I’ve been poking around the forums to see if anyone would be interested in a Ventrilo server for Zetzio and the response has been quite positive. So as promised on the forum, I looked into purchasing a server for us as soon as I got back from the London MCM Expo. In case some people aren’t familiar with Ventrilo, it’s a VoIP program which lets you voice chat in a group, a little like party chat on Xbox Live. You can use it to communicate with your team on a PC game or just drop in for a friendly chat with other members of the community. Information on joining our server can be found after the jump.

You’ll need two important things to get you on Ventrilo, the client program which can be found on the Ventrilo website. The next is important but still somewhat optional, and that is of course a headset. Although there is a text chat room on the Ventrilo server, the main idea is to chat with your headset, thus bringing the Xbox Live shenanigans we have onto the PC. Once you’ve got the client program and a headset, you’ll need the following details to log into our server.

Server Hostname: ventrilo.pulsegaming.com
Port Number: 3859

There’s no password for now so anyone is welcome, but the server can only house 10 users at once which should be adequate for the time being.

I’m a little late with this explanation but better late than never I guess. Early in August my company went to court with another party over a dispute which has escalated and is still ongoing. Obviously, legal action is ’srs bsns’ and I’ve had to take a break from the blog to focus on this case. Making matters worse is my computer dying on me roughly a month ago, my attempts at fixing it haven’t done much yet. I could have written some articles in my spare time but that isn’t going to happen until I can find a Phoenix Down for the PC, but for now all I can do is apologise and post an image of a cute puppy.

Neon Genesis Evangelion was the first series to truly push me into anime, and so it’s probably no surprise that Rei Ayanami is among my favourite characters in the medium. I bumped into this statue during the London MCM Expo in May this year, and it didn’t take much for me to make the impulse purchase. This 1/12 scale statue is based on a 2003 resin kit which was sculpted by Tsukuru Shirahige and manufactured by Kotobukiya. As Rei is on a BMX, the height comes in at 15cm and the whole statue is pre-painted PVC.

WIN

• Rei’s BMX steals the spotlight from the young Evangelion pilot thanks to the excellent detail from the frame to the wheels. It’s not just the detail on the bike, but the fact that Rei’s pulling off a trick with it which really makes this statue stand out from anything else I currently own.
• Every statue should come with a good display base, not just some plain black/white/transparent thing that looks like it was slapped on as an afterthought. Rei’s rocking out on tile pavement to give you the impression she’s somewhere outdoors, people don’t do tricks like that in their living rooms after all.
• So why am I impressed with the BMX and base details? It’s not as if this is the only detailed statue of Rei Ayanami available. It’s the price tag of course, I picked this up for £20.00 and for that price the attention to detail is quite satisfactory. Not incredible by any means, but it’s ‘bang for your buck’ as an American may have put it.

FAIL

• Easily my biggest gripe with this statue is the seam going right across the top of Rei’s head. This doesn’t seem to exist in the original resin kit that spurred the PVC statue. If there was one thing that made me think twice about the purchase, it was this issue but the good outweighs the bad in this case so I went for it regardless. Some may not be as forgiving however, so check the gallery to see how bad you think it looks.
• I look up the skirts of my statues, and I’m sure every other male otaku out there has done it at least once. I was a bit surprised to find a bit of thin plastic underneath Rei’s skirt that seemed to be attached to it pretty firmly. I have no idea why it’s there but I could not pull it out. I’ve decided to just leave it alone as it’s not noticeable unless you blatantly turn the statue upside down and stare right at her panties, which isn’t something my guests will try doing when complimenting me on my figures. At least I hope not, anyway.

Most of the time when I see a cool statue that’s actually interesting enough to warrant a purchase, it’s a pretty pricey one which is actually the main reason I’ve only recently started taking a real interest in collecting such things. As I mentioned, Rei stands out because of the statue’s unique pose, not to mention an orange BMX is quite hard to miss. Aside from the seam on Rei’s head, I really think this statue is a bargain for any Evangelion fan looking to pick up a good quality statue without spending too much. Even if you’re not familiar with the series, the statue looks good enough on its own merits.

Rei Ayanami BMX Trick Version is produced by Tsukuru Shirahige and manufactured by Kotobukiya. It was first released in June 2007 and is unfortunately sold out on most online retailers at the time. I was able to pick it up in May during the London MCM Expo ‘09. Though this is my first Evangelion statue, I have a growing collection of videogame and anime figurines.

