What anime’s worth watching on Netflix

If you’re looking for streaming anime I’d suggest Cruncyroll, even the free subscription has a fairly solid selection. There’s also Neon Alley which has a solid selection. Both of these also have simulcast stuff from the current season of anime in Japan. (Of course what I actually recommend is tweaking your media player setup to a ridiculously anal level and then only watching 1080p 10bit BD re-encodes). But for those of you who already have a Netflix subscription and want to know what to watch here is my (super brief) opinion on the anime available. Continue reading…

Top 25 (recent) Anime for people who dont watch anime

What’s this all about then? Well this is some suggested viewing for people who are only passingly familiar with anime in general or with anime thats come out in the last few years. If the last time you watched some anime it was prefaced by this:

or the words “Studio Ghibli” then this list is for you. If you think all anime is shallow super powered adventures aimed at teenage boys or heaving tits and demon penises, then this list is for you. I’ve tried to cover as many of the major genre’s as I could (so now you have no fucking excuse for referring to anime as if its a genre rather than a medium ;)) without a) sacrificng quality or b) sacrificing accessibility. So the majority of shows listed here require no prior knowledge of or familiarity with anime or japanese culture in general to fully enjoy. If you do end up checking any of them out let me know what you think. Continue reading…

Best of 2011 – Anime – Unfinished

Note: This isnt done (well theres a full top 10, just not a full entry for each), but I’m not going to finish it and I’m sick of seeing it floating around in Drafts

I thought I’d watched a lot of anime this year. But looking back I only watched around fifty shows, actually, I suppose that’s nearly one a week. Is that a lot? Who can say. Not I anyhow. Well, whether I watched a lot or not is really secondary to the main issue, which is quality and based on that metric it was an excellent year for anime. It’s been a while since its been a meaningful chore to decide what to include. But this year it really was a struggle and some great stuff didnt make it, like C – The Money of Soul and Possibility, Highschool of the Dead, Code Geass, One Out’s, etc. To be honest there was so much good stuff out there that I would suggest taking a look at my complete anime list over on Myanimelist if you need some viewing suggestions. Of course, I only watch an anime when its complete, which means that some great looking stuff wasnt even eligible for inclusion (I’m looking at you Persona 4 Animation and Fate/Stay Zero, among others). Continue reading…

Bioshock Infinite – My (brief) thoughts

BioShockInfinite 2013-03-26 15-39-23-34

Just finished it, it really picks up in the last third of the game. I thought the ending was predicatbly telegraphed, but worked in the context of the game. Its probably something you dont want to look to hard it. Overall the last part of the game really redeemed it for me, I still think it was trodding old ground but it did it very well. Solid 8/10 if I had to give it a number. Not sure how much replay value there is, got more or less all the collectibles and the combat wasnt engaging enough to make me play through it again. Took about 11 hours to complete, for once I actually would have preffered if it were a little shorter. Continue reading…

(Upcoming) Games of 2013 – Prelude to the deluge

This list is likely to change/expand pretty drastically after E3 when its likely the launch lineups for the PS4 and XBox720/Durango are announced. I’m not sure if I’ll be jumping to next gen straight away because as I mentioned over here I’ve got back into PC gaming in a big way. Well, thats most likely a lie. Unless the launch line-up is absolutely shit I’ll probably grab a PS4. Though I am interested in how theyre going to handle backwards compatability, particularly considering the amount of donwloaded/PSN content I’ve purchased.

Even without the infusion of next-gen stuff 2013 is looking like a pretty amazing year for gaming. A large number of titles that were originally slated for 2012 got pushed back and a number of highly anticipiated sequels to popular franchises are coming out this year as well. As well as looking at whether or not I’ll bother with next gen consoles theres also the question of whether or not I’ll bother with the Wii-U. My luck with Nintendo systems is mixed. While I owned a SNES I preferred my Megadrive. I never had, or played more than once, a N64. I got a lot of play out my Gamecube (worth it just for Eternal Darkness, Super Monkeyball and Animal Crossing). I was excited about the Wii, bought one and played it literally twice. On the other hand there’s a number of Wii-U exclusives that I really like the look of (SMTxFire Emblem, Monolithsoft’s X, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, maybe Zombi-U). I might pick one up when the majority of those games are out and the systems dropped in price. Knowing Nintendo I dont want to get stung when they do an early hardware revision. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Interlude – In space no can hear you scream “FFFUUUUUCCKKKK”

I have part six half finished and ready to go. I left it because I was tired and decided to head to bed. Couldnt sleep so I figured I’d just do one quick mission. Oh how I regret that. A quick bit of background, missions range from Level 1 – 4, each increase in level is a fairly big jump in difficulty (and usually in ship class). However thanks to siding with the Amarr during the Sisters of Eve ESA I’d enough standing with the Amarr to jump straight to Level 2 missions. I’d done about ten or so of them and while some of them had been tough I’d managed to pull through, earn some ISK and upgrade my Destroyer. So I logged in and requested a mission (which are semi random), got a simple courier mission which I banged out and figured, sure why not one more before I hit the hay? I wont have time to play tomorrow because I’ve loads of cooking and prep work to do for Christmas dinner. Oh past Mick, you are a fucking idiot. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 05 – Silent Night

When we last left our interpid capsuleer I was complaining that I wasnt really getting the return I wanted in my mining efforts. Unfortunately while I’ve done a number of things to address that I havent had a huge amount of success. On the other hand I have killed a lot of pirates, a lot a lot. So when I logged off the last time I was ready for a bit of a break from the game. But the next day (well technically later that day) Patrick, as always, pulled me back in. He needed help with a mission and I kindly decided to help him out. Of course the fact that I owned a destroyer entirely bereft of armaments or any kind of defense meant he was going to have to wait a little while for that to happen. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 04 – The dark of the night

Last night’s plan was to post the previous blog entry and go to bed. Both of which I did. Unfortunately a tag team of caffeine overconsumption and a storm blowing outside conspired to help sleep elude me. After giving up on sleeping for a bit I figured I’d just log-in to EVE to do one or two things. Which lead to me getting to sleep the wrong side of six, which is what sees me in work with slightly over an hours sleep. Thankfully it’s basically all exam supervision this morning so I should be able to survive until I can get a taxi home and garner some proper rest (well a quick nap actually as I’ve stuff to do this afternoon). I’m unsure of the wisdom of playing in the wee hours in the morning. Well that’s not entirely true, depending on what you do you should be fine, more or less as long as you don’t do what I did. Continue reading…