VS System TCG

Well, because I'm sick of studying, I decided to take a break and write a post about this card game. VS System started a long time ago, and as much as it tried to survive, it just never manage to capture people's interest. Which I fail to understand.

VS System allows you to use your favourite heroes, villains and teams in Marvel comics and DC comics, with a few others such as Hellboy. But mostly Marvel and DC. Today I found a card shop that sold this X-men starter deck for $10 (it was $15 long ago) and this deck box which was actually not for sale because the guy did not know how much it would cost now. That is how old this game is.

I like the Justice League deck box! Artwork by Alex Ross! Saw a guy having this a few months back and now I finally got one for myself!

To talk about this card game, I decided to show this starter deck as an example. I already bought one of this way back, but I decided to buy one more... just for fun. Anyway, in this box holds 2 decks, ready-made in a sense. Why I say so is because this game actually needs you to have a deck of 60 cards, which I think is slightly overkill. I mean, how the hell do I shuffle 60 cards? The box contains 26 cards per deck. The 2 decks are X-men and Brotherhood. Apparently, this set came out when the first X-men film was released. Hence you will notice that most of the characters given in the decks are same to the ones that appeared in the film. Thankfully, the artworks use the costumes of the comics-counterparts.

I won't go through the how-to of this card game, but I'll share about it in general. You can use any characters from any team, such as Brotherhood, and even have a deck containing multiple teams as long as you have team-up cards to allow team bonuses to be shared. I could team up the JLA with the Avengers if I wanted to. From big guns like Superman and Captain America to smaller ones like Morlocks and Outsiders, VS System covers a lot of the Marvel and DC universes.

Through the years VS System tried to give itself a fresh look in terms of card design in order to keep people interested and attract new players. However they must have failed badly because the card game was discontinued a few years back. I have to admit, Singapore did not really promote this game. I only could buy the newer sets from a particular comic shop called Comic Mart at Raffles City, which closed down eventually. That meant that I could no longer buy the newer sets, and had to stick with the older ones which can still be found at card shops around the island.

Every character has multiple versions, hence you can have more of your favourite character in the deck. Take Magneto, for instance. I've 2 different versions of the level 7 Magneto, both with different effects but still just as fearful.

There are many teams to make, such as JLA, Gotham Knights, Teen Titans, X-men, Ultimates, Spider-Friends, Sinister Syndicate, Gotham Inmates, Fantastic Four, Brotherhood, Hellfire Club, Green Lanterns and Avengers. I'm not sure why, but I purchased many of the cards for collecting. I bought boxes of booster packs from many series and many starter decks just to see what cards I'd get and add to my collection.

I made plenty of decks with the cards I got, but I never found anyone to play with. Nobody seemed to play this game, and hence I could only look at the cards and admire their beauty. I think VS System would be better if it was promoted more, their rules a tad simpler, and the deck size reduced to 30. I've been making my decks of 30 cards because I feel that 30 is enough for a game to last. I presume the 60-card size is to merely make chances of getting the cards you want less to... make the game more challenging? I don't know. Either way, as a comic book fan, I feel that this game actually had the potential, but somehow failed horribly due to dumb luck or something. Even the PSP game, Marvel Trading Card Game, was not well-received. And the cards given were the old ones with the new ones only obtainable from downloadable content(which I couldn't get because by the time I tried, the website was closed down).

BATMAN BEYOND!!!!! Love this toy ^^

Hottest Chick In Town

Emma Frost. Any time. It doesn't get any hotter than this.

Picture by J. Scott Campbell, who draws really sexy characters.

The Triangle And Other Stuff

Kids, this is the story of my first triangle. In the year 2011, your dad found himself in a love triangle for the first time in his life. Okay, maybe "love" wasn't the right word. It was more of "like". Anyway, your dad met this girl in a community service project called iConserve, and we shall call her Rachel.


Now, your dad is not the kind of guy who disrupt a relationship in the making, but at that point of time Rachel said that she and a guy called Gordon were not together. So I guessed it was alright to make a move. I never saw it coming, or maybe I did but chose to ignore it, but then came the triangle.


She said that she didn't really feel anything for the guy, so I thought it was okay. However, during the entire time she was messaging both me and him, although that does not actually bother me. People can choose who they want to talk to. Then came the 5-day iConserve camp, where your dad did his best to show his worth. And it seems that I was doing quite well, but some gossip totally shot down all most of my chances.


In that whole time, I got to learn what it feels like to be competing for a girl, I had people talk bad about me behind my back, I felt what it was like to get your... "stuff" stirred... "stuff". I said "stuff". It has been a long time since I've ever try to get a girl, and despite the failure, it was a fun journey. Kids, I've a lesson for you: Don't give up trying, and be a winner of your own defeat. Actually, that counts as two lessons. But anyway...


