limited to those 2 meter high boxes.

Arcades haven’t dead as such but rather our idea of how an arcade should be has died. The idea of paying to play games in a public space with your mates and having good old competitive fun has moved to a more diverse form. The ever so common LANing experience offered by internet cafes worldwide in tandem with the installation of consoles in family restaurants to keep the kids and teens occupied are the new world arcades.

(This also might be the only way I could or would play the xbox one, lol ^_^ ain’t nobody got time fo’ d’ose game registration fees )

Arcades have grown in leaps and bounds just like the rest of the gaming industry but nothing will replace the memories we have of going to the games arcade as a child.

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The Blue Exorcist is back and he has a new friend The unforgettable blue flames on the son of Satan, Rin Okumura set theaters ablaze this fall with the release of The Blue Exorcist Movie.

Based on the manga and anime that preceded it; no Exorcist or the more common English translation of Blue Exorcist is the story of Rin and his encounters at the True Cross Academy which is actually a branch of an international organisation trains future exorcist, as he swears to one day take revenge on Satan and all other demons for killing his adoptive father. The movie is centred around a festival that happens every 11 years at the academy. However while the preparations for the festival are underway a phantom train runs rampant Rin and his twin brother Yukio are sent to investigate but on the way they find a demon in the form of a child, will Rin exorcise it or protect it from True Cross Academy? The movie already had its debut in Japan reaching theatres on December 28, 2012. The English dubbed release is set to premiere this fall in the United States on August 17, 2013.

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pen and that keeps me going and maintains certain freshness.

When things stop being interesting I’ll probably move on or settle down or something – I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

I guess a recent experience where I found myself laughing out loud was on a trip to the Philippines in June to attend one of the biggest events there, ToyCon. In the capital city, Manila, the recent trend is construction of massive shopping malls going up around the city. The event is held in a convention style space at a shopping centre and draws 25,000 fans over 3 days. One of the biggest cosplayers in the Philippines and in South East Asia at the moment is Alodia Gosiengfiao who is very active in the cosplay scene and who also has started to work with a variety of game and media companies including being an announcer for Animax.

She is a friend of mine and I’ll help her out with her activities when she comes out to Japan. Through the WCS I help out a lot of cosplayers when they come out to Japan so I don’t think much of it. I was completely floored however when I experienced the near hysteria of fans when she moved through the event in the Philippines. We actually had to have about 15 staff members form a protective bubble when we moved from the staff room to her personal booth area. Think of the Beatles to a much lesser degree - that is the kind of sounds heard and faces I witnessed. I have had a lot of different cosplay experiences but that was something new for me, I was laughing as we moved but only I could hear with the screams of the crowd.

Ed Hoff: The British WCS representative speaks to us about Cosplay 1. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and what do you do?

My name is Ed Hoff, I am originally from Vancouver, Canada but have been living in Japan for about 15 years now. 13 of those years have been spent in Nagoya and I moved out to Tokyo last year. I have been an organizer with the World Cosplay Summit since its beginning in 2003 doing translation, online communications and general organizing. For work I am a university lecturer and am currently finishing my doctorate at Nagoya University focusing on the global popularity of Japanese Pop Culture with a focus on cosplay.

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2. How did you get involved with the World Cosplay Summit?

I had been living in Nagoya since 1999 and got to know some of the TV Aichi staff through friends including the founder of the event - Tokumaru Oguri. When the Nagoya Dragons baseball team won the pennant in 1999 I ran into everyone at the bar and they said they were going to go to Horikawa (a river in Nagoya) and jump in, which was a celebratory ritual for big sports wins in town. I thought I would like to see this very interesting Japanese cultural tradition and somehow I too got roped into jumping into the river too! That was how I got to know everyone at TV Aichi and the WCS started up as a project in the events department for the company. TV companies in Japan will do various events with the community to build stron-

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4. Do you cosplay?

Yes I do, I’ve been cosplaying for almost 5 years now. I found that more and more of my friends were cosplayers and going to events was the best way to meet up with them. I do more mecha construction and have cosplayed as Zaku from Gundam, Alphonse from Full Metal Alchemist and my most recent construction was Eva Type 00. A friend of mine, Goldy, is kind of a master of mecha construction in Japan and he has a workshop which he holds once a month in Akihabara, Tokyo which is open to all who are interested in learning new construction techniques. ger ties like operas, dog shows or massive flea markets. The WCS started up as one of those community based events with an eye on welcoming the world to the Nagoya area in 2005 for Aichi Expo and introducing more people to this often misunderstood youth culture. I had been doing various freelance translation and other work for TV Aichi since about 2000 and since I speak multiple languages and have always been interested in video games, comics and other geeky stuff it was a perfect fit.

3. What is the funniest cosplay moment you’ve experienced?

I’ve been to about 10 different countries participating at events with cosplay stages, each time is an amazing experience and I always have fun seeing new things.

There are lots of funny things that hap-

pieces and want to delve deeper then that’s fine too. At the end of the day costuming should be enjoyable in the way you want to enjoy it.

6. Sour worms or jelly babies?

It depends on my mood, I like both but I find I enjoy jelly babies more.

7. What do you believe is the key to hosting an international event like the WCS? I don’t differentiate too much between national and international events; all event creation is very similar so I will talk about it on a general event sponsorship level.

I don’t think there is one key, there are many factors involved that make it easier like experience, interest and knowledge. Working with staff that has experienced working at other conventions makes holding any event easier, this is a luxury we did not have when we started up the WCS 10 years ago and particularly the Championship stage which started in 2005. Knowledge in manga, anime and game titles is a prerequisite as you can’t really hold an event that dedicates itself to Japanese titles if you do not know what those titles are. This is not just knowledge but interest in those titles is also important to make the event run well.

If you are looking for the key I believe the best way to cover everything is ‘passion’. If you have passionate staff the whole event is enjoyable, for the WCS this means not only the points I mentioned above but also introducing things in Japan and passion for showing non-Japanese representatives around Japan. Above all for a cosplay event is a passion for cosplay and the great interpretations of the cosplayers and their performances. When you take this to a global level there needs to be an interest in respect for the customs of different countries and cultures as well. Basically if you have passion then even if your event makes small mistakes you can overcome them.

5. What do you believe inspires people to cosplay? 8. Where do you see this event in 5 years time?

That is a big question, and before you can really answer that you need to look at the question of what is cosplay? In Japan there are many people who cosplay or put on costumes for many different reasons. Especially in moving to Tokyo I have seen many shades of cosplay. If you widen the scope and look at the many forms of costuming around the world there are a multitude of reasons for starting and this question strikes at the heart of anyone who dons a costume, it is almost a question of someone’s identity and that is no easy question to answer.

I think the best initial inspiration is that it should be fun. Maybe you have friends who are going out and invite you to participate in an event, maybe you just watch your friends having fun or you take your own initial steps in cosplay. This is exhilarating experience and you may get into it. Some people are happy with a purchased Naruto headband or a Gintama cape. Others may want to explore further and start making their own costumes. This is all fine as it is related to what someone finds as enjoyable. If just wearing bunny ears is satisfying and you’ve never touched a sewing machine, that’s fine. If you aren’t satisfied with just one or two

5 years down the road, it’s hard to say. Hopefully married, maybe children. I will be teaching university but at what level and where I can’t say for sure. Maybe Japan, maybe in Canada, maybe in Europe. The WCS is an event I truly love however and I will always maintain a connection with the event even if I am living far away geographically. It’s hard to say for sure though.

