A person, or a freeloader, who reads manga at bookstores and doesn't buy them. The term is more often used to refer to those that read the manga in the aisles, often sitting or lying on the floor to read, thereby blocking access to the shelves, however some people use the term to refer to anyone who reads entire manga in store (without paying for them), even if they sit in designated sitting reading areas. Manga cows are detested by some bookstore clientèle for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they do not contribute to the financial success of the manga industry, they sometimes block the aisles, and they sometimes damage the books they read.

Before anybody says anything, I own some manga. I do have Golgo 13... 12 volumes of it anyway, I'm still missing Vol. 7, but if this describes you... you'll be seeing my rage face.

When a game is constantly delayed, there's no denying that it has automatic hype. After all, Daikatana, Half-Life 2, Too Human, and Duke Nukem Forever are victims of this. Daikatana ended up being a total failure after 3 years of delays, Half-Life 2 exceeded expectations and lived up to the hype after a 5 year development fiasco, and Duke Nukem Forever is still in development after 10 years of development. So what about Too Human? Well, the story of Too Human is just as epic as any of the other three games, but after nine years of development and nine years of automatic hype... it does not live up to expectations all that well. A little more time probably could have made this game of the year material.

Given the fact that this game involves Norse mythology and Sci-Fi, you'd expect an epic storyline of gods waging war. What you get is Baldur being assigned to protect the human race from its eradication from alien machines. The human gods use cybernetic implants for their powers, and the machines are harvesting humans to become more human, while Baldur is deemed "Too Human" because his enhancements are not as godlike as the other Norse gods. They have the setup for a great storyline, but the idea of you being a god can only mean one thing... oh yeah, you're going to feel like a god playing this game.

Too Human is an action game that backs itself up with a few interesting features, but they unbalance the gameplay in your favor. Instead of mashing buttons for melee attacks, you instead use the right analog stick for all your melee combat needs. It's a great way to avoid button mashing, but in some situations, don't come crying to me if you get a blister from the fast-paced action. I said it's a great change of gameplay style, but at the same time, whatever direction you press, Baldur will dash in that direction requiring almost no effort in combat to use the left analog stick paired with the melee stick. If that's not your schtick, you can always use guns, with both triggers firing individual pistols. The guns in this game are rather weak, and just like Mass Effect, you have an unlimited supply of ammunition. Baldur himself can be one of 5 classes, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, such as the Defender being able to tank, but he's not good with weapons. The only class that can actually heal itself is the Bio-Engineer, so the other four classes are the most likely to die unless you find enough health orbs. Take caution though, you'll be dying quite a lot at points and the Valkyries will carry your body to Valhalla. You know, it's an awesome looking death when you see them carry you away, but it's a lot like the Vita-Chambers in Bioshock as in no death penalty. It's so unrewarding, and almost unsatisfying. There's an RPG element to the game where you level up, and this unlocks armors, weapons, and skills. Unfortunately the game will scale the enemies so that they're always evenly matched with you... WHAT'S THE POINT IN THIS? There is an online coop mode, but this will eliminate any sense of a storyline by cutting out cutscenes, and it's only limited to 2 players.

From an artistic standpoint, the game looks incredible. The idea of Norse mythology in a cybernetic world allows for a lot of creativity. Loki looks great when his cybernetics are sticking out of his body. All of the environments themselves are gorgeous, especially when you go into "Cyberspace" to seek help from the Norns. There's a lot of color here, so it's not your typical monotone-ish game where it's mostly brown. From a technical standpoint, I wish I could say it looks great, but the cameras are usually so far from the action that you don't get to see some enemies up close. Speaking of the cameras, they did fix them for the final release, so the Isometric camera doesn't end up in a random spot. Still, it remains with a solid, playable frame rate of 30 frames per second, and your death is entirely awesome in motion. The voice acting is superb, and a lot of effort has gone into the voice work. When I first saw Loki, I was expecting him to have this raspy voice because of his lanky build and long hair, but he's got a deep voice that suits him well. Thor is a man with a commanding voice, but sometimes I think the performance is over the top. This game gets LOUD!! I'm not kidding when I say the sound effects are absolutely satisfying, and so loud that you could tear a house down if you're not careful with volume control.

To sum it up, Too Human had a 9 year development cycle, and with 9 years of development, they couldn't reach Game of the Year material. I'm sure there's a great game hidden here somewhere and maybe I missed it, but I was let down. It wasn't like Operation Darkness, where the game was terrible in every aspect because I want to at least finish the game so I'll be ready for more. The potential for a great game is here, but if Silicon Knights is serious about making this a trilogy, they've got a lot of work to do if they want Game of the Year.

