#He's playing an edited version of The Imperial March.

[atalana]

[copied over from my cr blog, also this is gonna get long, i’d apologise but im not sorry]

okay, so

this is a rant probably about 7 years in the making, bc when i first watched lok i had not done any music study, i had not done any composing of my own, my knowledge of music theory was at a primary school level and i still thought tv soundtracks were just made by one person composing a whole cache of music and then the audio editors pick and choose what track to place where

(spoiler alert that’s not how film and tv scoring works, i have now done a music composition course where we had to score a short film, among other things, and i have so much more respect for tv composers jesus christ)

but this one stuck out to me even way back then, bc me barely knowing what a leitmotif was was like “hey this one little refrain keeps popping up whenever bolin does lavabending, and i like it, i’m gonna see if it’s on the soundtrack”

it was not, and that’s sort of where i left it back in 2014, but i actually did a rewatch of lok pretty recently out of nostalgia, and then noticed it even more

and to explain why (and this is also a little bit why five’s stuck out to me in tua, i’ll get to that in another ask), let’s cover, leitmotifs, and tv scoring in general

so a leitmotif is basically just a short musical idea that represents something in a piece of music. when i studied motivic development we were encouraged to make that motif four notes or less, and then develop it into something longer (aka a theme), because if you can constantly come back to a really short idea while keeping the piece moving, that’s what makes a piece of music memorable

(you can ignore those rules on purpose but that’s a different essay)

so the most common way that a leitmotif shows up in soundtracks is to represent a character or a location - you play the motif when that character shows up or when you’re in that location and boom, the audience associates that motif with that person place or thing, and you can then use this to tell the audience things without actually telling them. for example, star wars playing the imperial march whenever someone does something darth vader related - darth vader isn’t on screen, but you can feel his presence, because his music is playing

and if we were a film score, where we have two hours to show one particular character’s development, great! we give them a simple motif, and then as they grow as a person we change their motif to reflect what is happening to them, until we end up with something that communicates on a subconscious level how much they’ve grown. we toss in as much symbolism as we can, and we have a really great soundtrack that’s instantly memorable

tv scoring, is harder. partially because of time constraints (have you ever composed half an hour of original music a week, and had to make sure it fits perfectly with every beat of what’s happening on screen? these guys have), partially because there’s a much larger focus on ensemble casts

so what atla and lok do, for the most part, is not score individual character motifs for everyone. this is fairly common in tv soundtracks, instead we score ideas, concepts, and feelings - these’ll come up a lot more and give you more information than just “oh hey this character’s on screen”

the avatar state, for example, has the strongest and most recognisable theme across both shows. i’m linking an atla track in here because it has the best example but you’ll know this shows up with korra too - and with particularly important moments for wan, for kyoshi, etc. they also appear in the opening of both shows, four strong notes that start and end on the same note (in the case of what i’m linking, it’s an F#)

the first part of this track is the more uncertain, pensive theme that comes up when both avatars are feeling doubt/worry/sadness, but then it transitions into the more recognisable four. worth noting though, those are both basically the same motif. if i write them out back to back, you’ll notice they both have four notes and start and end on F#. if i had to guess, four notes four elements, and it comes back to the start because the avatar is a cycle.

korra has a theme for when she’s fighting, but not an individual character theme. the airbenders as a concept have a theme, republic city has thematic instruments, as do some big name characters, like iroh and his tsungi horn (this is also a cross-series thing, he’s always playing it in atla, it shows up when zuko has to make big moral decisions, and when we first meet iroh in the spirit world in lok, it shows up there too, to let the audience know who this is before we properly see him)

so, if korra doesn’t get a single theme and instead has several for different aspects of her life, and mako and asami follow along with the mood of the story like all the other characters, the fact that bolin has a personal leitmotif at all, let alone a solid, developing one, is pretty remarkable!

now, granted, it mostly starts with book 3, before then he was like every other character, but it has clear symbolism through those last two books! and, initially i thought it was related only to his lavabending, since that’s most of when it shows up, but since my rewatch, i’ve started calling it his hero theme

see, when people wanna criticise mako and bolin, usually the comments they get are that bolin’s too immature and mako’s too serious/uptight. but like, that’s how they work, you can’t analyse either of them without the context of the other. since they were little kids on the streets, bolin chases his heart and mako makes sure they don’t die from it, that is their entire childhood. and neither would have got here on their own because mako wouldn’t take the necessary risks and bolin wouldn’t take the necessary precautions. (like. remove either one from the equation and they’d still be working for the triple threats bc s1 and their flashback miniseries make pretty clear that bolin got them out and mako kept them out)

and then book 2 proves it! because it splits team avatar up, and what happens? bolin is totally taken advantage of by varrick and used as a pawn in his evil plan and mako ends up in jail

so what’s book 3, to them? it’s, being able to find themselves without having that codependency. mako no longer has someone to protect, which is what he’s based his whole life around so far - bolin’s doing fine and he’s no longer dating either korra or asami. and bolin’s trying his hand at some of that responsibility (look at how he immediately adopts kai who is explicitly them but younger because he wants to be the older brother for once). most importantly, they find the rest of their family, and stop being defined by being orphans. they don’t have to be that singular piece of a puzzle, they can just be themselves. and that’s where bolin’s character really starts to shine, because that’s when they bring in the bending plot, and bending, perhaps more than any other character, really gets to the heart of who bolin is

if you want more of my thoughts on that i have an essay here, but tl;dr: bolin’s an extremely powerful earthbender, but he’s not a metalbender because metalbending requires you to double down on the earth characteristics and think like an earthbender, and bolin doesn’t, he’s too fluid for that, which is one of his major strengths, so of course he can lavabend

and finally - to his motif itself! (as a note, i’ve put all of these in the same key to show where it repeats, but there’s a variety of keys used in the show)

as far as i can find, it first shows up in s3e8, when bolin stuns p’li with this well placed shot

[Edit: it first showed up in the s2 finale, but again in a simplified version and again with him doing something heroic with earthbending, so we can still start the analysis here]

mako volunteers bolin for that job, because he knew bolin was capable of it. why? because bolin landed an identical shot earlier in the episode, after trying to metalbend, getting frustrated he can’t, and cheating with some extremely well aimed earthbending. it’s just a short refrain and you barely notice it, but it’s the first connection of this motif with the theme of bolin’s bending

it looks like this, and it’s always played on a trumpet, which is part of why i call it the hero theme, because, if you’re looking at music from a western perspective, trumpets were used to herald kings, and then used to represent military glory, and then when superhero themes started happening, they used trumpets too - it’s basically western music shorthand for hero these days

(it’s also symmetrical so that helps with the good vibes)

and he’s saving everyone here, so it’s linked to his bending, but it’s also linked to his heroism

it ties the two together, and they are tied together.

when’s the next time it shows up? episode 10, when the brothers are in prison in ba sing se, and bolin tries to metalbend them out. again, he’s doing this to save people, and this motif gets a few notes added on to the end in a raising pattern - they’re inspiring, but they don’t go anywhere. which is exactly what happens in the scene, because he’s trying to go about this in the wrong way. mako believes in him, but it won’t (and doesn’t) work

it appears in episode 12 when bolin saves everyone from ghazan destroying the temple, in a more fancy orchestral remake of the first version - it’s impressive, but it hasn’t actually developed yet, it’s just his discovery of it

the book 3 finale already has its own fucking amazing soundtrack, i love that entire episode’s score, but it gets its own moment there too, and the first real development!

because what we hear is not what we’ve heard before. we know it’s the same theme, because it’s using those signature trumpets, but it’s the second part of this phrase, the answer to the question supplied by the first one. why? because bolin’s figured out who he is and he’s starting to use it. it still hasn’t settled yet though, it’s early days and he’s still just turning ghazan’s lava back on him, so again, it raises, leaving it on a question mark

it doesn’t appear in s4e7 when he lavabends as a warning against the escaped prisoners, because he’s using it as a threat, not to help people. but it does later in the episode when he uses lavabending to save them from kuvira. and that’s when we get the first full phrase, question and answer

it keeps the first motif identical, takes out the first note of the second, and ties them together - except now it’s not open ended, now it knows where it’s going - it’s been three years, at this point bolin is confident in both himself and his bending

and then that phrase appears all over the place in the finale, because all bolin does is save people - everyone from the exploding building, he slows the giant mecha with lavabending, he saves opal, he slows the giant mecha again by collapsing a building on it, and most importantly, he’s the one rescuing his brother this time, instead of the other way around (though that one doesn’t get a motif appearance bc admittedly a fuck ton of other things are happening in the soundtrack at the time)

so to that question asked in book three - who is bolin when not next to someone else? well, funnily enough, we saw it in book two as well, just in a warped way, playing nuktuk. it just wasn’t truly him because it was created by varrick, and he needed to get away from varrick too. the question put forward by the narrative is who is bolin, and the answer given by the music is, he is a hero. and i don’t know why bolin is the only one to get a theme like this, but i think it may have something to do with the fact that, while everyone in team avatar has been a hero and saved people, he is the only one who has, from the start, solely been motivated by wanting to help people. he follows his heart, and his heart cares, about everyone. it’s been the driving force behind almost everything he’s ever done. and i love him so much

[gizkalord]

Music in “The Phantom Apprentice”

I did a music analysis on the previous episode, so I thought I’d continue the trend for the phantom apprentice!

Overall, the music is very ambient and atmospheric in this episode—there’s not a lot of heroic brassy melodies or epic, traditional orchestral/choral sweeps, rather we get sustained strings, low, subdued vocal/brass parts, and distorted electronic sounds. It’s a very different musical language from last episode (which used a lot of classic heroic cues from the main movies and Clone Wars). If I had to put my finger on what 7x10 music generally reminds me of, I would compare it with the Emperor’s theme and Padme’s Ruminations.

Duel of the Fates when Maul briefly duels Ahsoka for the first time, and when she chases him. During the chase scene, it morphs into a suspenseful strings melody based on Ahsoka’s theme.

Drums feature SO prominently in this episode—both during Maul and Ahsoka’s first meeting, and in the lead up to their real battle.

Drumbeat when Obi-Wan says Anakin killed Dooku.

When Obi-Wan starts talking about capturing Maul at 04:09 up until 4:49, a small ascending piano(?) melody plays in the background similar to Bastila Shan’s theme from KOTOR.

EDIT: Actually upon another listen, I think it’s more likely that it’s a version of Maul’s theme from Rebels. However, the instrumentation is very similar to bastila’s theme.

The Emperor’s Theme plays when they begin talking about Anakin spying for the Council.

DRUMS every time we start talking about Maul!!!!

I just really want to highlight how eerie and ambient the music is when Ahsoka says “Tell Anakin”—it’s so fucking bone-chilling and perfect, and transitions beautifully into this horror movie atmosphere as we descend into the tunnels.

Imperial March when Almec reveals “Skywalker”

The upbeat action music for Bo vs Saxon is probably the most reminiscent of classic Clone Wars music for me. The horns at 10:35 sound like an existing/familiar tcw theme, but I can’t place it. There are also many partial callbacks to the classic force theme.

At 12:57 the brass clearly plays a motif present throughout the scene of Maul meeting with the Mauldalorians/crime lords. This is his theme song motif from Rebels, and it plays again at the beginning of the throne room scene in this episode

The lack of real orchestral music when the siege begins!!!!! we stan

The atmospheric music between Ahsoka and Maul!!!!!!!! holy fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i lost my mind folks

When it transitions back to the mauldalorians vs clones, I believe it plays something similar to “Clones Retreat” from the bad batch arc.

i really want to highlight again the use of electronic effects in the music—it’s super unusual for star wars, and just emphasizes how different and unsettling the mood in this episode is.

THE DRUM MOTIF AGAIN WHEN MAUL AND AHSOKA ARE ABOUT TO DUKE IT OUT OOOOOOOO BOY

Ahsoka vs Maul part 1 is extremely percussive in texture!! again, interesting choice as many of us were expecting a big duel of the fates orchestration. it’s the war drums babey!!!!

Maul’s Rebels theme again when he’s walking along the roof beams talking to Gar Saxon.

A modified version of the first 3 notes of Ahsoka’s theme (the intervals have been slightly changed) sung with a single voice when she says “Obi-wan was right”

and NOW we get the epic choral, orchestral soundtrack for Maul vs Ahsoka that is reminiscent of Ahsoka’s Theme, Duel of the Fates, and Savage/Maul’s theme.

Super epic choral version of Ahsoka’s theme when Maul cuts the beam

Hints of the Emperor’s Theme when they capture Maul..... PLEASE LISTEN TO MAUL I’M BEGGING YALL

The music in this episode is just E X C E L L E N C E. It’s incredibly distinct from other Star Wars scores, and creates an immersive, horror-scape experience. The score is just dripping with dread, and it’s probably one of my favorite scores from the series. Can’t wait for Kevin Kiner to release the tracks after tcw ends.

[sparrowsabre7]

Say Something Nice About Every Star War part 7 A New Hope

Opening shot is perfection.

The slow burn opening, while odd by today’s standards really helps with world building and gives the story scope and scale.

The shootout on the Tantive IV still feels dangerous and exciting

Leia gets to be the first named hero to murder a dude in Star Wars and that is cool as fuck.

Used universe aesthetic started here (in SW at least, I don’t know if it was the progenitor, but I know Lucas did make a conscious choice for the blasters to look like guns rather than the 50s “raygun” aesthetic).

Imperial officer uniforms not so subtly nazi-inspired, and all imperials are white, human, men (and yet people still complain about “politics in muh star wars”).

R2 and 3PO’s personalities are immediately established despite only one of them being able to speak. Shout out to Ben Burtt for A+ sound design as always.

Vader’s entrance is striking (also fun fact: since the Imperial March has not been composed yet, A New Hope remains to ONLY live-action Star Wars film to not feature it at all).

The cosmic coalescence of coincidences that bring the heroes together is great. I know people rag on about how small the galaxy seems because everyone knows each other but chalk it up to will of the force and move on.

Blue milk!

Binary sunset, nuff said.

Uncomfortable connotations of “sand people” aside, the Tuskens are an interesting group and while it’s not elaborated on for decades, seeds of the idea of them as an indigenous people retaliating against invaders is sown here. After all, Luke strays into their territory. It’s also quite telling that Obi-wan doesn’t come in and kill them in a badass display of power but merely frightens them off. 

The whole scene in Ben’s home is really well done, as is the uncomfortable expression Ben gets when Luke asks him about his father. I don’t know how much of SW was planned in advance at this point, but allegedly Lucas told Alec Guiness to act like he was lying with the answer here. 

I really love the Landspeeder’s design. I love all landspeeders but there’s something so neat about this one because it does look kinda shitty but in a cool way.

Mos Eisley really feels like a living breathing town/city. 

Mad About Me by Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes is a bop. 

Thus begins the tradition of Obi-wan cutting off someone’s arm anytime he goes to a bar.

Han shooting Greedo under the table is cool, regardless of who shoots first.

Harrison Ford is acting like he’s always a little bit drunk in this one.

The Millennium Falcon’s design makes me want to weep it’s so good.

Han’s lil driving gloves.

