Now that Vagrant Rant is about half a year old, this might be as good a time as any to break down all those fancy coloured ‘V‘s you can find around Vagrant Rant.
In other words, just what does each review rating mean?
Find out now.
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31 Aug
V V V V V
30 Aug
Game Review: New Super Mario Bros 2
The latest adventure of everyone’s favourite plumber has arrived just in time for the 3DS XL’s launch. It unleashed its gold-fever madness on Australia on the 18th of August.
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Platform: 3DS
Developer: Nintendo
Rating: G
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My favourite video game cover of the year so far.
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So. Many. Coins.
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So very, very many coins. Just, coins, everywhere.
30 Aug
Larger Than Life – 3DS XL Review
New console number two out of three for the year!
After a relatively short build-up, Nintendo’s new 3DS XL was released in Australia last Thursday. It retails for $250, which is technically the same RRP as the regular 3DS (although many retailers sell the original model for less). That was the first pleasant surprise it provided me with. The second was how good it felt to hold and play. The third was how good its stereoscopic 3D looked. The fourth was how easily I could recommend it, to anyone, as a system superior to its smaller cousin in almost every way.
It’s just a nice-looking piece of tech, really.
16 Aug
Many Weeks of Wallet Erosion
..And what an incredible Olympic Games London 2012 turned out to be. Bravo, Poms.
Barely time to take a breath and the big gaming release season has already kicked off!
Starting from today, which saw the launch of Sleeping Dogs and Darksiders II, you can count on at least one big game coming out every week until just before Christmas. It is once again a great time to be a gamer.
New Super Mario Bros 2 launches on 3DS this Saturday, then the 3DS XL console hits our shores next week alongside Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Guild Wars 2 and Madden 12 arrive the week after, which takes us into September and towards Tekken Tag Tournament 2, F1 2012, LittleBigPlanet Vita, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, FIFA 13 and most importantly Borderlands 2!
Then October rolls along, which means first Resident Evil 6, then Dishonored and Pokemon Black/White Version 2, followed by Forza Horizon and then the gigantic release of Assassin’s Creed 3 alongside Assassin’s Creed Liberation. November turns things up to eleven with two absolute monsters in Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, as well as Hitman Absolution, Paper Mario: Sticker Starand Farcry 3.
All of which fails to mention that we’ll be treated to a brand new console, in the form of Nintendo’s Wii U, sometime between late November and mid December.
Phew.
I need to go play some games.
1 Aug
Nup. Not happening.
When it comes to how I’ve been spending my free time this week, there is one thing that has been running five rings around everything else.
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Not the world’s best logo, while we’re on the topic.
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting to be so involved in these Olympic Games. But after a truly superb opening ceremony directed by Danny Boyle of Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours fame (there’s a movie tie-in for you), almost every sport I’ve watched this time around has been incredibly exciting at the finish. I haven’t touched a video game since the tournament began. So I probably won’t be publishing too many posts for the next little while.
Normal service should resume shortly.
27 Jul
Album Review: Overexposed – Maroon 5
The remnants of a truly fantastic June keep trickling through. This time I’m dealing with the latest studio album release from glamour band Maroon 5. I reviewed the Deluxe Edition, which features three extra tracks.
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Released: June 2012
Label: A&M/Octone
Genre: Pop Rock
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Now looks terrible on 3rd gen iPad!
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TRACK LISTING
1. One More Night
2. Payphone
3. Daylight
4. Lucky Strike
5. The Man Who Never Lied
6. Love Somebody
7. Ladykiller
8. Fortune Teller
9. Sad
10. Tickets
11. Doin’ Dirt
12. Beautiful Goodbye
13. Wipe Your Eyes (Deluxe edition only)
14. Wasted Years (Deluxe edition only)
15. Kiss (Deluxe edition only)
The measure of a band’s quality does not, and should never, stop at the lead singer. It sounds obvious, but a band isn’t a band without a gaggle of musicians behind the person with the best-tuned vocal chords. They deserve to be heard just as much as their frontman/woman. Maroon 5 seem to have forgotten this basic fact for their latest effort, the aptly title Overexposed. For all the varied beats contained within its run time, it could quite easily have been released as an Adam Levine solo album. I mean, for crying out loud, the group is called Maroon 5.
This isn’t to say the album is complete rubbish, or anything else of the sort. It features some catchy tunes quite ably holding up the “pop” half of the band’s chosen genre, but there just isn’t enough flying the “rock” flag. Continue reading
26 Jul
Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises
It’s here. What almost certainly amounts to the most anticipated film of the year has finally hit screens worldwide. I’ve seen it twice and I will admit that the second viewing made me change the score I was going to give it.
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Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway
Director: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Inception)
Rating: M
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It is finished. The most critically lauded superhero trilogy of all time is done and dusted, wrapped up with considerable skill by visionary director Christopher Nolan, who rebooted the Batman film license back in 2005 with Batman Begins. The Dark Knight Rises is a visual, audio and psychological tour de force that demands to be seen by any self-respecting film fan. While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the second film in said trilogy, 2008’s The Dark Knight, it comes incredibly close and won’t hurt Nolan‘s already very impressive resume. Continue reading
20 Jul
Too fast!
Things have been fairly hectic lately.
Coffee helps.
After a crazily productive two week period in which I finished four games, more than I finish in most years, the combination of the flu and saving money for a weekend road trip conspired to rob me of opportunities to watch three of my most anticipated movies of 2012, Brave, Snow White and the Huntsman and The Amazing Spider-Man. Not seeing those films of course meant not reviewing them, which kinda sucks.
Nevertheless, I saw The Dark Knight Rises last night and I plan to give it a couple of days to stew in my head before I put words to a review.
I will also be starting a new series of articles soon called Rant Chasers, which will deal with any new things I may discover about a game/movie/album after I am done reviewing it. This might include downloadable content for games, extra perspective on movies and/or the discovery that I like a certain album track a lot better after some time has passed.
The second half of the year is packed with awesome entertainment releases and I’m looking forward to covering them on Vagrant Rant!
10 Jul
Game Review: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy
Taking on a 3DS review now. This charming musical title came out on July 2nd and I’ve been tapping along to it ever since.
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Platform: 3DS
Developer: Square Enix
Rating: G
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Complete with slick pre-order bonus stylus. Aww yeah.
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Twenty-five years.
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That’s how long it has been since the first Final Fantasy graced the Famicom System in Japan, launching a franchise that would become a beloved worldwide phenomenon. Developer Square Enix has decided to honour the quarter-century landmark by releasing a quirky rhythm game celebrating the series’ incredible musical pedigree. This is Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.
4 Jul
Game Review: Pokemon Conquest
Here’s the other game I was talking about in that June article. I’ve been playing this since it launched down under on the 21st, alongside Gravity Rush.
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Platform: DS
Developer: Tecmo Koei
Rating: G
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Just… I mean, where did this come from?
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Uh, what?
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That just might be your response to seeing Pokemon Conquest on store shelves, just as it was mine to finding out that it was getting a western release. The portable curiosity combines the money-printing worldwide popularity of the Pokemon series with the previously Japan-exclusive turn-based strategy franchise Nobunaga’s Ambition. The result of this unlikely marriage isn’t for everyone, but it represents a pretty bright future for crossover games of this kind.