9. How do you think an event like the WCS benefits the anime or gaming industry?

Cosplay is kind of like the flower of all fandom. When someone falls in love with an anime and can’t stop thinking about it you buy the game and maybe the manga or figures, there is perhaps nothing more extreme than become your favorite character yourself. In that sense, anime and game cosplay depends essentially on a healthy anime and game industry. Cosplaying your favorite character is a great promotion for anime and game characters and the WCS is a global venue for this promotion. There is great potential in this regard however there will always be a stigma as

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extreme fans not being normal. One discussion that is very active right now in Japan is whether cosplayers can be promotional figures for companies or projects.

Often models are chosen for these roles but about fans and their abilities is a hot

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@Baka_Sakura

www.facebook.com/iambakasakura

Dokidokicosplayshop.blogspot.com

Cosplaying.sakura@gmail.com

topic. On the other hand hardcore members of the cosplay community do not see models cosplaying as ‘true’ cosplay so it is a hot topic. I believe that there is a way forward however and I see a convergence of these perspectives down the road.

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Game Reviews and Previews

Kingdom Hearts III: Promised but not released:

Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Masō Kishin III After fan-boying for so many years over Neon Genesis Evangelion, Eureka 7, Gundam Seed and even to some extent Code Geass – the single thought of what it must be like to pilot those futuristic man-made humanoid weapons rings in all of our heads. So what could be better than a series of games dedicated to bringing the giant robot pilot experience to us? The latest sequel of that series that’s what! Namco Bandai unveiled Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Masō Kishin III the newest title in the Super Robot Wars series is scheduled to hit stores on August 22nd for the PS Vita and PS3, however will later be released for other platforms.

Although the jump in quality from its predecessor,Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Masou Kishin 2 Revelation of Evil God, will have diehard fans drooling and gamers new to the title blinded by trailer and sometime unsure of the genre. The Super Robot Wars saga as a story falls into the action, adventure and sci-fi categories but as a game the Super Robot Wars is a tactics game. Truth be told I didn’t know that they still made tactics games, which were essentially the love child of turned based J-RPGs and strategy games. Giving you a large number of interesting characters to develop get attached to each with their own respective strengths and weaknesses, moving them over the terrain like chess pieces in a 3D rendered chessboard world with wellchoreographed cinematic fights.

All in all if it floats your boat, get keen.

Salazar224 King of hearts 3 Release: Unconfirmed Developer(s): Square Enix Publisher(s): Square Enix Distributor(s): Disney Interactive Studios Platform(s): PlayStation 4 Xbox One Genre(s): Action role-playing

Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Masō Kishin III Released: August 22 Developer(s): Banpresto, Winkysoft Publisher(s): JP Namco Bandai, Banpresto NA Atlus Platform(s): PlayStation 3, PS Vita Genre(s): Tactical, role-playing game

Android Games: Zombie Smasher Due to my incredibly busy schedule and the lack of a gaming PC I haven’t been getting as much gaming as I would like. But there is one thing that has been a saving grace for me and that is my Android phone. Recently I have been playing a lot of Android games and one the one I enjoy the most at the moment is a game called ZOMBIE SMASHEr!! While the game is not all that complex it is hours of fun as you tap away at your screen trying to sqash as many zombies as possible. As you level up the zombies become more difficult to get with each type of zombie having it’s own unique way of dying. Some of them are fas, some of them are big and some of them even have little baby zombies that run off after you kill the mothers. Quite often I found myself jumping around screaming when a hord comes out and destroys me. It may not be the best game ever but it sure is a fun way to waste some time while waiting in the doctors office.

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Zombie Smasher Released: 2011-10-05 Platform(s): Android Devices Genre(s): Puzzle games

Fans where left at a place none of us like to be at the end of a game: a cliff hanger. When Kingdom Hearts II ended at a high note, fans wanted more. Much to their delight, a follow up title was announced by Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura. However, much to the disappointment of a lot of fans, nothing ever happened to make this title a reality.

Several fan sites speculated about a release for the Wii-U, but nothing concrete appeared from Square Enix’s side.

At E3 2012 Nomura said that perhaps the announcement for the release was perhaps a little pre-mature. At E3 2013 he was noted saying that the title was definitely on their schedule, but they were paying more attention to other titles at the moment, notably Final Fantasy XV. He did however go on to say that the title was being planned for on release of the Xbox One as well as the PS4 platforms, making it the first time Kingdom Hearts goes to a Microsoft gaming module.

Most of the Kingdom Hearts titles after KHII were spin offs, for the most part following the story of Sora and Riku.

It’s an interesting blend of Square Enix characters and Disney characters meshed together in a single game. Now that Disney has acquired Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, fans can expect characters from those franchises to maybe put in an appearance in the next release. Disney is the main honcho for giving permission for use of these new acquisitions though, so hold thumbs and hope I guess?

Nomura has stated that the art and game mechanics are being re-looked at, since the original titles were paintbrush models. From interesting bits like NPC interfering in battles, and summoning making a return, KH III promises to be an interesting title anyway you look at it. Now we just hope that Square Enix sticks to their release schedule. In all fairness though, a release date has not been announced as of yet, and we all know that if Square Enix has a hand in it, the game will probably be gold.

Beleran

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MADE BY D AND D FANS FOR D AND D FANS:

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

For anyone who has dedicated a piece of their life to World of Warcraft, finding a decent MMORPG to follow up is really hard. WoW is a truly polished masterpiece, leaving very little room for any other fantasy online game to flourish and find a player base. True, WoW has been losing a lot of players of later because their expansions are always just more of the same. Which brings me to question, what makes Neverwinter so unique for me to spend time playing it?

To begin with, let me just say that the game is currently still in open beta, and has not officially been released. Despite this, it is remarkably well done and playing the game is addictive. Of course, I always play rogue type characters and it was no different this time. The rogue gameplay feels a lot like the rogue class in Dragon Age 2, which was probably my all time favourite playing as this class. Blinking around, backstabbing, critical hits, you name it, the rogue has it. Versatility is the idea behind the character and it is well implemented.

Companions is a very nice addition to the genre, sort of like in Diablo. They run with you and help heal or bash stuff, level themselves and have a little customization to make them unique to your char. Of course, the online shop has some unique companions to buy with real cash, leaving me hoping that there will be at least a couple of rare ones in game par the basic ones you start off with.

Neverwinter Online Beta comes to life Guildwars had a fantastic balance here because their store always had interesting tidbits in, but it never cost you an arm and leg just to buy l33t gear or profession mats to gain an advantage.

The world is still a little limited, but the areas that are there will take you all the way to level 60, if I am not mistaken that is the max level for the initial release. The game world is a little small, but hopefully they will expand it by the time the game hits the shelves. The crafting system is quite interesting though. It is always interesting to see the different approach online games take to the crafting system. Neverwinter took a slice out of EVE’s book when they made the crafting system.

You hire workers (skinners, tailors etc) to do the crafting for you. You supply the materials, as always, and they will take a set amount of time (real time, not game time) to craft you your items. It’s a little different than Eve, but it still remains pretty unique in its own sense.

Lastly, the auction house in the game is a little bit of a letdown. After having spent hours upon hours enjoying the auction houses of WoW and GW2, I must say that Neverwinter’s AH is a little lackluster. Largely because the currency you can trade for in diamonds, and not gold. Diamonds are super easy to get, gold, well not so much. I’d much prefer having the ability to trade for gold on the AH, it just feels better to have the clink in your pocket to a currency that means diddly for the important things in game.

Character development takes a page out of the older Neverwinter titles, picking traits on both heroic and paragon levels.

What is interesting though is the hint of different paragon abilities that you will be able to choose, hopefully when the game is released. For now, each class has only one paragon tree. About the only downside I can see to this gem is the online store. It needs a lot of work, and they could really take some advice from the Guild wars franchise. If you pay money to have an advantage in game, you will lose a lot of fanbase.