Peter Cushing is great and I think is emblematic of what made SW stand out vs other genre pictures. Look at something like Highlander or Flash Gordon etc and everyone is hamming it up to the nines, everyone in SW plays it 100% straight regardless of how mad the situation is. I think hiring a lot of theatrically trained actors helped with that. (He’s also wearing slippers throughout because he’s never ever in full shot.)

Luke, Han and Chewie have to share one compartment to hide in while Obi-wan needs one all to himself on account of his MASSIVE BALLS.

tHe CoNvErSaTiOn. “We’re all fine here…. how are you?”

Princess Leia saving her own ass proving once again she’s the only competent human in SW. 

The Han Solo Chargetm

The duel may be a little tame but the dialogue is fire.

Obi-wan calling Vader “Darth” like it’s his name.

The little smile before he dissolves. (Also, look up the original non-special edition version of that scene because it’s fucking hilarious - I cannot seem to find it anywhere so it must have been on a BTS dvd extra but he gets cut in half, and the bottom half falls to the floor slightly before the top half) 

The whole gunner sequence is great even though it really shouldn’t work because it’s basically two dudes playing space invaders.

I like that they added back the scene of Luke and Biggs as it gives a sense of the connection and stakes going into the trench run.

The trench run manages to make what is ultimately quite small scale dogfight, in terms of the number of combatants, feel tense, urgent, and exciting. I DO think the special edition improves this scene massively too. The unedited shots, while good for the time, look a lot more static now. It’s still largely the original models at work, but the added/edited shots give a sense of inertia and mobility. 

The dramatic trench run score melding into the force suite is beautiful. 

I love the discrepancy in the X-wing and TIE targeting computers and the fact that the TIE pilots wear breathing apparatus while the Rebels don’t. It’s a subtle way of showing that the Empire cares more about killing its enemies than the safety of its pilots, as well as the wealth backing the Emprie vs Rebellion. 

Darth Vader’s “WAT?” when Han shoots the first TIE.

YEEHOO!

The final award ceremony is another great piece of music (used it to leave the church for our wedding). 

The fact Han’s formal outfit is literally his normal outfit, but with a buttoned up collar is hilarious. 

R2′s lil wiggles. 

[natromanxoff]

Queen live at Rainbow Theatre in London, UK - March 31, 1974 (Part-1)

Flyer

Invitation

Concert poster

This show at the Rainbow Theatre was Queen's first "big" headlining gig. The show was properly recorded and was later proposed to be the band's first live album, but ultimately shelved. It was eventually released officially in 2014. Freddie is seen in an elegant new white outfit at the beginning of the show, created by designer Zandra Rhodes. Rhodes explained in 2013, "I hadn't designed any menswear before then, but I realised he'd need a flamboyant look." She would design outfits for the rest of the band for their next UK tour in the fall. Here is a review by Rosemary Horide, a major force behind Queen's early popularity. She had reviewed their gig at Imperial College the previous November, and this one was even more complimentary (although it seems it was dictated to someone who didn't speak perfect English): "What a night! It was a finale of the big Queen tour throughout the whole country. It was the conclusive evening for their reputation. Their lift was meteorical. So many people had challenged if Queen had the authority to play in such a prestigious place as the Rainbow. Freddie appeared in his new specially eccentric white "eagle's" costume, bouncing and miming with even bigger ecstasy than ever and sang even better than any time before. One couldn't believe it's the first time of Queen appearing themselves in such an important place. After a while they got used to taking advantage of the big stage. After two encores they left the stage during a big applause of the audience." Here is another review (scanned and cleaned up by Jane Palm-Gold), revealing many intricate details about their stage presentation, and songs that were performed (this was relevatory in the years prior to the official release): http://www.queenconcerts.com

...Also mentioned in the review is Freddie throwing flowers into the audience during the encore. By 1975 he would be throwing red roses whose thorns had been plucked out one by one by a crew member. Roger Taylor's energetic Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll is played at this show. While the studio version had Roger doing the lead vocal, Freddie would sing it in concert. The vocal line had to be rearranged, as his vocal range is not nearly as high as Roger's. The song would be performed often over the next few years. In the early 70s, metal and glam were two completely separate entities, but Queen united them with songs like Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll and Stone Cold Crazy. The band would come to be a major influence on stadium rock as well as on metal's progression through the 80s. "We'd like to end with a number we usually end with, for those who've seen us. It's called Liar," declares Freddie. Brian breaks a string around the breakdown of the song (when Freddie sings "Listen!"). He unplugs and switches to his Fender Strat, as seen in the last two pictures above. His tone is much different from this point onward. For years it has been said that the power went out during Liar at this show, but this actually occurred at one of the Rainbow Theatre shows in November. After the show, a teenaged Simon Townshend, younger brother of The Who's Pete Townshend, told Freddie Mercury backstage that Queen were "much better than my brother's band." Freddie was thrilled with the compliment, even coming from a 13 year old. Interestingly enough, in a 2005 Uncut interview, Brian May declared his belief that The Who were the better of the two bands. Four tracks from the show were broadcast on US radio in the first week of September 1975, along with an interview with the band. Many years later, Brian May reflected on playing the Rainbow: "We had a dim, distant vision of what Madison Square Garden might be like in America, but really no idea of what it was." He added, "After that, everything was a bonus. Everything was something which I had never even dreamed about." Ten minutes of professional video footage from this show exist - the earliest known footage of Queen in concert. It was released in the 2014 "Live At The Rainbow" box set, also containing audio and video of the November 1974 shows at the same venue. The virtually complete audio of this March show was included as well (only Big Spender and Bama Lama Bama Loo were omitted). There were various incarnations of the release with different combinations of CDs, DVD, blu-ray and LPs. One of the LP versions contained only eight songs from the March show, mimicking what was originally intended to be Queen's first album (the eight tracks that ended up being first released as the Sheetkeeckers bootleg in 1975). Many of the vocal overdubs heard on the bootleg remain, but largely the March material has had the overdubs minimized. A few further fixes were done on vocals and guitar parts, but it is overwhelmingly an exact representation of what was heard live on this date. This recording showcases Queen at their heaviest and rawest, and is truly essential listening for any fan of rock music. This excellent analysis by Tom Christie details the edits and overdubs in as great detail as possible, using all the raw materials available to the fanbase. Unbeknownst to most until this release was announced, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke off Queen II was performed at this show. It was played a few times this month, and brief impromptu version of the song was also apparently performed at a California show in 1975 after an audience member shouted for it. Many of the pictures seen above are from Mick Rock's Classic Queen book (the last of which is a brilliant shot of Freddie at the piano for one of his brief bits in Seven Seas Of Rhye). More pictures from this show can be found at http://www.repfoto.com. You have to register as a user.

Part-2

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Best PlayStation Games

We’re not going anywhere for some time so we may as well find a good way to spend time!

Whether you’re a regular gamer, casual or have no experince in gaming in general, here are some awesome games you may check out! I tried to limit the list to just twenty games.There are of course many more awesome games out there, including some personal favourites of mine, but I tried to make the list as objective and as representatitve as possible.

20. Kingdom Hearts (2002) - PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

Kingdom Hearts is a 2002 action role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first game in the Kingdom Hearts series and is the result of a collaboration between Square and The Walt Disney Company. An expanded re-release of the game featuring new and additional content, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, was released exclusively in Japan in December 2002. The Final Mix version of the game was later remastered in high definition and released globally as a part of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix collection for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The game combines characters and settings from Disney animated features with those from Square's Final Fantasy series, in addition to original characters and worlds created for the game. It follows the adventures of Sora, a cheerful teenager who fights against the forces of darkness alongside Donald Duck, Goofy and other Disney characters. The game was a departure from Square's standard role-playing games, introducing a substantial action and hack and slash element to the gameplay. Kingdom Hearts has an all-star voice cast and includes many of the Disney characters's official voice actors. It was longtime Square character designer Tetsuya Nomura's first time in a directorial position.

Kingdom Hearts was praised for its unusual combination of action and role-playing, its unexpectedly harmonious mix of Square and Disney elements, and Shimomura's music. It was a large presence in the 2002 holiday season, receiving numerous year-end game awards, and went on to achieve Sony "Greatest Hits" status. The game prompted numerous sequels, and the Kingdom Hearts series has gone on to ship over 30 million copies worldwide. Kingdom Hearts is the tenth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time, and is considered by some gaming publications to be one of the greatest video games of all time.

19. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) - PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fifth main installment in The Elder Scrolls series, following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 11, 2011.

The game's main story revolves around the player's character, the Dragonborn, on their quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon who is prophesied to destroy the world. The game is set 200 years after the events of Oblivion and takes place in Skyrim, the northernmost province of Tamriel. Over the course of the game, the player completes quests and develops the character by improving skills. The game continues the open-world tradition of its predecessors by allowing the player to travel anywhere in the game world at any time, and to ignore or postpone the main storyline indefinitely.

Skyrim was developed using the Creation Engine, rebuilt specifically for the game. The team opted for a unique and more diverse open world than Oblivion's Imperial Province of Cyrodiil, which game director and executive producer Todd Howard considered less interesting by comparison. The game was released to critical acclaim, with reviewers particularly mentioning the character advancement and setting, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Nonetheless it received some criticism, predominantly for its melee combat and numerous technical issues present at launch. The game shipped over seven million copies to retailers within the first week of its release, and over 30 million copies on all platforms as of November 2016, making it one of the best selling video games in history.

Three downloadable content (DLC) add-ons were released—Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn—which were repackaged into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition and released in June 2013. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition is a remastered version of the game released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in October 2016. It includes all three DLC expansions and a graphical upgrade, along with additional features such as modding capabilities on consoles. Versions were released in November 2017 for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation VR, and a stand-alone virtual reality (VR) version for Windows was released in April 2018. These versions were based on the remastered release, but the Switch version's graphics upgrade was relative to its hardware capabilities, and it did not include the modding features.

18. Assassin’s Creed III (2012) - PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

Assassin's Creed III is a 2012 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Microsoft Windows. It is the fifth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and a direct sequel to 2011's Assassin's Creed: Revelations. The game was released worldwide for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, beginning in North America on October 30, 2012, with a Wii U and Microsoft Windows release in November 2012.

The plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the centuries-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight for peace with free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and features series protagonist Desmond Miles who, with the aid of a machine known as the Animus, relives the memories of his ancestors to find a way to avert the 2012 apocalypse. The story is set in the 18th century, before, during and after the American Revolution from 1754 to 1783, and follows Desmond's half-English, half-Mohawk ancestor, Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known as Connor, as he fights the Templars' attempts to gain control in the colonies.

Assassin's Creed III is set in an open world and presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on using Desmond and Connor's combat and stealth abilities to eliminate targets and explore the environment. Connor is able to freely explore 18th-century Boston, New York City, and the American frontier to complete side missions away from the primary storyline. The game also features a multiplayer component, allowing players to compete online to complete solo and team-based objectives including assassinations and evading pursuers. Ubisoft developed a new game engine, Anvil Next, for the game.

The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised it for its gameplay, narrative, diverse cast of characters, visuals and grand, ambitious scale, while criticism was directed at the ending, unevenly developed gameplay mechanics and the glitches within the game. It was a commercial success, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. Its sequel, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, was released in October 2013, and follows Ratonhnhaké:ton's grandfather – Edward Kenway – a pirate and Assassin operating in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy.

In September 2018, a remastered edition of Assassin's Creed III was announced. The remaster contains enhanced visuals, lighting, and resolution, improved character models, and several modified game mechanics, with all previously-released downloadable content also included. It was released on March 29, 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, both as a downloadable add-on to Assassin's Creed Odyssey and a standalone game. A Nintendo Switch version was released on May 21, 2019.

17. Medal of Honor: Frontline (2002) - PlayStation 2

Medal of Honor: Frontline is a first-person shooter video game, in the Medal of Honor series, and was published by EA Games. The player character is Lt. Jimmy Patterson, from the American OSS. Frontline takes place during the events of the first game and chronicles Patterson's journey as he fights his way across Europe into Nazi Germany during World War II. Frontline was released in North America for the PlayStation 2 on May 29, 2002 and for the GameCube and Xbox consoles on November 7, 2002.

In 2010, an HD port of the game was included in the "Limited Edition" PlayStation 3 version of Medal of Honor.

16. Tekken 3 (1998) - PlayStation

Tekken 3 (Japanese: 鉄拳3) is a fighting game, the third installment in the Tekken series. It was released in arcades in March 1997, and for the PlayStation in 1998. The original arcade version of the game was released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 as part of Tekken 5's Arcade History mode. The game was re-released in 2018 as part of Sony's PlayStation Classic.

Tekken 3 features a largely new cast of characters, including the debut of several now-staple characters such as Jin Kazama, Ling Xiaoyu, Bryan Fury, Eddy Gordo and Hwoarang, with a total of twenty-three characters. The home version included a new beat'em up mode called Tekken Force, as well as the bonus Tekken Ball mode.

Tekken 3 has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. With over 8 million copies sold worldwide, Tekken 3 is the fourth best-selling PlayStation game. It was followed by Tekken 4 in arcades and on the PlayStation 2 in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

15. Need for Speed: Underground (2003) - PlayStation 2

Need for Speed: Underground is the seventh installment in the Need for Speed series, and was developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts in 2003. Two different games were produced, one for consoles and Windows, and the other for the Game Boy Advance.

Underground rebooted the franchise, ignoring the previous Need for Speed games which featured sports cars and exotics. It was the first game in the series to offer a career mode featuring a storyline, and a garage mode that allowed players to fully customize their cars with a large variety of brand-name performance and visual upgrades. All races take place in a generic city at night called Olympic City, though the city bears some resemblance to New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Rather than exotic cars, Underground featured vehicles associated with the import scene. Underground was commercially successful, and was followed by Need for Speed: Underground 2 in 2004.

14. Battlefield 1 (2016) - PlayStation 4

Battlefield 1 is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield 1 is the fifteenth installment in the Battlefield series, and the first main entry in the series since Battlefield 4. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 21, 2016.

Battlefield 1 received positive reviews by critics and was seen as an improvement over the series' previous installments, Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline. Most of the praise was directed towards its World War I theme, single-player campaigns, multiplayer modes, visuals, and sound design. It was a commercial success, selling over 15 million copies. The next game in the franchise, Battlefield V, was announced on May 23, 2018 and was released on November 20, 2018.

13. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997) - PlayStation

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a platform video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. It is the second game in the Crash Bandicoot series, and the sequel to the original game.

Taking place on a fictional group of islands near Australia, Crash Bandicoot 2 follows the adventures of the anthropomorphic bandicoot Crash. Crash is abducted by series villain Doctor Neo Cortex, who tricks him into thinking he wants to save the world. Crash is thrust into several parts of N. Sanity Island in order to gather Crystals that will allow Cortex to contain the power of an upcoming planetary alignment and keep the planet from being destroyed. Crash's sister Coco and Cortex's former assistant Doctor Nitrus Brio try to warn him about Cortex, with the latter urging Crash to gather gems instead of crystals.

Cortex Strikes Back received generally favorable reviews from critics and was considered to be superior to its predecessor. Much of the praise went to the game's graphics, control and music, with major criticisms varying between the trial-and-error gameplay, lack of level variety, easy boss levels and lack of innovation. The game went on to become one of the best-selling PlayStation video games of all time and replaced its predecessor as the highest-selling Western title in Japan at the time, selling more than 800,000 copies in the country by April 1998. A remastered version was included in the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy collection, released on the PlayStation 4 in June 2017, and ported to other platforms in June 2018.

