#COOLAPE Wednesday - Like Donkey Kong

Link for the full comic on CoolApe:
http://www.coolape.org/comic-eyz-like-dk.html

It's ON!

What did you do this weekend?!

Hey gang, long time since I did one of these, heh?!
I originally planned on posting this yesterday, but stuff like work and life got in the way :P

This time, let's talk movies, TV and fighting games! (again!)
So this past week was the season finale of Fringe.
God, I love that show!

The last bunch of episodes were all pretty intriguing, the on-going plot crazier each time.

I just love the way it totally embraces its scifi roots. I mean, Fringe's basically an odd to science fiction, with big budget. You find the usual tropes, themes and clichés (time travel, mutants, mad scientists, alternate world, future distopia, science gone wrong, etc.), only with a "Bad Robot" touch, great acting and seriousness.
The epic climatic finale left me wanting for some more, though most major arcs seem to be closed for now...
Fox decided the next 5th and finale season will be shortened to a mere ~13 episodes (screw Fox network!!)

I also watched back Total Recall this weekend.
It had been quite some time since I last saw that one.
I love Scharzie!
Back then they knew how to make a good action blockbuster movie, no cheap CGi everywhere and lame lackluster storylines.

And, hey, it was a less racist time in a way, having big "foreign" guys at the head of all these big budget action flicks, Schwarzennegger, Van Damme, Stallone.. just look at the way people spend their time mocking those guys nowadays, their acting, their accents.. -sigh-

Anyways, enough sidetracking, I loved that movie!
Being a Paul Verhoeven movie, it was also pretty big in interpretation, more than I remembered it being.
What really happened in this movie?
Either you accept it was simply this story of this guy named Quaid who suffered from nightmares involving Mars and some brunette. He got a "Recall" which was fake implanted memories of vacations on Mars often... which awakened some actual memories of Mars that were erased from his mind. He goes to Mars for real, spends the whole movie fighting against bad guys *SPOILER alert on a decade old movie* only to discover he really was this Hauser guy. It was a plan with the main baddie to infiltrate the Martian resistance. In the end Quaid doesn't embrace his old Hauser persona and save Mars.
OR
It was all part of the Recall-implanted memories. Lots of things support this interpretation. He did get "the whole package" as he chose at Recall. He contributed in a Martian revolution, there were blue skies in the end as chosen in the simulation. Heck, he even chose that exact same brunette. Is the whole thing only a dream? (from the moment he was trying to escape from Recall?) The movie does end on a fade to white, which usually means a state of dream or someone dying on films. But you can go further than that, perhaps we, as the audience, were experiencing the whole Recall-memories, from start to beginning. Nothing was real, thus explaining things going further and further into over-the-top action. Deviating.
And even having this big muscled Schwarzy in the main role plays into the audience expectations. We have a certain level of expectations regarding the movie. Perhaps, if we'd were to choose "Martian memories" in the persona of a spy, Schwarzy would be our avatar.

God, I love Verhoeven!

Been playing a lot of fighting games too.

Some Blazblue on my sparetime. A game, I honestly am not a fan of...for a lack of trying.
I mean, since I got the original, I played so very little of the game.
But I wanted to like it!
I liked GuiltyGear, but I just never got around playing BB...
(unlike my 50+ hours into the usual Namco, SNK and Capcom fighters...)

Speaking of which, finally got a copy of Street Fighter X Tekken for super cheap, in second hand, on ebay. That way I won't geel cheated by Capcom whenever I'll buy those additional characters as DLC...
And by the by, when are they gonna release them? October?!!
I already fhought against Pacman, on the online mode, ON MY FRIGGIN' XBOX!!

And finally, Soulcalibur V!!
I wanted to dislike the game, I kept dissing it every new News blog I posted here... And even so... I just love the game!
It simply is a well rounded, well timed, well executed new entry in the long running series. I was afraid the lack of familiar faces, the exponentially over-epic theme, plus the bad after-taste SC IV left in my mouth would ruin it... So I even stared only playing with Ezio at first...

But... like, woah!!
The game is pretty fun! I love the SC-y music, the narrator, the gameplay.. Heck, even the awful *get broke by a combo/super attack and lose clothes* isn't as silly as it was in the previous entry. (though I kinda wish they'd just get rid of it...)
The characters are either new "old ones" in everything but name, children and successors who look pretty much the same, or old returning and older classic SC characters. I'm okay with it. Namco mostly cleaned up the lineup, not everyone was that essential anyway. I still have Maxi around. Mitsurugi. Even *SPOILERs-again* Kilik.
I miss Taki, but there's still a new badass ninja around, Natsu. I miss Xianghua but there's Leixia now. Even Raphael finally looks fun and playable now!