I’m really enjoying these Dead Fantasy videos from Monty Oum, but he may be going a little off track with the latest video. I’m interested in cool fight scenes with video game characters that are quite experienced in the art of ass-whooping, not scenes of Tifa being emotional and trying to unsuccessfully pull on my heart strings or something. Still, Monty slightly makes up for this with the fight scene in the garage which reminded me a little of Jackie Chan. How are you guys finding the Dead Fantast videos so far?

Some posters for the Halo anime that’s in production have surfaced, and if anything they’re a nice indication of the art style each studio is going for in the various shorts. Looking through each poster, the ones that catch my eye most are the one with the Master Chief going toe to toe with whatever the hell that giant thing is, and also the one I’ve used in the top image. I’m not too sure about the one by studio Bones which seems to have some sort of mecha Spartans in space or something.

I’m sure you’ve all laid your eyes upon the recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer debut trailer, if not then you can watch it after the jump. There’s a lot to take in and it was only a matter of time before someone checked the footage frame by frame to see what’s new in this trailer. I’m far too lazy to analyse a trailer, but fortunately someone at Endsights.com wasn’t, so hit the jump on the interesting things they spotted in the new footage.

Rio de Janeiro appears to be confirmed as a location, as the “Christ the Redeemer” statue can be clearly seen in trailer.

You’ll now be able to stick foes with grenades.

There will be customized killstreak loadouts.

There are 15 different killstreak rewards for you to choose from.

One of the confirmed killstreak loadouts is the AC130 gunship, which was one of the highlights of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Ability to take out the AC130 gunship with an RPG

Ability to lock-onto targets with RPGs — in the trailer, you can see the missile that is headed towards the AC130 gunship curve. Also, notice the beeping sound it makes as the RPG is held in place.

At least one gun that will have radar-mounted on it — so when you bring up the iron sights, radar will be right in your field of vision.

“Buzzkilling” challenge — get points for killing someone on a killstreak.

“Payback” challenge — challenge that nets you points for killing a player that had killed you earlier in the match

Increase in points per kill. It appears that 50 points will now be rewarded per kill, as compared to Modern Warfare’s 10. It’s unclear whether that will have any impact on leveling quicker.

Footage is taken from the Xbox 360 version of the game.

You will be playing as a U.S. Army Ranger for at least part of the game — a U.S. Army Ranger symbol is present.

A fellow by the name of Maj created this combo video which has been making the internet rounds recently, and it’s a treat to watch if you know a thing or two about the Street Fighter series. I like how the scenes transition from one game to another, and some of those combos are unexpectedly crazy. Though Maj used tools to assist in the creation of these combos to record, he states that no cheats were used. Anyway, hit the jump to see some crazy combos, it’s a pretty sweet compilation.

You can also download a high quality .MKV from SonicHurricane.

This one isn’t a game, or an anime for that matter. Halo Waypoint will be accessible somewhere on Xbox Live and allow gamers to not only download Halo Legends but also see the latest news, podcasts, images and video for the IP. There’s apparently a career system which will somehow reward you based on your accomplishments in Halo games. It sounds pretty boring for the time being, but I’m sure they will announce something exciting about it as it draws closer to launch. Until then, it only seems useful for grabbing Halo Legends, which I’m guessing will cost Microsoft Points.

The original EndWar had a voice control system that, to many gamers’ surprise, worked pretty damn well. I recall they even had a marketing video where two parrots were battling against each other using voice commands.  What players didn’t like was the limited amount of unit types, which is something Ubisoft Shanghai will want to look into for the sequel.  The excuse given as to why the singleplayer was lacking puzzled me, stating “there’s no mysteries about how we could do that and apply it in the game, it’s just something we didn’t give attention to.” Perhaps they wanted to focus on delivering a good multiplayer experience?

It was also mentioned that they’ll be looking to change the way the combat chain works, though I’m not sure if that translates into them adding more unit types to the fray. I hope they make artillery more effective though, it’s probably just me but artillery was not worth using online since a squadron of tanks, APCs or choppers were always needed to counter enemy units. The game already has a voice control gimmick, I wonder if this sequel will implement some Project Natal features.

Dead Fantasy III was good, but after just watching Dead Fantasy IV, it feels like there’s a huge gap in terms of awesome between these two. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s playing ‘Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec’ from Final Fantasy VIII as the background music, or maybe the fact that seeing Shiva riding on Ixion’s back which made me chuckle. Either way, any Final Fantasy/Dead or Alive fan will probably need to change their pants a couple of time before they finish watching it. Oh, and I got no idea why Kairi was at the start but seeing who appears at the end has me looking forward to Dead Fantasy V.