You know... GTA gets a ton of flak for giving you the option to kill cops. You don't have to kill cops people... but OH GOD...

http://sonichugame.blogspot.com/

Let me explain, see Christian Weston Chandler is a self-diagnosed Asspie who is looking for a boyfriend-free girl. Listen to this:
Today, I was at the new Target store, across from Forest Lakes, just hanging around, not bothering anyone. And, from out of the blue, these two Manajerks asked me to leave, because they said that I was loitering; I was NOT! I was there hoping to find an 18-23-year old, Boyfriend-Free girl, like I usually do. Then, from out of the blue, after I told them off, they came back with two Jerkops! And, during the middle of my speech, they chased me, pulled my pants, and pinned me to the floor. As I struggled, they handcuffed my wrists and legs, and they hog-tied me! Not only did I felt humiliated from being the victim, but I was angry at them! Not only for handcuffing me, but once again thwarting my efforts in trying to find a Boyfriend-Free Girl. They drove me to the county jail, but fortunately, they did not keep me there; I was released to my family. But now I'll have to go to court in the future. So now, I feel very miserable, sad, lonely and rejected.

Obviously Chris-Chan is using his Aspergers as an excuse for his creepy behavior. So now Chris has made it his goal in life to kill every single police officer that he can find, because the Police apparently hate a Pikachu/Sonic fusion, and virgins as well. Ever stop to think that maybe the reason they wanted you to leave was because you weren't really looking around in the store, or waiting for somebody to come out of the bathroom, but rather just standing around with a sign pointing to you? It would be the equivalent of me wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, standing in the DVD section with a big sign saying "Scientology is a Crime" and letting people know that Tom Cruise is a Scilon and warning people not to buy his DVDs. I know the difference between right and wrong... MOSTLY. When he said they chased him, it's pretty clear that's the equivalent of... *GASP!* RESISTING ARREST!!! Oh boy... somebody's in trouble.

Unless you've been living under an internets rock, you know by now The Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic have been in a feud that makes WWE's writers look incompetent. There are people who don't understand the whole thing is a joke between the two, and it's a blast. The deal was NC challenged AVGN to review the worst nostalgic movie ever, and NC would review the worst nostalgic video game ever. Both have their reviews up, and for your viewing pleasure, I will weigh in who I thought was the better man.

Angry Video Game Nerd - Ricky 1
Honestly, what was he thinking when he picked Ricky 1? I had NEVER heard of this movie at all until recently when he brought it up... in fact, not that many people really remember it because of its obscurity and direct-to-VHS quality. The idea of nostalgia is to take us down memory lane, and this movie, in my opinion, does not qualify as nostalgia. I would have gotten some enjoyment out of a review of one of the Robocop movies since everyone had seen those at least once in their life, and I actually kind of liked Robocop 2. So... I can't really say much about the subject, but the review itself is... not that good, honestly. I've noticed, and I'm sure you have too, that ever since AVGN went to Game Trailers and gets paid for his silly act, he doesn't seem to put the same passion and effort into trying to be funny. He simply didn't nail it with this review.

Nostalgia Critic - Bebe's Kids
There are people out there that honestly thought Bebe's Kids was a great movie, and was excellence in animation. Nostalgia Critic thinks otherwise though, so he decides to take us down memory lane by reviewing the classic SNES game Bebe's Kids. Ok I lied about the game being "classic", it's a terrible game. Through the whole review, Nostalgia Critic shows a lot of anger as he wants to destroy the game, but keeps pressing on to play it. Of course at the end when he's making progress, he completely loses it and destroys the game. His review is loud, and entertaining, but I think it would have worked just as well if it was NC himself and not spoofing AVGN.

So... who really wins here? Nostalgia Critic, hands down. He picked actual nostalgia, and I got a huge laugh out of his video compared to AVGN where I was just constantly going "What?" Maybe AVGN should hire NC to write a script.

Yeah, I recently went back and bought an NES because I am a total nostalgiafag. Well actually, it's because I already have the latest gear, so I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane. So, I bought a console along with Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, Rad Racer, and Road Blasters. Rad Racer starts up right away, but trying to get Golgo 13 to start was a bitch. I had to perform a certain number of blowjobs on the cartridge before the damn thing would start. Now I'm starting to understand why I was very skeptical on the N64 using cartridges when it came out.

