Nov
11
2008

Gears of War 2

Epic Horde action.

Epic Horde action.

So everyone has played Gears of War. It was one of the best-selling games for Xbox 360 up until this point. Now that Gears of War 2 is out, it makes Gears of War look embarrassed.

The game, visually, looks absolutely astonishing. The water effects, lighting effects, blood splatter and even limbs exploding all look twice as good as they did on Gears of War and are probably some of the best visuals I’ve seen on a game to date.

As for the gameplay, it’s almost exactly the same as GoW campaign wise, with the levels split up in to five acts with several chapters in each along with the co-op with each person controlling either Dominic or Marcus.

The new mutliplayer matchmaking system has been vastly improved since GoW, with there now a party system which allows you and your friends to easily get together and find matches within your skill levels. A new addition to mutiplayer is a mode called Horde. You basically have to defend yourself on a multiplayer map from literal hordes of enemies that are trying to kill you and your team mates. Now, Horde mode is one of my personal favourites, and I’ve had a lot of fun killing various types of enemies with my friends. It is difficult, but you get such a sense of achievement when you’ve cleared that wave of enemies.

Put simply, this game is very fun to play, gory (love it) and something all your friends and you can play together and have a laugh. Currently £37.99 in Gamestation.

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By Longy | Posted in Gaming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Nov
06
2008

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Gurren Laggan is just simply outstanding.

Gurren Laggan is just simply outstanding.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (or TTGL or Gurren Lagann for short) literally meaning “Heaven Shattering Crimson Face” is one of the most epic series I have ever seen. The series is 27 episodes long, and every single one is a rollercoaster ride of intense action and extremely funny sequences.

It’s hard for me to put in to words how much I enjoyed this anime, so I’ll tell you what it’s about instead.

Simon is a digger in his village, and one day he finds a strange glowing artifact in the shape of a drill. He keeps the artifact and his friend, Kamina (who takes it upon himself to be his brother) gets them both in to mischief in their village by trying to escape to the surface. Kamina gets jailed and Simon continues to dig and finds a huge face. The village is then attacked by a huge and mysterious being called a Gunmen that literally falls in from the surface. This is where Simon and Kamina meet Yoko, a fighter from the surface who followed the Gunmen to their village.

Once on the surface, Simon and Kamina realise that there are more of these things, and that they should eradicate them so humans can once again live on the surface. In a fight that Simon and Kamina have with a Gunmen, Kamina ends up stealing one which closely resembles Simons Gunmen face.

More events ensue, but that would be telling. ;-)

The action sequences are simply the best I’ve seen with Mechs, although the drawing style can seem quite simple at some points. With a well-written storyline with, of course plot twists, the anime sits as being one of my favourite animes. Especially the last two episodes, I almost pissed myself with excitement because they are so epic.

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By Longy | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Nov
06
2008

Fullmetal Alchemist

Edward standing strong after making a weapon from sand.

Edward standing strong after making a weapon from sand using alchemy.

Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the first Anime series that I watched, a few years ago. I’d only seen stuff like Dragonball Z, which isn’t all that great. Then there’s Evangelion, which is ever so confusing to someone who has seen a lot of anime with a sharp mind, let alone someone who’s just started to watch anime.

FMA was instantly one of my favourite animes because of the balance of well-written storyline, slapstick humour and a balance of well-likeable and hateable characters. The animation is simply fantastic too.

The series is set in a world where Alchemy is practiced, but technology isn’t progressed as much as the research goes in to Alchemy. Now, alchemy actually a philosophy and practice with the ultimate goal of immortality using chemistry, but is slightly modified in the series. In the series alchemy is the ability to make something using two components following the law of equivilent exchange. The law of equivilent exchange states that humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.

The storyline follows Edward and Alphonse elric, two brothers setting off to retrieve Alphonse’s body after an alchemy accident in where they tried to revive their mother. The law of alchemy forbids this as their is no equivilent exchange for a soul. After the brothers learn of an alchemy object known as the philospher’s stone, which can bypass the law of equivilant exchange they seek after this object, with several plot twists along the way.