So at the end of the day Rachel chooses Gordon, and your dad is free to move on with his life. But I didn't get depressed or lost from all that, because that would simply be a waste of time. And I'm the kind who hates people or hold grudges over such trivial matters. Your dad decided to just continue with his life, and spend the newly free time on his friends and other things like music and studies.


And that was when I met your mother.

**************************************************************************

Haha cool right? I told myself I wanted to write down this entire story, but when I finally sat down to start on it, I realized that I was not sure what to type about, or how I would go about doing it. And I felt that I did not need to explain so much, as long as all the details were still with me. I'd just put the general details (*salutes*"General Details") in and leave the rest in my memory!

Went for haircut yesterday, and I totally regret asking the person to cut away the back of my hair. Now girls will think I look like a girl even more! :(

Oh and I edited this photo I took of my Astonishing X-men line-up, and I'm totally loving it! Bet you can't really tell that those are all actually toys!haha

PS. The part where "that was when I met your mother" is just for fun. No need to get excited, people.

X-men Anime Review

The X-men anime aired it's last episode some time back, and I watched it as soon as it was up, but I was unable (or too lazy) to find the time to give my review of this series. So here I am now, writing a review of this 13-episode series.

I'll start off with the last episode itself. Yui Sasaki's and Professor X's son goes rampage, turning the world to chaos. And before him stands the X-men, who tries to go on the offensive but get their asses kicked quite bad. As I kind of feared and suspected, Hisako, the new member, is the one that saves the day. Rather typical way to go, if you ask me.

One thing I liked about the episode was the cameo appearance of several other X-men, like Colossus and Archangel. Although Nightcrawler's hair is quite exaggerated in my opinion. There was even an Iron Man appearance, despite that boring first episode I saw. The battle was mostly some mind battle between Professor X and his son, which is not exactly action-packed. However, I liked the ending, mostly because Cyclops has opened up to Emma Frost. Notice how he didn't mind her calling him "Scott", even though he coldly told her to call him "Cyclops" nearly 6 episodes ago.

Of course, what better way to end the episode and the series with a cliffhanger? At the ending, we see a destroyed prison cell, that was so obviously keeping Magneto. Sounds like there will be season 2? As much as I'd love it, I highly doubt it.

Overall, the series was rather... average. It would probably score lower for a non-X-men fan. I'll first list down the cons. For one, why create some lady called Yui Sasaki who is a professor helping mutants, falls in love with Professor X, and have some powerful mutant kid with him? Sounds A LOT like Moira MacTaggart from the comics. Why not just use her name? The story gets rather dull, to me, when the X-men visit her facility, and there is a lot of unnecessary running around and fighting the mutated assistants. The bad guys in the show are also new, but nothing colorful or interesting about them, which is rather boring.

Now, if they threw in the Juggernaut, I believe ratings would have soared. Speaking of Juggernaut, it's quite irritating how the credits at the end misleads viewers. They show villains like Juggernaut, Magneto and Stryfe, despite them not appearing in the series. I mean, what gives?

The plot is not exactly rather complex either. Mastermind is not exactly some cool villain to see X-men clash with. Another thing is how Hisako is the main focus at the final battle. Sure, the rest of the X-men have some screen time, but mostly it's about Hisako. To me, that's quite boring.

Now for the good points. When I saw the first episode, I thought that the entire series would have the X-men clad in their comic-version costumes. I was very wrong. But their costumes did not really disappoint. Kind of a mix between the Astonishing and New X-men costumes. I like the line-up too. It's almost the Astonishing X-men line-up, with the lack of Shadowcat and Colossus. But it does not really matter, since I doubt there would be enough time to look into more characters, and they would end up as calefare. I'm glad that for once, a X-men show moves to when Jean Grey dies and Emma Frost comes into Cyclops' life. I was looking forward to more of the relationship of the two, but there was little mention on that. There is, however, hints of the relationship between the two improving, so I guess that will do.

And the characters in this anime look pretty good. I like Cyclops, of course, but the most amazing one has to be Storm. Never in animation have I seen a Storm that looks really good and sexy. I'm not sure what you guys are looking at in the picture, but I'm looking at her face. It's really well drawn! And there isn't those "anime/manga eyes" on her, or any characters in fact. Which is good. Also, the Wolverine is done correctly in this anime. The one done in the previous anime Wolverine looks too tall and skinny to be him. At least this one stays true to the comics. Despite my complaint about the plot, it was rather okay as a whole.

As much as I enjoyed this anime, I doubt I'd look at the next one, Blade. Don't really follow that vampire hunter dude. Didn't even watch the film trilogy. Why didn't they do a Spider-man anime?

