Craig's Token Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 3 Thought Post

 Love the reactions in this shot.  Downey's smug bow, Evans' mildly

embarassed aw-shucks wave, and Boseman all 'OMG OMG IS THIS REAL??'.

So, unless you live under a rock, or simply don't care about this kind of thing, you've likely already heard what was revealed at Marvel Studio's exclusive-attendance press event last week.  The entirety of 'phase 3', the next solid block of films taking place within the universe defined by The Avengers has been charted, and so now we know every step on the path to cinema's current greatest heroes facing their ultimate - final? - battle.

Obviously, this is big news, and hundreds of other sites have been scraping over the details, running any number of rumours to try and gain hits.  Me, I'm late to the party, and I sure as hell don't have any inside sources to tantalize you with...but I slacked off and let this blog rot during October, and it's high time that changed.  At least this is something I'm enthusiastic about, so the writing should come easy.

Further Adventures of Minimate Nina, part четыре: A Day Unlike Any Other

Nighttime, at a news office on the outskirts of the city...

(Don't ask which city.  There is only one.  The city.)

Nina:  Porn, porn, angry editorial about some spider-guy, weather forecast, porn, sports...ugh.

And this chair is tiny and really cramping my butt.  Guess it was a long shot

to expect this rag to have anything on new organised crime outfits...

though maybe I can break into the CIA from here - 

SUDDENLY THE POWER CUTS!

Nina:  This isn't going to be the good kind of surprise, is it?

???:  Miss Williams!  On the authority of SHIELD, you are under arrest!  Come out of the 

building with your hands empty and there won't be any trouble!

Iron Man:  You don't really expect her to go for that, do ya?

Captain America:  No, not really.  That's why you're all here.

AVENGERS, ASSEMBLE!

Click through for more.

The Comic-Con 2014 TEKKEN Update Post

Behold the power of Unreal 4!

Old people have never looked more wrinkly!

So, it's Saturday the 26th as I type.  Namco-Bandai's had its panel at SDCC, and with it comes the biggerer, longerer, melodramaticerer Tekken 7 teaser and the first scraps of info regarding the game.  I debated whether they were meaningful enough to justify an entirely new post after covering the EVO trailer already, but then something else happened, and dear God I need to share it.  I need to.  To purge it.

Click through if your bowels are ready.

Thoughts on the TEKKEN 7 Announce Trailer

Om nom nom.

Well that took longer than it had any bloody right to.

But yes, for those who missed the news, on the last day of this year's EVO tourney, Katsuhiro Harada officially announced the next entry in the Tekken series, Tekken 7.  Yes, Tekken 7, not Tekken X Street Fighter, Tekken Square-Goals Virtua Fighter, Tekken Invites Battle Arena Toshinden to Come And Have A Go, or indeed Craig's Idealised and Completely Imaginary Tekken RPG.  (dang)  Even so, it's a new, full-fledged 'core' Tekken title, so maybe that'll be enough to shut up everyone who's been whinging about the devs spending too much effort on Revolution?

...no, of course not.  It's the internet.  But, while we wait for Comic-Con and hopefully some actual gameplay, here's my brilliant, senses-staggering insight into what this trailer tells me about the game.

GET READY FOR THE NEXT MISINFORMATION!!

Opinion Blog: Ranking the Tekken Fighters from Worst to Best

Does this look comprehensive to you?

Trust me - it ain't.

Ladies and gentlemen, all is quiet here at the Pillar of Justice.  The recent run of interesting game releases has dried up, in favour of the first few sad spurts of the next gen dribbling out onto the arid desert of consumer apathy.  The local multiplexes are full of those Oscar-baiting dramas that look more like the kind of thing you'd watch on DVD later (then never do).  And your humble host's comics reading has been so scrambled and scattered of late it's difficult to single out any one series for a thorough write-up, though I'm hoping to fix that soon.

But in the meantime, howabout an exhaustive and in-no-way definitive listing of every Tekken character ordered according to the relative merits of my personal favour?  No?  Well, tough, I had to Google all these images and cut half of 'em down for size, and after all that I'm gonna use them for something whether you like it or not.

GET READY FOR THE NEXT PRATTLE!