The anime slightly differs from the Manga half-way through the series, which means if you have seen the anime and not read the manga or vice-versa I highly recommend you do.

I feel that this anime has everything you would want. A cleverly written storyline, along with a good balance of action and emotion. There were several points in this anime I was crying with laughter and then almost crying from sadness.

I liked this anime so much, that I made two AMVs. They are embedded below. (Warning: Potential Spoilers)


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By Longy | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
29
2008

Avenged Sevenfold - Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album came out a year ago today.

Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album came out a year ago today. (29/10/07)

Although this album came out a year ago today, it still remains one of my most listened to albums. Sure, the classics like Beast and the Harlot, Unholy Confessions and Bat Country are what make the band’s sound, but this album reflects just how good Avenged Sevenfold are.

It’s strange, the more I listen to the album the more I am compelled to listen to it. The songs are all unique and It’s hard to find one that you can define as your favourite.

When I first listened to the album I thought, yeah Afterlife, Almost Easy and Dear God are my favourite tracks. But, the more I listened to the album the more I liked the other tracks, and now I can’t really say which is mine.

Electrifying guitar solos, meaningful lyrics and a barrage of drumming make this album just as good as the other albums, if not better. I highly recommend this to any Metal Loving fans.

Buy it now on iTunes!

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By Longy | Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Oct
23
2008

Paprika

This is my first post on this site and wanted to start by saying a bit about myself, having three older brothers who are all very heavily into varying forms of anime games and music, and having worked for 6 years in a game related job, i have been saturated with this lifestyle my entire life. My parents have always pushed thinking outside of the box and i find im at my happiest when i have the opportunity to experience creativity in any form that is available and so my first post will be about Paprika a truely stunning anime which sits up there in my list of top favorites which is a huge achievement conscidering just how much i have seen… so why is it so good?

In a time of ever increasing technological breakthroughs it was onyl a matter of time before it would break through to new worlds, the world of our dreams. The story revolves around a potentially dangerous new invention called the DC-Mini. With this revolutionary device nurses and doctors are now able to enter a patient’s dreams in a therapeutic setting the idea being they can help further medical technology. But this type of technology was not going to be used for such a noble purpose… not when it has such potential, very quickly an unknown assailant steals all of the devices, using them to enter peoples minds controlling their actions, chaos ensues as dreams begin to bleed into reality, and the thin line between the conscious and the unconscious begins to blur. Enter Paprika an energetic young woman who is new to this dreamland herself she is determined clever and she’s out to save the world. This movie is  bursting with fantastic imagery and breathtakingly innovative animation (watch the skin split scene and you will agree with me) and also a fantastic soundtrack which will become instantly linked with this truely original movie.

Watch it its worth is!

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By Siralias | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
23
2008

Bioshock 2 Teaser Trailer Released

Bioshock 2: Sea Of Dreams confirmed!

Bioshock 2: Sea Of Dreams confirmed!

The Bioshock 2 teaser trailer has just gone up on the Xbox 360 Marketplace and it doesn’t seem to give much away at all apart from showing a slightly grown-up little sister standing on a beach which then pans across the sand, which turns itself in to a city space, and then revealing that the official title is: Bioshock 2 - Sea of Dreams. The Xbox 360 Live logo at the end indicates that there will be multiplayer of some sort on this new installment of the best-selling first game. According to a statement, there is going to be a third title along with a Bioshock Movie.

In an August 2008 interview, Ken Levine mentioned that 2K Boston was not involved in the game’s sequel because they wanted to “swing for the fences” and try to come up with something “very, very different. BioShock 3 has also been announced, with its release likely to coincide with the Bioshock film. Taken from Wikipedia.org

According to the above statement, we have a lot more excitement for us in the future. And personally, I can’t wait.

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By Longy | Posted in Gaming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
23
2008

Bleach Review

Hitsugaya Toshirou using his Bankai.

Hitsugaya Toshirou using his Bankai.

Bleach is one of the first series that I watched when I started to get in to Anime. After I finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist I needed a more light-hearted anime to watch and this was recommended to me, along with Naruto and a few others.