12. Star Wars Battlefront (2015) - PlayStation 4

Star Wars Battlefront is an action shooter video game developed by EA DICE, with additional work from Criterion Games, and published by Electronic Arts. The game, based on the Star Wars film franchise, is the third major release in the Star Wars: Battlefront sub-series, and is considered a reboot to the previous games, instead of a sequel, to reflect the new Star Wars canon that Lucasfilm established (to replace the Star Wars expanded universe) after being acquired by The Walt Disney Company. The game was released worldwide in November 2015 and received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its gameplay, visuals, musical scores and high production values, but criticized its lack of content in both single and multiplayer modes. More than 14 million copies have been shipped. A sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II, was released on November 17, 2017.

11. Fallout 4 (2015) - PlayStation 4

Fallout 4 is an action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fourth main game in the Fallout series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game is set within an open world post-apocalyptic environment that encompasses the city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts region known as "The Commonwealth". The main story takes place in the year 2287, ten years after the events of Fallout 3 and 210 years after "The Great War", which caused catastrophic nuclear devastation across the United States.

The player assumes control of a character referred to as the "Sole Survivor", who emerges from a long-term cryogenic stasis in Vault 111, an underground nuclear fallout shelter. After witnessing the murder of their spouse and kidnapping of their son, the Sole Survivor ventures out into the Commonwealth to search for their missing child. The player explores the game's dilapidated world, completes various quests, helps out factions, and acquires experience points to level up and increase the abilities of their character. New features to the series include the ability to develop and manage settlements and an extensive crafting system where materials scavenged from the environment can be used to craft drugs and explosives, upgrade weapons and armor, and construct, furnish and improve settlements. Fallout 4 also marks the first game in the series to feature full voice acting for the protagonist.

Fallout 4 received positive reviews from critics with many praising the world depth, player freedom, overall amount of content, crafting, and soundtrack, while criticism was mainly directed at the game's visuals and technical issues. The game was a commercial and critical success, generating $750 million within the first 24 hours of its launch, and received numerous accolades from various gaming publications and award events, including the respective awards for Game of the Year and Best Game at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and British Academy Games Awards. Bethesda has released six downloadable content add-ons, including the expansions Far Harbor and Nuka-World.

10. Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018) - PlayStation 4

Marvel's Spider-Man is a 2018 action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Based on the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man, it is inspired by the long-running comic book mythology and adaptations in other media. In the main storyline, the super-human crime lord Mister Negative orchestrates a plot to seize control of New York City's criminal underworld. When Mister Negative threatens to release a deadly virus, Spider-Man must confront him and protect the city while dealing with the personal problems of his civilian persona, Peter Parker.

Gameplay is presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on Spider-Man's traversal and combat abilities. Spider-Man can freely move around New York City, interacting with characters, undertaking missions, and unlocking new gadgets and suits by progressing through the main story or completing tasks. Outside the story, the player is able to complete side missions to unlock additional content and collectible items. Combat focuses on chaining attacks together and using the environment and webs to incapacitate numerous foes while avoiding damage.

Development of Spider-Man, the first licensed game by Insomniac in its then-22-year history, began in 2014 and took approximately four years. Insomniac was given the choice of using any character from Marvel's catalog to work on; Spider-Man was chosen both for his appeal to the employees and the similarities in traversal gameplay to their previous game Sunset Overdrive (2014). The game design took inspiration from the history of Spider-Man across all media but Marvel Comics and Insomniac wanted to tell an original story that was not linked to an existing property, creating a unique universe (known as Earth-1048) that has since appeared in novels, merchandise, and comics.

Spider-Man was released for the PlayStation 4 on September 7, 2018. The game received praise for its narrative, characterization, combat, and web-swinging traversal mechanics, although some criticized its open-world design for lacking innovation. A number of reviewers called it one of the best superhero games ever made, some comparing it favorably to the Batman: Arkham series. It won several year-end accolades from a variety of gaming publications, critics, and game award ceremonies. Spider-Man became one of the fastest-selling games of the year, one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games of all time, and the fastest-selling superhero game in the United States. Spider-Man was followed by a story-based, three-part downloadable content, Spider-Man: The City that Never Sleeps, which was released monthly from October to December 2018. A Game of the Year edition was released in August 2019.

09. Final Fantasy VII (1997) - PlayStation, PlayStation 4

Final Fantasy VII is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Published in Japan by Square, it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertainment and became the first in the main series to see a PAL release. The game's story follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. Events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth, a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power in order to be reborn as a demigod. During the journey, Cloud builds close friendships with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough, who holds the secret to saving their world.

Development began in 1994, originally for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. After delays and technical difficulties from experimenting on several platforms, Square moved production to the PlayStation, largely due to the advantages of the CD-ROM format. Veteran Final Fantasy staff returned, including series creator and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, director Yoshinori Kitase, and composer Nobuo Uematsu. The title became the first in the series to use full motion video and 3D computer graphics, which featured 3D character models superimposed over 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. Although the gameplay systems remained mostly unchanged from previous entries, Final Fantasy VII introduced more widespread science fiction elements and a more realistic presentation. The game had a staff of over 100, with a combined development and marketing budget of around US$80 million.

Assisted by a large promotional campaign, Final Fantasy VII received widespread commercial and critical success and remains widely regarded as a landmark title and one of the greatest video games of all time. The title won numerous Game of the Year awards and was acknowledged for boosting the sales of the PlayStation and popularizing Japanese role-playing games worldwide. Critics praised its graphics, gameplay, music, and story, although some criticism was directed towards its original English localization. Its success has led to enhanced ports on various platforms, a multimedia subseries called the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and an upcoming high-definition remake for the PlayStation 4.

07. Uncharted 4: AThief’s End (2016) - PlayStation 4

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth main entry in the Uncharted series. Set three years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, players control Nathan Drake, a former treasure hunter coaxed out of retirement by his estranged brother Samuel. With Nathan's longtime partner, Sullivan, they search for clues for the location of Henry Avery's long-lost treasure. A Thief's End is played from a third-person perspective, and incorporates platformer elements. Players solve puzzles and use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to combat enemies. In the online multiplayer mode, up to ten players engage in co-operative and competitive modes.

Development of Uncharted 4 began in 2011, soon after the release of Uncharted 3. It was led by creative director Amy Hennig and game director Justin Richmond. Development was hampered in 2014 due to Hennig and Richmond's departure from Naughty Dog; they were replaced by Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. The team sought to incorporate elements of open-world gameplay, with larger levels to encourage free-roaming exploration and combat. The relationship between Nathan and Elena was central, and Naughty Dog attempted to humanize them more than in previous games. A Thief's End was released in May 2016 for the PlayStation 4. It was Naughty Dog's first game developed specifically for the PlayStation 4. The team took advantage of the advanced hardware to process larger dynamic environments.

Following its announcement in November 2013, A Thief's End was widely anticipated. The game was acclaimed by reviewers, particularly for its gameplay, narrative, emotional depth, visuals, and multiplayer. Several reviewers found the game a worthy conclusion to Nathan's story. It won several year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications, critics, and game award ceremonies. With over 15 million copies sold, it is the highest-selling Uncharted game and one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games. A standalone expansion, The Lost Legacy, was released in 2017.

07. FIFA 18 (2017) - PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3

FIFA 18 is a football simulation video game in the FIFA series, developed and published by Electronic Arts and was released worldwide on 29 September 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It is the 25th instalment in the FIFA series. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo appears as the cover athlete of the regular edition; Brazilian footballer Ronaldo appears on the cover of the Icon edition of the game.

FIFA 18 is the second instalment in the series to use the Frostbite 3 game engine, although some versions of the game use a different game engine. The PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows and Xbox One versions include a continuation of "The Journey" a story-based mode that was originally in FIFA 17 entitled "The Journey: Hunter Returns". The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, known as FIFA 18: Legacy Edition, do not contain any new gameplay features aside from updated kits and squads.

06. Minecraft (2011) - PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita

Minecraft is a sandbox video game developed by Mojang. Minecraft was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language and was released as a public alpha for personal computers in 2009 before officially releasing in November 2011, with Jens Bergensten taking over development around then. It has since been ported to various platforms and is the bestselling video game of all time, with over 180 million copies sold across all platforms and over 112 million monthly active players by 2019.

In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, procedurally-generated 3D world, and may discover and extract raw materials, craft tools, build structures or earthworks, and depending on game mode, can fight computer-controlled "mobs", as well as either cooperate with or compete against other players in the same world. These modes include a survival mode, in which players must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, and a creative mode, where players have unlimited resources. Players can modify the game to create new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets.

Minecraft has been critically acclaimed, winning several awards and being cited of the most influential and greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual MineCon conventions played large roles in popularizing the game. It has also been used in educational environments, especially in the realm of computing systems, as virtual computers and hardware devices have been built in it. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. A number of spin-off games have also been produced, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Earth.

05. The Last of Us (2013) - PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons, and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.

Development of The Last of Us began in 2009, soon after the release of Naughty Dog's previous game, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For the first time in the company's history, Naughty Dog split into two teams; while one team developed Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, the other half developed The Last of Us. The relationship between Joel and Ellie became the focus, with all other elements developed around it. Actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson portrayed Joel and Ellie respectively through voice and motion capture, and assisted creative director Neil Druckmann with the development of the characters and story. The original score was composed and performed by Gustavo Santaolalla.

Following its announcement in December 2011, The Last of Us was widely anticipated. It was released for the PlayStation 3 in June 2013, and for the PlayStation 4 in July 2014. Upon release, it received critical acclaim, with praise directed at its narrative, gameplay, visuals, sound design, characterization, and depiction of female characters. The Last of Us became one of the best-selling video games of all time, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week and 17 million by April 2018. The game won year-end accolades, including multiple Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications, critics, and game award ceremonies, and is considered one of the greatest video games ever made.

After the game's release, Naughty Dog released several downloadable content additions. The Last of Us: Left Behind adds a single-player campaign following Ellie and her best friend Riley. A sequel, The Last of Us Part II, was announced in December 2016.

04. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) - PlayStation 4

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a 2018 action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game is the third entry in the Red Dead series and is a prequel to the 2010 game Red Dead Redemption. The story is set in 1899 in a fictionalized representation of the Western, Midwestern and Southern United States and follows outlaw Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang. Arthur must deal with the decline of the Wild West whilst attempting to survive against government forces, rival gangs, and other adversaries. The story also follows fellow gang member John Marston, the protagonist of Red Dead Redemption.

The game is presented through both first and third-person perspectives, and the player may freely roam in its interactive open world. Gameplay elements include shootouts, heists, hunting, horseback riding, interacting with non-player characters (NPCs), and maintaining the character's honor rating through moral choices and deeds. A bounty system similar to the "wanted" system from the Grand Theft Auto franchise governs the response of law enforcement and bounty hunters to crimes committed by the player. Red Dead Redemption 2 was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in October 2018, and for Microsoft Windows and Stadia in November 2019. Red Dead Online, the online multiplayer mode of the game, was released as a beta version in November 2018 before a full release in May 2019.

The game's development began soon after Red Dead Redemption's release and was shared between all of Rockstar's studios worldwide. The development team drew influence from real locations as opposed to film or art, focused on creating an accurate reflection of the time with the game's characters and world. The game was Rockstar's first built specifically for eighth generation consoles, having tested their technical capabilities while porting Grand Theft Auto V to the platforms. The game's soundtrack features an original score composed by Woody Jackson and several vocal tracks produced by Daniel Lanois.

Broadly anticipated and marketed before release, Red Dead Redemption 2 broke several records and had the second-biggest launch in the history of entertainment, generating $725 million in sales from its opening weekend and exceeding the lifetime sales of Red Dead Redemption in two weeks. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise directed at its story, characters, open world, graphics, and considerable level of detail. Minor criticism was given to the game's control scheme and mission structure. Considered as an example of video games as an art form, it won year-end accolades including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. It is among the best-selling video games of all time with over 29 million copies shipped.

03. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001) - PlayStation 2

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (グランツーリスモ3: A-spec, Guran Tsūrisumo Surī Ei-supekku) is a 2001 racing game, the first in the Gran Turismo series released for the PlayStation 2. During its demonstration at E3 2000 and E3 2001 the game's working title was Gran Turismo 2000. The game was a critical and commercial success and went on to become one of the best-selling video games of all time. Its aggregate score of 94.54% on GameRankings makes it the second-highest rated racing video game of all time. It has been listed as one of the greatest video games of all time.

02. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) - PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is a 2015 first-person shooter video game, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the twelfth entry in the Call of Duty series and the sequel to the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 6, 2015. A feature-limited version developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology that only supports multiplayer modes was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and was also the final Call of Duty title released on those platforms.

Black Ops III takes place in 2065, 40 years after the events of Black Ops II, in a world facing upheaval from climate change and new technologies. Similar to its predecessors, the story follows a group of black ops soldiers. The game's campaign is designed to support 4-player cooperative gameplay, allowing for bigger, more open level design and less corridor shooting. As the player character is cybernetically enhanced, players have access to various special activities. The game also features a standalone Zombies mode, and a "Nightmares" mode which replaces all enemies as zombies.

Announced on April 26, 2015, the game is the first Call of Duty video game released after Activision parted with Microsoft Studios and partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment, which secured the timed exclusivity of the game's downloadable content. Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews from critics, albeit slightly lower than the previous two games in the sub-series, with critics praising the gameplay, Zombies mode, and amount of content. However, it was criticized for its story, absence of fan favorite story mode characters, and lack of innovation. The seventh-generation console versions in particular were criticized for the lack of a campaign and numerous features, as well as it being online-only. It was a commercial success, with it becoming the top-selling retail game in the US in 2015, and one of the most successful titles released for the eighth generation of video game consoles. A sequel, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, was released in October 2018.

01. Grand Theft Auto V (2013) - PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency and powerful crime figures. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas' open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

The game is played from either a third-person or first-person perspective, and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch among them, both during and outside missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the game's online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players engage in a variety of different cooperative and competitive game modes.

The game's development began soon after Grand Theft Auto IV's release and was shared between many of Rockstar's studios worldwide. The development team drew influence from many of their previous projects such as Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 and designed the game around three lead protagonists to innovate on the core structure of its predecessors. Much of the development work constituted the open world's creation, and several team members conducted field research around California to capture footage for the design team. The game's soundtrack features an original score composed by a team of producers who collaborated over several years. It was released in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and in April 2015 for Microsoft Windows.

Extensively marketed and widely anticipated, the game broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning $800 million in its first day and $1 billion in its first three days. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise directed at its multiple protagonist design, open world, presentation and gameplay. However, it caused controversies related to its depiction of violence and women. Considered one of seventh and eighth generation console gaming's most significant titles and among the best video games ever made, it won year-end accolades including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. It is the third best-selling video game of all time with over 120 million copies shipped and one of the most financially successful entertainment products of all time, with about $6 billion in worldwide revenue.

[fromdirectorlanawachowski]

1. do you find force users or non-force users more interesting?

uhhhh i’m gonna have to go with non force users. but especially non force users who definitely can use the force even if not deliberately. like han.