Guess who ate the cake with wasabi in it?

X-men: First Class Review *Spoilers!*

Spoilers ahead! If you've not watch the movie, highly recommended to not read this post!

When they first say that the movie X-men:First Class was coming out, I was pretty excited. If you read comics you'd know that that title belongs to the comic series involving the original X-men: Beast, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Iceman. However, knowing that this movie is related to the rest of the X-men movies(which I honestly do not like), my hopes kind of shattered. Because as a comic reader, I dislike how the whole "X-men movie" world deviates from the comics version.

Then I found out that this movie would not focus on the original X-men, but more of Charles Xavier and Magneto. Which made me even more disappointed about the movie. Hence, my rather low expectation.

However, the movie is generally good, and makes me almost want to forgive them for the first 3 movies. The action scenes are definitely much better than the first few movies. The way the characters fly and leap in the 1st three movies were rather awkward. But seeing Banshee fly around above the battleships were rather impressive. Havok's beams were pretty cool, especially the way he did it. I found the part where Hank raced Xavier barefooted rather weird. As in the way he ran so fast.

The plot was pretty good, and like reviews say, it feels like a James Bond movie. But that is not exactly a bad thing. The story does not drag, and the plot does not disappoint. There's no anti-climax either.

Emma Frost was better than anticipated, although I wished she was a bit younger. In fact, all the characters were well-portrayed, although I was hoping for more "common" mutants. Non-readers of comics may not know half the mutants in the movie.

My favourite part was the cameo appearance of Wolverine :)

There are flaws, however, in this movie, if it is to relate back to the previous movies. First and foremost, in the 3rd movie, Charles and Erik, looking rather bald and old, went to visit a young Jean Grey. Which contradicts this movie. Charles and Erik took sides even before Charles lost his hair, which I'm quite interested to see how the movie will explain his baldness in future. The fact that Havok is Cyclops younger brother means that Cyclops would be a few years older than Havok, which is too old for that time period. Also, Banshee is suppose to fall in love with Moira, who looks way older than him in the movie. And didn't the previous movies establish the fact that Cerebro was created by Charles and Magneto? In this movie it seems like Beast did most of the work.

However, this is all base on the comic-reader point of view. If I were to neglect all the previous movies and the comics, I'd definitely say that this movie is worth watching. Also, I'm pretty sure girls are squealing over the actors portraying Havok and Beast.

Before he was Magneto he was Erik.

Before he was crippled he was Charles.haha

On a final note, I loved Magneto's helmet at the end. Beats the previous movies' helmet hands down(although more effort could be put into his outfit).

Hero Up!

Recently I tried this free game, which is currently beta version, online, called Marvel Super Hero Squad Online.

Yes, I know, it looks really kiddy. In fact, it is meant for targeted at kids. Just that, well, older people can play too. And as a Marvel Comics fan, I decided to try it out. I'd wait for Marvel Universe Online(Marvel's answer to DC Universe Online) but there's been news that it has been scrapped. So this is the alternative.

Now, the kid-friendly graphics of the game is not the only kid-friendly thing about the game; it's everything. The gameplay is simple for kids to pick up, and you can do funny expressions to communicate with other players online. Nothing obscene, violent, or vulgar to taint a kid's innocent soul. And yet, it's entertaining for older people like me. I enjoy the simplistic gameplay, the entertaining actions my characters can do, and roaming around the different locations is somewhat... relaxing. There's no tough boss(although I admit they are quite challenging, even for me), the fighting controls are easy. The only challenge you can make for yourself is being top scorer in the mission, or doing the last hit on the boss. Feels good when my Cyclops' mega optic beam crushes the boss in a slow-motion death. All credit goes to me :) Just kidding.

The game starts off with a tutorial, which is easy to digest and rather entertaining. Oh wait. You start with getting your squad name, which is randomized. So you keep clicking "random" until you find one you like. In my case, my squad is Psi Avenger Prime. Since everyone may be using identical characters, you are identified by your squad name, because no two person has the same squad name.

You start with 4 heroes: Falcon(doubt most people know him), Ms. Marvel(don't ask), Thing(from Fantastic Four, please know), and Cyclops(love him, and so glad he was starting hero). Because he's my favorite hero currently in the Marvel Universe(sorry Spider-man), I used Cyclops for most of my missions, hence him being at Max level first. I can now take all the KOs (aka kills) and get top score most of the time! But that's a challenge I usually set for myself. You can purchase heroes using Gold and Silver, although earning them is rather difficult, especially gold. Silver can still be obtained from missions. To obtain your money, you need tickets to spin this big wheel, like Wheel of Fortune. Also, with the beta version, there are codes given out to give us free heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. membership. This membership is basically like those "platinum" or special membership in games where you can enjoy special privileges by spending real money. But, to attract new players, Marvel gave a code to allow players a limited free S.H.I.E.L.D. membership. Smart move. And I'm enjoying it!

