Borderlands 2 hits store shelves on September 18. That gives you eight days to build the perfect Assassin, Gunzerker, Commando or Siren in the official Skill Tree Calculator.
The 50 skill points one can gain in Borderlands 2 won't be enough to fill the entire skill tree — it'll get you one whole branch and change — so you've got some serious decision-making to do before next week's release. I've been trying to build the perfect Siren for about an hour now, and I'm still not sure I'm maximizing my mayhem-causing potential.
Of course, once we're actually in game the choices we make today might wind up being worthless, but it's something to keep us occupied until next Tuesday. I'll take it.
Borderlands 2 Skill Calculator [Borderlands 2]
The above picture, dated July 31, 2012, is just making the media circles in China right now. It shows Sun standing over an original PlayStation 3 in what looks like an electronics gray market. The market is unknown, but the fact is, this is a common sight in China. I don't mean celebrities buying gaming consoles, I mean Chinese people in general heading to shady underground electronics markets to buy video game consoles. According to Chinese gossip blogs, Sun and many of his Olympic teammates are gamers.
No one knows what Sun Yang is planning to do with that PS3 but one thing is for sure, video game consoles are banned in China, and it seems even an Olympic gold medalist doesn't get any special treatment in China.
It's not yet known whether host Takeshi Kaga and his bell pepper will be returning for the show. Gamers will remember that Shigesato Itoi, of Earthbound fame, appeared on the show as a judge.
New episodes of Iron Chef broadcast on Japanese TV starting this October.
料理の鉄人 : 13年ぶり"復活" 10月からレギュラー放送 [Mantan Web]
Li skipped out on last week's Tokyo screening, with rumors swirling that the actor was ditching Japan over her feelings regarding a territorial dispute between the country and China. Li's agent didn't exactly refute those rumors, saying the actor agreed with the Chinese government's position on the territory and was only skipping the Tokyo premiere.
Not only did Li not visit Japan to promote the movie, she also supposedly asked to have her image removed from the Japanese version of the movie posters. This hasn't been confirmed or denied. However, I recently visited a movie theater here in Japan and saw two different posters. None of them featured the Chinese actor. However, Li does appear on the movie's website (but it wasn't reported that she demanded to be erased from that). Her role in the movie has apparently not been cut down, either.
There is another Resident Evil: Retribution poster in Japan, apparently. It features Jovovich in her skintight body suit with her back to the camera.
Below, you can see an image of Li's appearance at the Hong Kong premiere for Resident Evil: Retribution. Her image is proudly displayed with Jovovich's. While in Hong Kong, it seems that the actor was repeatedly asked about the rumors, but supposedly dodged the questions.
Li Bingbing shows up in Hong Kong to promote Resident Evil: Retribution [ChinaBuzz]
For many of our younger readers, and non Dragon Ball fans, Dragon Ball, Z, and GT is an animated series and comic from Japan. The story follows a young boy (Son Goku) and girl (Bulma) in their search for the mythical Dragon Balls, seven magic balls that when gathered summon a wish granting dragon. The series of course moved on from its simple search and collect story to a much more muscle bound action series as it went on.
Dragon Ball was immensely popular in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong if not all of Asia. It was so popular that it spawned a Taiwan made live-action movie. Luckily for the creator of Dragon Ball and the company that owns the license, the movie was unofficial. Why? Because the movie was terrible.
Loosely based on the first story arc of Dragon Ball, the 85 minute film was like a terrible mashup of bad puppetry and wire kung-fu. Since it was an unofficial movie, the names of the characters were all changed to avoid copyright issues (although the Chinese names are all the same as those found in Dragon Ball). On top of the name changes, new characters were introduced and some characters were completely redesigned.
Plot-wise the story starts with Ya-Tou's (Bulma) village being burned down to the ground by Big Horn (they made Pilaf into the Bull King from Journey to West!) and his army of what looks like stormtroopers. Looking to prevent Big Horn from gaining the "dragon pearl", Ya-Tou's father gives Ya-Tou the pearl. In her quest to avenge her village she runs into "Monkey Boy".
Its quite interesting how the film makers were able to shrink and introduce the majority of the characters from the animated series, although the introduction and redesign of Oolong comes off as very racist. Another character the film takes liberties with is the character of Master Roshi; the film makers decided to play up the fact that he's a pervert more than the cartoons ever did. Personally I liked this version of Roshi better than the Chow Yun-Fat version, mostly because he looks like Roshi.
Now at this point you may be asking; "Eric, what makes this movie so terrible?". Well the reason why I found this movie terrible was for the fact that it tried to incorporate all of the first season of Dragon Ball into it. About 30 minutes into the film, there were already too many characters to keep track of. The added characters leave little to no space for any character development, it felt very much like a bad JRPG. It was almost a "meet a guy listen to his tale, he joins up and the quest continues" kind of thing. In addition, the movie sticks too closely to the Dragon Ball story. Unless one is a fan of series, its way too much to swallow in one sitting.
