When Monster Hunter was announced a year ago, I was excited for this game, since I understand how to play Monster Hunter and I know people who also finally understand how to play Monster Hunter on a good level. Working as a group can be really fun! I've been looking forward to another opportunity to play this on a big screen and relieve my hands of several years of cramping and give my eyes a break from squinting.

However, I watched a stream of this game on its release day and several days after, and it seemed all too familiar to the Wii version, Tri. It sort of makes sense. They are the same series, but you can never be sure with Capcom games whether it's a "Turbo" or a "Gaiden".

Maybe people outside of my circle, in videogameland at large, were clamoring for this, but it makes no sense (to me) to port a 2010 game in 2013. Why is this the game Capcom decides to push in the US?

This isn't totally Capcom's problem, but the Wii U and 3DS might as well be ...

Click here to Continue Reading

  A couple days ago I went to see a movie that clearly markets itself to me. It's called Wreck-It-Ralph. While it wasn't my favorite recent Disney movie, I found it to be a perfectly adequate movie that has videogames at the center. Extra thoughts about the film:

Wreck-it-Ralph felt like it ran out of videogame jokes about a third of the way through the movie and switched over to food jokes for the rest. I wonder if parts of the movie were recycled from a script for a film about the board game Candy Land? Speaking of jokes, early on in the film there was a violent gag involving Kano that made the parents in the audience wince. Considering how the rest of the movie goes, it really seemed out of place in context. However, it does hold the distinction of being the only evisceration joke I've seen in a Disney cartoon.

Between Wreck-It Ralph, Up, Shrek, and Monsters Inc. it seems a lot of animated films are about lumpy old guys who complain about their day jobs....

Click here to Continue Reading

Wow! It has been a long time since I have posted here on the old CoCo Blog. With midterms coming and going along with a deluge of reports coming in on the next front, I barely enough time to even formulate a good thought to keyboard. Since I have not been playing many new fighting games lately, I will share some of what I have been doing lately.
I have recently just watched the new Iron Chef series and man, I don't know, it's alright? It starts off on a bit of a sad note. This may be a spoiler, but this series starts out in a graveyard with flashbacks of chairman Kaga. Afterwards, you see the new chairman praying in front of a tombstone before the show begins. This only means one thing! He killed off chairman Kaga! I have not been this sad since the death of Optimus Prime and the passing of The Matrix.
Upon watching more though, the reason the producers killed off Kaga is clear after the first episode concludes. Basically, t...

Click here to Continue Reading

I found somethign interesting cruising through various SNK fansites and this was the most odd/interesting thing I ran across today. I am posting it here so I don't forget to read the entire thing for myself when I get home. The top KOF13 Terry player in Japan has become the biggest news in the anime industry this week, but not because of his 'ARE YOU OK' gaming skills. Hell, he even became headline on Kotaku. Mitsuhiro Yukichi (you can see him play against Tokido here and here) works his dayjob as a professional voice actor. In fact, he became a voice actor because of his dream to one day do a character in KOF! Talk about being a hardcore fan! He's already in his 30's but so far he hasn't had his big break yet, living off on minor roles. And as everyone knows, small-time voice actors are treated like crap. In Yukichi's case, he was humiliated to a pulp on broadcast thanks to an idiot producer at Kingrecords who thought that lying to him about getting a role in a new anime woul...

Click here to Continue Reading

Every once in a while we get tired of playing the kiddie games with the lifebars and fancy pants KO animations and turn our eyes to a more serious competitive game. That day where we hung up our overly large joysticks and took up the analog of men was on Aug. 15th! Another all-out perfomance by our combatants.

Will reigning champion John "Sakazaki" Golden maintain his title against our newfound field of competitors? Find out on the next page! Part 1 of Honest Party

  Part 2 of Honest Party   Still not enough Money Party? Relive the first deciding of destiny here!  

Click here to Continue Reading

I've been playing Dracula X Chronicles and Castlevania Chronicles on my PSP while in the office. Lately, I've been wondering, when Konami'll release a proper Castlevania and not yet another metrovania? Even though Symphony is prolly the best castlevania, I still prefer the older games more than the subsequent sequels released on the GBA and DS.

Harmony of Despair is fun for a while, but I still miss those games with precise jumps and avoiding projectiles with a precise whip all while handling a Belmont tank. Order of Ecclesia came close to giving me what I want, but it chickened out about halfway through. At least that one is fairly "anti-grind", just gotta master dodging everything. Still, what I enjoy most about Iga's run are the constant links and references to past games in the series. For example, that one moment in SotN where Maria asks Alucard if he knows about the Belmonts and he pictures Trevor's NES sprite in his head. Little moments like that are what r...

Click here to Continue Reading

I have now lived in Cleveland, Ohio for several years and every year since about 2008, I constantly kept forgetting to attend an event hosted by one of the few independent gaming retailers in the county with an actual physical store for all of us to visit called the Video Game Connection. But not this year! This hosted event is called the Cleveland Classic Console and Arcade Gaming Show or CCAG for short and is being held this Saturday June 23. Only one day prior to our very own tournament of the Fox and Hound on June 24. Turn a sweaty and boring weekend into a weekend festival of gaming! Old and new! Fighting and friends or even fighting your friends!

The address of this event is at 22001 Brookpark Rd 44126. Click here for a google map!

Here's the list of events going on for us more competative minded folk!

Tournament Games:

XBOX 360 - Soul Calibur V
Arcade - Robotron - Top Score
Super Nintendo - ...

Click here to Continue Reading

In other news on this way too hot monday in Ohio, I have come across something that has immediately made me feel better. Yeah, it's not fighting game related, but it's related to my second most favorite thing ever. Anything SEGA! After putting on some headkrones and killing my lunchbreak with this fantastic showpiece, I can't go back to playing the original without feeling a small sense of dissappointment. I want to burn this onto a CD to play it on my own systems!

Click here to Read

For anyone not familiar with Console Combat and our monthly tournaments, we also do a smaller less serious stream. It is conveniently located on our tab bar. This is the weekly stream where our local crew comes together and trains up in the grand buffet of fighting games that are available out there in videogameland. Last night on June 11, however, we took things on a slightly different direction.

In the RED corner we have our Challenger. Mad jive-talker, bullseye rock tosser, and newfound fitness guru, Butch "One-Punch" Hankus.

In the BLUE corner we have our defending Champion. A silent but powerful striker, he will take out your legs and crush your head at a moment's notice. John "Mr. Sakazaki" Golden!

What ensued was FOUR HOURS of the most intense and riveting Mario Party 3 bouts that anyone has witnessed in over a decade of this game's existence. Many coins were shaken down from the combatants and ma...

Click here to Continue Reading

E3 this year was a total sham, If it was not for an official announcement of this game I have been following for the past 4 years coming to the US, I would consider giving up videogaming.

This should have been part of their keynote address and not quietly slid under the door!

Behold! My personal selection for GOTY of 20XX! I would even say that Sony should just replace PSHome with this fantastic masterpiece! Tokyo (fuggin') Jungle!



Click here to Read