Ai-Kon is an anime convention that happens here in Winnipeg every year during the summer. This year it ran from July 15th at noon to July 17th at 4PM at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. It runs all night, with anime showing rooms open as well as a gameroom open overnight. It is run by a committee of individuals, and is operated mostly by volunteers. They had 4 special guests this year: Greg Ayres, Jonny Yong Bosch, Christopher Sabat, and Eric Vale. This was my first time attending Ai-Kon, and it was their tenth anniversary, so they went a bit further than normal apparently to make it special.
The convention was split into panels, showings, contests, an art/vendor room, and dances.
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As always, since this is my first of a new article type, I’d like to start with a brief explanation of what this article will be. “The Gamer’s Theme” will be a series of articles discussing music – specifically music that has some bearing on video games that you may not be aware of. So musicians that inspired characters, or that provided their voices for the songs of a game, or whose subject matter covers gaming. Things like that.
The first I’d like to cover is a personal favourite of mine: Jade Valerie Villalon. Jade Valerie Villalon is a singer who was born in the US – California to be specific – but had to go abroad to find fame. She’s most well known in East Asia – China, Japan, Korea. However, nearly every gamer has heard her voice at least once.
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This is my first Impressions post, so I’d like to start with an explanation of what I mean by that. Some games don’t lend themselves well to being reviewed. A good example of this are MMORPGs. For games that aren’t properly reviewable that I play, I’ll be doing impressions posts. These posts will be a more informal touch on the game. The reason Agarest Zero is getting an impressions post, is that for a strategy rpg like this – a full review would take pages and pages – and would benefit nearly nobody. So I’ll touch briefly on a few things to be aware of for people who are either just starting this game or who are on the fence and just need to know a bit more. Any and all Impressions posts will be more likely to have spoilers in them than a normal review, as well.
So now let’s get on to the meat of this, shall we?
Record of Agarest War is a Strategy RPG – think Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre or Vandal Hearts. The Strategy RPG genre has been pretty quiet lately, save remakes on handheld platforms, so I am quite glad to see a new Strategy RPG. [Read more...]
If you’ve ever wondered who did time travel right first? Well, like most rpg things… Square was the first to perfect time travel as well. Often touted as one of the best rpgs ever made, Chrono Trigger is a marvel of design – considering how little space developers had on those cartridges back in the day.
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Suda51 and Shinji Mikami, noted for No More Heroes and Resident Evil respectively, have teamed up to create a new 3rd Person Survival Horror game: Shadows of the Damned. The game stars a Mexican demon hunter named Garcia Hotspur whose girlfriend Paula is killed and then kidnapped, yes in that order, by the Lord of the Demons, Fleming. Your objective: Rescue the girl from the Demon World where she is being kept. The game’s main two supporting characters are Garcia’s talking skull-that-can-turn-into-things Johnson who also serves as his advisor, light source, and weapon; and Christopher – a half demon who will trade currency for upgrades, ammo, and booze.
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