The whole video is available online in its original mandarin dubbing with english subtitles. I warn any reader who is interested in viewing this movie that despite the 85 minute runtime, it will feel much much longer.
There's another image below, and heck, it looks nice, too. For all the too-good-to-be-true screenshots that often plague the game industry, it's refreshing to see shots like this.
Metal Gear Rising, which stars Raiden, was developed by Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta.
TGS用プレイアブル「METAL GEAR RISING」のチェック, 黒雷電UP [@Kojima_Hideo]
As Kotaku reported, Japanese media was quick to point out some of the ironies of the anti-Japan protests taking place in China. Japanese net users have also pointed out a glaring omission from the rage of the Chinese; Japanese culture such as manga (comics), anime (animation), and video games were unscathed and Chinese youth continued to partake in cosplay.
Well, it appears that Chinese net users have also been observant of the contradictory nature of the protests of their fellow countrymen. Chinese internet portal NetEase put together a quick survey on their homepage to gauge the reaction of Chinese gamers to see what they thought about the protests.
*Note: NetEase did not reveal the numbered surveyed.
According to NetEase's survey, at least half of the surveyed number of Chinese gamers feel that "recklessly and blindly protesting Japanese goods is detrimental to the development of the country (China)". On top of that, 25 percent of those surveyed believed that Japanese games serve as entertainment and should be viewed just as such. Of all people surveyed only 25 percent were pro protesting Japanese games and culture.
Chinese gamers were also asked what they thought of the influence of Japanese games and "geek culture" on China. The breakdown of responses on this question was a bit more even with about 34 percent feeling that there is no influence and 28 responding that the influence is hard to gauge. Thirty-seven percent responded that they just happen to like anime, manga, and video games from Japan and that whether or not if there is any influence shouldn't matter.
The numbers suggest some gamers have a somewhat pragmatic outlook on the matter. Twenty-six year-old gamer Yang Yang wrote that she doesn't bother thinking about where her anime and video games comes from; however, when asked about what she thought of Japan, she said she would say, "I hate Japan."
Another Chinese gamer using the tag "Sleeping Fairy" wrote that those who blindly protesting Japan and Japanese goods were no good hooligans who were protesting for the sake of causing trouble. The 22-year-old wrote that many of these protesters march in the streets, but when they return home they have Japanese girls on their desktops and Japanese games in their computers. She wrote that on many levels, it's okay to be angry at the Japanese. However, she added that because people play Japanese games watch Japanese anime, people in China must accept that there are things from Japan that they can't protest and hate.
From personal experience, I can say that Japanese culture in China is very prevalent. Many young Chinese grew up watching Japanese anime classics such as Doraemon and Slam Dunk. The Chinese attitude towards Japan is conflicted. Many of the people I work with on a daily basis would get all up in arms against Japan (particularly over territorial disputes) but then, they would enjoy something that came from Japan such as purchasing 7-11 brand green tea from the local 7-11. 7-11 is a japanese company. Let that sink in for a bit. They get angry at Japan and then purchase Japanese drinks from a Japanese company.
However, on a purely gaming culture standpoint, at least the Chinese feel that games, anime, and related Japanese culture is at least acceptable, if not only for entertainment.
游戏争议 [网易]
The article states that some Korean tourists think that the characters, especially the green one, might be caricatures of the country's president Lee Myung-bak. Tensions between the two countries have been running high over territorial disputes, among other issues.
The article did point out that, well, the Kobito Dukan characters debuted in 2006, pre-dating when the current Korean President took office in 2008. However, the article then stated there's also a fat and bald character in Kobito Dukan that looks like former Korean President Chun Doo-hwan. He was president from 1980 to 1988. And I guess he has the monopoly on bald guys with glasses? And maybe the artist who created Kobito Dukan knew that there would be political tensions between the countries in the future? Dun dun dun.
In Japan, Kobito Dukan are "kimo-kawaii" characters, meaning that they are both creepy, yet cute. They certainly don't seem to have a political agenda whatsoever, and their raison d'être is aesthetic. The only statement they seem to be making is a stylistic one, standing apart from the stereotypically kawaii characters in Japan. It's rather surprising that someone in the Korean mass media would draw parallels between these creepy-cute characters and their own political leaders.
韓国メディア、日本で李明博大統領似の人形が発売されたと伝える [韓フルタイム]
Sailor Moon New Series [DannyChoo]
The artist, whom Kotaku previously featured, posted a slew of concept art for the game—some of which you can see here. Kang is currently looking for work. But with talent like his, he should land somewhere pretty quick.
As website The MM Network points out, it's been nearly a year since there's been an update on the game's progress. NeoWiz has yet to comment on its status.
Rockman Online is Likely Cancelled, According to Artist [The MM Network]
cantio75 [Kang's Official Site]