Nan Desu Kan 2010

Greetings fellow geeks!  We here at the Gameslave have returned from the Rocky Mountains' largest anime convention, Nan Desu Kan.  As you can tell from the decorated van picture below, many others were excited to be there as well. Decorated van from the parking lot for NDK We were fortunate enough to be able to cover the event as press and will be posting some material from the weekend's event, including pictures, video, articles, and recordings of various con visitors and panels.  We are diligently working to get these items up as soon as possible.

For a little background though, Nan Desu Kan (NDK) has been running locally in Colorado since 1997, starting off in the Tivoli building in downtown Denver.  Since its humble beginnings of about 200 fans, it has grown to a whopping 20,000+ attendee-Friday-through-Sunday event, moving locations three times since the Tivoli to accommodate all the attendees.  If you are interested in attending NDK's 15th convention next year, you can follow the link above to the registration area and sign up.  Until September 19th, 2010, pre-reg is only $25 for the whole weekend and after that it goes up to $40 as long as you are registered before August 14th, 2011. 

If you live as well in the Denver metro area or Colorado itself, you may also be interested in NDK's second New Year's Eve Cosplay Bash.  You can register here for this event, which is a semiformal/semi-cosplay event, so fancy dress or full costume is a must.  More information can be found at NDK's website.  We'll be back soon with some more fun anime con news!

Music from the Final Fantasy Series

Source Image from Distant Worlds websiteHave you ever wished you could hear some of those great Final Fantasy pieces played by an orchestra instead of the game's limited midi sounds?  Look no further than the Distant Worlds tour playing the music of Final Fantasy.  It would appear that the tour schedule is close to wrapping up and if you were one of the American fans that got to see the concert live and in person while the tour was in the States, you're lucky. 

If you are like me though and were unable to enjoy the music live, it doesn't mean that we have to miss out on the glorious orchestra sound.  The official website of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy allows you to purchase the two CDs of officially released music from the concerts.  It also allows you to purchase the tracks as direct MP3s or if you just want a gander at the sounds, there is a streaming option directly on the website here.

It is very exciting for me to listen to pieces from Final Fantasy VI such as Dancing Mad (Kefka's Final Fight Music) or the Opera House "Maria and Draco" sequence in full orchestra and choir glory.  If you're a fan of the series or just want to listen to some beautiful music you may have passed on before because of the games, then give Distant Worlds a spin.

The Gameslave Podcast - EP 42 - The Late Late Show

Yes, very late but now up!  The Gameslave Podcast Episode 42. The podcast and the show notes can be found here.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: Why Have You Not Seen It?

Hear Ye, Hear Ye; the most recent geek movie of the summer has been released and you, my fellow geeks, have disappointed me with your reception of this film!  Yes, it came out the same week as The Expendables, but it is week two; you should have seen it by now!  You have only allowed Scott Pilgrim to make $20,696,285 in two weeks and this is an insult to the film!  Why is this an insult?  It is because Vampires Suck has made $18,563,902 in one week!  Have people really let it come to this?  Well, I guess I need to place up a review of this must see movie for the geek community to try and get you out to see it. 

To start with, if you have a girlfriend / fiancé / wife you can swing this as a romance movie, so you could make it part of your date night.  The movie at its core is about Scott overcoming his past and the past of the girl he has fallen in love with, Ramona Flowers.  Scott's problem is that he has been hurt by his ex a year ago and cannot get over it.  His rebound girl (a year later) is a high school girl named Knives Chau.  He meets Ramona, dates both of them for a little bit, then breaks things off with Knives.  This is something that he should have done sooner, but at least it did it.  She did not take it well though, so that adds some interesting conflict in with the other battles.  Yes, I said battles.  If you had not heard, the past event that Scott has to overcome in order to date Ramona is defeating (not just fight, but defeat) her seven Evil Exes.  The fact that it is exes and not ex-boyfriends is very important.  Yes, it sounds like a flimsy premise, but it works well and it almost never slows down once the first battle starts.  Each battle also seems to start with a big VS. appearing on the screen, and with what type of battle it seems to be.  There are also other little nods to geekdom.  For example, each character has an info block that appears on screen for a minute when they are introduced, and when Scott defeats an enemy a point value appears. It made the movie really fun to have these various nods to geek culture sprinkled throughout. 