What's the point of making your Live Journal friends only? What could you possibly have to hide from everyone? Is it all the Encyclopedia Dramatica worthy stuff you write and reply with? Seriously, other than your identity, what do you have to hide from the public? If the entry itself was meant for only certain people, ok, but is it necessary to make entries once public friends only? If you don't want to be harassed by an ED user and end up with an article on ED... don't bring up the name anonymous, or make anonymous a tag. It's that simple, but if you did that there wouldn't be any lulz to be had.

Wow... I really don't know what to say about this next gem. I was honestly looking forward to playing it when I heard about the real-time inventory system, not thinking about the problems because it was a fresh idea. Unfortunately just because you have a fresh idea, it doesn't automatically make it a good game. Atari's Eden Games studio decided to bring back Alone in the Dark after its long slumber which almost seemed eternal. Now... you know me and the press, I don't always agree with them. Seeing this game get scores as low as 3/10, my mind was boggled. Then after I heard about how Armake21 liked it quite a lot... I was even more motivated to prove IGN wrong... unfortunately, I think I have to succumb to the power of the press, they are right about this one.

In the 19th century, Central Park was supposed to be a safe haven for everyone. Inside Central Park lay some deep, dark, mysterious secrets kept hidden and protected by a select group of influential people. Lately, Central Park has been infested by evil, and monsters are killing everyone and setting everything on fire. On one fateful night, a man named Edward is about to discover the truth behind the happenings. Despite calling this game "Alone in the Dark" you aren't alone and it's not entirely dark since there's enough fire to always provide light, they should have called it "Through the Fire and Flames." As far as the story progression goes, it tries to be a cinematic masterpiece like GTA4 attempted, only AitD decided to model itself like a TV show and present itself as being episodic ala Phantasy Star Universe. The story is loaded with twists up the butt, and is probably the best part of the whole game... WHICH ISN'T SAYING MUCH!

As far as gameplay goes, it's a survival horror game much like the Resident Evil series where you fight off the occasional zombies, only it seems more like the first Resident Evil, meaning the same issues are present, but 50 times worse. The main character, Edward, moves like a freaking tank, making it almost impossible to make progress because if you're walking straight and want to go right, he has to slug his way to the direction you want him to go. Sometimes you are given a third person over the shoulder view which is the new thing to do with games, and I have no problem with it, but sometimes the game gives you fixed camera angles like Resident Evil. Just like Resident Evil, the camera angles are ATROCIOUS and DISORIENTING in that it picks the worst possible viewing angle which will obscure everything you need to see. When you're actually in the dark, you can either get yourself a torch to see your path which burns forever, or you can use a flashlight which goes through one entire battery in 1 minute, making the flashlight as reliable as the Game Gear's battery life. Keep in mind, those batteries have to be picked up in the game, there's no way to let it sit there and hope the battery recharges. If you somehow survived long enough to fight a monster, you'll be impressed to find out it's not like any other game you've ever played. In Resident Evil, you mostly found yourself shooting zombies in the head to kill them quickly, but in Alone in the Dark, a well placed headshot does not kill a zombie. In fact... you can pick up a Katana and slice the enemy all day long, and it won't die! The only way to kill an enemy in this game is to set them on fire by either lighting them with a burning object, or tossing them into a large fire. This game is all about the fire, it's everywhere, and it's the only useful environmental weapon in the game since it's the only weapon that kills major enemies. The real-time inventory system sounded like a good idea, but you're forgetting that it's real-time, meaning you open your jacket to look through your small inventory while enemies are approaching you, leaving you vulnerable when you want to try and douse your bullets with Nitro to create explosive rounds, which I don't get because if you put nitroglycerin on bullets shouldn't that make the gun itself explode? As I said, the inventory sounds like a good idea, but trying to cycle through all your items while enemies are all around you is impossible because when you're hit, you lose focus and try to get Edward to slug his way to a safe place. If you've survived your combat, you'll be pleased to know there are driving sequences and trust me when I say they're the worst physics I've ever seen, completely surpassing Gran Turismo for worst physics in driving. The car itself makes some horribly sharp turns, so if you want to turn right, your car will almost literally be facing right as soon as you move the analog stick to the right. It seems Atari and Eden Games forgot to understand that a car does not control the same as a human character, and to make things even more unrealistic, the car has a life system as well. It's one of thsoe when you're hurt badly find a safe place to recover systems, which is hilarious when your car is smoking badly and finding your health regenerate is hilarious. The one thing that really annoys me is when you jump in the car, everything slows down because the game wants to be a cinematic masterpiece. One of the features in this game is the chapter skip function that allows me to go where I please, but this should only be used for reviewers like me who need to know how everything works in a game. For the average user, they'll jump all the way to the last chapter in the game and say "I beat it."