2. which character do you want to be most like?

probably leia. i’d love to be a takes no shit from anyone princess who is also soft inside

3. which character are you actually most like?

han. disaster bisexuals RISE UP

4. what headcanon will you defend to the death?

obi-wan’s “a certain point of view” shtick was from a genuine place of wanting to protect luke from the truth as long as he could. you don’t watch a kid grow up for 19 years and NOT want to protect him.

5. what planet would you most like to visit?

nar shaddaa but like in a las vegas way

6. what planet would you most like to live on?

naboo. it looks like how nice early summer days feel

7. who do you hope you never meet?

george lucas. i love him for creating star wars but it’s ON SIGHT for some of his creative choices

8. what is one thing you would change about any movie, show, book, etc?

i’d make it so ventress didn’t die

9. have you ever made fanart or fanfic? do you make edits or any other fan content?

i have written many fanfics and posted only a few lol.

10. do you think the jedi were right or wrong?

please see HERE

11. who is the most underrated character?

LANDO CALRISSIAN

12. do you care who rey’s parents are?

like kinda? if they wanna make her Someone then like... okay. but not everyone has to be Someone. anyone can be Someone

13. if you could resurrect one dead character, or prevent them from dying, who would it be?

asajj ventress

14. what is your favorite alien species?

does this have to be from canon or can i use legends too? canon: the three-eyed gran legends: fuck dude.... the gree or the rakata

15. who would you like to bang?

........................................asajj ventress............

16. which movie/episode have you watched the most?

either episode 3 or episode 6

17. what is your favorite line?

don’t center on your anxieties, obi-wan. keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.

you can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting

be brave and don’t look back.

18. what is your favorite star wars book or comic?

i really liked shatterpoint and plagueis.

19. what’s your opinion on legends/expanded universe?

like.... okay. there was a lot of really great stuff in the EU and there was a lot of really awful stuff. for every shadow academy arc there was a ken the jedi prince. we lost a lot of stuff but at the same time like the-evil-is-defeated-jpg

20. what do you hope will happen in future movies?

show me the old republic you cowards

21. if you could switch any character’s gender, who would it be and why?

qui-gon should have been a woman because as much as i loved liam neeson i’d love helen mirren more

22. favorite droid?

canon: uhhhhh k2 or 3p0 legends: SCORPIO

23. what’s your favorite star wars musical piece or theme?

the soft strings version of the imperial march that plays in jedi from when luke lays vader down on the ramp until vader dies. the way it lightly peters out and comes back with even softer strings when he takes the helmet off. o o f

24. how do you pronounce twi’lek?

twy-leck gang

25. which character do you have a love/hate relationship with?

yoda. small green grandpa, but also manipulative lying bastard man

[dweemeister]

Hell to Eternity (1960)

The march of time changes how history is written, how art is consumed and interpreted. Latino involvement on behalf of the United States in the Second World War has been largely underreported, in part because they were tabulated as white. They served in all branches of the armed forces and wherever the Americans fought – on American soil, Asia and the Pacific, Northern Africa, Italy, Western Europe. Closer to home, the United States carried out a policy that was and always shall be a moral disgrace. In a time of war hysteria and popular racist sentiment, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942 ordered the relocation and internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans – more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth or naturalization. These two chapters of American history converge with the story of Pfc. Guy Gabaldon. Gabaldon, who was of Mexican descent, was raised by a Japanese-American (unofficial) foster family in Los Angeles.

When the dramatization of Gabaldon’s early life and experiences at the Battle of Saipan (American victory at Saipan – in the Marianas – precipitated into the Invasion of the Philippines and brought the U.S. closer to the Japanese mainland) was made into a movie, Gabaldon’s Mexican heritage was completely whitewashed. And though his Japanese-American family is given some attention in the opening half-hour, the film does not take much of a stand against government actions, content only to call out individual acts of bigotry. Through my young, Asian-American eyes, Phil Karlson’s Hell to Eternity is a frustrating watch – erasing entirely Gabaldon’s Mexican background in favor of describing him as an, “all-American boy”, and a spotty handling of his Japanese-American upbringing (Gabaldon served as a consultant on Hell to Eternity). The film’s intentions are noble, but these frustrations and unfocused filmmaking prevent undermine Hell to Eternity throughout.

It is 1938 in East Los Angeles. Physical education teacher Kaz Une (George Shibata) separates Guy (Richard Eyer at twelve-year-old Guy; Jeffrey Hunter as an adult) from bullies taunting our young protagonist for having, “Jap friends.” Kaz, who is Japanese-American himself and older brother of Guy’s best friend George (George Matsui as a child; George Takei as an adult), soon learns Guy’s mother has been taken to the hospital and that his father has passed on. Kaz takes Guy home to the Une household (in real life, their surname was Nakano); after Guy’s mother dies, the Unes unofficially adopt Guy. Mr. Une (Bob Okazaki) is unfortunately not seen much in the film, but Mrs. Une (Tsuru Aoki) will exemplify unconditional love. The film will fast forward to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the internment of the Une family. Guy is drafted, but fails due to a perforated eardrum. But after learning George and Kaz are fighting with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (upon its creation, the 442nd was a regiment comprised almost entirely of Japanese-Americans that fought in the European theater), Guy enlists in the Marines. He goes through boot camp at Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County in the film’s middle third, with the final third depicting his service at the Battle of Saipan.

Silent film leading man Sessue Hayakawa (1915′s The Cheat, 1957′s The Bridge on the River Kwai) also appears as a general of the Imperial Japanese Army. As the general, his last words to his surrendering soldiers (like all the Japanese spoken in the film, there are no subtitles) recount the folk story of Momotarô – which tells of strength through kindness.

Jeffrey Hunter, in his build, is a much different person than Guy Gabaldon. Hunter is 6′2″, with broad shoulders like the rest of the actors playing Marines in this film; Gabaldon was 5′4″. Hell to Eternity, released by Allied Artists (this film’s North American rights are currently under Warner Bros. via the Turner Entertainment library), was made at a time when top billing to a non-white actor was almost unheard of. There was no major Latino actor during the height of the Hollywood Studio System, and the last Latino superstar in Hollywood was silent film actor Ramón Navarro (still alive in 1960, was largely inactive in cinema, and made his final film earlier that year). Allied Artists had a lengthy history of financial troubles, so their films usually had more modest budgets than something from Paramount or 20th Century Fox. Jeffrey Hunter, with his matinee idol looks but inconsistent filmography (no disrespect intended), is not as compelling a box-office draw as some of his fellow youthful contemporaries. Why not cast a Latino actor? Even if the film’s screenplay – penned by Walter Roeber Schmidt (his only other credit is 1980′s Monstroid) – glosses over Gabaldon’s conflicts of self-identity, a hypothetical Latino actor would be more able to invoke such an identity conflict in his performance.

Compounding this whitewashing is the screenplay’s uninspired commentary about how the United States treated Japanese-Americans on the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks and afterwards. Playground epithets in the introductory minutes transform into suspicious stares and racialized intimidation in a scene where Guy is taking Ester (Miiko Taka) to a drive-in diner. This confrontation is depicted in a way that makes it too much like ‘60s episodic television – there is no connection between the racial hatred directed at Ester in this scene with the internment orders that all too abruptly follow this scene. Guy is given a few moments to exclaim how horrible FDR’s executive action is, but the filmmakers are too uncomfortable in opening uncomfortable, but necessary, political dialogue. Instead, Hell to Eternity makes the Une family’s internment look like an inconvenient, but government-funded relocation rather than a heinous abuse of executive power, a denial of American constitutional rights. Guy’s brief visit to Manzanar in Eastern California is sanitized – emotionally, factually, and physically. The Schmidt screenplay and Karlson’s direction appear willing to make dissenting statements, but only within certain bounds so as not to lose the cooperation of American military in their assistance in the film’s second half. Hell to Eternity should be credited, however, for positively portraying – if somewhat stereotypical with broken English - a loving Japanese-American family.

This lack of care about Guy’s identity and, most prominently, his Japanese-American upbringing, in these American-set scenes negatively affects all the scenes set on Saipan. The Issei (first-generation Japanese-Americans) and Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans) disappear by the film’s halfway point, making enemy soldiers the only Japanese characters seen in the closing half. Guy – who proceeds to use his skills in Japanese to convince civilians and soldiers to surrender (the filmmakers are taking historical liberties here, as Gabaldon was not fluent in Japanese) – captures hundreds. On Saipan, little separates Guy’s bloodlust for those who have killed his fellow friends and Marines and quarter for those who look like his family. For the former, Hell to Eternity has a scene where Guy mutilates a Japanese soldier who has, likewise, hacked a Marine into (presumably) pieces. Mutilation is a war crime. but Hell to Eternity suggests – through the editing – that Guy’s actions are justified. Mutilation is a healthy, legal expression of rage, the film says through these images, as long as the all-American boy does it. Only when he remembers the Une family does Guy snap out of this mutilating mindset – his subsequent acts of mercy seemingly absolving him of his ruthless destruction of Japanese corpses and an excessive number of bullets fired at enemy soldiers.

With assistance from the American military to provide the right equipment and to choreograph troop movements as well as the involvement of several hundred veterans of the Imperial Japanese Army serving as extras, Hell to Eternity’s battle sequences are impressive to watch. Shot on Okinawa, the film alternates from beachheads, dense tropical rainforests, the occasional clearing, and charred and cratered hellscapes. But all this technical mastery is undermined by how Karlson portrays the film version of Guy Gabaldon during the Battle of Saipan. Though the film ends decrying the horrible waste of life and his conduct to the Japanese soldiers he has killed, Hell to Eternity seems too celebratory (or, in the best-case scenario, apathetic) and too forgiving of what horrible things this version of Guy has inflicted. But thankfully, the final resolutions in Hell to Eternity are nonviolent.

Despite the erasure of Gabaldon’s Mexican background, Gabaldon enjoyed Jeffrey Hunter’s performance in Hell to Eternity – indeed, Hunter, along with Aoki, gives one of the better performances in this film. The Pied Piper of Saipan captured ten times more enemy prisoners than Sgt. Alvin C. York in World War I but, unlike York, Gabaldon was never awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. After Gabaldon’s death in August 2006, Latino activists mounted a campaign to have the United States upgrade Gabaldon’s Navy Congress to the Medal of Honor – to little avail as of the publication of this write-up.

At the time of Hell to Eternity’s release, this was one of the most nuanced treatments of Imperial Japanese soldiers and of Japanese-Americans. Its takes on ethnic and racial identity were almost nonexistent in early 1960s Hollywood. Today, the execution of this message leaves much to be desired. It is no war film classic. Yet Hell to Eternity’s attempts to have Gabaldon’s struggles with his identity as the avenue in which to resolve situations peacefully make it unique among other war films released during that time.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[satoshi-mochida]

The PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel will launch on March 26 in North America, publisher XSEED Games announced.

The physical day one “Decisive Edition” will cost $49.99, while the digital edition will cost $39.99. The physical edition includes a copy of the game, a 50 mira replica Collector’s Coin, 21-track Musical Selections CD, SteelBook case, and 10-page exclusive Alisa Reinford’s Cold Steel Crash Course! comic within the 52-page manual.

In Europe, a release is planned for early 2019, but publisher Marvelous Europe has yet to announce a final release date.

Here is an overview of the game, via XSEED Games:

About

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel gives players the chance to follow the activities of Thors Military Academy’s specialized “Class VII” on PlayStation 4 with added features not found in any previous console releases. This includes dual audio for the first time in the series’ history on console, allowing players to enjoy the original Japanese voices for each of the games’ myriad characters. Additionally, they may choose to play with the much-lauded English dub that includes over 5,000 additional English lines previously available only in the PC edition.

Story

Among the nations on the Zemurian continent, the mighty Erebonian Empire has been quick to outwardly stake its claim militarily; yet politically, ugly bouts of internal conflict between the upper class and commoners attempting to rise to power have been steadily intensifying day by day. The Noble and Reformist Factions have been none too kind to one another over the years, and tensions between the two only stand to worsen if compromises aren’t made in the very near future.

Rean Schwarzer, like any other citizen of the Imperial Nation, is no stranger to these rising conflicts: the class system has been deeply embedded into the hearts of every Erebonian since the days of old. As a seventeen-year-old student preparing for his new life at Thors Military Academy, however, he notices that his crimson uniform differs from the standard ones issued to his peers—typically green for commoners, and white for nobles.

Enter, Class VII of Thors Military Academy. For the first time in the prestigious academy’s history, rank means nothing and skill means everything. With nine hand-picked students of various backgrounds and abilities, Rean included, Class VII readies itself to dive deep into the political quagmire that threatens not only them, but the Empire as a whole

Watch a new trailer below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.

[entergamingxp]

Sakura Wars Gets More Goods, Collabs, Comments From Kohei Tanaka

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

Everything from the latest Sakura Wars stream including a Chain Chronicle collab, new Nendoroids, more goods, and comments from composer Kohei Tanaka.

Sega held the 14th Sakura Taisen Imperial Communication Department’s Broadcast stream on June 19, focusing on Sakura Wars The Animation. We’ve summarized every past Sakura Taisen stream on DualShockers, though on a more timely manner. So while it’s been a few days now since the stream aired, here’s our full summary, as usual.

The stream featured as usual: MC Mami Yamashita (who thankfully recovered from Covid-19), Seijuro Kamiyama’s seiyuu Youhei Azakami, and Producer Tetsu Katano. Present as guests were Kenji Akabane, who is the seiyuu of Kaminski in Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation (Sakura Wars The Animation), and Sakura Taisen series composer Kohei Tanaka. The stream focused on Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation whose final episode aired the same day.

After the introductions, everyone present on the stream started chatting about the anime, and introducing its characters. Most notably Kaminski Valery, captain of the Moscow Combat Troupe appearing in the anime’s story, sequel to the game. The first hilarious moment on stream was how Kenji Akabane was supposed to launch the video introducing his character, but got preemptively cut since he took so long. You can catch that moment at the 14:00 time stamp below:

Following that, everyone on stream commented various excerpt from each Sakura Wars The Animation episodes. I’ve personally only skimmed through this part to avoid spoilers, as time didn’t permit me to watch the whole anime yet.  However, you should definitely check it out if you’re a fan with a grasp of Japanese. This sequence starts at the 23:00 mark and lasts around 20 minutes:

One particular anecdote Kohei Tanaka mentioned is how the cat often seen in the anime, is voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi, who also voices Komachi.

Following that, Kenji Akabane spoke about his history with the Sakura Taisen franchise. He first got into the series with Sakura Wars The Movie, released on December 22, 2001. Akabane explained he really loves Hidenori Matsubara’s designs in the Sakura anime adaptations and how they adapt perfectly the original design by Kousuke Fujishima. As a reminder, nowadays whenever new Sakura Wars artwork is released, it’s always Hidenori Matsubara drawing it, and I don’t think Kousuke Fujishima has drawn Sakura Taisen artwork for years now, which is a shame. Kenji Akabane greatly praised the movie and how it’s still incredibly great looking even now. He was also really into collecting stickers back then and particularly liked the ones included in some of the OST CDs releases.

Kohei Tanaka too spoke about Sakura Wars The Movie. He explained that back during the movie’s production, when he recorded the BGMs with an orchestra, they had an audience as well. It was a pretty emotional moment as some of the fans watching the stream mentioned in the comments they were there. Back then, they recorded the audience for cheers and applause used in the movie as well.