Spent lots of hours on it already, either *local* against my bro, or on Arcade, Quest and Legendary modes. Barely touched the online, but I'm an "old school" gamer, so I doubt I play a lot of it anyway.

~

And that is all I had to say~

#AwesomeCosplay Pics of the day: Juri Han

Here's another totally amazing Juri Han cosplay (from Super Street Fighter IV!) by the lovely Linda Le:

She does look the part <3

Pretty accurate work!

Go Home and Be A Family Man!

Here's another classic victory-screen from yet another Street Fighter game.

Sometimes it was the Engrish, other times it was the silly captions that didn't work as well on each character, but there was always something fun outta these :P

Gamin' NEWS! Pac Man Vs. Mega Man!! It's on!!!

Here's the most epic news you'll heard concerning the upcoming Capcom title Street Fighter X Tekken...
...joining an already big epic cast of colorful characters of Namco and Capcom fighters (for some reason, mostly Final Fight on Capcom's side...!?), Ono added two surprise non-fighting guest to the roster in the form of....

Namco's own classic mascot Pac-Man will be joining the all-star ranks of Tekken fighters.

Like today's Namco company this bonus character will actually be a classic Pacman riding Tekken's own Mokujin (albeit giant). The perfect alliance of today's games and the classic Namco from the arcades. Namco today, still with their classic and modern fanbase in mind.

Here's some pics:

On the other hand, Capcom's own bonus character is...

Classic "Boxart Mega Man".
Which would be a nice addition usually...but look at the poor guy!

He's clearly out of shape, the costume totally busted...
Is that what they think the fans deserve? How they see the Mega Man fanboys?
Or better, just a joke? Considering how much fans were asking for some Mega Man content lately be it in the fighting games or just considering the way they threat Mega Man over the more popular franchises like Resident Evil or Street Fighter.
With 2 Mega Man games canceled lately, Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Legends 3, this is probably what Ono thinks of the blue bomber:

Bwahahaha :P
Honestly, I kinda love it!
I'm sure the Japanese audience will call him "USA Rockman" or sumthin'~

And you can be sure a more Classic Mega Man will be available as a DLC costume later on XD
For now only confirmed for PS3 (not Xbox 360... which kinda annoys me, but, meh, it's just a game so...~)
Here they are in motion, in the latest trailer:

Gamin' NEWS! Street Fighter X Tekken new trailers so far

Capcom released some news regarding their take on the upcoming next cross-company Vs. Series installment Street Fighter X Tekken!

A lot of characters have been revealed so far.

Here's the latest batch of characters for the month:



Balrog, Vega, Juri join Paul, Law and Xiaoyu!
Loving to see Capcom already keeping Juri around. That's more effort they're doing than whatever happened to other SF4 newcomers like Abel, Seth or Viper....

The Tekken guys are looking well integrated and rendered in Capcom's hands.

There's also some quick hints at the upcoming characters we might see (Akuma, Ogre?)... Is that a (Miss) Pac-Man hint at the end?! And...huh... Captain Commando? Or a realistic/boxart Mega Man? (at this point, I'd rather have Cap' Commando honestly..)
But since it's in the Vita-console exclusive segment..it means fun characters only for that version of the game? awww...come on!

And here's the latest cinematic trailer:



Badass!
Still way too much filters to really enjoy normally (that's Capcom fighting games, under Ono!)...

~

On Namco's side, Katsuhiro Harada (Tekken director/producer) said fans will be able to vote for the roster of their game Tekken X Street Fighter on the official facebook page.

Dan's Fatal Fury

Long time since I last posted one of these random screenshots :P

From Street Fighter Alpha!
Always loved playing with Dan...maybe just because he's such a mashup/parody/and reference of the Art of Fighting characters playable in King of Fighters XD

Epic Random Xmas Comics 2011

[massive post ahoy! I know this is just gonna mess with my blog's layout...]

Time for another one of these as promised!

"I wish you all a Merry Christmas 2011 and a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!"

This is another one of my random Christmas comics, if you missed the previous years, follow these links:

2007-09 Epic

2010 Epic

Hope you enjoy the new one!