I should also mention that this game has so many bugs, that it's almost defective. During the driving sequence when you exit the parking garage, the glitches became obvious. For whatever reason as I was driving, my car was falling apart, I don't know why. At the first turn, the road was starting to get all deformed, and if your timing is SLIGHTLY off, you're dead, you won't get to the second turn in time. If you make it though, things only get worse from there. On the first dramatic jump, the game switches to a camera angle where it shows a side view of the car, AND A TURN IS COMING UP, SO QUICK, TURN THE CAR IN THE AIR! Seriously, the first time this came up, I completely missed the turn. After the second jump... things just got worse. Remember how I mentioned the car was falling apart as I was driving? Well, when I took off, a part of the car would somehow find its way underneath the front of the car so that when I landed, I'd come to a complete stop, then the road would shoot me into the air, and I'd be dead. Now then... here's where some more glitches occur. At one point on the third turn, as I made my turn I apparently hit something invisible that caused my car to spin out. After getting past that third jump properly, there is a point in the game where rather than the road launching you in the air, the streets begin to collapse. At one point, I ran into one of the large cracks, and I was stuck in the road and could not get out, so I had to sit there until the entire road collapsed. This wasn't the only instance where I got stuck on something, getting jammed in the road happened twice. Two times at this same spot, I got stuck on top of a car. I ended up hitting the side of a car, and I somehow managed to get on top of another car, and my wheels were on NOTHING. I could not get off the car, so I had to wait for the road to collapse. After surviving a broken driving sequence, I noticed on foot that the cabinets in the public restroom have unlimited supplies of medical spray, bandages, and explosive fluid, even though you can only carry so much.

So yeah Armake21, I couldn't get past it on the first go, so according to you, I should stop playing video games if I remember that video correctly.

Surprisingly enough, the graphics are pretty good. It looked incredible until I noticed the screen tearing and framerate drops when things got way out of hand. Still, those fire effects are just beautiful to see in high definition, and probably some of the best you'll ever see in a game at this point. The characters are modeled nicely, and what's interesting is Edward actually has visible wounds when he's attacked, and they stay on him until you heal them. The soundtrack is sparse in this game, but from what I heard was just as generic as horror movies, playing at dramatic cues, building up to the drama, etc. The voice acting itself is not the best, Edward sounds way too generic and ordinary like he has no personality, and your female companion is relatively annoying to the point of my ears possibly bleeding. The sound of the walls cracking, and buildings falling apart was very satisfying to hear. If I had a surround sound system, I'd think my house was falling apart!

So we can sum up that Alone in the Dark is really not Alone in the Dark but rather "With Buddies in the Flames" considering you're not alone in this game, and it's never dark since there's fire everywhere. It seems Atari put out a game designed to show off how well it could create fire effects, but forgot to make a game that was playable. It isn't broken like Operation Darkness to a point where I hated it so much I wanted to do bad things to it, but it's just terrible. If Atari and Eden Games wanted to revive AitD, why would they use the Uwe Boll movie as inspiration since it had almost nothing to do with the previous Alone in the Dark games. It could have been good, but Atari said "Screw it, the release date is coming, we're going to release it on that day, and not polish." Yet another big budget failure, and it's tainted my 360 and my Xbox Live Gamertag. For once, I'm seeing eye to eye with the press on a game, and I still wonder why Armake21 liked this game...

I have to warn you... what you are about to see may disturb you, make you feel insanely uncomfortable and possibly contemplate suicide.

( Click here if you dare! )
Before you say anything, no I'm not good at painting doll faces either, but I believe that I'm at least one, if not two steps above this.

So... the Avatar finale aired and the Zutara ship sank like a rock. So what happened as a result? Zutara wrote off the finale as being horrible because of this, saying it was cheesy, and pathetic. I'd like to see YOU write an epic ending-- oh wait, your idea of an epic ending is Zuko and Katara getting married and having Firebending Water Babies amirite? The way you were acting prior to this was you acted as if Mike and Bryan owed you Zutara and that they should listen to you. Let me tell you something, they don't owe you a damn thing, it was their show, not yours. So if you want to disrespect them for an ending of epic proportions... well I'm not going to stop you, but if you are seriously crying in real life over not getting a Zutara ending... you're just a problem on the internet and Anonymous will be dealing with you accordingly if they aren't already doing so right now. Now if you'll excuse me... I've got an LJ to rework!