PHICEN Nina Armoury Post 3

It's been a while, but with more figures in the collection now I've got more Things Nina Can Hold, and more amateurish photos to prove it!

Further Adventures of Minimate Nina, part drei: Canada's Foulest Export

Somewhere in the verdant rainforests of, um, Alberta...

???: *sniffing noises*

TEKKEN X STREET FIGHTER: Wish List

I swear, these designs for Kazuya and Xiaoyu are ALL WRONG.

Dear reader, I sit down to write this today with a growing case of Tekken withdrawals.

"But how can that be, Craig," you might ask, "when there have been so many new Tekken games recently?"  Well, it's true enough that we are currently experiencing no shortage of Iron Fist branding.  The problem is that not a lot of it is what I want Tekken to be.  

Tekken Card Tournament (which I never got around to reviewing in full) is an interesting idea with some very simple, solid gameplay mechanics that just about anyone can pick up in minutes, a dedicated support team tirelessly working to sort out any issues brought up by the user base, and if nothing else has spawned an actual physical Tekken trading card collection, which will doubtless plague my magpie mind for a good long while yet.  But, it's very worrying that so many balance issues and tech errors are still being found in a game that's been available to the public for so long, and the in-game card marketplace - which lets anyone with sufficient real-world funds simply buy the best possible cards for their character right from the get-go and gain a ludicrous advantage - basically takes what balance there is and snaps it over its knee like a Venom'd-up Bane (I stand by the assertion that limiting premium purchases to the random booster packs, while perhaps frustrating for some, would be a major improvement).  On a personal note, the need for a constant internet connection kinda leaves me in the cold - I can't really play it 'on the go' so having the game on my Kindle is a bit meaningless, and playing the browser version feels odd because it's much too simple a game for a whole laptop...

Then there's Tekken Revolution (which I've already covered) and that hasn't really held my attention either.  In fact, I don't think I've gone back to it even once since posting that write-up in June.  That's partly down to snobbery - Nina's still not in it so I don't care - but mostly, it's because the game feels hollow to me.  Revolution is 95% copied assets from TTT2, which I already own; the stuff that's genuinely new is limited to flashier effects and some inferior music choices.  Yes, I know, as I said in my post, that this is a Tekken game for other people who are a lot less obsessed with the series than I am...but the fact that it's now taken up the lion's share of the developers' attention has resulted in me feeling like I've been left out in the cold.  Also: vampire Lili?  Vampire...Lili?  The prosecution rests, your honour.

So I've been thinking a lot about the future, and that inevitably means the still-gestating Tekken X Street Fighter, which will counterbalance Capcom's effort by forcing those movement-challenged World Warriors into an arena where the 3rd dimension exists on more than just a cosmetic level. (hey Harada-san, free idea - shoot a commercial for the game which solely consists of Ryu fruitlessly firing hadoukens at Heihachi, who dodges every single one by moving one step to the side while Ryu's eyes boggle and he screams, "WHAT KIND OF WITCHCRAFT IS THIS S***?!") After playing a hell of a lot of TTT2 and tentatively dipping my toe into the freezing waters of SFXT again, I've come up with a bunch of points that, IMO, Namco would do well to keep in mind as they plan their next opus.  GET READY FOR THE NEXT BASELESS SPECULATION!!

PHICEN Nina Armoury Post 2

Thought about sitting on these pics a while longer, but it's a slow period right now, so here we go.

Just A Random Bunch of Faora GIFs

I think I mentioned in my Man of Steel review post that I was impressed with Antje Traue's performance as uberstrong henchlady Commander Faora-Ul (she ditched the 'Hu' in the film*), bu-u-ut that's really understating things.  Faora represents two conflicting fixations for me: the nerdy, over-analyzing part of my brain recognises the presence of a truly strong female character, who is allowed to be prominent and dangerous in a film largely dominated by male characters, and whose gender is never once brought up as an issue, which is fantastic; the more simplistic, primal side of me sees an exotic, beautiful actress with an all-kinds-of-sexy pan-European accent, somehow made even more intimidatingly unattainable thanks to power armour and a frickin' cape.  IS THIS LOVE????

So, here's a bunch of GIFs of the lady I found by tooling around on Tumblr and Google.  This is really more for my convenience than yours, yes.