Following that, the discussion subject moved back to Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation. Kenji Akabane was really hyped to be in the anime because he met Sumire’s seiyuu Michie Tomizawa during the recording. There’s also a scene early on in the anime where Kaminski meets Sumire and praises her, and he was ultra hyped about voicing that one scene. As for Akabane’s initial impressions of Kaminski, he only saw his actual design just before recording, and didn’t see it at the audition, so he was surprised how much of a pretty boy he is. He asked a lot about his personality and goals to the anime staff before recording to be sure to get in the role and voice him accordingly.

At that point on Kohei Tanaka started focusing on the ending theme song, Sakura Yumemishi. It’s sung by the girls of the Imperial Combat Revue’s new Flower Division: Sakura Amamiya, Hatsuho, Azami, Anastasia, Claris, along with Shangai’s Huang Yui, London’s Lancelot, and Berlin’s Elise.

With Sakura Yumemishi, Kohei Tanaka wanted to make something symbolizing the nobleness and frantic feelings of the women fighting in the series. That’s why Ayane Sakura, singing as Sakura Amamiya, has particularly high notes in the song, to show that franticness. Kohei Tanaka really praised her singing and said she pretty much fused with Sakura Amamiya. He praised all the other seiyuu as well, and said they did a wonderful job. He also jokingly apologized for making so many hard to sing pieces Kenji Akabane added he’d definitely refuse he was asked to sing one of the songs because it’d be way too difficult. Kohei Tanaka mentioned it was particularly difficult for Hibiku Yamamura, because she had to stay in Azami’s voice and yet sing very high tones.

Following that, Kohei Tanaka explained the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi. Nearly every single song in Sakura Wars has lyrics written by original author Hiroi Oji. However, he couldn’t do the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi, so Shouko Fujibayashi handled it instead. In the Shin Sakura Taisen game, Shouko Fujibayashi also wrote the lyrics for the character songs of Lancelot (Knights of the Round), Elise (Schwarzer Stern), Itsuki (Ruriruran Ginza Roman) and the charasong shared by Sumire, Kaoru, and Komachi (A Star Is Born).

Kohei Tanaka explained he loves working with Hiroi Oji and wants to keep working with him for years to come, but having someone else do the lyrics is also a good change of pace, which can bring a new angle to Sakura Taisen music.

Shouko Fujibayashi wrote many songs for Nana Mizuki, Hiroshi Kitadani, and many other legendary singers in Japan. She also regularly works with Kohei Tanaka as she writes the lyrics of most of the songs he does for One Piece. She writes lyrics for pretty much every single popular kids franchise, Precure, Kamen Rider, One Piece, you name it.

As that segment of the stream ended, we got the see a clean, non-credit version of Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation‘s ending sequence, with Sakura Yumemishi playing. As far as I know it’s the only way to see this version for now. It’s at the 53:38 mark:

Mami Yamashita, Yohei Azakami and Kenji Akabane  all really like the ED animation, especially the Kamiyama shot and how cool he looks.

An OST CD for Sakura Wars PS4 launched June 24. This is the OST CD containing the game’s instrumentals BGMs only. The vocal songs were in the OST CD included in the Japanese Limited Edition, and were also released on a separate CD, seen on the right.

Kohei Tanaka said he’s never tired of making Sakura Taisen songs and wants to keep doing it forever. He said that when he recorded the BGMs for Sakura Wars PS4 with an orchestra, at the same time he also recorded the BGMs in the One Piece: Stampede movie, so it was really exhausting. But he’s glad he did it.

Kohei Tanaka also quickly mentioned the BGM used in the final battle of Sakura Wars PS4. He explained how the game’s saddest BGM uses the same base as the final battle’s BGM, to represent the sadness and pain of battle.

The Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation OST CD for ending theme Sakura Yumemishi is out since May 27. Kohei Tanaka said there will probably be another CD later on with the rest of the anime’s BGMs.

Volume 1 and 2 of the DVD and Bluray disc release of the anime are out. Cover illustrations are by character designer Masashi Kudo. One of the coolest things about these are the audio commentaries by the seiyuu. Yohei Azakami mentioned he’s in the audio commentary in Volume 3, and it was the first time he ever recorded one. Kenji Akabane is on Volume 4’s audio commentary. Volume 3 launches on July 15. Volume 4 on August 19.

Starting the 1:08:40 mark of the stream, we had the usual goods and new collabs segment, with Mami Yamashita and Yohei Azakami wearing glasses and acting all serious. This is one of the meta jokes of these streams as they always do that for this segment.

First off, we learned the Shin Sakura Taisen The Comic manga will end with volume 3, launching on July 17, 2020.

最終3巻7月17日（金）発売予定

本日発売のYJ30号に最終話が掲載！

玄庵葬徹を倒した華撃団！ 華麗なるフィナーレをご覧ください！ そしてまた、新たな幕が開くその時までーー…

コミックス2巻デジタル版はこちら→https://t.co/JpNtOL8Uxy pic.twitter.com/7gzwcxvOXn

— 野口こゆり公式【新サクラ大戦 the Comic】 (@kenkouki_) June 24, 2020

The final chapter of the manga was pre-published online in Tonari no Young Jump on June 25, 2020. It has a pretty cool shot of Sakura Amamiya.

The new Sakura Wars goods on sale in Japan since June 17.

As a reminder, each character has been getting goods for their birthdays. Each month, one character gets goods dedicated to them. Special messages from the other characters, wishing them happy birthday, are also published online on the Sakura Taisen Twitter account. The first wave of birthday goods was for Sakura Amamiya in March 2020.

List of Shin Sakura Taisen main characters birthdays, blood type and astrological sign (These were revealed during the 11th stream on January 2020):

Seijuro Kamiyama August 11, Leo, AB.

Sakura Amamiya: March 19, Pisces, A.

Hatsuho Shinonome: September 9, Virgo, B.

Azami Mochizuki: May 15, Taurus, O.

Anastasia Palma: October 6, Libra, B.

Claris: February 1, Aquarius, AB.

The next one in line is Seijuro Kamiyama, they’re selling a t-shirt based on his parka from the DLC costumes. Along with a bunch of other goods. The last one to get birthday goods should be Claris, in January-February 2021.

Sakura Amamiya Nendoroid from Good Smile. They hinted they might make more for the other characters if this one sells well.

The next HG 1/24 scale plamo scheduled to release is Anastasia’s Mugen, scheduled to launch October 2020. Seijuro and Sakura Amamiya’s Mugen plamo released on June 20. Azami’s Mugen plamo launches in July.

Yurakucho Marui shopping mall in Tokyo is also doing a Shin Sakura Taisen collab from June 19 to July 12, selling exclusive goods. Kohei Tanaka made a song for the shop too. Details are on the shop’s site. There’s also a collab café with Princess Café at Yurakucho Marui, and Shibuya Marui. Fans can get exclusive goods there too.

Shin Sakura Taisen collab event in Ekimemo!, the mobile game with train stations turned into cute girls by Mobile Factory.

Collab event with free to play mecha Sega game Border Break.

Collab event between Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation and Chain Chronicle 3, gacha game by Sega.

【コラボ】「#アニメ新サクラ大戦」×「チェインクロニクル３(#チェンクロ )」コラボが開催中

花組キャラクターたちが、SSRキャラクターとしてチェインクロニクルに登場！コラボ専用のオリジナルストーリーにも注目です！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/1UYkfQH4nu

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

It’s particularly funny because Sakura Amamiya and the “Heroine” of Chain Chronicle 3, Feena, are both voiced by Ayane Sakura. She voiced a commercial for the collab.

Following that, the stream moved on to its ending corner.

Seeing Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation is over, future Sakura Taisen streams will stop focusing on it. Kenji Akabane said Sakura Ayane didn’t appear yet on the streams, and how she was super jealous of him when she heard he would appear at some point when they recorded the anime volume 4’s audio commentary together.

Kenji Akabane said he was pretty happy to appear on stream, and hopes there’s a “Shin Sakura Taisen The Movie” happening one day. He jokingly said he’ll do anything to make it happen.

As the stream ended, unlike with most streams until now, they didn’t announce a date for the next stream. Though they stressed out there will be more streams coming. As we covered in a separate article, they also teased a Shin Sakura Taisen sequel could be coming. Shin Sakura Taisen The Stage, the stage play, was re-announced as well.

【6月19日(金)生放送終了】 皆様、ご視聴ありがとうございました！

TVアニメ『新サクラ大戦 The Animation』 本日最終回放送です！お見逃しなく！#新サクラ大戦 #アニメ新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/xmli41IknA

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

帝劇宣伝部通信をご覧くださった皆様、ありがとうございました！#アニメ新サクラ大戦 最終話直前ということで大いに語らせていただきました！僕らリアタイは厳しそうですが、皆様は是非、さくらたちの勇姿を見届けてください！神山隊長！間に合えー！！！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/ADGyHDhm67

— 阿座上洋平 (@azakami_youhei) June 19, 2020

The usual end of stream photos with everyone present. Every Japanese stream has similar social distancing setups like these nowadays. Usually they sit much closer.

Be sure to check out our review of Sakura Wars, and why did the game was titled “Sakura Wars” in the west. You can also check out our summaries of all the previous streams so far. DualShockers also recently had the opportunity to interview the Sakura Wars development team, and the full interview is coming later this week.

Sakura Wars is currently a PS4 exclusive and can be bought on Amazon.

This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka

[wineanddinosaur]

Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You

The perfect nitro pour is performance art: pour, wait, repeat. Tiny nitrogen bubbles race to the surface, creating a velvety blanket of foam that rivals any #bosspour.

Once relegated to pints poured in a pub — and usually pints of Guinness — nitro beer is making its way onto more off-premise shelves than ever before. Thanks to pioneering techniques by craft breweries like Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, to more recent innovations from the likes of Modern Times and even Budweiser, the nitrogenized pint is now an affordable luxury to enjoy at home.

With advancements in brewing and packaging technology leading to a more accessible canned or bottled nitro beer, brewing companies are exploring how nitrogen gas plays with a variety of beer styles beyond stout. Nitrogen has been known to play well with amber ales, IPAs, and even fruit beers.

What Is Nitrogen?

No longer just a square on the periodic table, nitrogen, when used in beer, lends a creamy element to the flavor. With a “nitro” beer, a combination of 70 percent nitrogen and 30 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) generates the smooth carbonation and a cascading effect not found in beers that rely strictly on carbon dioxide. That cascade comes from the way the nitrogen bubbles fall around the glass then shoot up through the middle, leaving a fluffy, white cushion of head at the top.

Nitro’s New Wave

The popularity of nitrogenated beer has been bubbling up slowly, taking time as brewers took time to trial technologies and techniques to get it right. Introducing nitrogen into a beer is a fine and delicate science. That’s especially true when it comes to allowing drinkers to take nitro home.

Of course, the packaged pint “on nitro” began at the hands of Guinness, which first started pouring Irish dry stout with nitrogen in 1959.

Guinness spent almost 20 years figuring out how to put Guinness Draught in a bottle with anything even remotely similar to the nitro experience at a pub. The bottle held something called a creamer which released nitrogen into the beer.

“Ultimately, it didn’t quite give us the desired effect, and the creamer was a bit cumbersome to use,” says Eoghain Clavin, national Guinness brewery ambassador. “The brewers went back to the drawing board and after more years of trial, we developed the widget, which was released in 1988.” The widget, a nitrogen-filled capsule that gassed up the stout as soon as the can or bottle was opened, actually earned Guinness the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement in 1991. It beat out the internet.

Left Hand explored the same challenges when it first attempted bottling Milk Stout Nitro in 2011. “It was a lot of internal [research and development] and trying to reverse-engineer it,” says Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations. The brewery eventually landed on bottling the beer without a contraption like Guinness’s “widget” but instead relying on physics. That meant the drinker needed to “hard pour” the stout out of the bottle to activate the nitrogen.

A hard pour is counterintuitive to how most people pour a beer. It requires someone to hold the bottle at a high 45-degree angle to the glass, allowing the beer to gush out. At about the halfway point, the angle shifts to 90 degrees, completely perpendicular to the bottom of the glass. The rush of beer helps mix the gas and activate the cascade.

As Craft Brewers Catch On, Tech Catches Up

In 2014, Left Hand launched a Nitro Fest, inviting breweries from all over the country to pour nitro beers alongside circus shows. Even Dogfish Head Brewing, a brewery not known for nitrogenated beer, crafted small- batch brews to bring it to the festival all the way from its home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Although the 2020 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Left Hand hopes to bring it back in late 2021.)

Last October, Left Hand released a mixed 8-pack featuring all nitro beers: the year-round Milk Stout Nitro, Flamingo Dreams Nitro (a berry blonde ale), and Sawtooth Nitro (an amber ale), along with a rotating seasonal. (The seasonal for summer is Gettin’ Tiki With It Nitro, a Piña Colada wheat beer). The brewery has continued to invest in nitro with the new release of Galactic Cowboy, a modern nitro imperial stout in cans and on draft.

Modern Times, which roasts its own coffee, produces and cans a nitro cold brew coffee, also called Black House. In 2016, Modern Times canned its popular Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout, with nitro. Andrew Schwartz, Modern Times’ commissioner of flavor, explains that they’d wanted to can the beer since they first started serving it on nitro in 2014 — but needed to figure out how.

“We do it by pressurizing the tank with nitrogen, and we also dose the cans with liquid nitrogen,” Schwartz says. When the brewery acquired a new canning line four years ago, it was built with the capability to inject nitrogen into the cans as they were filled. Several other canned nitro beers followed, including an upcoming version of Nitro Black House, a coffee beer brewed with vanilla known as the Vanilla Latte Edition.

“I think a hat tip should be given to the coffee industry for their recent use of nitrogen in cold coffees,” says Clavin. “In doing so, they helped grow consumers’ perceptions about what nitro beverages can be and as consumers have become more familiar with it. I think it’s given brewers more flexibility to experiment with it in their beers and more initiative to launch those beers to a wide audience.”

Just last year, Rhinegeist Brewery of Cincinnati released its first-ever canned nitro beer: a gose with peach, vanilla, and lactose called Cobbstopper. By that time, the technology — similar to what Modern Times was using — had become more accessible.

“Cross flow membrane technology and liquid nitrogen dosers came on the scene at a cost craft brewers could handle,” says Cole Hackbarth, Rhinegeist’s director of brewery operations. “We added a liquid nitrogen doser to our can line that allowed us to can nitro without specialty cans.”

Finally, in early March 2020, the largest brewery in the world, Budweiser, introduced its own nitro lager: Budweiser Nitro Gold.

Bigger Brands, More Exposure

The draw to nitro was clear for Budweiser: “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry,” says Ricardo Marques, VP marketing, core and value brands, at Anheuser-Busch. “As we see double-digit growth in the nitrogen category, we saw an opportunity with our consumer base, offering them a premium product for their ever-changing palate.”

Budweiser also took a cue from coffee. “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry — Starbucks just launched a [ready-to-drink] nitro brew coffee,” says Marques.

By the time Budweiser dropped Nitro Gold, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the brewery had taken its first foray into nitro with a lager. Since other breweries have already made gains in delivering nitro styles, it had  been proven that the gas could complement a golden lager. The can designed by Budweiser also requires the ritual of the “hard pour,” which the brand has promoted via marketing efforts and with a tutorial video.