After watching the first few episodes, I was hooked. I thought the storyline was very well put together, the characters were interesting and unique and the action wasn’t terrible, but at the same time it wasn’t amazing.

After the awesome events that happen in Soul Society, I was hooked on the Anime, but then the filler episodes started. This is a real turn-off to any anime series that you watch. The last thing you want to happen is for the characters to suddenly be doing retarded things and become stupid and under-powered. This is exactly what the recent filler arc is. It’s not just the fact that it’s filler, I can deal with that I’ll just stop watching for a while. No, It’s the fact that in the middle of an AMAZING arc they put filler there. In the middle. What the fuck is up with that?

And even now that the arc has re-started, the way they are going through the storyline is so slow. They have to recap on the first episode, fair enough. Having flashbacks every 3 minutes is unneccesary. We already know what has happened, because you showed us in the half of an episode recap! I’ve read up to the latest Manga, and I can’t wait to see it on the Anime, but if they keep this up I’m not going to enjoy it as much as I know I should.

Pushing past this snag, the Anime is thought out to such an extent to even think of all the way’s of destruction. I’m pretty sure they have sat down and worked out what every single one is, and it’s just a matter of picking which one they want to use. Amazing.

As for the Bleach Movies, they are probably the best series to film transitions I’ve seen. I’ll get on to this in a seperate review.

To summarise: Brilliant Anime, Good Storyline, Loveable Characters but Annoyingly drawn-out episodes.

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By Longy | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
23
2008

Soul Eater Review

Mifune's Sprit Power is Overwhelming!

Mifune Vs Black Star: Mifune's power is Overwhelming.

I’ve been watching this Anime for a while now, and I’m currently on the latest episode (29). My first impressions of this Anime were that it was funny, with some action parts but all-in-all I wasn’t too impressed. I persevered though and found myself watching one of the best Animes I’ve seen.

There is plenty of humour, plenty of action and quite a decent storyline unfolding. I’m not sure how they are going to contain this in 51 episodes, it feels like there is so much more that can be expanded on, but at the same time I don’t want them to ruin what is already so good.

I find each of the characters so likeable too, without one being singled out as the main character. Maka and Soul, Black Star and Death the Kid are the three “Main” characters but I feel that Professor Stein, Shinigami-sama and others to be on par with the main characters.

One thing that is annoying me about the series, was how long it took to get in to the main storyline, I feel that if they cut out the first three episodes the series wouldn’t feel so dragged out, but then again maybe the character development wouldn’t have been as good as it is.

There is only one good subber so far, and that is Tadashi. Although some releases are slow, and I had to wait almost a week for the latest episode to come out (after it had been aired) I feel he does a good job considering he does everything his self. You can find a link to his website on the blogroll or you can simply click here.

I’ll be interested to see what else can happen in this Anime, as Episode 28 was simply awesome.

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By Longy | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
22
2008

narutard shitpooden review

Naruto's infamous double Rasengan.

first off i would just like to start by mentioning the above note that im a naruto fan and that i enjoy watching and reading naruto.

with that said il begin my “review”.

*clears throat”

ok now to begin i would like to take everyone back to the end of the first naruto series, where naruto goes off to train with the pervert jeraiya, rememeber? good. so now i bring you to the first part of the naruto shippuden series where naruto has grown older.

in this chapter of naruto’s life he has trained with jeraiya for 2 years and after watching 80 episodes 80!!!!! i have come to the reasonable conclusion that naruto is infact a fucking stupid retard with no clue how to do shit. also il give my opinion on why naruto as shippuden is losing my interest at the end.

