Bleach, shown Saturday nights on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, is one of the most watched anime shows among adults and teens. If not for its late night time slot and liberal amounts of blood and cleavage, it would be popular with younger viewers as well. Based on Shonen Jump’s manga of the same name, the series centers around Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who has the ability to see the spirits of the dead. When a mysterious woman visits him, he is attacked by a creature known as a hollow. To defend himself and his family, he takes his strange visitor’s power and uses it to become a Soul Reaper, (or Shinigami as they are known in the Japanese version) who are samurai-like warriors who have special abilities they use to defeat hollows. While the series has nearly reached 200 episodes in Japan, it recently returned to U.S. TV last March after a brief hiatus, and at the time of this writing, it’s only at 77 episodes, so North American fans who don’t watch the online fansubs still have much to look forward to. While it may not be as huge and popular as Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, or Pokemon, Bleach has devoted a fairly large fanbase, and there is a decent variety of merchandise available for fans. There have been action figures, a collectible card game, English translations of the original manga, and most importantly, video games. Thus far, Sega has published two Bleach games on U.S. shores, one of which, Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the Nintendo DS, is this week’s $20 game of the week. As a special bonus, we’ll take a look at the other game, Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Nintendo Wii. Both of these games are fighters, and both vary in degrees of quality. Die hard fans of the series probably already have these two games, but more moderate fans will probably be on the fence about them. So if you want the word on how well these games play, continue forward.
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My first Animated figure and I’m quite impressed! Certainly Grimlock joins Starscream as another quality Voyager.

2000 was a good year for Squaresoft, particularly the summer. We got several awesome games from them, each of which was special in their own right. Some gained more accolades than others, though. Alongside Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross, we also got Parasite Eve 2, Vagrant Story, and this little number, Threads of Fate. Even though Threads of Fate was clearly geared towards kids, older action RPG fans who own a Playstation will enjoy this too.

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While Valve’s Source engine is no Unreal 3, it is capable of impressive graphics all on its own (as anyone whose played the Orange Box can tell you). Its software development kit is also a favorite of modders and game developers alive, as many projects, mods and independent game releases alike have made use of it. Outerlight’s The Ship is one of these projects. Originally designed as a mod of Half Life 2 (which is why its menus are similar), the developers made this game an independent release. This is probably for the best, because The Ship has many unique gameplay mechanics that help set itself apart from other first person shooter games.
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The other day I posted that He-man and Beastman would be the next two figures in Mattel’s new exclusive Masters Of the Universe Classics (MOUTC) line. I jumped the gun a little because I was pretty sure I had a scoop since hadn’t seen the info anywhere else. It turns out, they were on display at SDCC and a bunch of additional info was revealed and posted to He-man.org. Here’s some of the highlights:
– King Grayskull sold out on both MattyCollector.com and at SDCC
– Availability will be:

• He-Man – October 31st
• Beast Man – November 15th
• Skeletor – December 15th (was not on display at SDCC)
• Stratos – January 15th (was not on display at SDCC)
• Merman – February 15th
• Zodac – Sometime in 2009

– He-Man will have both a normal Power Sword as well as the classic toy half-sword
– From the 12 regular figures released in 2009, two will be characters who never were available as toys ever, and two will be characters who were released in the vintage line but not in the 2002 line
– Figures are limited to 3 per household
– Mattel produced two “Spirit of Grayskull” figures (blue translucent versions of King Grayskull). One was raffled off on Saturday at the con to a lucky fan. The other one will be auctioned in October for Dream Halloween 2008
– No Chase figures are planned right now (THANK GOODNESS!), but they are still a possibility
– Convention exclusives are being planned in 2009 for both NYCC and SDCC
– Some figures will have multiple heads, like Mer-Man
– Bios on the card will be based on the story arcs from the classic toy mini-comics and 200x line
– Mattel is currently looking into the possibility of including mini-comics later in the line
– BAFs (Build a figures) are only a possibility if the toyline is successful
– Mattel is exploring the possibility of a subscription plan for the toys
– Mattel is exploring the possibility of a comic book series available via mattycollectors.com
– No news about the movie; they are still in script developement

I have included some more tidbits from He-Man.org that came up from a Q&A outside of SDCC after the jump.
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During some E3 exploits, Mortal Kombat producer and the overall frontman of the series Ed Boon sat down and talked alot about the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game.

More detail is explained by Boon, and shown in background during gameplay, about the differentiations between the Fatalities and Brutalities that the MK and DC characters have respectively. Also shown is a new component of the Kombat franchise called “Freefall Kombat”, wherein both warriors are in a state of pounding the hell out of one another whilst falling from a great height in an attempt to build a power meter to deliver a super move by the time they hit ground. An interesting concept, though seems a bit gimmicky to me.

What really excited me about watching the gameplay was twofold. Firstoff, the gameplay, though technically being 3D, has a much more 2D linear feel to it that reminds me of classic 2D MK games of old, without the motion confusion of more recent games. The other aspect was that many of the old signature character moves that have faded as the MK series as gone on seem to have returned. Scorpion has his classic-rendition of his Teleport back, while Sonya has both her Ring Toss attack and Scissor Grab move. These moves will come in handy for oldschool players who will be standing off with DC legends like Flash who works similar to Kabal but somehow seemingly more fluid, and Superman, who’s packed with heat vision, ice breath, and earthquake attacks.

Check out Gametrailer feature.

For the life of me, I don’t know why EA decided to call this a Command and Conquer game. It has nothing to do with Tiberium, the conflict between GDI and NOD, Kane, or even the alternate universe of the Red Alert games. Heck, it doesn’t even have C&C’s trademark cheeseball live action FMV cutscenes. It shares more in common with Blizzard RTS games such as Starcraft and Warcraft than any previous C&C game. It’s pretty much as if EA wanted to show off its new Strategy Action Game Engine (SAGE), and couldn’t think of a better name for the game than its classic RTS franchise. This game is more like what would have happened if Blizzard made a Starcraft game and set it in the modern era. HOWEVER (and this is a big however), if you’re a fan of RTS games, then you should not ignore this title. It’s the first C&C (after the FPS Renegade) to be fully 3-d, and it adds several twists to the gameplay to set itself apart from other RTS titles. It might not be a ‘true’ C&C game, but it’s worthy enough to stand alongside the rest of the series.
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Today is the 4th of July, where America celebrates its independence. There are few things that symbolize America more than the defenders of the old west, the cowboy. Okay, there is apple pie, but to my knowledge, there haven’t been many video games made about apple pie. Anyway, in honor of America’s birthday, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will take a special look at some classic 8 and 16-bit games taking place in the wild wild west. So saddle on up, and mosey on down to your favorite game shop and seek out these games pardner!
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