Keep the store, but put things in there that do not have a direct effect on your gameplay. It is like saying: “Well you don’t have to pay a cent to play the game, but if you really want to be a cut above the rest, then you have to show me the money...”

Beleran.

Overall I would say that it needs a bit of polish, but I am already looking forward to the final release. It should be well worth playing this one!

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Final Fantasy XIV: A realm reborn Is Finally Here Since it’s announcement in 2008 fans have been waiting with baited breath for this game.

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ell, if you were like me when I heard the initial release of FFXIV, you would probably have said something like : “FINALLY!!! Final fantasy returns to PC!!! Plus it’s a MMO to boot. This has gotta be a winner!” Wow, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sure, the game had that Final Fantasy touch to it, but that was unfortunately where it stopped. The client was buggy, the download manager was awful, the subscription was a nightmare to get working, the quests were a joke, and don’t even get me started on the combat mechanics. All in all, I must’ve played three, maybe four hours before I uninstalled it. A low point for all Final Fantasy addicts.

When I got a mail from Square Enix regarding the closed beta for “A Realm Reborn”, I was dubious to say the least.

But, well I’m of the opinion that if you want a hand, however small, in game improvements, then the beta phase is where to do it. Obviously, the major changes and decisions are still made by Square Enix, but it’s good to know that they have a sympathetic ear to the player needs. So, I signed on for the closed beta, and I must admit, I could not have been happier. To be frank, I am still under constraint as to specifics in game design, so I am happy to share my experiences, but unfortunately cannot yet do specifics.

For a beta it ran remarkably smooth, I didn’t have a sin-

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gle client crash. Oh sure, the servers where quite busy when they were opened for testing, but that was to be expected. The horrible lag from the original game was smoothed out, the characters handled smoothly. The combat system handled soooo much better. Several improvements were made from the time when I last played, so much so, that I hardly recognized the game as an expansion of the original. The story line (which started in the same place where I originally started) was entertaining and easy to follow. The towns were pretty crowded for a beta, but the servers handled the load like a boss. Out in the field the quests were interesting, but pretty much the same as any

other MMO. Kill that,

collect this, bla bla bla. You know what I mean. I unfortunately

didn’t try my hand at several aspects

of the game, for instance dungeons or

some of the land professions. I think I will

do those after the final release.

The gameplay, world interaction and quest system is comparable to WoW and GW2. It’s fun, entertaining and gripping. Everything a quality MMO should be. The game is currently in open beta with the last couple of stress tests, load tests and bugs being sorted out. So the final release is probably not too far off. Square Enix has announced that for those of you who purchased the original game, the ex-

pansion would be free to download, and I think you will be able to keep any of your original characters from FFXIV. I for one really hope that this title renews the confidence in other players that love the Final Fantasy series as much as I do. Obviously I am hoping for some epic end game content, the cream of the crop for any MMO title. Grinding is awful, but crappy end game is the worst. More than one MMO has been scrapped off my list for one of those two reasons.

If any of those Square Enix buggers happen to read this, then please, please, please , like PRETTY please don’t give up on using the PC as a viable platform for Final Fantasy.

For those of us who do not happen to own a PS or XBOX etc, the PC is our link to gaming and we would love to have Final Fantasy be a part of that.

Ok, finished ranting :) All I can add is that for those of you unfortunate peeps who had the misfortune of playing FFXIV, try “A Realm Reborn”. As the title suggests, the game has been reborn and is so much better than its prequel.

Beleran

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atman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City broke the mould and became two of the most successfully adapted/licensed superhero games in the history of gaming and even years later, other games are still trying (and mostly failing) to replicate the winning formula that Rocksteady have seemingly perfected. But a shadow loomed on the horizon that could disrupt this streak; that could doom the franchise and undo almost five years of hard work… Yes, dear reader, I’m talking about Batman: Arkham Origins… The title that Arkhamites have lit torches and bought pitchforks for… And also stylish straw hats.

What exactly is Arkham Origins, though? Set five years before the events of the first game, Arkham Origins follows a fresh-faced Batman more or less at the start of his crime fighting career as the sadistic crime-boss, Black Mask, sets a massive $50 million bounty on his head because of his interference in mob business and showing them they aren’t as untouchable as they think. This bounty attracts eight of the deadliest assassins in the DC universe including Deathstroke, Deadshot and Bane, who descend on Gotham on Christmas Eve to try and kill the bats and claim this prize.

Players will be returning to a very different looking Gotham City to what they’ve become accustomed to. This time around, the snowswept Gotham will be split into two major areas, namely Old Gotham and New Gotham that combined, will be twice as big as Arkham City. Old Gotham will be the Gothic-like area that was seen in Arkham City that may or may not drudge up horribly painful memories involving knife wielding crack-heads for some, but it obviously won’t be restricted by walled-

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off areas nor have any other of the previous restrictions as seen in Arkham City. New Gotham is going to be the newer area with massive skyscrapers (that players will be able to scale while they hopefully play the Mission Impossible theme) and will have a much more modern aesthetic. Both “islands” will be fully explorable and although it is going to be familiar to returning players, it will still offer something a little different.

The characters will also be very different this time around especially when it comes to the relationships between each. For instance, Batman (who will be voiced by Roger Craig Smith), although experienced, is new in Gotham and people – criminals and police alike – are not sure what to make of him. They do not know if he is just a mad man, a superhuman force or something more supernatural.

For now, Batman has merely dealt with normal thugs and criminals, but it’s on Christmas Eve that he is introduced to many of his rogue’s gallery for the first time, so players will be able to see his first introductions to characters such as Bane and the iconic Joker (with Troy Baker taking over as voice actor this time) and they will get to see how these relationships came to be what they are in the previous games.

We’ll also get to see younger versions of other characters like police Captain Jim Gordon, who isn’t Batman’s ally, but instead, heading the task force put together to actually bring him down. This dynamic is what will hopefully really set Arkham Origins apart from the other games, because we aren’t going to see characters in their prime or like we’re used to, but rather new takes and versions that will be pretty interesting to experience first-hand.

Warner Bros. Games Montreal know full well the legacy they’re taking on and because of this, when it comes to game mechanics (es-

The Bat is back once again for another round of ass kicking. pecially the revamped Detective Mode that allows you to recreate crime scenes to find out exactly happened), the combat, gadget and travel systems are all basically the same, although players will find them somewhat enhanced. For instance, since Gotham is so massive that getting around on foot, cape or gadget will be a lengthy process, so why not just call the Batwing to zoom across the polluted Gotham skies? But some areas will be blocked off by transmitters that you’ll need to destroy in order to unlock the fast travel option in that area.

The combat system will see all the familiar elements return such as counters, stuns and (most importantly) gadgets, but fights will be more fast paced and players will also earn XP when the last enemy hits the ground. The more varied you are during combat – and the game will let you know exactly how you did after each fight – will result in a larger XP gain that you can use to customize Batman and turn him into the Dark Knight you want. The upgrade system hasn’t been showcased in full yet, but from what has been revealed, there will definitely be light RPG elements involved and as I mentioned, you can upgrade Batman in which ever area you think would benefit you more. So are you going to stealth take down all those thugs or drop down and be all: “’Sup? I’m Batman, yo.”

Gadgets will again be heavily used throughout the game and yes, some familiar ones will be returning, but obviously, you’ll be seeing a bunch of new ones. One gadget that has been shown is the new Remote Batclaw which you can use to create tightropes or to tether things

to each other. So you could slam two enemies into one another or tie an enemy to a hazardous environmental object and destroy it to knock them out.