Characters © Respective owners
CoolApe Ape © CoolApe.org

Gamin' NEWS! New SF X Tekken trailer!

 Here's an all-new Street Fighter X Tekken trailer.

Obviously, fanmade - but a man can dream, can't he?

This one showcasing the more cinematic aspect of the game..that is, the cinematic opening video itself :P
 Also, for the ones in doubt, this also confirms Asuka 's appearance in the game (which was obvious if you ask me..)


They've been making the same type of videos since SF4, but I love how well the Namco ladies came out design & expression-wise here. Kudos Capcom!

FanFilmFriday: Street Fighter Zero 2 - Live Action!!

So there's been various attempts to bring Street Fighter to live, including various parodies, mock-umentaries, and official interpretations, a good movie people call bad and a bad movie people call good..
-sigh-

Anyways,
Here's a pretty fun live action Street Fighter segment from a Japanese game show.
Yes, a game show, people playing from a "sidescroller" view, to defeat their competition and whatnot in a SF setting.

Enjoy, it's pretty good :P



Why am I loving this Sakura so much? XD

Anyway, it's great to see some Street Fighter Alpha/Zero represented for a change!

Drawings - SF-doodles #03

And finally my 3rd and final Twitter-Jam for the moment:

The loose cannons it seems.
People asked me for various Alpha characters.. Dan, Rose, Mika, Hugo (well, he's more of a Final Fight guy, but you get the idea) so I only picked the more original ones/funnier to draw.
This time we have SF1's Adon, SFZero's Karin and Sodom, SF4's Hakan, SFEx's Skullomania and guest characters from Rival Schools, Batsu, Hinata and Akira!

Hey, Capcom. I'm still waiting to have Skullomania back!
(and don't tell me "...but Arika owns them" bullsh**, Ono already said they own the characters and could use them again)

Hope you liked those!
It was fun trying to squeeze in the maximum characters I could in here

Remember, follow me on Twitter to not miss those!

Drawings - SF-doodles #02

Picture for my 2nd TWITTER drawing session!

This time we had plenty o' fan favorites it seems.
Chun-Li, Sakura and Dan from SFZero, Alex fro SF3, Dhalsim and Bison from SF2, and even a guest again, Cody from Final Fight.

Enjoy!
I guess I'll do ONE LAST FINAL SESSION before stopping those.
Everything goes!

Remember, follow me on Twitter to not miss those!

Reply to this tweet to decide the next characters!

Drawings - SF-doodles #01

The results of the latest TWITTER drawing session!

This time covering Street Fighters characters (and a guest!).
Q, Dudley, Makoto and Ibuki from SF3, Blanka from SF2, Juri from SF4 and Q-Bee from Darkstalkers, just because!
You can see my preference for SF3
Hey, it's the SF series I spent more time on afterall. (<3 Dreamcast Forever!)

Remember, follow me on Twitter to avoid missing one of those!

Gamin' NEWS! 1 Tekken X Street Fighter concept art

Here's one concept art from the upcoming Namco title Tekken X Street Fighter, which is better than nothing.

If anything it does show the more realistic approach the game will go for.
Hopefully it will be done in true Tekken-fashion :P
(loads of characters, alternate costumes, character customization, etc..)

Side note: Part of me had wished for a Virtua Fighter X Tekken for so long... I hope this launches a Vs. Series trend at Namco XD

Gaming NEWS! Street Fighter X Tekken alternate costumes

Here's some news concerning Street Fighter X Tekken. (why didn't they simply call it Capcom Vs. Namco? the world will never know...)
Good news and bad news everyone!

The game will sport various pretty interesting alternate costumes.

Like always with Capcom, they will be expensive DLCs.
(this means I'll wait to grab a pretty cheap copy in second hand, and will buy all the costumes in a later pack...or wait for Namco's version of the crossover and will have all the costumes available for free!)

The interesting part is that the costumes are pretty neat and well crafted this time around.
And they seem mostly inspired in characters in the opposite franchise.

And if like me, it kinda annoys you to pay for things that should be granted for free, there's also a Customizing Mode.
Kinda in-between's Tekken full fledged Customize Mode and Marvel Vs. Capcom's Color Swap Mode. It will allow us to alter parts of the costume and the color. (skin, hair, clothes and accessories)

Neat option if you ask me!