“In Nitro Gold, the one-of-a-kind golden lager is brewed with caramel malt for a bold flavor, and the smaller, denser bubbles create a silky-smooth finish,” says Marques. “We know our drinkers are seeking premium innovations for special occasions, which is why Nitro Gold is such an exciting new innovation for us.”

Hard Pour, Easy Enjoyment

Nitrogenated beers still occupy a pretty small niche with beer drinkers. But with global brands like Budweiser promoting packaged nitro offerings, beer drinkers who “haven’t been exposed to [nitro] yet or don’t necessarily understand the difference” between nitro beers and normal carbonated beers will soon be exposed, Ingram says. “It definitely raises awareness and allows people to experience it.”

According to Joslin, brewers are having fun working with nitro, too. “I think other breweries have realized that it’s an ingredient that they can play with,” he says. “And so they can make a beer more approachable.”

As for the pour? “First, grab a cold can and a clean glass,” Clavin says. “Crack that can, listen to the widget do its job agitating the nitrogen, and pour it straightaway into the glass at a 45-degree angle. Give it time to settle, then you’re good to go.”

The article Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/nitro-beer-near-you/

[johnboothus]

Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You

The perfect nitro pour is performance art: pour, wait, repeat. Tiny nitrogen bubbles race to the surface, creating a velvety blanket of foam that rivals any #bosspour.

Once relegated to pints poured in a pub — and usually pints of Guinness — nitro beer is making its way onto more off-premise shelves than ever before. Thanks to pioneering techniques by craft breweries like Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, to more recent innovations from the likes of Modern Times and even Budweiser, the nitrogenized pint is now an affordable luxury to enjoy at home.

With advancements in brewing and packaging technology leading to a more accessible canned or bottled nitro beer, brewing companies are exploring how nitrogen gas plays with a variety of beer styles beyond stout. Nitrogen has been known to play well with amber ales, IPAs, and even fruit beers.

What Is Nitrogen?

No longer just a square on the periodic table, nitrogen, when used in beer, lends a creamy element to the flavor. With a “nitro” beer, a combination of 70 percent nitrogen and 30 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) generates the smooth carbonation and a cascading effect not found in beers that rely strictly on carbon dioxide. That cascade comes from the way the nitrogen bubbles fall around the glass then shoot up through the middle, leaving a fluffy, white cushion of head at the top.

Nitro’s New Wave

The popularity of nitrogenated beer has been bubbling up slowly, taking time as brewers took time to trial technologies and techniques to get it right. Introducing nitrogen into a beer is a fine and delicate science. That’s especially true when it comes to allowing drinkers to take nitro home.

Of course, the packaged pint “on nitro” began at the hands of Guinness, which first started pouring Irish dry stout with nitrogen in 1959.

Guinness spent almost 20 years figuring out how to put Guinness Draught in a bottle with anything even remotely similar to the nitro experience at a pub. The bottle held something called a creamer which released nitrogen into the beer.

“Ultimately, it didn’t quite give us the desired effect, and the creamer was a bit cumbersome to use,” says Eoghain Clavin, national Guinness brewery ambassador. “The brewers went back to the drawing board and after more years of trial, we developed the widget, which was released in 1988.” The widget, a nitrogen-filled capsule that gassed up the stout as soon as the can or bottle was opened, actually earned Guinness the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement in 1991. It beat out the internet.

Left Hand explored the same challenges when it first attempted bottling Milk Stout Nitro in 2011. “It was a lot of internal [research and development] and trying to reverse-engineer it,” says Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations. The brewery eventually landed on bottling the beer without a contraption like Guinness’s “widget” but instead relying on physics. That meant the drinker needed to “hard pour” the stout out of the bottle to activate the nitrogen.

A hard pour is counterintuitive to how most people pour a beer. It requires someone to hold the bottle at a high 45-degree angle to the glass, allowing the beer to gush out. At about the halfway point, the angle shifts to 90 degrees, completely perpendicular to the bottom of the glass. The rush of beer helps mix the gas and activate the cascade.

As Craft Brewers Catch On, Tech Catches Up

In 2014, Left Hand launched a Nitro Fest, inviting breweries from all over the country to pour nitro beers alongside circus shows. Even Dogfish Head Brewing, a brewery not known for nitrogenated beer, crafted small- batch brews to bring it to the festival all the way from its home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Although the 2020 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Left Hand hopes to bring it back in late 2021.)

Last October, Left Hand released a mixed 8-pack featuring all nitro beers: the year-round Milk Stout Nitro, Flamingo Dreams Nitro (a berry blonde ale), and Sawtooth Nitro (an amber ale), along with a rotating seasonal. (The seasonal for summer is Gettin’ Tiki With It Nitro, a Piña Colada wheat beer). The brewery has continued to invest in nitro with the new release of Galactic Cowboy, a modern nitro imperial stout in cans and on draft.

Modern Times, which roasts its own coffee, produces and cans a nitro cold brew coffee, also called Black House. In 2016, Modern Times canned its popular Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout, with nitro. Andrew Schwartz, Modern Times’ commissioner of flavor, explains that they’d wanted to can the beer since they first started serving it on nitro in 2014 — but needed to figure out how.

“We do it by pressurizing the tank with nitrogen, and we also dose the cans with liquid nitrogen,” Schwartz says. When the brewery acquired a new canning line four years ago, it was built with the capability to inject nitrogen into the cans as they were filled. Several other canned nitro beers followed, including an upcoming version of Nitro Black House, a coffee beer brewed with vanilla known as the Vanilla Latte Edition.

“I think a hat tip should be given to the coffee industry for their recent use of nitrogen in cold coffees,” says Clavin. “In doing so, they helped grow consumers’ perceptions about what nitro beverages can be and as consumers have become more familiar with it. I think it’s given brewers more flexibility to experiment with it in their beers and more initiative to launch those beers to a wide audience.”

Just last year, Rhinegeist Brewery of Cincinnati released its first-ever canned nitro beer: a gose with peach, vanilla, and lactose called Cobbstopper. By that time, the technology — similar to what Modern Times was using — had become more accessible.

“Cross flow membrane technology and liquid nitrogen dosers came on the scene at a cost craft brewers could handle,” says Cole Hackbarth, Rhinegeist’s director of brewery operations. “We added a liquid nitrogen doser to our can line that allowed us to can nitro without specialty cans.”

Finally, in early March 2020, the largest brewery in the world, Budweiser, introduced its own nitro lager: Budweiser Nitro Gold.

Bigger Brands, More Exposure

The draw to nitro was clear for Budweiser: “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry,” says Ricardo Marques, VP marketing, core and value brands, at Anheuser-Busch. “As we see double-digit growth in the nitrogen category, we saw an opportunity with our consumer base, offering them a premium product for their ever-changing palate.”

Budweiser also took a cue from coffee. “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry — Starbucks just launched a [ready-to-drink] nitro brew coffee,” says Marques.

By the time Budweiser dropped Nitro Gold, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the brewery had taken its first foray into nitro with a lager. Since other breweries have already made gains in delivering nitro styles, it had  been proven that the gas could complement a golden lager. The can designed by Budweiser also requires the ritual of the “hard pour,” which the brand has promoted via marketing efforts and with a tutorial video.

“In Nitro Gold, the one-of-a-kind golden lager is brewed with caramel malt for a bold flavor, and the smaller, denser bubbles create a silky-smooth finish,” says Marques. “We know our drinkers are seeking premium innovations for special occasions, which is why Nitro Gold is such an exciting new innovation for us.”

Hard Pour, Easy Enjoyment

Nitrogenated beers still occupy a pretty small niche with beer drinkers. But with global brands like Budweiser promoting packaged nitro offerings, beer drinkers who “haven’t been exposed to [nitro] yet or don’t necessarily understand the difference” between nitro beers and normal carbonated beers will soon be exposed, Ingram says. “It definitely raises awareness and allows people to experience it.”

According to Joslin, brewers are having fun working with nitro, too. “I think other breweries have realized that it’s an ingredient that they can play with,” he says. “And so they can make a beer more approachable.”

As for the pour? “First, grab a cold can and a clean glass,” Clavin says. “Crack that can, listen to the widget do its job agitating the nitrogen, and pour it straightaway into the glass at a 45-degree angle. Give it time to settle, then you’re good to go.”

The article Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/nitro-beer-near-you/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/nitro-beer-is-nudging-its-way-onto-store-shelves-near-you

[isaiahrippinus]

Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You

The perfect nitro pour is performance art: pour, wait, repeat. Tiny nitrogen bubbles race to the surface, creating a velvety blanket of foam that rivals any #bosspour.

Once relegated to pints poured in a pub — and usually pints of Guinness — nitro beer is making its way onto more off-premise shelves than ever before. Thanks to pioneering techniques by craft breweries like Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, to more recent innovations from the likes of Modern Times and even Budweiser, the nitrogenized pint is now an affordable luxury to enjoy at home.

With advancements in brewing and packaging technology leading to a more accessible canned or bottled nitro beer, brewing companies are exploring how nitrogen gas plays with a variety of beer styles beyond stout. Nitrogen has been known to play well with amber ales, IPAs, and even fruit beers.

What Is Nitrogen?

No longer just a square on the periodic table, nitrogen, when used in beer, lends a creamy element to the flavor. With a “nitro” beer, a combination of 70 percent nitrogen and 30 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) generates the smooth carbonation and a cascading effect not found in beers that rely strictly on carbon dioxide. That cascade comes from the way the nitrogen bubbles fall around the glass then shoot up through the middle, leaving a fluffy, white cushion of head at the top.

Nitro’s New Wave

The popularity of nitrogenated beer has been bubbling up slowly, taking time as brewers took time to trial technologies and techniques to get it right. Introducing nitrogen into a beer is a fine and delicate science. That’s especially true when it comes to allowing drinkers to take nitro home.

Of course, the packaged pint “on nitro” began at the hands of Guinness, which first started pouring Irish dry stout with nitrogen in 1959.

Guinness spent almost 20 years figuring out how to put Guinness Draught in a bottle with anything even remotely similar to the nitro experience at a pub. The bottle held something called a creamer which released nitrogen into the beer.

“Ultimately, it didn’t quite give us the desired effect, and the creamer was a bit cumbersome to use,” says Eoghain Clavin, national Guinness brewery ambassador. “The brewers went back to the drawing board and after more years of trial, we developed the widget, which was released in 1988.” The widget, a nitrogen-filled capsule that gassed up the stout as soon as the can or bottle was opened, actually earned Guinness the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement in 1991. It beat out the internet.

Left Hand explored the same challenges when it first attempted bottling Milk Stout Nitro in 2011. “It was a lot of internal [research and development] and trying to reverse-engineer it,” says Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations. The brewery eventually landed on bottling the beer without a contraption like Guinness’s “widget” but instead relying on physics. That meant the drinker needed to “hard pour” the stout out of the bottle to activate the nitrogen.

A hard pour is counterintuitive to how most people pour a beer. It requires someone to hold the bottle at a high 45-degree angle to the glass, allowing the beer to gush out. At about the halfway point, the angle shifts to 90 degrees, completely perpendicular to the bottom of the glass. The rush of beer helps mix the gas and activate the cascade.

As Craft Brewers Catch On, Tech Catches Up

In 2014, Left Hand launched a Nitro Fest, inviting breweries from all over the country to pour nitro beers alongside circus shows. Even Dogfish Head Brewing, a brewery not known for nitrogenated beer, crafted small- batch brews to bring it to the festival all the way from its home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Although the 2020 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Left Hand hopes to bring it back in late 2021.)

Last October, Left Hand released a mixed 8-pack featuring all nitro beers: the year-round Milk Stout Nitro, Flamingo Dreams Nitro (a berry blonde ale), and Sawtooth Nitro (an amber ale), along with a rotating seasonal. (The seasonal for summer is Gettin’ Tiki With It Nitro, a Piña Colada wheat beer). The brewery has continued to invest in nitro with the new release of Galactic Cowboy, a modern nitro imperial stout in cans and on draft.

Modern Times, which roasts its own coffee, produces and cans a nitro cold brew coffee, also called Black House. In 2016, Modern Times canned its popular Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout, with nitro. Andrew Schwartz, Modern Times’ commissioner of flavor, explains that they’d wanted to can the beer since they first started serving it on nitro in 2014 — but needed to figure out how.

“We do it by pressurizing the tank with nitrogen, and we also dose the cans with liquid nitrogen,” Schwartz says. When the brewery acquired a new canning line four years ago, it was built with the capability to inject nitrogen into the cans as they were filled. Several other canned nitro beers followed, including an upcoming version of Nitro Black House, a coffee beer brewed with vanilla known as the Vanilla Latte Edition.

“I think a hat tip should be given to the coffee industry for their recent use of nitrogen in cold coffees,” says Clavin. “In doing so, they helped grow consumers’ perceptions about what nitro beverages can be and as consumers have become more familiar with it. I think it’s given brewers more flexibility to experiment with it in their beers and more initiative to launch those beers to a wide audience.”

Just last year, Rhinegeist Brewery of Cincinnati released its first-ever canned nitro beer: a gose with peach, vanilla, and lactose called Cobbstopper. By that time, the technology — similar to what Modern Times was using — had become more accessible.

“Cross flow membrane technology and liquid nitrogen dosers came on the scene at a cost craft brewers could handle,” says Cole Hackbarth, Rhinegeist’s director of brewery operations. “We added a liquid nitrogen doser to our can line that allowed us to can nitro without specialty cans.”

Finally, in early March 2020, the largest brewery in the world, Budweiser, introduced its own nitro lager: Budweiser Nitro Gold.

Bigger Brands, More Exposure

The draw to nitro was clear for Budweiser: “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry,” says Ricardo Marques, VP marketing, core and value brands, at Anheuser-Busch. “As we see double-digit growth in the nitrogen category, we saw an opportunity with our consumer base, offering them a premium product for their ever-changing palate.”

Budweiser also took a cue from coffee. “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry — Starbucks just launched a [ready-to-drink] nitro brew coffee,” says Marques.

By the time Budweiser dropped Nitro Gold, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the brewery had taken its first foray into nitro with a lager. Since other breweries have already made gains in delivering nitro styles, it had  been proven that the gas could complement a golden lager. The can designed by Budweiser also requires the ritual of the “hard pour,” which the brand has promoted via marketing efforts and with a tutorial video.

“In Nitro Gold, the one-of-a-kind golden lager is brewed with caramel malt for a bold flavor, and the smaller, denser bubbles create a silky-smooth finish,” says Marques. “We know our drinkers are seeking premium innovations for special occasions, which is why Nitro Gold is such an exciting new innovation for us.”

Hard Pour, Easy Enjoyment

Nitrogenated beers still occupy a pretty small niche with beer drinkers. But with global brands like Budweiser promoting packaged nitro offerings, beer drinkers who “haven’t been exposed to [nitro] yet or don’t necessarily understand the difference” between nitro beers and normal carbonated beers will soon be exposed, Ingram says. “It definitely raises awareness and allows people to experience it.”

According to Joslin, brewers are having fun working with nitro, too. “I think other breweries have realized that it’s an ingredient that they can play with,” he says. “And so they can make a beer more approachable.”