Speaking of knocking out thugs, the usual suspects of gun totting gangsters and other melee combat specialists will feature again, but there will be new additions in the form of the Armoured Enforcer and the Martial Artist. The Armoured Enforcer is the stereotypical brute, but he’ll be clad in armour which you’ll need to remove before you can divorce him from his teeth with a well-placed roundhouse to the jaw.

The Martial Artist is the interesting addition here because this nimble little bastard has the ability to counter your attacks and more interestingly, your counters. Battles with them will undoubtedly be fast paced with you countering their counter which is a counter of your counter that was a counter that they countered with their own counter of your counter. So basically, you’ll be able to counter counters while countering a counter’s counter.

Even though Rocksteady aren’t handling the game, they have given the developers, Warner Bros. Games Montreal, their full blessings, which means that us Arkhamites can rest easy.

From what they have shown, Arkham Origins is sticking to the same formula that made the previous games so successful with a very high level of polish added. Time will tell if the game is successful, but right now, it looks like it very well will be. Arkham Origins will be coming out on October 25th, 2013 to PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC and you better have your preorder in… Or else I, clad in the cheapest Batman suits I can find, will track you down…

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Indie Games. Indie Games Every Where.

The term Indie game has long been a source of debate among my friends and I, many have the belief that most Indie games are made by some one’s two year old and that they are not worth the DL time it to get the game, while others are of the opinion that some of the best games they have ever played come out of the Indie game genre.

I personally love Indie games. I find most of them refreshing and easy to get comfortable with. The developers go out of their way to create something new rather than just releasing a new version of an old title, as has been the fashion lately with the big gaming companies.

So why then do people often shun Indie games in favour of games created by popular names like EA and Ubisoft?

Well the way I see it, it all comes down to ignorance. I too was an Indie game hater until the day that I discovered one of my favourite games of all time, Limbo. Up until that point (and I am ashamed to admit

it) I believed that Indie games were for Hipsters who wanted to look cool because they played low budget, bad graphics games for the supposedly deep story line.

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and completely over look it.

So today I am here to fill people in on one of the better gaming genres available for play. What are Indie games?

List of Indie games: Trine and Trine 2 The Cave Torchlight2 Path of Exile Unity of Command Machinarium

Well simple and Indie game is an independent game created by a team or studio generally with a low budge. Due to the higher profit margin Indie games are also generally released online only. The indie game scene started on PCs, where it remains prominent. Indie games saw a rise via shareware distribution in the early 1990s. However, as technology advanced, requirements and high user expectations made indie gaming less prominent and modern video games exceeded the ability of a single developer to produce.

Indie gaming industry has a constantly growing interest and popularity seeing a steep rise in the latter half of the 2000s decade with the expansion of Internet, which allowed games to be distributed online and moving beyond retail sales.

This allowed for both developers to publish and players to download such games from platforms like Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, or OnLive. Similarly, developers have access to tools like Adobe Flash.

Simply put any one can create an Indie game, and they do. Thanx to Thatgamecompany we have games like Journey and Flower, rated two of the most beautiful games available on the market. And on behalf of Indie Gamers every where I would like to thank the developers who put in so much time and effort into creating such amazing games for us to enjoy.

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Saints Row IV Review The US President must save the Earth from alien overlord Zinyak using an arsenal of superpowers and strange weapons in the wildest open world game ever.

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aints Row 1 and 2 were mocked and scrutinized for being Grand Theft Auto knock offs with their similar gameplay , game mechanics and themes.

Yes it had its own little cult following, but still, it was struggling to make a splash in the Open World genre. That is until Saints Row the Third came along and just completely changed the game… literally. The game moved from a serious tone to a completely over-the-top one that finally distanced itself from, well, every other game and although this new approach alienated some of its dedicated fans, it gained many more and the franchised cut out its own little niche. Now Saints Row IV is inbound and it looks to take the already over-the-top franchise and launch it into space… again… and literally.

In Saints Row the Third, the Saints were massive celebrities and living it up, until their world came crashing down and they spent the game trying to get back on top.

Saints Row IV sees the Saints in the next logical position: running the United States of America. That’s right, when you start the game up, you the player will find yourself the president (with the power to cure cancer and end world hunger) on his/her way to address the world, but things immediately go South (or North if you’re living in the South) as you find your country – your world – invaded by… an intergalactic alien menace known as the Zin which is lead by their evil leader named Zinyak.

Although you fight bravely and take many of those illegal scum bastards (it’s okay, I’m a professional so I’m allowed to use that word) down, you’re ultimately captured and imprisoned in a Matrix-like virtual world. But you’re a leader of the Saints and this isn’t going to keep

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you down and this is where the game gets interesting as you try to escape this virtual nightmare and get even with your alien captors. But instead of making use of mere weapons, you’re going to get upgraded with a plethora of superpowers that is going to help you [censored] some [censored] up.

Saints Row IV essentially started off as DLC for Saints Row the Third, but the game evolved into such a monster of a project and the team over at Volition decided to rather expand on it and turn it into its own full game.

Although it uses basically the same core mechanics of its predecessor, the team have polished it up significantly and returning players will find a better and more refined experience. For instance, you will have access to a wider range of customization options that are even crazier this time around and spans from vehicles to clothes to the

player to even weapons. Instead of just upgrading your guns, you can actually change their appearance and kill the Zin with style. For instance, you can turn your rocket launcher into a guitar case and be all El Mariachi on your intergalactic foes. And speaking of guns, there is an extended selection this time with new weapons that include alien variations of normal weapons, the Dubstep gun that makes people dance themselves to death, the Disintegrator (… it disintegrates stuff… really now) and the Abductor, which sucks whatever you’re point at (and everything around it) into the sky never to be seen again… until they land a few city blocks away.

But as I mentioned, the biggest new addition to the game is the superpowers your character gets. You’ll be able to toss objects and people (and objects into people) around with your mind, run at extreme speeds, leap buildings in single bound, freeze people and objects (and then throw objects into frozen people) and other superhero-y/supervillain-y things. These will be easy to use and you can combine them with your physical arsenal to cause 7 types of digital hell.

With an even more absurd plot and writing, our favourite Saints returning, new weapons, superpowers and an alien menace to use them on, Saints Row IV is going to be one of the craziest games you’ll slip into your console (or PC). By the time you read this, it should be out and right now, reviews are nothing but positive. So make sure your pre-order is in and prepare to save the world… digital world; Godspeed, soldier. Godspeed.

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

Writers Rant The Hype Train: The Killer, The Destroyer, The Misunderstood Lyle Arends

Its origins are unknown. Some have said that it has been around since before mankind’s creation, hiding in the shadows without direction… until we gave it purpose.

As I said, its origins are unknown, but there have been records – told by the elderly of elders to the few who want to listen in tongues that even fewer still speak – that a god whose name has been long forgotten to early man, went mad and forged a beast from the finest metals found in the worst of nightmares. This creation was meant to give hope and bring the god to the fields of Elysium, but his creation turned on him and lead him to his destruction. Set free onto the world, it travelled the globe promising hope – and sometimes even delivering it – but more times than not, it sent countless numbers to their doom. … That’s a whole bunch of nonsense – but if you’re wondering what the Hype Train actually is, it is literally the hype that a certain product garners up until its release. It spans from films to games to any other product that you can think of and nothing is exempt… Nothing. So why am I calling it a killer? Well, the problem with the Hype Train is that sometimes it gains too much momentum and crashes at its destination and has had many, many victims. The recent list includes Pacific Rim, Man of Steel, Aliens: Colonial Marines, The Hangover Part III and SimCity, just to name a few. These innocent games and films simply exist, but their existence attracts fans and these fans attract hype and hype attracts the hype train; chum in the water.