What did you do this weekend?!

Hey gang, long time since I did one of these, heh?!

So, what did you guys and gals do this weekend?
Read any fun book I should heard of? Any good movies out there? Any entertaining video games lately?

Me? Well, besides watching hours of 30 Rock for no reason - it's been mostly this...

Yep!
Big FIGHTIN' GAMES marathon!
Powered by the Xbox 360, so it seems XD

It's been the occasion to have a quick run through all of these again, shake back memories and whatnot.

Here's my current impression of this generations' titles (I've mostly played the latest iterations of them, if available)
- Mortal Kombat 9: Luv luv luv this latest episode of Mortal Kombat/pseudo-reboot of the series. Easily one of the best this generation and one of my all time favorite fighters already. Just love how fun, simple and accessible the mechanics are, yet still deep enough to offer a challenge against another player of even the CPU sometimes.

Note: Why did they stop putting out these DLC characters? Warners stopped Ed Boon & co and want them to plan the next game already?

- SSF4: While I wasn't a big fan of SF4 originally, having a long history with the franchise and past episodes (SF3, Alpha,..), Super is quite a good improvement. My bro didn't like it as much a me though :P
We played it not that long, since the others proved so much funnier. But still a classic.

Note: I should be able to finally grab a copy of the update "Arcade Edition" in stores pretty cheap by now. Will probably do!

- KOF12: Oh, KOF. My favorite fighting game series at heart. How much I wanted to love ya...but it looks like such a lackbuster entry, cheap, lazy. Awful ugly menus, bland roster, very slow gameplay...at least it offers the prettiest 2D graphics/sprites ever done!

Note: Can't wait to grab KOF13...to help me forget..about 12....

- Blazblue CS: I'll say it quick.. I really really wanted to love you BB...but I...just...can't....

Note: The original Blazblue CT looked like a modern Guilty Gear. Rocking tunes and all... CS took out all the great rocking music, added clusterfuck HUD informations all over the screen and slowed the pace (and added tons of useless gimmicks too)... I heard there's a new update coming this winter... they better fix everything!
Also, the characters look so uninspired... It's like it's from the same dev team as the GG series...but without the art direction/designer and creator of GG behind it!!

-Tekken 6: I always loved the Tekken series since the original one on the PS1. Though I had a preference for the realism (in the physics and control) for Sega's rival franchise Virtua Fighter over it.
Tekken 6 is easily the best entry of the series so far. Fun, crazy, explosive, colorful.
You gotta love the over-the-top sense of Tekken.

Note: I wanted to play this one for hours non stop...looks like I was the only one on that.
The game is looking kinda dated now, it is showing its age compared to some of the other games we played this weekend. (the console port came out a bunch of years after the arcade original, without much change to the graphics)
Can't wait for the proper new game, Tekken Tag 2!

- Soul Calibur IV: I didn't like much this latest entry in the Soul series.. But it was kinda fun to have a new go at it this weekend.
The guest characters are so out of place this time around though :P
But I preferred playing with the SW characters over the manga artists-designed ones....

Note: Better than remembered.
My problem with this series, is that Namco is over trying to make every entry MORE and MORE epic compared to the previous ones...and it's kinda getting a bit much. Look at the trailer of the new game.
See? Over-complicated silly designs, giant armors and even bigger swords, random details, orchestral music more symphonic than ever (?).
At least Ezio will make this a "must try", just to see how the guy will play in a 3D fighter.

- DOA 4: The DOA serie's always been newcomers friendly, easy to master and quick fun assured.
After playing all these complicated titles above, this was an instant success. Like we never stopped playing it.

Note: Not expecting much from DOA 5, without series creator Itagaki.

- Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Okay, I'll say it right from the start. I always had a problem with this one and couldn't bear to love it that much. I spent hours, literally hours on the past previous two MVC games, more so than all of the above games' play time combined.
I knew MVC3 would be different from MVC2, I was expecting it...even though, it was too much for me. The game just looks bland, no colors at all. All the backgrounds look colorless and liveless, and even the characters don't stand out much over the levels thanks to the over dark art style used here. (I blame this on the art direction)
Anyway, the game was still fun, but too slow for a VS Series entry. And the roster lacks some crazy charas to stand out. (thank god for Taskmaster!)

Note: I'm pretty sure the update Ultimate MVC3 will make me forgive this one, since most of my problems will be addressed and fixed there. Like SSF4 did for SF4, IMO.

