Side Effect of Gaming

Ed discusses an aspect of his gaming life.

Dragonball Kai to premiere this Tuesday

In the 1990's I got my first look at anime on Toonami, being blown away by the new style of animation I was looking at. The 90's were the absolute golden age for animated shows, so showing them up today might be easy but it wasn't always. One of those shows was Dragon Ball Z.

The Frieza saga was where I started, and I had a blast. The story, the enemies, all of it appealed to me and made me interested in anime. A dang shame Cartoon Network gave up on Toonami back then.

Anyway.

Dragon Ball Z was a good show, I loved it. Today i'm blowing up into a major Otaku, and man did they drag out the Super Saiyan transformations when comparing to the Japanese. So call me surprised when I learned of Dragonball Kai, I thought it was a fill in show within Dragon Ball Z. Yet it turns out, when everyone had their shot at dubbing Dragonball Z the animation files were thrown out.

Why this happened, I don't know. However they redrew all the animation for the show, and made a "refreshed series" that premiered in 2009. Now Funimation has redubbed the refreshed series, clocked in at 100 episodes with some fixes. The biggest being that the power ups aren't dragged out this time around, or so i've heard.

So this Tuesday May 25th Kai will premiere on...

Nicktoons Network

Odd place for it to premiere, what happened with Cartoon Network?

Regardless, I will provide a review for Kai episodes and hopefully FUNimation has learned from the "freedoms" it took with the original show.

The black Xbox cases

With the announcement of the special edition of Fable 3, i've begun to notice a trend with the special Xbox editions of games.

On one hand the black case shows you spent the extra money to get the special edition goodies rather than just the game. Alan Wake and Halo Reach are also retailing a black case with their special editions, possibly this is only available for Xbox Exclusive games. Only time will verify if that is true.

However, being that Microsoft is not one to manufacture for novelty, this black case offers a possible hint toward the future of Xbox. Since the special editions with this black case cost more, the special editions have been called into question as a test of how much people will pay for a game. Indeed when the next generation started, the game case design was changed and raised from $50 to $60 retail.

Going back to the fact that Microsoft doesn't manufacture for novelty, it's a possibility that the black case is what the next generation of games for the new Xbox console will look like.

Think about it, Nintendo only made a red case for the New Super Mario Brothers. No other game, Nintendo does make special cases to manufacture unique items, but that definitive Mario title has now called for the successor to the Wii. Microsoft on the other hand, if they don't release a slim xbox 360 this year, is making these black cases for a reason. All the different versions of the Xbox just have a different harddrive, redesigning the whole xbox would help the red ring of death issue. But Microsoft is content with a universal design for its line of gear, and won't change it (even if the controller's D-pad is disliked very much).

So when I saw the black case for Halo Reach, it surprised me Microsoft would make special cases for the game. However it is the last Halo title for Bungie, so Microsoft may have gone for significance in this move. Lets be honest, they aren't that far into their own products. When Alan Wake and now Fable 3 showed this case, it shows me Microsoft mainstreamed this black case. Why?

Perhaps the larger amount of Special Edition purchases, incentivized by this black case now represents the arrival of the next generation. The next xbox line will have these black cases, and since we had no problem paying over retail for the special editions, these black cased next gen xbox games (for whatever they call the next xbox) will be $70.

That's just my theory, to me it makes sense.

Tj What's New? Summer Movie Preview and Thoughts

A little late I know but I preview the entire list of summer movies with some very quick thoughts on each of them.

TJ What's New? Robin Hood

Hey guys I'm back to my reviewing ways. This time with Robin Hood check out the review below.

TJ What's New? Iron Man 2

Sorry for the lack of content lately but with lots of summer movies coming down the pipe and no more classes to worry about. Expect a lot of content to come during the summer ahead.

The Online Pass

It's no secret that EA along with many other publishers hate the money passing around for used game sales.

So EA has decided to start including a code with every new copy of its games called Online Pass, which would effectively make online multiplayer locked for every gamer until they enter the code. (article courtesy of Kotaku)

The used game market is flourishing, especially with a nostalgic interest towards classic consoles and the internet offering cheaper ways to get brand new games at lower prices. However there is also quite an annoying trend of sports games being exactly the same every year, and why pay full price when you could trade in last years game?

That is where gamers might become frustrated at EA, how often do sports gamers trade in their old copies of the game nowadays? Plenty. With this new strategy by EA, those trade in games become practically worthless. Replayability and popularity determine street value of a game, and for a series of games that is the same every year this online pass hurts used AND new games sales for EA.

Think about it, if online multiplayer is locked out without a code why buy a used copy of the game? EA will charge you $10 to allow online multiplayer on the used copies, so without it the game isn't going to sell as fast from the store. In a few years the game chains will give you less for sports games as well as many games since EA will probably push this onto all of their games in the future. So now theres a $10 dollar surcharge if you buy it at the store used, and its completely useless if someone is selling it online unless its still shrinkwrapped. Well the problem is that's a new copy not a used one, so that won't happen very much. It'll probably cost just as much with shipping as a new game from the store, unless the seller likes giving stuff away.

I'm not going to assume every game has to have multiplayer to be replayable, but after a couple of days sports games will certainly get boring. Xbox Live pretty much made going to your friends house unnecessary, and I don't think many will keep buying the game to resurge that interest in Lan parties. I would cheer on anyone who does though, but its inconvenient and it devalues games to lock out the replayability factor of most sports games. Will it pay off for EA? Sure it will because now less money is being made on the side, I can't really blame them for doing this either. Should gamers stand for this?

Not being a fan of sports games I say don't bother upgrading your copies of MLB and NFL ever year. Quite a few people do, and I wonder how much of a backlash this will present to EA, we'll see.