I don't want to spoil the movie, so I've given you just the quick and dirty version of the plot premise. Yes, you have figured out how the movie ends, good for you. But what I am not wanting to spoil is not how the movie ends, but the journey to the end of the movie.  That is the truly enjoyable part of this movie and why it is worth seeing.  Sure the ending is not a surprise, but that does not really matter? So, if you have not gathered yet, GO SEE THIS MOVIE!  If you don't then you will not get to see it in theaters and we may not be treated to another movie like this for some time.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World cost almost $60 million to make and if it makes no money, they may stop making movies like this.  We have to put more support behind movies like this if we want to continue to see such titles make it to the big screen.  If you are still full of fail and do not see it at the theater, then buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD when it comes out.  What is that? You don't have a Blu-Ray? Then this is also the perfect time for you to buy a PS3 to enhance your gaming as well as movie viewing experience.  This movie, for its slow start but great journey, gets a Gameslave rating of 4.5/5.

Update on 2010-09-08 23:09 by ZeldaQueen

Proteus and I (ZeldaQueen) have done our geeky duty and have gone out to see this movie.  We are about a month after its initial release, but other commitments kept us from seeing it earlier, so the Labor Day weekend was the perfect time for us to catch it.

If you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to go and give it a shot.  I haven't read the comic or really knew anything about the film other than this guy had to chose between two girls, fight some odd dudes and that there were some video game and pop culture references.  There is that in the movie, but also more such as battling bands, bizarre friends, and quirky visuals.  I also found the film to be a sort of coming of age film where Scott Pilgrim learns a bit about himself, the world, his friends, and the girl he likes and comes away with something learned.

There are several funny moments that don't rely on any pop or game culture references so your friends who think this is just about geeks in a basement playing D&D couldn't be farther from the truth.  Yes, there is that twenty-something-I'm-finding-myself-awkwardness but none of the you-have-to-be-entrenched-in-the-culture to get all the visuals, jokes and the movie.

Right now the film is sitting at about $38.9 million dollars world wide, so it has reached about 2/3 of its production budget.  Still not a home run by any means, but it's getting up there and only by seeing it can you help it out.  I'm waiting for the DVD/Blu-Ray release now as I think this movie can be presented very well and have some interesting features once released.  I wouldn't mind seeing this movie in theaters again.

Update on 2010-09-21 06:16 by IrishPride

IrishPride here, a little late to the party, but I finally went and saw Scott Pilgrim with ZeldaQueen.  I'll spare you the wall of text and give you my two word review:

F*cking Epic.

Go see the movie now, or again, before it leaves theaters.

Building a PS3

The prototype PS3, as you can see, was a little too big to fit in homes.  Be glad that they shrunk the original version to the size that they did.  

This building in Osaka, Japan represents what the Playstation could have been (probably not).  But imagine if a PS3 was really this size?  Would we have to travel to the central PS3 hub and connect our TV's to it, or would we have dedicated Playstation cables setup like city utilities?

Source: Damnlag

The Gameslave Podcast - EP 41 - StarCraft 2 has come.

See, less then two weeks later we present you with Episode 41 of The Gameslave Podcast.  Information on the great podcast can be found behind the following link.

Hope you enjoy it.

StarCraft 2 - 1 Million Copies in 1 Day

You read that right.  StartCraft 2 managed to sell 1 Million copies in its first day.  Sure the second day was only a measly 500,000 copies, but that still makes it the fastest selling strategy game in history.  These numbers include releases across five continents and eleven different languages. 

I think this means that Blizzard is officially trying to steal the souls of the entire world.  Heaven help us when Diablo 3 is released.

Source: Press Release

Rune Factory: Frontier - Wii Review

With the annoucement Rune Factory 3 for the DS, I decided to try the bigger brother version of the Rune Factory series released on the Wii, Rune Factory: Frontier.  You don't need to play any of the DS versions to enjoy this one, so jump right in!