As for the pour? “First, grab a cold can and a clean glass,” Clavin says. “Crack that can, listen to the widget do its job agitating the nitrogen, and pour it straightaway into the glass at a 45-degree angle. Give it time to settle, then you’re good to go.”

The article Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/nitro-beer-near-you/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/621816097018183680

[silverscreenclassics2016]

by special guest Robert Short

General abstract:  In 1877 Russia, Anna Karenina, wife of Alexei Karenin, a senior government official, and mother of their young son Sergei, travels to Moscow from St. Petersburg to visit her brother Stepan Oblonsky, his wife Dolly, and their children.  The family is in turmoil due to Stepan’s unbridled womanizing – a circumstance that foretells Anna’s own future situation.  Upon her arrival in the Moscow train station, she meets Count Alexei Vronsky, a cavalryman.  A romantic attraction and affair ensue, despite the fact that Dolly’s eighteen-year-old sister Kitty is also attracted to Vronsky. 

Bachelor Vronsky is eager to marry Anna.  Unable to secure a divorce from her high-minded husband, Anna nonetheless leaves him, and their son, to live with Vronsky.  Initially moving to Italy, where they can be together, Anna and Vronsky return to Russia, where she is shunned by Russian society, while Vronsky is able to pursue his social life.  Becoming further isolated and anxious, Anna grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his imagined infidelity, resulting in tragedy.

ANNA KARENINA (1935)  Director:  Clarence Brown.  Starring Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, Maureen O’Sullivan, Freddie Bartholomew, May Robson, Reginald Owen.  Screenplay by Clemence Dane and Salka Viertel.

From her stunning first appearance behind a clearing cloud of train steam, Greta Garbo set the 1935 “Anna Karenina” in motion with her extraordinary presence.  Known as “the Swedish Sphinx” among other sobriquets, Garbo’s exquisite face could seemingly express a thousand thoughts while remaining totally blank; she was the epitome of the legendary Gloria Swanson line in “Sunset Boulevard”, “We had faces then”.

Garbo’s 1935 portrayal of Anna was in fact her second on-screen portrait of the Tolstoy heroine; an earlier 1927 silent version, bearing the title “Love”, had co-starred Garbo with John Gilbert, her highly-publicized real-life romantic partner, as Count Vronsky.  Performed in more modern dress, its story reduced to the essential occurrences of the Anna – Vronsky narrative, “Love” may be considered either a clever adaptation or, to a Tolstoy purist, a complete abomination.  Supporting characters such as Stepan, Dolly and Kitty were jettisoned entirely; many other liberties were taken with the story.  Most notably a contrived happy ending filmed for American audiences replaced the original tragic conclusion; the European prints retained the more dramatic finale.  Nevertheless, despite its numerous literary transgressions, “Love” enjoyed the benefit of the almost palpable chemistry between Garbo and Gilbert; the two could transform a scene in which virtually nothing was happening into something resembling an erotic dream.

  Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in ‘Love’ (1927)

Greta Garbo and Fredric March in ‘Anna Karenina’

Returning to the role was Garbo’s idea; in October 1934 the actress had requested that David O. Selznick produce a remake of “Love”, but with greater adherence to the Tolstoy tome.  Paring down the original literary source to a manageable screen adaptation required necessary deletions; Tolstoy’s massive and complex chronicle, running over 800 pages, featuring over a dozen major characters, and presented in eight parts, included more than the narrative of Anna and Vronsky, although their story was a major component of the plot.   Unlike the earlier 1927 version, the “side” stories not focused on Anna, such as Oblonsky’s marital infidelities and Kitty’s infatuation with Vronsky and eventual marriage to Konstantin Levin, were presented, albeit rather superficially.  While screenwriters Clemence Dane and Salka Viertel, the latter of whom was a close friend of Garbo’s and eventually became the mother-in-law of actress Deborah Kerr, remained reasonably loyal to the original themes addressed in the literary work, including desire, betrayal, faith, family, marriage, and Imperial Russian society, creative license was taken in their presentation.  Various incidents were re-sorted and revised from Tolstoy’s original chronicle; alterations and additions to the script were made in order to avoid censure from the prevailing Production Code.  Under great pressure to complete a finished screenplay in the shortest possible time, the screenwriters prepared an oddly unbalanced script, affecting the rhythm of the scenes.

Fredric March was Garbo’s selection for the role of Vronsky.   Producer Selznick’s own first choice was Clark Gable, who was not interested.  Ronald Colman was another consideration; cannily aware that the film would belong to co-star Garbo, Colman purportedly doubled his asking price, effectively taking himself out of the running.  March, an Academy Award winning actor for his 1931 dual portrayal of “Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde”, was no stranger to Tolstoy’s work; in 1934 he had starred in “We Live Again”, based on Tolstoy’s 1899 work “Resurrection”, with Anna Sten.  Undeniably beautiful but ultimately unsuccessful in her career, Sten was, rather ironically, producer Samuel Goldwyn’s hoped-for answer to Garbo.  Having had his fill of period pieces, March did not want to play Vronsky, accepting the role on the order from his studio.  Nor did he, by his own admission, generate the same level of passion with Garbo as had Gilbert in the earlier 1927 version.  Describing the love scenes in the 1935 presentation, March was quoted as saying that they were “nothing so tempestuous as in the silent film”.

Directed by Garbo’s favourite director, Clarence Brown, with cinematography by William Daniels, Garbo’s favourite photographer, “Anna Karenina” emerged a financial and critical success.  Andre Sennwald of The New York Times noted “Miss Garbo, always superbly the apex of the drama, suggests the inevitability of her doom from the beginning, streaking her first happiness with undertones of anguish, later trying futilely to mend the broken pieces, and at last standing regally alone as she approaches the end. Bouncing with less determination than is his custom, Mr. March gets by handsomely as Vronsky.”  For her efforts, Garbo won the New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actress; the film itself was named one of the top ten films of 1935 by the National Board of Review, USA.

ANNA KARENINA (1948) Director:  Julien Duvivier.  Starring Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore, Hugh Dempster, Mary Kerridge, Sally Ann Howes, Niall MacGinnis.  Screenplay by Jean Anouilh, Guy Morgan, Julien Duvivier.

After her Oscar-winning tour de force performance as the wilful Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”, British actress Vivien Leigh had returned to the movie screen only three times, in 1940’s “Waterloo Bridge”, in 1941 as the eponymous “Lady Hamilton”, also known as “That Hamilton Woman”, co-starring husband Laurence Olivier as Admiral Horatio Nelson, and as Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw’s “Caesar and Cleopatra” in 1945.  During the intervening years, Leigh had performed on stage, and endured sieges of illness and depression; the opportunity of portraying Tolstoy’s tragic heroine lured Leigh back to the silver screen for a fourth post-”Wind” appearance.  Interestingly, critical elements of her character’s life mirrored Leigh’s own; similar to Anna, who left her husband and child to pursue a new love, Leigh ended her seven-year marriage with husband Herbert Leigh Holman in 1940 in order to marry Laurence Olivier, her co-star in the 1937 British productions “Fire over England” and “21 Days Together”.  Holman ultimately gained custody of his and Leigh’s six-year-old daughter Suzanne.  During the production of “Anna Karenina” Oliver received his investiture as Knight Bachelor; Leigh was thereafter styled as “Lady Olivier”.

Unfolding at a more leisurely 139 minutes, as opposed to the 95-minute running time of the earlier Garbo version, the 1948 “Anna Karenina” was a truer, and more encompassing, adaptation of its classic literary source.  The original screenplay prepared by director Julien Duvivier, in collaboration with French dramatist Jean Anouilh, had been an experiment in angst-ridden existentialism, a relentlessly downbeat chronicle transplanted to a French setting; British writer Guy Morgan came on board for script alterations and revisions.

Unlike the 1935 film, which began with an invented scene showing Vronsky in various stages of revelry, the 1948 edition began with the novel’s famous introductory line “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” superimposed over a scene revealing the turmoil in the Oblonsky home.  More screen time was devoted to the characters of Stepan and Dolly, Anna’s brother and sister-in-law, and Dolly’s sister Kitty.  Most importantly, major segments of the story were not featured in the Garbo adaptation at all, including Karenin’s initial decision to divorce Anna, his change of heart after Anna’s near death after giving birth to Vronsky’s child, stillborn in this version, contrary to the novel, and his re-acceptance of Anna in his home.  These scenes, possibly omitted in 1935 due to Production Code restrictions, were particularly critical in Karenin’s character development; as portrayed by Basil Rathbone in the earlier presentation, Karenin was a tyrant, whereas Ralph Richardson’s Karenin, while still a cold, emotionally sterile man, displayed a glimmer of humanity.

Vivien Leigh and Kieron Moore as Anna and Vronksy

Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh as Karenin and Anna

Filmed in 1947, and released in the United Kingdom in early January 1948, the making of “Anna Karenina” would appear to have been an unhappy affair; director Duvivier, reportedly autocratically inflexible, was disliked by cast and crew.  The role of Vronsky had originally been offered to Michael Redgrave, who chose to appear in two American projects; handsome Irish-born actor Kieron Moore undertook the part.  Out of his acting depth, Moore had requested a release after only a few weeks of filming.  Producer Sir Alexander Korda refused to grant it; Moore’s ensuing performance, described by fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, a friend of Garbo’s, as a “disaster”, suggested none of Vronsky’s animal magnetism.

Expensive and well-appointed, Leigh’s “Anna Karenina” was ultimately unsuccessful, both commercially and critically.  British reviewers were a little kinder to the film; opening in the United States in April 1947, its American print shortened by twenty minutes, the movie prompted New York Times critic Bosley Crowther to comment in his review “With all due respect for an actress who would willingly undertake a role that has twice been rendered immortal by Greta Garbo within the past twenty years, it must be confessed by this observer that the ‘Anna Karenina’ of Vivien Leigh is a pretty sad disappointment, by comparison or not.”

These harsh words notwithstanding, the 1948 “Anna Karenina” offered much to admire – the first image of Leigh’s beautiful face looking though the frosted window of a train, the sumptuous costumes and settings, cinematographer Henri Alekan’s moody, light-and-shadow photography displaying every shade possible in monochrome.  Crowther’s review did contain, nonetheless, an element of validity.  The 1948 film was a more faithful, albeit still imperfect, screen adaptation of Tolstoy’s chef-d’oeuvre.  Benefiting from an additional forty-five minutes in running time over its 1935 counterpoint, the British presentation explored motifs and situations to a fuller extent; from a literary standpoint it emerged the victor over the earlier Hollywood version.  However, all its physical adornment and homage to literature could not compete with the jewel in Hollywood’s crown, namely Garbo.  For all its faults as a cinematic translation of a major work of literature, 1935’s “Anna Karenina” was clearly the most entertaining; as described by critic Pauline Kael, “God knows it isn’t all it might be, and Garbo isn’t even at her best, but she’s there to be gazed upon.”

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to have Robert Short as a guest writer for the 2020 Classic Literature On Film Blogathon. 

A Look At Two Versions Of Anna Karenina (1935 and 1948) by special guest Robert Short General abstract:  In 1877 Russia, Anna Karenina, wife of Alexei Karenin, a senior government official, and mother of their young son Sergei, travels to Moscow from St.

[anigraham]

Random Questions Time: Music Edition

Because I’m taking a break from work, I’m burnt out, I need something mindless to look at.  It’s long.  I stole this from somewhere. Doesn’t matter where.

1. What are your 5 most played songs? My best guess would be (and yes I am picking 6):

Goo Goo Dolls - Big Machine

Goo Goo Dolls - Not Broken

Goo Goo Dolls - Ain’t That Unusual

Kamelot - March of Mephisto

Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance

Britney Spears - Work Bitch

2. How many albums do you have? According to my music program, 421.  But there is no easy way of checking he accuracy of that so let’s just say a lot.  On top of I have albums that I don’t have digital copies of. 3. Which artist do you have the most songs for? Goo Goo Dolls by far.  All time favorite band who has been around since 1986 and they are still producing music.  Which is also why I am sure they would be in my “most played songs” list. 4. What your first song in alphabetical order? Last? #SELFIE - The Chainsmokers Zombie Nation - Ministry of Sound 5. How many songs do you have with the letter O? Z? K? O - 97 songs. First song is a techno remix of O’Fortuna lol. (Close to what I have.) Z - 5 songs. First song is Zero Gravity by Kerli. K - 46 songs. First song is Kaleidoscope by Tiesto. 6. How many songs do you have? On my computer. . .3,506.  There are probably some duplicates. 7. Spell out your name with songs that you have. A - Affliction - AFI N - Need You Like a Drug - Zeromancer I - Imperial Throne - Jeremy Soule G - Good Day - Angels & Airwaves R - Real World - Matchbox 20 A - Are You In This? - Stroke 9 H - Hate This Place - Goo Goo Dolls A - Avalanche - Walk The Moon M - Maybe Someday - Splender 8. What's your least played song? I honestly have no way of telling that.  Maybe Jackie Greene.  Someone gave me a CD of his and I didn’t care for it. . .yet it is still on my computer because I’m lazy. 9. A song you always skip. Give a Little Bit - Goo Goo Dolls 10. 3 songs you have with a name in the title. Stacy’s Mom - Fountains of Wayne Where is Micah? - Five Iron Frenzy Mary’s in India - Dido 11. What song makes you cry every time? Oh geezus. Stay With You - Goo Goo Dolls 12. What song means so much to you? Ignoring the last answer... Hey Ya - Goo Goo Dolls Let Love In, Stay With You, and Hey Ya by the Goo Goo Dolls are songs I was listening to constantly during a very rough time in my life.  A lot of the lyrics I really related to at the time and so. . .those songs tend to remind me of that time.  They kind of helped me in keeping my sanity. 13. What song gets you pumped the most? Britney Spears - Work Bitch. lol.  There’s a reason why I assume it’s one of my most played songs.   14. 3 songs you have with cities in the name. Amsterdam - Imagine Dragons San Francisco - Vanessa Carlton N.Y.C - Kevin Rudolf 15. What album will you always listen to all the way through? Goo Goo Dolls - Boxes 16. What song do you have on repeat right now? The last song I did that with was Walpurgisnacht - FAUN 17. Make a story with 6 song titles. One day I’ll fly away.  Runaway.  Over the hills and far away.  I have nothing in this world. Goodbye. 18. Do you have a rainy day playlist? What songs are on it? No.  I have a cocktail hour playlist?  I imagine what I have on there is what people would have on a “rainy day playlist”?  It’s a lot of soft/slow world music, jazz, and trance music. 19. Using one song, tell me how your life is going. Alive - Goo Goo Dolls 20. Do you make playlists? Trying to.  I use to just have only two.  “CD” and “Repeat.”  All the music I wanted to listen to at the moment I would throw into repeat.  CD was obviously to make CDs for my car... Currently I have the following: Ah-knee-may, Bollywood Bun, CD, Chorus, Cocktail Hour, College Bun, Dance Party, Elder Scrolls, Emo Bun, Fantasy Bun, Graham Rumarin (shutup), High School Bun, IDEK, Instrumental, Metal Bun, Nostalgia, On The Radio, Pop, Project Runway, Puremood Ish, Remixed Bun, Repeat, Revelations, Rock Alt, Rock Fun, Rock Soft, Sing-A-Long Bun, Sountracks (Intrumental), Sountracks (Lyrical), Steam Powered Giraffe, and Vocaloid. 21. What's your favorite playlists? Currently, Metal Bun.  Has artists like Amaranthe, The Birthday Massacre, Leave’s Eyes, and Within Temptation. 22. Do you have any songs with colors in the title? Blue Comb ‘78 by Five Iron Frenzy comes to mind. 23. Put your phone on shuffle, what song comes up first? Do you know every word to this song? Can’t Say - BBMak LOL.  Wow.  Nope.  Maybe back in 2000 I knew all the words, but I Can’t Say, because honestly this is one of their songs I didn’t care for.  I know the chorus? 24. How many artists do you have? According to my music program. . .740. 25. How many songs do you have? Have another song from pushing “random” for repeating yourself Leaves’ Eyes - Leaves’ Eyes 26. 3 songs you listen to when you're feeling kinda down. It really depends on what is making me feel “kinda down.” Nostalgia got me down: Let it Die - Three Days Grace  Family got me down: Unbreakable - Fireflight  Life got me down: Some Nights - Fun. 27. 3 songs you listen to when you're feeling hopeless. Let Love In - Goo Goo Dolls Stay With You - Goo Goo Dolls Hey Ya - Goo Goo Dolls Basically the songs I answered with in 12.  These songs I tend to imagine the person I wish I was singing them to me.  If I am listening to these on repeat I’m not okay. 28. 3 songs you listen to when you wanna dance. Shut Up and Dance - Walk the Moon Honey, I’m Good - Andy Grammer I Wanna Go (Smash Mode Remix) - Britney Spears (I have an absurd amount of Britney Spears remixes...lmao.) 29. 3 songs you blast out the car speakers, with the top down in the summer. I would never do that.  BUT IF I WAS to do that it would be totally random stuff to confuse people like: Blue - Eiffel 65 Buttercup (I’m a Super Girl) - Shonen Knife Knight Rider Theme (Techno Remix) - Happy Hardcore 30. A song you're ashamed to have in your library. I am not ashamed to admit that I have things like Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Power Puff Girls, Ke$ha, Sandstorm by Darude, and the like on my computer.  BUT.  The two bands I don’t outright admit to enjoying is Evanescence and Nightwish.  