- VF5: Saving the best for the last.
Just a gorgeous, great, complicated and fun fighting game. My favorite this generation, alongside MK9.
The game still holds pretty well compared to most of his contemporary fighters.

Note: The latest arcade update (it had like 5 updates since this one) is finally coming to home system...digitally only?! WTF??
I wish Sega was less cheap than that. HEY! If all the others can pull off these DLC updates/disc retail release simultaneously, you can as well!!
Specially since they're cutting so much content to make it possible, size-wise.

And that's all.
I also tried the original SF4, Blazblue and Samurai Spirits Sen by myself, but that was just quick tryouts by myself, just to check 'em out back.

Gamin' NEWS! Marvel Vs. Capcom Vs. Namco Vs. SNK Vs. Onechanbara

Here's a new round of gaming news! This time, mostly fighting games.
First of all,
Capcom released the full CGi trailer for the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3!



This looked...actually nice, if a bit long for this kind of animation. (people "stopped" in action, filmed bullet time-style)


Continuining on the same subject, here's new Street Fighter X Tekken videos, from the New York Comic Con.
One for the Special Moves:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Street Fighter X Tekken - NYCC 11: Special Moves Gameplay (Cam), PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

And another showing a bit of this strange Gem System mentioned earlier in action:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Street Fighter X Tekken - NYCC 11: Gem System Walkthrough (Cam), PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

On SNK's side, King of Fighters XIII gets also plenty of new footage, including these 6 characters centric trailers.

Ralf:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Ralf Jones Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Clark:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Clark Still Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Leona:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Leona Heidern Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Chin:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Chin Gentsai Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Kensou:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Sie Kensou Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

And Athena:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Athena Asamiya Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Looking really cool and fun! Great!
I'm really quite pumped for this one, can't wait!!^^

And since this is mah blog, boi,
here's some older trailers I decided to post here as well just because!

Kula:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - Team K: Kula Diamond Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

And Yuri:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, King of Fighters XIII - GC 11: Women Fighters: Yuri Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Kickass fighting gals! Yeah!


And finally, on a different fan-service-ing note.
Here's a new "Uncensored Japanese Trailer" for Onechanbara Z: Kagura!

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Onechanbara Z: Kagura - Uncensored Japanese Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

WeEEeeee! :'3

What?!

Gamin' NEWS! Marios, Sonics, Fighters and Transformers!

Doctor Rosen is not amused.

Here's a new bunch of gaming news. 
Today's program, Marios, Sonics, Fighters and Transformers!
Also enjoy my all-new random NEWS! pics. I updated the only one I had (Toby "The Rat" Maguire) and made some new ones to shuffle things up a bit.
Only the best for ya all!
First of all, let's start with a new trailer for the upcoming Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: London 2012.
Sega & Nintendo just announced this game will feature a new and original party game mode. Sort of a Mario Party X Sonic Shuffle if you will, for connoisseurs.
Check out the Party Mode in the following trailer:



Looks like a fair addition, if they want this 3rd Olympic installment to demarcate from its predecessors.


Street Fighter X Tekken gets a release date, March 6 for the US and March 9 for most of Europe (yay!) and a collector edition!

This collector will include a “Build-It-Yourself Arcade Cabinet Bank” that’s about five inches high, a comic prequel by UDON, in-game gems which will act as currency and serve to unlock/update stuff for your game (à la Marvel Vs. Capcom series). It was confirmed for PS3 and 360 only.

Here's a new trailer from the NY Comic-con, illustrating the new features and more:



I already can smell some haters complaining about this Gems-feature from miles....


And finally, you saw the announcement of a new Transformers game, now here's the actual launch teaser trailer for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron:



Stuff hinted, which I'm sure Transformers fans will no doubt dissect and analyze from scratch to bottom.

And that is all~

AwesomeCosplay Pic of the day: Badass JURI

Here's a quite badass cosplay of Street Fighter's Juri by the talented Magdalena Kosmoski.

Such an attention to the detail! Mighty impressive :'3

Why don't ya help her out and go vote for her?

Kick ass job!
She does suit the character pretty well~

Gamin' NEWS! SF X Tekken - Battle of the fat dudes

And here's an all new trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter X Tekken game that will be released on March 2012!



The two big guys of both franchises will finally collide! Will they both fit in this game??
Who's side are you on? With Rufus or Robert "Bob" Richards?