1: naruto displays his newest skill against the imitation of itachi where naruto creates a giant rasengan, which has to be the most stupid move developed by someone trained by one of the legendary sannin!. for 1 that giant rasengan needs alot of chakra to create and a shadow clone too help him maintain it which means his chakra is far less then the normal rasengan (yeh good fucking idea….NOT!!), what kind of ninja would delibratly put himself into such a stupid position!? even if he does have the chakra of a god, he certainly doesnt now does he!?. secondly that move is so slow the opponent/target would have to be completly stationary (not moving) in order for it to hit its mark which in this perticular series means the opponent will beat the brink of death anyway where a giant rasengan would do little to change the enividable outcome. thirdly, what if it misses? (like it did) he wasted soooo much chakra that it could have powered konoha for an entire year or more if it ran on chakra. lasltey what the hell was wrong with the normal rasengan as far i remember hitting anyone with a normal rasengan, i mean a full body hit, would mean that they would have a massive whole in them anyway, so making a bigger one doesnt really make a whole lot of difference in my opinion.

2: his second all mighty technique he learnt while training with a lagendary ninja was the “genjutsu negating ability” which sounds simply terrific except for one small snag in the dickhead’s plans….it doesnt work!!! (rofl) what a fucking surprise! NOT!, once again he displayed a technique which proves to be ultimatly useless un the face of a formidable foe (in this case the imation of itachi AGAIN!!!!!). so i ask to myself and now to everyone reading this, what is the point of teaching techniques that dont work on a tough opponent? il save everyone the mental struggle, THERE IS NONE!!!!!! so that adds up to 2 things naruto spent years of his life training to master these techniques useless and ultimatly dissapointing fans from seeing some improvement in naruto AGAIN!. in the end the attack makes a landing but only because his opponent was…can YOU guess?…thats right complelty fucking stationary, held by kakashi as i recall.

3: now depending on what your views are to making an interesting, entertaining anime you may disagree but still i will express my opinion regardless. is it just me or is naruto shippuden becoming like the dragonball z series? i mean with the countless episodes of talking before something epic happens, they actually had (if i recall correctly) an entire episode AND I KIDD YOU NOT!!!!!!! an entire fucking episode of jumping through a forest just fucking TALKING!!!!!!!!!! just before team kakashi met up with team gai, ths old hag of a ninja was just talking RECAPING what viewrs who would have seen naruto from the start or even at the end of the first series by this point would already know!!!!! and entire episode of SHIT!!!!!!. fans dont wait a week just to see an old lady talk and talk we have real life for that (nothing against old people just stating a fact) and the people who made the episode knew it too thats why they tried and i mean TRIED to make something interesting happen which was sakura pulling of some slightly imprsssive moves between 3 or 4 trees and that was it THAT WAS IT!!.

with all that said naruto still has its entertaining parts but lets be honest naruto has gone down hill somewhat, and now if you want to be entertained like the first series youll have to wait 6 or 7 weeks to get 6 or 7 episodes to get that feeling back due to the amount of unnessasary amount of wind blowing scenes and stare down scenes!! who the hell cares bout them staring at each other fans wona see some action at this point all the intimidation that the opponent can do has already been done! just FIGHT! PLEASE! PLEASE! GOD DONT MAKE THE WIND BLOW IN NARUTO PLEASE! DONT FOR FUCK SAKE!.

i hope im not alone on this because this really irratates me as you can now tell does anyone else think that they could use that time to better use? because i friggin do! i duno make a wise crack about someones face or like sai does about narutos dick (FUCKING HELRIOUS!) thats time well spent for entertaining fans a far as im concerned.

that concludes my review about the new naruto shippuden series, hope you enjoyed! and mst importantly agree :D

stay strong naruto fans he’ll get there in the end….most likly at OUR end at this rate.

the DAZMAN

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By SealedPaladin | Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct
22
2008

Welcome!

Welcome to Longy’s Rants and Reviews, a website dedicated to voicing a true opinion of Manga, Anime and Games. We hope you enjoy reading about what we think about the latest, upcoming and popular and stress that you make up your own opinions of the things you like to play or watch.

There are a lot of games coming out such as Fable 2, Dead Space, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and I’m pretty sure there is a game I’m forgetting that is… oh yes - Gears of War 2. I’ll be reviewing these as I get my hands on them.

Along with that there is a whole degree of Anime and Manga that is out right now which we will be catching up on during the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

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By Longy | Posted in Site News | Comments (1)