Though it has been apparent that anime live action movies haven’t been faring too well…*cough* Dragonball *cough*, there is some glimmer of hope in the above preview of the upcoming Blood: The Last Vampire film. The story focuses on a mysterious girl named Saya, who has been employed by the US government to hunt down other vampire-demons. Being half-demon herself and armed with a katana, Saya is like an Asian, female version of the popular vampire hunter Blade.

Though it has since been released in Japan and in the UK, I’m anxiously awaiting the North American release on July 10th and hoping it’ll buck the trend of terrible live action adaptations of anime. If this does well, perhaps there IS hope for the Neon Genesis Evangelion film!

-Stephen

So many of us have probably had deadlines or appointments for the day which we missed because we didn’t write it down and forgot about it. Well, Il-Gu Cha has designed a clock to help eliminate that problem. Dubbed “Trace Of Time”, the clock is essentially a white board whereby people can write in various tasks on the clocks face and the clock’s hand will erase the task once the time has passed. Definitely an interesting and unique design for a clock, however, if the price for clock above isn’t reasonable, I can see other companies copy the concept and sell it.

-Stephen

However, the creator of the program cautions that he takes no responsiblity if people damage their phones using the jailbreak method they have for the 3.0 iPhone OS. There seems to be many people whom have been successful and unsuccessful with the process. So again, people who want to unlock their new 3GS now, should do so at their own risk. Otherwise, I would wait until a more stable solution is in the works.

-Stephen

Recently, Ubisoft has released the remake to the classic arcade game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. I remember back in the day pumping quarters in the machine and playing with 3 other friends. The video above shows a splitscreen comparison of the original arcade and the remake on XBLA. Though the graphics and sound are improved, I just miss the old, cartoony feel and charm from the original. Anyhow, I definitely miss the old multi-player arcade beat-em ups like The Simpsons, X-Men, Predator vs. Aliens and Golden Axe. Hopefully, these other franchises will receive the same type of treatment as the TMNT game.

-Stephen

To continue along with the whole “2-D Fighting game theme”, There is this Japanese game called Vanguard Princess which pits cute anime girls fighting against one another on the PC….and the best part is that it’s FREE! Check it out here! This amazing looking fighter was created by a developer named, Tomoaki Sugeno, who is apparently an ex-Capcom employee. Though everyone may not be into the whole “moe” female characters in the game, it’s definitely hard to argue the fact that it’s free. If only more quality games could be had for free. =)

-Stephen

Earlier I had mentioned that Street Fighter IV seemed to have brought a revival of the whole fighting game genre. It’s definitely cool to see the newest incarnations of popular franchises like King of Fighters and Tekken, but there are brand new titles like BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger by Arc System Works (maker of Guilty Gear). From looking at reviews of the game, it definitely brings back memories of the classic 2-D fighters. The graphics are extraordinary and the controls are responsive…it’s definitely a must by for hardcore fighting game fans. I definitely would recommend playing this game with a stick (as opposed to a controller) to get the good ol’ arcade feel. The game has an anime feel towards it and wouldn’t be surprised if an actual anime series were to spawn from the games success.

-Stephen

With the excitement and anticipation of the Palm Pre becoming the next iPhone, some developers have been creating custom console emulators for the phone. A few years back, people were excited just to be able to play old 8-bit NES games on their phones…but now, we have reached Playstation emulation! I was amazed at home smooth Wipeout XL for the PSX ran on the Palm Pre. I could’ve sworn that the video was showing a portable PSX console!

The developer ZodTTD has been mentioning that similar performance can also be seen in the PSX4all emulator for the new Apple iPhone 3GS. Honestly, if a person like ZodTTD can produce smooth emulation of PSX games on the Pre and iPhone, I can’t see why Sony won’t capitalize on that.

-Stephen

First off, I want to wish everyone a very Happy Canada Day! (Too bad I have to work today). Anyhow, many car buffs will probably tell you that the fastest street legal car today is without a doubt, the Bugatti Veyron. However, over a decade ago, the title of the fastest was owned by the equally exotic, Mclaren F1. I know a lot of people have been wondering which is faster? But the cost and rarity of each vehicle made a race between the two powerhouses to be unrealistic…until now!

The popular British series, Top Gear, actually made the dream race possible. Seeing each car in action is just a dream come true. Though I won’t spoil the actual result of the race, I gotta say that it was definitely a close one.

-Stephen

Though it’s definitely cool if the Terran base can transform and merge into Terra-tron, it’s unfortunately an April Fool’s joke. However, just imagine if such a unit DID exist in the new Starcraft II game…I’m wondering how powerful it could be? I’m sure long after Starcraft II has been released to the public, some Transformer loving hacker may come up with an actual mod in the game. Maybe Hasbro and Blizzard can do a collaboration and create a RTS Transformers game!? (Sorry…I just watched the Transformers II movie and I have Transformers in the brain..lol).

-Stephen

These days, many tech companies have been trying to create gadgets which merges multiple devices into one. For instance, the iPhone is Apples device which confines a multi-media player, phone and game device all into one. There has been speculation that Sony was planning to add cellphone capabilities to their PSP gaming console…and it looks like it may become a reality.

Recently, Sony has stated that it’s “considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid” on Sony Ericsson phones. I definitely think it’s a great idea, but i think Sony has been late to the game and now Apple dominates the market with their iPhone. If Sony can make the next incarnation of PSP to include cellular capabilities, I believe many gamers will buy it. If I had a choice of carrying two devices (PSP and cellphone) or a PSP-phone, I would choose the latter….it’s all about portability! Though news like this is promising, I won’t be excited until an actual product is announced.

-Stephen