The unknowing fans board this demon spawn and ride it to what they think is going to be a pleasant conclusion, but what really happens is the train crashing in a brutal wreck of twisted metal and broken dreams.

The problem here is that the fans blames the train when it crashes while it was them who willingly boarded it. But it’s nobody’s fault in truth. You can’t blame fans when they get excited for something and you can blame Hype for getting stronger as it’s fed.

Fans willingly board the train and hell, some even drive it (like I’m doing for Grand Theft Auto V) yet when it crashes and burns, some of those very same fans – the lucky survivors – act like it wasn’t their fault; they were the victims. But the truth of the hype train is that it is built by these fans and whatever ending it takes them to is not its fault. Hype is a deadly thing that is unavoidable, but it shouldn’t be avoided. We can tame this beast and use it for the greater good. Hype can help products immensely as much as they can destroy them.

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Initially, I damned Warm Bodies when I heard the concept thanks to Twilight alienating the classic monster genre and I thought this film would be doing the same, but with each trailer, I grew more impressed and actually looked forward to it. For the most part, my curiosity was sated because it turned out that Warm Bodies isn’t as bad as I initially thought.

The film follows a zombie called R, who is different from the rest as he seemingly has a conscious (and internal monologues which are the highlight of the film) and questions his existence as one of the undead. Early on, he and a group of zombies find and attack a group of survivors, but he falls in love with one of them and actually saves her from the rest. The story moves forward from there as he and this girl form a bond that eventually leads to a surprising conclusion.

The plot is driven by – in relation to the story – great acting (aside from occasionally going over the top) and everything from the cinematography to the audio mixing is done well. The only hiccup will be the CGI and other visual effects that aren’t that exceptionally rendered. They aren’t exactly bad, but don’t expect to see The Walking Dead level zombie effects here. But since the film doesn’t really focus on gore, you quickly forget about that little issue.

On Blu-Ray, the film has undergone some heavy colour grading, but where-

as this would mean it loses some of its visual quality, it works really well here.

Scenes with zombies have a bluish hue that feels cold and eerie, but then you get the scenes – and there are a few of them – where there are flashbacks to a more innocent, zombie-free time and these are warm, golden and feel happy and peaceful. It’s an impressive use of colour grading that adds beautifully to the film.

As I mentioned, the audio mixing is fantastic as well and the film is a talkheavy one, so voices and dialogue are presents clearly and hold up pristinely but there is no loss in clarity in the more action-heavy sequences. Plus with a great (excellent) sound track, the audio section of the film is one of the strongest out there.

Although the plot sounds a bit odd, the film works surprisingly well. And even though it’s about zombies, there is very little gore and violence. It’s more about the humour and romance which blossoms between the two leads.

The film might be an adaptation of a book of the same name, but it does the source material proud and delivers a funny, sweet and charming end product that is perfect for a date night with the actors providing a great performance and with an impressive accompanying sound track, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Rating: 3 ½ Stars.

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Gen 4 Consoles and the

Gaming Industry

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How do the Next Gen consoles affect gaming studios right now?

Lyle Arends 2013 saw the official announcement of the next generation.

Sony and Microsoft revealed the Playstation 4 and Xbox One respectively and the world of gaming was changed once again as we saw what the future held… And it was glorious… But glory often comes at a price.

Now regardless of which console is your prefer, you can’t deny that the current generation took a while to find its legs. If you look at games released during the launch of this generation compared to say, games released this year, you’ll see a massive leap in terms of gameplay and the visual presentation. Yes, it took a while for developers and studios to find their groove, but when they did, they created all kinds of magic. But with the next generation looming on the horizon, the question of whether this is going to happen again arises. Will developers and studios stumble and fall before they take off running, or is it going to be a different case this time around?

The problem with the last generation was the leap that developers and studios had to take. Some fell and some barely made it and this was due to the alien nature of what they had to work with and you could tell by some of the games made that they were overwhelmed. It’s like giving a 5 year old a million dollars: they’re going to know what they want to do with it, but it’s not necessarily going to be the right thing.

But personally, I don’t think that’s going to

happen again.

Developers have found their feet and

most are squeezing every last drop

of potential out of the current gen

and the power that the

next gen consoles

provide is

no longer frightening. It’s not uncommon to hear developers and studios saying they had to cut features or trim the game because of the limits of the current gen consoles which means the launch games of the next gen are going to be something to marvel at.

Without sounding like a fanboy (but I am), Sony especially have designed the PS4 with developers in mind and the console will be much easier to develop for. It received nothing but praise when it was unleashed and the majority of this praise came from the developers and studios themselves, which tells you something right there.

They’ve evolved from artists who were unsure of what to do with the tools they had to artists who have mastered their tools and are looking for that next challenge. This could be attributed to the next gen because they know that they have to go into this new field in their best form and the only way to do that is to do the best they can do with the current gen. So perhaps inadvertently, the pressure to make the best type of games for the next gen has pushed them to make better games now, which you can see on titles like The Last of Us, which alone looks next gen.

So is the next generation of gaming a good or a bad thing? If you asked me this a decade ago, I would have said that it was a bad thing (and I would have been right for a few years) but now… I would say it’s a good thing. Developers and studios are taking that next leap, but it looks like they’re sticking the landing as you can tell from the videos and previews of the next gen games released so far. That pressure and trepidation might still be there, but they know how to handle and overcome it and because of this, what we’re going to get at the end of the day isn’t going to be a train-wreck. The future is just over the horizon and I can’t wait until it arrives… However, the question of whether I can afford it is another question...

Somebody sponsor me.

Is the next generation of gaming a good or a bad thing for the gaming industry?

Emotiv Insite

Going Beyond the Next Generation of Technology All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

“The human brain, our most advanced organ, is an intricate and complex network of connections. Largely enigmatic, it’s our own personal machine that can extract patterns from overwhelming amounts of data.

At Emotiv, we are pushing the frontier of gaining insights into the brain.”

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Writers Rant Emotiv Insight. The new generation of digital interface

that you can understand. Designed for everyday use, Insight has advanced electronics that are fully optiAfter announcing the EPOC and EEG systems, Emotiv mised to produce clean, robust signals any time, anychanged the way we see and interface with Technol- where. ogy. Now a year later they are releasing yet another It is being used a monitoring device that allows one to revolutionary piece of technology know as the Emotiv track emotions and train your brain, boosting cognitive Insight. Much like the EPOC and EEG this device tracks control and emotional wellness. Sound like something and translates the electrical impulses in your brain al- out of a Sci-fi movie? Well it is true. And while many lowing you to control a digital environment with the my be scared of such technology, this could really be power of your mind. However it has been refined to a step forward for humans in understanding our own sense emotions and commands better and faster. emotional states. Imagine a device that could warn Emotiv Insight is a sleek, 5 channel, wireless headset you when you are taking too much strain or allow you that records your brainwaves and translates them into to recognise when some one was upset. meaningful data that no only a pc can understand but “The EMOTIV INSIGHT is the only device on the market to offer 5 EEG sensors and 2 reference sensors, which provides useful coverage of key sites around the cerebral cortex: frontal cortex (executive functions), Tan Le, Founder and CEO of Emotiv Life sciparieto-temporal (auditory, spatial/co-ordination), and ences: The inspiration to develop the Emooccipital (visual). This spatial resolution is crucial to tiv Insight came from our desire to empower getting high resolution EEG data that will allow you to ourselves and others to understand their own receive more in depth information on your brain activbrain and gain insights into how to improve ity. Also, Research Edition Users will have access to the their own cognitive fitness and performance. raw EEG data.”

