If you’ve never heard the name Junji Ito or read any of his works, then congratulations. You’ve been able to sleep a little more soundly at night.

Ito is a horror manga artist from Japan who revels in delivering his scares with tales of the strange, unnatural and the unexplainable. And copious amounts of body horror. He’s notorious amongst manga fans for his sheer ability to create nightmare fuel with his style of drawing and his love of putting his story’s protagonists through ungodly amounts of hell.

Out of the over one dozen volumes of his horror collection, and several stand-alone stories that can span many chapters, there are some that stand out above the rest, be it for their superior story or their extreme ability to make us squirm.

These are those exemplars in my book.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

The original Voltron cartoon was a childhood favorite for so many of us growing up. For some, it was their introduction of large robot fighters in general, to be accompanied by several others of the time. As with the general 80’s English dubbing of the Japanese GoLion series, Voltron was still rife with action, drama and mecha being the crap out of each other, as well as featuring characters that may have fit a couple of eventual stereotypes but still had personality.
Years later, we dealt with the supposed sequel series, Voltron: 3rd Dimension, whose main purpose wasn’t so much as to continue with the storyline and development that the original series left off with, but rather to simply show off how “unique” it was by being completely 3D rendered and computer generated. The plot and characterization suffered in turn, even though several of the voice actors from the original series had returned to reprise their characters. (Oh Michael Bell, you will always be my first audible animation love)

So after that disappointment, and over a decade going by, when Nickelodeon announced a new cartoon dubbed “Voltron Force”, it was a glimmer of hope for a lot of us oldschool fans. And for the first few episodes, it held the promise of erasing Voltron 3D’s disgrace and forging the path to continue everything as they had been with the original series. However, after the first half of the first season, you might start to notice some things that don’t really add up, or certain inconsistencies start piling up and can no longer be ignored in favor of compromising “Oh, it’ll get better, I’m sure”.

Not so much.

Spoilers, FYI.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Everyone likes a challenge, right? It’s the cornerstone of video gaming or gaming in general and gives us things to strive for. Several different gaming genres catered to specific challenges that gamers wanted to test their skills at. Want to see how well you can memorize things? Try Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct for their ability to throw insane combo strings at you. Want to test your mettle and see how much of a brave person you are? Go ahead and play Silent Hill 2 or the more recent Slender to see how much you are, in fact, a little girl.

Want to be barraged by near-endless curtains of projectile death in order to see how well your dodging skills are and your resistance to collapsing into twitching messes? Bullet Hell games are right up your alley!

A sub-genre of the classic shoot’em-up games, Bullet Hell gaming is exactly what it sounds like – you doing nothing but maneuvering into endless waves of bullet-like projectiles with a emphasis on precise movements in order to survive. The sub-genre itself isn’t as recent as some people might think, but it’s only gotten more insane with time. Here’s a list of top Bullet Hell games that leave people with twitchy fingers and darting eyeballs for day afterwards, and be sure to let us know what yours are if any were missed!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Ok, I’m going to start off by immediately saying that this list does NOT, in fact, represent my top favorite game themes. Neither does it mean to undermine any of the multitudes of iconic first-level game tunes that didn’t make this list. This list is simply made up of those jingles upon first entering a game’s plane of existence that meant the most to me and why. (and yes, most are from older games)

I see you there with the pitchfork and torch. Don’t try to hide it.

So here are my top 5 most iconic 1st Level tunes from video games.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond.

Let’s face it, having a servant must be an awesome thing. They clean up after you, prepare your daily routine, fix you whatever you want to eat and drive you around – amongst a whole plethora of other duties. They are your right-hand man. (or woman, if we want to be politically correct)

Then there are the servants that not only fix you dinner and take out the trash, but the type that REALLY take out the trash. They do everything from help you combat colds to combat the forces of hell. They may have been soldiers in their former lives, or are just very dedicated to making sure every possible need of their masters is met; even those that require a good helping of regular asskicking.

There is “effective”, and then there is “combat effective”. These guys take up both titles. They will also serve you tea in-between cracking skulls. Would you like some sugar with your lumps?
[Read the rest of this entry…]

There have been some famous utterances in the history of media. Famous lines such as “Yippie-Ki-Yay, Motherf**ker” and “Hasta La Vista, Baby” have been immortalized in our brains since first hearing them, and find themselves worthy of repeating upon anointed occasions. Video games are no exception, what with many games being dialogue-heavy, and thus producing a myriad of memorable lines.

However, not all dialogue is the stuff of writing gold. Indeed, for every fantastic line, there tends to be at least one line that’s so cheesy or utterly out-of-place that it defies logic to even include it in the game and makes us ponder how the game’s writers ever thought they were geniuses upon adding it. Alot of these truly awful lines are so bad, that they actually come full circle, and become immortalized even more than if they were an awesome line.

Thus, we have my Top 5 Worst Lines in Video Games, in no particular order since they’re all equally and awesomely bad.
[Read the rest of this entry…]