Symphonic Metal (and other similar branches of metal) is probably one of my favorite genres and I think some of Evanescence’s music can fall into that.  It seems like whenever I go to the internet wanting to find a new metal band to enjoy, there is always some dick who is like “Let me guess.  You like Evanescence/Nightwish.”  Like who gives a fuck.  I like a LOT of things.  Epica, Leaves’ Eyes, Dream Theater, Krypteria. . .but it seems like the moment I admit to enjoying either Evanescence or Nightwish I just get written off.  Which makes no goddamn sense because if my taste is such “shit” tell me something else to try?  Ya know.  The whole reason why I’m there!  /rant 31. Do you have any movie soundtracks? Hell yeah!  300, Stardust, Rent (yes, I have both the movie and Broadway versions), Requiem For a Dream, The Lord of the Rings, Pitch Perfect and Moulin Rouge.  I also have videogame, tv, and other broadway musical sountracks. 32. What's the oldest song you have? I have music by The Beach Boys which is early 60′s.  Surprisingly, I don’t have any classical music on my computer. . .which I do enjoy.   33. Pick a song and tell a story with it. On The Way Down by Ryan Cabrera was the inspiration to my fanfic about Mr. Bushido (Graham Aker) struggling to kill himself.  The lyrics “On the way down. I saw you and you saved me from myself.” is the theme behind it. . .it’s the idea that he was seeing his life flash before his eyes while slowly losing oxygen (and while trying to convince himself that seppuku is his only option.)  Those memories reminded him of the man he use to be and it’s the desire to go back there. . .to go back to the man he use to be. I said it months ago that I would like to do videos where instead of just music over it. . .I talk about a subject.  I plan on making my first one a drawing of a scene from my fic when I discuss what Graham Aker means for me.  I plan on making the speed paint use this song as well. 34. What song reminds you of yourself? There are a lot.  I would just refer back to questions 12 and 27 for the most meaningful ones.  35. A song you have that you have because you heard it on a commercial and liked it. HA!  Well, I don’t actually have the song anymore before, well, I am sure you can guess why but it was... Forever - Chris Brown.  Heard it as part of a Doublemint gum commercial.

[satoshi-mochida]

Following the launch of a teaser website last week, Sega has officially announced Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch. It will launch in the Americas and Europe in 2018. In Japan, where an Xbox One version will not be released, it will launch for PlayStation 4 on March 21, 2018 and for Switch in summer 2018.

Here’s an overview of the game, via Sega:

About

It is the year 1935 EC…

The continent of Europa is engulfed in the flames of the Second Europan War between the Atlantic Federation and the Autocratic Eastern Imperial Alliance. Although the Federation struggles valiantly against the Empire’s forces, the relentless imperial military machine threatens to consume them. With victory slipping away, the Federation executes Operation Northern Cross: a last-ditch attempt to capture the imperial capital and end the war.

Commander Claude Wallace and his loyal childhood friends in Squad E are sent to fight for the desperate operation’s success, but they will have to endure harsh bone-chilling elements, waves of imperial soldiers, and the terrifying Valkyria… and unravel a grave truth that will shake them to the core.

Key Features

A Coming-of-Age Story in a Time of War – Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place in the same timeframe as the original Valkyria Chronicles, but focuses on a whole new cast of main characters. Players will take command of the eager, young Commander Claude Wallace, engineer/heavy weapons extraordinaire Riley Miller, hotheaded Darcsen Raz, ice-cold ace sniper Kai Schulen, and more. Together, they will experience the painful realities of war–but will the bonds of Squad E’s friendships survive the frozen battlefield?

The Next Generation “BLiTZ” Battle System – The part overhead turn-based strategy, part RPG, and part real-time 3rd person shooter “BLiTZ” battle system returns to the field. New features include an explosive new class called the Grenadier, numerous offensive/defensive battleship support options, chances for a unit to have a “Last Stand” action before death, and more. Plus, fight the imperial threat with more units on larger-scale maps than ever before.

CANVAS Aesthetics – The series’ signature hand-drawn visual style is back and overhauled for the newest generation. Inspired by watercolor compositions, the CANVAS Graphics Engine blends visual elements of reality and imagination to create an expressive world filled with colorful emotions. Watch the journey of Squad E unfold like an interactive painting!

The Return of a Legendary Composer – The illustrious Hitoshi Sakimoto, original composer of the Valkyria Chronicles series and countless other emotional epics, returns to provide a sweeping orchestral soundtrack for the game.

In Japan, the standard edition of Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PlayStation 4 will cost 7,990 yen and a “10th Anniversary Memorial Pack” limited edition will cost 12,990 yen. First-print copies of the game will include an additional mission. Here are the details:

PS4 Version Limited Edition

The “10th Anniversary Memorial Pack” limited edition will include the following:

A copy of Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PlayStation 4

A product code for the additional story downloadable content “Joint Operation with Squad 7” – A story in which Squad 7 from the original Valkyria Chronicles appears. By playing this downloadable content, the Edelweiss operated by Welkin Gunther, as well as Alicia Melchiot, Largo Potter, and Brigitte “Rosie” Stark will be made available in the main story of Valkyria Chronicles 4. Additionally, Isara Gunther can be acquired as a unit for the first time.

10th Anniversary Soundtrack – A CD containing a selection of music from the series’ four titles.

10th Anniversary Illustration Book – A booklet filled with illustrations from the series’ four titles. The front cover illustration is done by Raita Honjou. It is B5-size and 72 pages long.

PS4 Version First-Print Purchase Bonus

First-print copies of Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PlayStation 4 in Japan will include the additional mission downloadable content, “Preemptive Special Tactics.” By clearing this mission, you can use Edy Nelson from the original Valkyria Chronicles as a unit in the main story.

The November 22-due issue of Weekly Famitsu will also have a feature on Valkyria Chronicles 4, but the online version of the publication went up with a few preliminary details on four of the characters.

Claude Wallace (voiced by Ryousuke Kanemoto)

The protagonist. Edinburgh Army 101st Division No. 1 Battle Brigade No. 32 Armored Ranger Battalion Squad E squad leader and tanker. A first lieutenant. He is a serious, passionate, and caring commanding officer.

Riley Miller (voiced by Nao Touyama)

The heroine. A member of the Edinburgh Army 101st Division No. 1 Battle Brigade No. 32 Armored Ranger Batallion’s Heavy Weapons Support Team. A grenadier. A second lieutenant technician. She is positive and cheerful, and ambitious in that she pushes forward without fear of failure.

Raz (voiced by Kazuya Nakai)

A division officer of Squad E. Since he is of the persecuted “Darcsen” people, he does not have a last name. He belongs to the infantry class of the army.

Kai Schulen (voiced by Maaya Sakamoto)

A division officer of Squad E and a prodigy sharpshooter known as the “One Shot Killer.”

The official theme song is “Light Up My Life,” which is written and sung by Mai Kuraki, composed by Shilo, and aranged by Shuho Mitani.

Watch the announcement trailer below. Visit the official website here.

[anewbiegm]

Tales from Thursday RP

A new campaign, and a partially new group as we venture once more into the shit-caked universe of Warhammer 40K. Unlike the Dark Heresy campaign, these are not mere mortals, but rather members of the Adeptus Astartes, the genetically enhanced super-soldiers, created by the God-Emperor of Mankind, as we venture in the forbidden lore of Deathwatch.

At least for now, there are seven players in the group, three of them new to our Thursday group - although not new to RP, 40K or Roll20, we’ve been calling them newbies - the Kill-Team is a little homogeneous, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The break-down of Speciality, Chapter and player is;

EDIT (3rd May)

- Bannus Metalius, Tech Marine of the Iron Hands chapter, played by Strelkov, the Arbite from Dark Heresy. Scheduling conflicts have forced Strelkov to drop out of Deathwatch, but he stays with us as Rulav the Tzimisce in the Vampire game.

- Einar Fritjof, a Tactical Marine Wolf Scout of the Space Wolves chapter. Played by Grey, one of the newbies we picked up from the Roll20 LFG thread.

- Strix, Assault Marine of the Raven Guards chapter. Strix is the rebuilt version of Einar the Space Wolf Scout, sill played by Grey. The way the first mission went, and how Grey was playing his character, Raven Guard Assault Marine was a much better fit. 

- Fortem Ferrummentis, a Devastator of the Iron Hands chapter. Originally billed as being either Dark Angels or Ultramarines, Fortem is played by Kenners, another newbie we picked up. Disappeared without a trace, or word. Listed as MIA.

- Apothecary Ipos, a Ravenwing Veteran Apothecary, of the Dark Angel’s successor chapter, the Consecrators. Ipos - pronounced Ee-pos, and I swear I’m going to get this character’s name correct - is played by CommanderRenegade who played the dæmon killing Psyker, Merlinus - Mer- lie-nus, not Mer-lin-us, as I spent a year calling his charcter, in Dark Heresy.

- Librarian Varen Cordalis, a Librarian - Psyker - of the Ultramarines chapter. Originally a Salamander but asked to switch to Ultramarine when he learnt there was already a Tech Marine in the Kill-Team. Played by Galen, the last - technically the first - newbie we picked up from Roll20.

- Librarian Ferox, an Iron Hands psyker. With the loss of the Iron Hands Devastator, Galen decided to tweak his Librarian a little, so changed the Chapter - as well as a few other things around.

- Ruman Cantos, an Assault Marine of the Blood Angel’s successor chapter, Hell Bringers. Played by Buckmeister, or Claude Asmend from the Dark Heresy game. Hell Bringers are a custom chapter that he’s wanted to play for a long time, using the chapter creation rules in the supplement Honour the Chapter.

- Sergeant Skold, a Tactical Marine of the Space Wolves chapter. Skold is played by Dreadcon, also known as Haxtes the Tech-Priest from Dark Heresy - who may or may not come back as a passing villain in Deathwatch after his abrupt warp exit and betrayal at the conclusion of our Dark Heresy game. 

- Techmarine Guillermo Sanchev, a Tech Marine of the venerable Crimson Fists chapter. Sanchev is played by one of Ipos’ IRL friends, and was available, and looking for a game. 

All in all, the Kill-Team looks noticeably different from when this was originally posted back on 25th March.

The game is a mix of Errata version Deathwatch - I’m looking at you weapon stats - Only War for it’s comprehensive vehicle rules - thanks to CommanderRenegade and his ever-present Assault Bike - and Dark Heresy for updated versions of Actions, and Weapon Qualities. I realise this makes it into a little bit of a Special Snowflake game, with a bunch of annoying house-rules, but as much as I love the 40K RPGs, the early ones were clunky and messy as hell in places.

Ideally, I’d intended to write my own version of the 40K RPG, but that’s a bit of an undertaking. I’ve got two starter documents; one using the traditional 40K d100 ruleset, the other using Modiphius’ 2d20 system. Mutant Chronicles has a lot of similarities between 40K, I’ve mentioned before that it often seems to have a Rogue Trader era feel to it, but that’s a huge job, and needs some of the improvements seen in Conan fudged into, on top of a total conversion. Anyway, back to the actual Deathwatch we’re playing. 

The first scenario in the start of our campaign is the Extraction mission from the Core Rulebook, I like to run these basic scenarios first as they’re a gentle intro to the system, the setting and a new group. It gives people a chance to get to know how others work, what their characters are like, and to re-jig sections of their character if they’re unhappy with it.

Extraction has them drop-podding onto the dying world of Tantalus to rescue a Magos of the Tech-Priests of Mars, and the data-core he’s carrying, before the world is consumed by the encroaching Tyranid swarm. 

The Magos’ ship had crash-landed on the world, and he’s severely injured, complicating the rescue attempt. The Kill-Team only has a few hours to locate him, before extraction - hint, hint - becomes impossible thanks to the innumerable Tyranid bio-forms swarming the surface, atmosphere and in orbit. 

The Magos’ shuttle had crashed in the centre of a region dedicated to promethium refining, a refinery know as Pyroclast-Gamma-9. The area had been evacuated some days before at the start of the Tyranid invasion, is eerily quiet, smells of burnt promethium and an undercurrent of blood.

Some exploring later, they found the butchered remains of several local militia forces, the Tyranids having ambushed and attacked various locations, as well as well as a potential location for the Magos. Some additional good news came in the form of a Commissar and a small squad of PDF troopers who’d been unable to evacuate in time. Sending them to the highest ground, the best spot for extraction, they were confident that they had at least been able to secure their exit route - if only temporarily, knowing the Imperial Guard’s resilience against the fearsome xenos.

After a particularly dangerous fight, being ambushed by the bio-form designated as Shrike the group have had to wait a fortnight before the next session, and hopefully concluding part of Extraction.

A little slow to start with, time zones and all that, new group, new characters and a kludged ruleset, but the first session was enjoyable, and I’m confident about the new guys. Although, the Old Guard are struggling at the minute with scheduling conflicts, so I’m not 100% sure how many of them are going to be a permanent fixture in the session. Time will tell.

Up next, more Tales from Thursday RP as we venture into Eastern Europe in the late 12th century, in Vampire the Masquerade: Dark Ages campaign, Transylvania Chronicles.