* - Nerdy subnote: For some reason, it's long established in Superman comics that female children of Krypton take the full name of their father as their surname rather than just the hyphened suffix that serves as a family name - so while Kal-El is the son of Jor-El and you know they're related because they both have '-El' in the name, Kal's cousin Supergirl is named Lara Zor-El, with Zor-El being her dad's full name.  I really don't know why this is the case, other than maybe some anachronistic misogyny that never got retconned...and if that's actually the case, it makes sense for Faora to shorten her surname down to just '-Ul', as it sticks with the crazy man-hating persona of Faora in the comics.  Just a thought.

PHICEN Nina Armoury Post 1

If I didn't make it quite clear in my review, I looooove this 1/6 Nina fig, but if there is one department she lacks in, it's weaponry.  Her Glocks are cool, but Nina Williams is a master assassin, a spy, a saboteur, possibly a catwalk model AND a ninja all at once, so she knows a few more ways to kill folk than just through the John Woo school of twin-pistol dove-exploding gun-kata.  Hence this post, first in what will probably be a series*, showing off Nina waving around other various implements of pain.

Oh, and before we start, if you don't check my Twitter feed regularly (what is wrong with you):

Knife & strapped sheath sourced from 1/6 General Hawk,

by Sideshow Collectibles' G.I. Joe line.

I think we can agree that all versions of Nina need a superfluous tiny dagger that never ever gets used strapped to one thigh, right?  And yeah, I kinda wish I could attach it further down her leg, but the top needs to hook onto the belt to stay in place.  Anyhoo, click through for more pics.

* - it'll run until I can't find more weapons to steal off my other figures...which doesn't look likely to happen soon.

Toy Review: PHICEN LIMITED 1:6 NINA KILLER ver 1.0

From Twitter: Wesker getting kicked because reasons.

At this point, detailing my obsession with the Tekken series in general and Nina Williams in particular for the umpteenth time is a waste of bandwidth...but I don't know how else to start this post, so pretend that I said something meaningful and revelatory here as well as the usual 'gaaah nina so amazing and hot and badass, would gladly try and marry her even though I know it would end horribly, fuck everything about that other blonde girl who doesn't deserve to be named' spiel.

Of course, the downside to being a Tekken fan is that Namco have historically done a terrible job of pushing the franchise in terms of merch.  Oh, sure, if all you need to be happy is a custom fight stick, you're golden, but clothes?  Few and far between, usually convention exclusives.  Manga or comic tie-ins?  There were some hilariously terrible ones around the time of Tekken 2 but nothing worth mentioning since then.  Toys?  Palisades did a line of 5" figs based on Tekken 3 but they were generally pre-posed and had very little articulation, not to mention the sculpt quality is, well, of its day, which means they look pretty dated and simplistic now.  After that, Tekken figs have only come in tiny bursts; a group of rarely-seen 1:6ers based on Tekken Tag Tournament came and went, a group of tiny plastic statues with swappable parts styled on Tekken 5, and the still-running TTT2 additions to the Kotobukiya line, which takes ludicrously proportioned girls in super-skimpy outfits and makes their clothes more revealing, because Japan, basically.  Even with the advent of the TTT2 Play Arts Kai figures, it feels like there's been a lot of missed opportunities over the years - the fact that I can honestly say the best Tekken figures money can buy are the sodding Minimates from the SFxTK series says it all.  It's not so bad if all you're after are polystone statues, but...where's the fun in a statue?

So, when this little beauty cropped up out of the blue, I was very excited.  Of course, it's not officially endorsed by Namco on any level and doesn't mention Tekken anywhere on the box and is only COINCIDENTALLY similar to a character from Tekken with the same first name *cough* so it's totally okay to buy it so long as you make sure to never ever mention it to Harada-san and/or his lawyers.  We clear?  Okay, let's get down to brass tacks.

Say Hello to my Future Favourite Show

I'm so used to disappointment with pilot season and most American TV networks' inability to pick things that are actually promising as opposed to just box-ticking bollocks that, on the occasions when they get something right, I fail to notice 'til much later.  This time?  Not so much.  ABC, smart people that they are, chose to greenlight what will doubtless wind up being my favourite TV show whenever it hits these shores.

And they greenlit 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' too.  What, you thought that was what I meant?  Nnnn-nope:

Killer Women, a.k.a. Tricia Helfer: Cowboy Cop.