We also wanted to create innovative technoloWhich means that we as humans are that much closer gies that are affordable and easy to use in orto understanding the inner workings of the mind and der to accelerate brain research globally why people react to things so differently.

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History and its relevance in today’s society Dale Hendricks

Something interesting that many people don’t know about me is that I have a huge knowledge on Japanese history – specifically the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States era). Need proof? In 1560, Oda Nobunaga faced a large and powerful Imagawa army at Okehazama. Feeling confident that they already won the battle, the Imagawa army partied and danced the night away. Seizing opportunity from this, Nobunaga led a cavalry charge into the Imagawa camp and took out the majority of Yoshimoto’s army.

The Imagawa did not see it coming and Nobunaga was able to capture Yoshimoto’s head. This battle made Nobunaga’s reputation known throughout Japan afterwards.

Hope you enjoyed that little history lesson.

History is a way for us to reflect on past events and to see how things turned out the way they did and how they made an impact in today’s world. Think about it, if Tokugawa Ieyasu did not win the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Japan would probably have been a different place today. If Hitler won World War 2, the world would be a much different place. History is also a way for us to correct the wrongs people made in the past so that we can live in a better world today and in the future.

There are some anime out there that are based on either Sengoku or Edo Japan. These days, most anime, which feature real life characters from history, present them in the opposite gender. An example of this is Oda Nobuna no Yabou. The story is essentially based on Nobunaga’s conquest to unite Japan but instead Nobunaga is renamed Nobuna and all of the generals, including Nobuna, are girls. This is not a bad thing, in a way. They do it for entertainment purposes, I know, but recently it has become a bit tedious. There are too many anime today that follow the formula of changing the historical figures to girls. It doesn’t do the real life characters and the story justice.

Something else that I also noticed is that it’s become harder to find decent historical anime today.

Historical anime is not a bad thing. Changing real life historical characters to girls isn’t a bad thing either, but if the formula is used over and over again, it becomes stale.

Like they say, too many cooks spoil the broth.

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Writers Rant

The Tablet Debate Marco Gio Cocomello

So what is the big deal about gaming on a tablet, and why do people who use tablets swear that consoles will die? I get asked this every so often, and it’s a debate worth debating.

Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, and Infinity Blade, these are just a few of the games you can get on your tablet, and yes they are awesome games, I cannot stand angry Birds, but the rest are pick up and play titles. These games fill your gaming urges when you need a little portable gaming time. These games also have zero depth and run on minimal hardware requirements, they also cost next to nothing, and a quick to download and play.

Gears of War, Uncharted 3, and Gran Turismo, these are a few of the titles that you can play on your console, in all their full HD glory they deliver amazing gaming experiences, with unprecedented depth and emotional connection. These games run on extremely powerful hardware requirements, cost a fortune, and will take you quite a while to download.

With millions of games available on your App Store, and hundreds on your console store, or retail store how do we know what side we support? It’s easy, what gaming experiences do you prefer, a casual on the moment, quick play gaming experience or a story and content driven, long term commitment title? I don’t mind, I do prefer console games, but every now and then I enjoy playing a couple of stages of Cut the Rope. Do I get the same satisfaction I get while I am getting head shots and exploring beautiful ruins? No, but it’s got something about it.

The main argument is that consoles will die and tablets will rule all, but will that ever happen? Will the hardcore gamers abandon their trophy and achievements for a more casual experience on the go? I don’t think so, I believe there will

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always be a market that demands the higher quality game, a market that demands sequels from the biggest gaming franchises.

Yes there are many challenges that consoles face in today’s times, cloud gaming, some people believe that tablets will be as powerful as consoles soon. But if we look at cloud gaming, its looks all fun and all streaming your consoles games to your tablet, but do we have the infrastructure to support this rollout. Most importantly do the developers want to risk the exclusivity of a title based on cloud processing when it will only be playable in certain parts of the word? The fact is we are not ready, and I don’t want to play my console games on a touch screen tablet, I enjoy beautiful visuals and high end gameplay on my 50” LED. I don’t want that to ever change.

The tablet becoming powerful saga is ridiculous, look at Razers gaming tablet, its looks pretty costs a kidney and can run Dishonored on the lowest graphic setting. A dedicated gaming console has more space and architecture to out preform any tablet on the market. A tiny little A5 chip will never outperform an 8GB DDR 5 console, with a AMD processor and a 500GB hard drive to store all your games. It’s not possible, and we should remember that sometimes the smaller the hardware the more expensive.

Living in a pre-determined world Dale Hendricks

The concept of individuality has been a debatable topic for many years now. Some people wonder whether we can truly be ourselves when we live in a world where society dictates to us what is acceptable and what is not.

Sometimes people who love showing their individuality are shunned upon by other because they don’t fit into the norm of society. They’re usual classed as “Outcasts.”

Otaku, in general, have been the subject of being called “Outcasts.” Many people today don’t know who their true selves are because they go with the flow of society.

I am one of those people who haven’t found themselves yet. I, being an introvert, don’t usually show much of my individuality to others because I am always scared of being judged by people for not being “normal.” Whether we like it or not, we all get judged for our actions. It’s a fact of life. Think about it this way, when we meet someone for the first time our first impressions of them always determine how we act the next time we see them.

Our futures seem to be decided by society rather than ourselves. There is always pressure on us to do things that make others happy and not ourselves. It is so hard to find individuality today. Most people are just basically carbon copies of others, except in a different body. Society is like a machine, it runs on people accepting the norm of society and following its set rules. When there is someone who shows individuality and oppresses society, there is a disturbance in the running of the machine and it sends out something to fix the disturbance. It’s a long and hard battle for us to find our true selves, but as we progress through our respective lives we start to learn more about ourselves than we thought.

I will always stick to console and PC gaming, its promises a rich detailed gaming experience, worth your buck. If the day comes when we will play our games on a tablet, then so be it, but by the look of the industry, all the gaming giants are implementing this feature into their console, best of both worlds.

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Writers Rant Let Geeks be Geeks Ed

As I mentioned before the geek culture in SA is growing and with growth comes teething problems, now of course no community is without it’s faults. People will always have issues with one another and there will always be the odd moron who likes to ruin every bodies fun but that is no cause to become childish about things.

We as the gaming and anime community have always be the peaceful sort who accept people despite their misgivings, because we to are the out casts. The geek kids who sit in their rooms gaming, or reading, or drawing. We live in a fantasy world of our own surrounded by the things we love and when we find another like us we celebrate. Or at least we used to. Since the industry has begun it’s steady boom we have become more popular as a culture. Being a geek is the in thing, the rest of the world has come to recognise our subtle ways and have tried to adopt them and while it is hard for us to accept their sudden invasion this does no call for us to start behaving like elitist prudes who believe that they are special because they know every episode of bleach.

Like with any invasion we feel the need to fight back. To stop our assaulters from changing our environment, and because we are geek we are not used to change but I say let them. We will still be the people we have always been and that is all that matters.

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Tech lost in time:

E

ver so often, you read about amazing new innovations in the advancement of technology. You think to yourself: “It is going to be so amazing when this hits the market, I can’t wait to get my hands on this.” Then without any explanation, it goes AWOL. No news, no explanation, just poof... all gone.

The question is: why? Why did it go, well to wherever missing tech goes? Did a major corporation decide to buy up the concept and hide it for a future project? Maybe they gobbled it up to squash it because it will do major damage to their sales? Maybe the people who were working on it simply ran out of funding. Who knows... Regardless, all of us has had some knowledge of something like this occurring. We would like to take a look at some of the amazing things that have come and gone without really coming to light.