The missions can be done solo of with people. You can send request from friends to join you in missions, or get random people to aid you. It's rather interesting to play together with other people, as there'll be more enemies to bash in order to reach the boss. Also, it means the boss won't be focusing on you all the time, allowing you to beat him up.

Basically this game reminds me of guild quests I see in World of Warcraft, combined with the kid-like graphics of Maple Story, add Marvel Universe contents in it, ensure that it's targeted at the younger audience, and there you have it: Marvel Super Hero Squad Online. Like the saying goes, don't knock it 'til you try it.

Put your party goggles on

X-men Anime Episode 5

Finally, episode 5 of the X-men anime is out! And it's about time Emma Frost dons her X-men costume. Was getting quite tired of seeing her wearing that same attire the last couple of episodes. The episode is kind of laid back compared to the previous episodes, such that there is no serious plot here, nor any danger and stuff. It focuses on Hisako's training, and we get a look at Emma's past. Hisako in the anime, I must say, is rather a crybaby compared to the one introduced in Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men. The anime seemed to changed some characters, in fact. Emma Frost I expected a cold, classy woman with snappy remarks, but the anime potrays her as a caring, soft teacher. I mean, sure, that shows how much she loves teaching but I could use some coldness from her. Still, this anime has yet to disappoint. In fact, I'm quite amused that Wolverine made a joke of sort. I find Emma's costume average, considering how much sexier the outfits her comics counterpart are. Hisako's uniform is new too, to deviate from her comic counterpart. Judging from the preview, next episode will throw the team back into the main plot.

Kawaii Girls!

Okay, this is not really to rate only the cute anime characters, but basically the best anime girls I've seen in all the anime I've watched so far. Call me whatever; I am not bothered by it anymore. I'll be doing something like that for other stuff too, but let's leave that to another time.

#10

Name: Emma Frost
Anime Series: X-men(2011 anime)

I like Emma Frost from the comics, and am glad that she's in the new anime. However, I've barely caught a glimpse of her in the first two episodes and during the OP, so I cannot exactly put her very high in the list. But she just have to be in it.

#9

Name: Hime Onizuka
Anime Series: Sket Dance

Okay, technically I saw her for only 1 episode, because the anime has only just started airing. Emphasis on "just". But within that 20-odd minutes I like the character already! Maybe it's that choker on her neck, which reminds me of Yukari from Persona 3.

#8

Name: Megumi Noda

Anime Series: Nodame Cantabile

Ah, yes. Nodame. Sure, she isn't the prettiest anime gal you've seen, but it's her funny behavior and way of thinking that makes you attracted to the character. With her weird ideas and the way she's crazy over Chiaki, you just cannot seem to get tired of seeing her.

#7

Name: Isara Gunther

Anime Series: Valkyria Chronicles

Like Nodame, there's not really much in appearance in Isara that makes me find her cute or pretty. She's just a very simple, good character in the anime. She's ranked here more of as a tribute to her. The fact that she got killed in the anime is really, really sad. Even watching the scene again still feels painful and sad to see. Isara did not deserve to die. She really didn't.

#6

Name: Yuzuki Fujimura

Anime Series: Myself; Yourself

She's just really good looking. I was hoping to see her more in the anime, but turned out she was just a secondary character.

#5

Name: Lunamaria Hawke

Anime Series: Gundam SEED Destiny

Well, looking at her, I think it's quite self explanatory.

#4

Name: Rangiku Matsumoto

Anime Series: Bleach

I know majority of the guys would think "boobs" when they first see her. Well, I see "face". She's drawn out to have a very attractive face, from my opinion. Boobs are, to me, just a bonus or something. I kind of wish they were of a more...realistic size though.

#3

Name: Charlotte Dunois

Anime Series: IS:Infinite Stratos

A lot of people like her most out of all the girls in Infinite Stratos, and I can see why. She's cute in almost every aspect, and she would be the one with the guy if not for the fact that Houki is the main female character.

#2

Name: Kirino Kosaka

Anime Series: Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai

For those who know me will expect her to be #1, because I'm a big fan of this anime. In fact, it's my favorite anime of all time so far. Yes, she would have been number one, and I'm sorry that there's someone better.

#1

Name: Azusa Nakano

Anime Series: K-On!

Azusa, or "Azu-nyan" as Yui calls her, is one deserving to be called "kawaii". She is the only anime character so far that truly is cute, even more so that Charlotte of Infinite Stratos(#3). She is a clear-cut winner in this.