Tricia Helfer.

Driving fast and shooting people.

Often wearing an awesome hat.

Sometimes wearing...very little (which is also awesome in a different sense).

Tricia.  Helfer.

Universe...however much stick I rightfully give you, for this I say thanks.  You done good.

Further Adventures of Minimate Nina, part deux: Prelude to a Something

In which the groundwork for future stories I haven't bothered plotting out yet is laid!  GET EXCITE!!

Nina:  Time to go see 'the boss', I guess.  I hate this part.

N:  Seriously, he can't just have an office...?

'Let It Snow'

Just a quick bit of self-advertising: I wrote a Christmassy Tekken fanfic about, of course, the Williams sisters, and you can read it here if you fancy.

And if I don't post again before the date comes, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2: Character Endings in Review (UPDATED)

Okay, so Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has been out for long enough now that I don't feel like an asshole for talking about the endings.  All (well, nearly) of the game's gargantuan roster have received their own individual CG ending cutscene this time around - no more all-in-one film for ChrEddy and other clones! - and, on average, the running time for each has expanded.  More importantly, IMO, they're a much more varied bunch tonally and artistically than the disappointing haul from Tekken 6.  So, I'm gonna go over them one at a time and offer my thoughts on the content, style and general quality of each and every single one.

Two things in advance, though.  One, I'm not posting the actual vids here - it'd clog up the post.  If you want to look them up without bothering to play the game yourself, you lazy so-and-so, I recommend the YouTube channels of Robert Cram or Bloodburger1.  Two, there are still several characters yet to be unlocked on my version of the game; my pre-order codes got me Kunimitsu and Ancient Ogre but not Michelle Chang or Angel, plus there's Violet, Dr. B and Unknown who have yet to be added in.  When they appear, I'll update this post accordingly.  (UPDATE: Got them added now!)

GET READY FOR THE NEXT BATTLE!

Minimate Nina: Customisation Gallery 1

One of the joys of Minimates that I'm only beginning to tap into is their uniform nature and simple construction; with every figure sharing largely the same body, held together the same way, and none of it glued or bolted in place, it's both easy and fun to mix and match parts across multiple figures, winding up with neat custom replacements for characters not yet created by Art Asylum - or, if you're anything like me, a load of abject nonsense.

Today, it occurred to me how much this reminded me of the character customisation features in the more recent Tekken games - which means it's time for more Nina love!

Starting off with one assembled purely from the Street Fighter X Tekken first wave, it's Boxing Nina!  Or maybe Kickboxing Nina, I don't know:

Parts used: Nina's head and hair, Poison's torso and arms, Steve Fox' gloves/hands,

and Sagat's hips and legs.

More after the jump!

Further Adventures of Minimate Nina, part one

What, you thought I was done?  We're done when I say we're done.  I didn't say we were done.

Minimate Nina Williams!

So my Street Fighter X Tekken Minimates finally arrived (or the first wave of them, anyway), and although the presence of plastic Lili on my shelf inflates my room's tramp factor by 300% I'm generally pleased with them.  Most importantly, though, wave 1 included Nina Williams, my first love in videogames and, along with Tricia Helfer, one of the two greatest women in history, constantly locked in battle over control of my soul. (I kid - they're not fighting, I don't want either of them getting hurt) Since this is a pretty special occasion, I shall be celebrating the only way I know how - with crappy pictures!  So here's Nina strutting her stuff and beating up some lesser blonde whose name I forget.

It's not my birthday 'til March.

But someone, somewhere, decided to give me a present all the same.

Video won't embed so go HERE

A Once Upon A Time In Mexico actioner with a House of the Dead: Overkill trailer AND a genuinely hilarious blaxploitation minister AND the little bonus of my favourite actress (and woman) (and Cylon) taking the lead role?  I don't care what it takes, I don't care if I have to import a copy - hell, I'll import a goddamn American TV and BR player just to make sure I see this.  A-maz-ing.

"I'm pretty sure God would consider it a sin not to glorify that ass."


UPDATE:  After searching around again, I've figured out that, appearances to the contrary, this isn't an actual trailer, rather a neat music video masquerading as a trailer.  Dammit, that's so me it's not even funny.