In 2003 there was two really cool ideas regarding developments in CPU and CPU cooling. As some of you may recall, there were problems with the cooling solutions for the silicon based CPUs at the time. A little interesting fact for those of you who didn’t know, microwaves cook food at roughly 900Mhz. A simple CPU fan needs to keep your CPU at below 60 degrees Celsius. Therefore it became hard to keep CPU temperatures down whilst increasing CPU speed. Today’s processors can do well over 16Ghz, a barrier that was overcome with the use of multiple cores. So, a couple of ideas were thrown around to see if they have other options other than silicon based CPU’s. Amongst the most interesting ones, was the idea to change the CPU core to carbon based, or more simply, making it out of diamond. It could disperse heat far more efficiently than silicon(which is basically sand, or the stuff your nails are made of) thereby keeping the CPU cool whilst maintaining far higher speeds. I’m talking in the region around 50-60 GHz speeds. That is with a single

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core! Imagine running those in hex or octal configurations like the ones we have today! They were actually testing these cores ten years ago. Imagine the progress in CPU speeds had the idea not just vanished.

The second idea they were testing was actually a spinoff of water-cooling systems. The idea was to use liquid nitrogen to keep the CPU really, really, really cold. Overclockers can certainly see the advantages of this. As they did in 2002... For a little more technical background, liquid nitrogen is in a liquid state at roughly -360 degrees Celsius. It becomes gas at around -280 degrees Celsius.

The tests that they did back then involved a 2.4Ghz Pentium core, over clocking it to a 4.1GHz speed, and testing the CPU temperature. Back then the mere idea of a 4.1GHz system was an ideal, and yet, it worked beautifully. The core ran at about -320 degrees Celsius. Very stable, no crashes. Once again, where did this go?

The last one we will take a look at is a little car the Volkswagen developed not too long ago actually. In the early 2000’s they released this little diesel vehicle that ran an amazing 99km/L. No, that’s not a typing error. Well as you can imagine, the people who made petrol and diesel were highly unimpressed with the notion of this, as it could severely reduce the amount of crude oil sold worldwide should the idea spread to other car manufacturers. So, predictably, they recalled the model in a couple of months later due to “technical problems” found in the car and literally took back every single car sold with apologies to their owners. What a load of....

Sometimes I truly think that humanity could be so much further ahead in medicine, science and technology if the people with the money didn’t cripple it for the rest of us. The reason is simple, money talks and the people with it get to make the decisions. I can rant on and on about tech that I read of that never made it, and I can almost guarantee that our readers can add a couple of cool things to this article.

Beleran

Top 5 Free to Play Online Games:

As the years have past gaming has moved from PC to console and now console has begun to flood the market, but that doesn’t mean that PC gaming has lost any of it’s quality or it’s fan base. And a particular attraction to PC gaming is online games. They have quickly stepped in to replace the LAN, making it easier to play with people without all of the hassle caused by LANing. These are our top five free to play online games...

1.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is a session-based, multiplayer online battle arena video game and the stand-alone sequel to the Defense of the Ancients (DotA).

Two teams – the Radiant and the Dire each made up of five players attempt to destroy their opponents’ Ancient. Each player controls a hero/character out of a pool of 102 heroes and over the course of an individual game, focuses on improving their hero’s abilities, acquiring items by last hitting creeps, killing the opposing team’s heroes and their structures.

Developers: Valve Corporation (formerly Valve Software, commonly referred to as Valve; stylized as VALVE) is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States. Founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington Release date: July 9, 2013 (Official release date) Average player base: Over 6 Million

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2.

EVE Online

Star Wars: The Old Republic

It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates. The star systems can contain moons, planets, stations, wormholes, asteroid belts and complexes. Set more than 21,000 years in the future, the background story of Eve Online explains that humanity, having used up most of Earth’s resources through centuries of explosive population growth, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. In turn, this expansion also led to competition and fighting over available resources as it did on Earth, but everything changed with the discovery of a natural wormhole leading to an unexplored galaxy named “New Eden”. Dozens of colonies were founded, and a structure was built to stabilize the wormhole that bridged the intergalactic colonies with the rest of human civilization, a giant gateway bearing the name “EVE”. However, when the natural wormhole unexpectedly collapsed, it destroyed the gate. Cut off from the rest of humanity and supplies from Earth, the colonies of New Eden were left starved and disconnected from one another; some died out entirely. Over the eons the descendants of the colonists managed to survive and rebuild their own societies, but the memories and knowledge of humanity’s origins as well as their own from Earth and the Milky Way became lost. Five major distinct societies rose to prominence from the colonies, each growing into interstellar spaceflightcapable civilizations. The states based around these colonies make up the five major factions in Eve Online: the Amarr Empire, the Caldari State, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic and the Jove Directorate.

Release date: May 6, 2003 Average player base: 230 Thousand

The story takes place in the Star Wars fictional universe shortly after the establishment of a tenuous peace between the reemergent Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, 300 years after the events of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, and more than 3,500 years before the events in the Star Wars films. The Jedi are held responsible for the success of the Sith during the devastating 28-year-long Great Galactic War (which led to the Treaty of Coruscant prior to the “cold war”), and thus choose to relocate from Coruscant to Tython, where the Jedi Order had initially been founded, to seek guidance from the Force. The Sith control Korriban, where they have re-established a Sith Academy. The game’s “Return” cinematic trailer depicts the events where Korriban is re-conquered by the Sith. During these events, a smuggler named Nico Okarr is being led to his prison cell in a jail orbiting Korriban by a Jedi, Satele Shan, and her master, Kao Cen Darach. Suddenly, a Sith named Darth Malgus, who serves as the main antagonist, and his master Vindican, along with several Sith troops, attack the base.

Satele, a trooper named Jace Malcom, and Okarr escape the attack, but Darach is cut down by Malgus. Malgus then kills Vindican, who was wounded by Darach. 10 years later, new conflicts have arisen. In the “Hope” cinematic trailer, Satele and some troops destroy a Sith party that includes Malgus, and Malcom, who has become the troop’s commander, states that, despite the losses, there is still hope amongst even “a single spark of courage”. Later in the “Deceived” cinematic trailer, however, Malgus, having appeared to survived the earlier attack albeit with a mask covering his nose and mouth, leads an army of Sith into the Jedi temple at Coruscant, killing many Jedi including the Jedi Grand Master Ven Zallow. Satele is later named the Grand Master.

Developers: BioWare is a Canadian video game developer founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. BioWare is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts.

Release date: December 20, 2011 Average player base: Over 1.7 Million

3. Team Fortress 2

5.

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter (FPS) multiplayer video game. It is a sequel to the original mod Team Fortress and its GoldSrc engine remake. Team Fortress 2 is focused around two opposing teams, Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU) competing for a combat-based principal objective.[12] Players can choose to play as one of nine classes in these teams, each with his own unique strengths, weaknesses and weapons. The game was released with six official maps, although 44 extra maps, 9 arena maps, 8 king of the hill maps, and various other map types have been included in subsequent updates Developers: Valve Corporation (formerly Valve Software, commonly referred to as Valve; stylized as VALVE) is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States. Founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington Release date: October 9, 2007 Average player base: Over 98 Thousand

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4.

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

League of Legends A session-based game. Much like Dota 2, players are formed into 2 teams of 5 Champions (3 on the Twisted Treeline map). Each player begins at opposing sides of a map near a building called a Nexus.

They choose a hero from a group of 114 different Champions. A match is won when either team’s Nexus is destroyed. To destroy a Nexus, each team must work through a series of Turrets placed along a path to each base referred to as a Lane. Along the way, each player gains levels from killing the opposing team’s Champions, Minions, and defeating neutral monsters. Completing objectives rewards players with gold which is used to purchase items, making their Champion stronger.

Developers: Riot Games is an American publisher of games in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 2006 by Brandon “Ryze” Beck, and Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill with the goal of being a player-focused game development studio.

Release date: October 27, 2009 Average player base: Over 32 Million

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To convert the back link data that it gathered into a measure of importance for a given web page, Brin and Page developed the Page Rank algorithm. Analyzing BackRub’s output—which, for a given URL, consisted of a list of back links ranked by importance— it occurred to them that a search engine based on Page Rank would produce better results than existing techniques (existing search engines at the time essentially ranked results according to how many times the search term appeared on a page).

A small search engine called “RankDex” from IDD Information Services (a subsidiary of Dow Jones) designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, was already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking. The technology in RankDex would be patented and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.

Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine.

By early 1997, the backrub page described the state as follows: Some Rough Statistics (from August 29th, 1996) Total indexable HTML urls: 75.2306 Million Total content downloaded: 207.022 gigabytes ...

This was an interesting topic for me to research. First of all I got to google “google” which didn’t (despite the rumours) break my PC. We all use google everyday. It has become a companion to us. Don’t know something – google it! What’s the recipe for Cherry Pic – google it! Can googling google break my PC – google it.

So just how did this amazing search engine come to be and how did it get so huge? I mean you don’t hear people saying “Bing it” or “Yahoo it!”

G

oogle began in March 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. students at Stanford working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP).

The SDLP’s goal was “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library” and was funded through the National Science Foundation among other federal agencies.

In search of a dissertation theme, Page considered—among other things—exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. His supervisor Terry Winograd encouraged him to pick this idea (which Page later recalled as “the best advice I ever got”) and Page focused

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BackRub is written in Java and Python and runs on several Sun Ultras and Intel Pentiums running Linux. The primary database is kept on an Sun Ultra II with 28GB of disk. Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg have provided a great deal of very talented implementation help. Sergey Brin has also been very involved and deserves many thanks.

-Larry Page page@cs.stanford.edu Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 4, 1998 at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.

Both Brin and Page had been against using advertising pop-ups In

The most comprehensive image search on the web

in a search engine, or an “advertising funded search engines” model, and they wrote a research paper in 1998 on the topic while still students. However, they soon changed their minds and early on allowed simple text ads.

By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages. The home page was still marked “BETA”, but an article in Salon.com already argued that Google’s search results were better than those of competitors likeHotbot or Excite.com, and praised it for being more technologically innovative than the overloaded portal sites (likeYahoo!, Excite.com, Lycos, Netscape’s Netcenter, AOL.com, Go.com and MSN.com) which at that time, during the growing dot-com bubble, were seen as “the future of the Web”, especially by stock market investors.

March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University

on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such back links to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind).

In his research project, nicknamed “BackRub”, he was soon joined

by Sergey Brin - a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Brin was already a close friend, whom Page had first met in the summer of 1995 in a group of potential new students which Brin had volunteered to show around the campus. Page’s web crawler began exploring the web in March 1996, setting out from Page’s own Stanford home page as its only starting point.

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Avenue in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a number that is equal to 1 followed by a googol of zeros).

In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and click-throughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing). While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

Google’s declared code of conduct is “Don’t be evil”, a phrase which they went so far as to include in their prospectus (aka “S-1”) for their 2004 IPO, noting that “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”

These Stanford students had no idea that their research project would have such an impact on the world. Imagine designing something that almost everyone uses daily?

Quite an accomplishment! Everything great starts with an idea – you just need perseverance, wit and heart to carry on going! People can accomplish great things!

Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997 All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

Some Google fun facts you may not know:

9.

In November 2012, the UK government announced plans to investigate Google, along with Starbucks and Amazon.com, for tax avoidance.

1.

The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of “googol”, which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Page and Brin write in their original paper on PageRank: “We chose our systems name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines.”

2.

The first iteration of Google production servers was built with inexpensive hardware and was designed to be very fault-tolerant

3.

The first funding for Google as a company was secured on August 1998 in the form of a US$100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.

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8.

On Wednesday, January 18, 2006, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to compel in United States district court in San Jose seeking a court order that would compel search engine company Google Inc. to turn over “a multi-stage random sample of one million URL’s” from Google’s database, and a computer file with “the text of each search string entered onto Google’s search engine over a one-week period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query).” Google maintains that their policy has always been to assure its users’ privacy and anonymity, and challenged the subpoena. On March 18, 2006, a federal judge ruled that while Google must surrender 50,000 random URLs, the Department of Justice did not meet the necessary burden to force Google to disclose any search terms entered by its users in google.

7.

In January 2013, Google announced a partnership with Kia Motors and Hyundai. The partnership integrates Google Maps and Place into new car models to be released later in 2013.

4.

In October 2003, while discussing a possible initial public offering of shares (IPO), Microsoft approached the company about a possible partnership or merger. However, no such deal ever materialized.

In January 2004, Google announced the hiring of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group to arrange an IPO. The IPO was projected to raise as much as $4 billion.

5.

In 2004, Google formed a non-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, giving it a starting fund of $1 billion. The express mission of the organization is to help with the issues of climate change (see also global warming), global public health, and global poverty. Among its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100mpg.

6.

On October 9, 2006, Google announced that it would buy the popular online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion and maintain YouTube as a separate brand, rather than merging it with Google Video. Meanwhile, Google Video signed an agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and the Warner Music Group, for both companies to deliver music videos to the site. The deal was finalized by November 13, 2006.

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Cosplay of the Month

Jessica Nigri as Lady Deadpool One of the best Cosplayers in the United States darns the costume of one of the best comic hero’s of all time, and she does it pretty damn well.

A Night with the Virtual Pop Star in Sydney Vocaloid Night SMASH! Sydney Manga and Anime Show Presents: Vocaloid Night in happened in Sydney on Saturday 10 August 2013 Calling all Vocaloid fangirls and fanboys!

For the first time and for one night only, world renowned Vocaloid DJ’s and Music Producers – kz (livetune) and Hachioji P (8#Prince) will came to Sydney in full musical force! The event happened at Pontoon Bar Level 1 right opposite the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre on Cockle Bay Wharf Promenade.

The event also brought DJ ★ANAGO★, DJ ZANNEN and DJ Catalystic to boot!

Doors opened at 7pm for over 18’s Otaku fans. The event had great visuals and music with people dressed in Cosplay, enjoying themselves in the atmosphere! There were also booths with anime and manga items and even fresh and limited merchandise straight from Japan! And even Vocaloid themed drinks available!

Sounds like everyone had a blast!

Now we need something like that in South Africa! :)

Costume Name: Deadpool Date of birth: August 5, 1989 Hair colour: Blond Nationality: American Hometown: Phoenix Arizona Sign: Leo Aliases: Jessica Nigri Hobbies: Cosplaying, gaming Website: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJessicaNigri

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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Figure of the month

Hyakka Ryoran Senhime 1/8 Figure Specifications PVC Pre-painted Figure Size: Appx. 200mm Tall (1/8 Scale) October Issue 2011

November Issue 2011

December Issue 2011

March Issue 2013

December Issue 2011

December Issue 2011

January Issue 2013

Details The fourth release in Hobby Japans Hyakka Ryoran series, Senhime has finally arrived! Featuring a beautiful sculpt and incredibly detailed paint application, Alter has outdone themselves yet again. Sculpted by Tsuyoshi Takahashi. From Alter, 20 cm tall, painted PVC.

Product Details Product Name: Hyakka Ryoran Senhime 1/8 Figure Manufacturer: Alter Category: PVC Price: R 2 055.00 Release Date: February 2010 Specifications: Complete painted PVC figure - 1/8 scale

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All Otaku Magazine | September 2013

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