November Magazine

LIVEE NOVEMBER 2015 ISSUE

V A H T S U M S! E M A G O E D VI

Trading Cards at Gametraders!

Page 88

Fallout 4 Call of Duty: Black Ops III Star Wars Battlefront + more!

Page 20

Huge range of Gift Ideas inside!

Special Interview

Raychul Moore Page 122

Welcome Christmas comes around again and so do holidays, warm weather in the southern hemisphere, cold in the north. Snow on some Christmas cards, sunshine and surf on others.

Some of us are planning holiday breaks, some are Christmas shopping and some of us are planning university next year. Some are planning retirement…

But one thing is for sure, gamers will be having a great time. There’s some amazing games due for release over the next month or so and just in time to ask for them as Christmas gifts.

We decided to take a look at what’s coming out that we feel with be a must have game.

We also our usual comprehensive ‘Gaming News” section that looks at the latest happenings in the gaming world including some weirdo thing about a song called “Chiwawa” a fun J-pop song in Just Dance 2016.

INSIDE 20 28 72 120 THE LIVE TEAM Must Have Games Previews & Reviews

Geek Out Cosplay

If you haven’t checked out our “Geek Out” section - go do it now. It’s great. We start off with “The Gamer Diaries” from our king of retro, Paul Monopoli who’s reminiscing about the early days of gaming in his life.

It’s a fascinating read.

There’s our usual comics, cosplay, anime, board games and trading card rounds ups. Speaking of Cosplay you’ll want to check out our interview with the fabulous Raychul Moore.

Just do yourself a favour and read what this accomplished cosplayer, journalist and all round fab person has to say.

Have fun and see you in December when we’re all singing Christmas songs and dreaming of holidays!

The Live Crew

Publisher: Rob Jenkins (GTHQ) Art Director: Giselle Capozza (GTHQ) Game Review & Preview Editors: Nick Getley & Kylie Tuttle (Sticky Trigger) Retro Writer: Paul Monopoli Anime Writer: Jesse Richardson Board Games: Jess Wilson Comics: Scott Sowter Cosplay Editor: Anny Sims Sticky Trigger Writers: Kylie Tuttle Nick Getley Alex Holmes Aaron Milligan Ben Rachow Bridget Sweeney Sean Fox Sasha Karen Jason English Johnny Scene

Ask staff for details.

FALLO + $169 for PC version. *Unlicensed prop replica.Very limited numbers. Check with your local store for availability.

OUT 4 +

Just Dance 2016’s Surprise Song Is Absolutely Kawaii

A new song was unveiled for Just Dance 2016 – an original track created just for the game. Titled Chiwawa, the song was a collaborative effort between Ubisoft’s Just Dance team, soundtrack composer Tom Salta, and Japanese vocalist Reni Mimura.

“Chiwawa is a fun J-pop song that once you hear, you’ll never forget,” said Alkis Argyriadis, Creative Director at Ubisoft Paris. “The song will be the first Just Dance creation to have an official

music video. It was an amazing opportunity for us to collaborate with director Anne Horel of the award-winning Partizan Agency.”

The song tells the story of a girl who accidentally steps on her pet chihuahua, with the in-game video featuring elements from Japanese kawaii culture. “Tom and I put together all kinds of wacky ideas and we ended up with something incredibly fun and catchy. I know this song will make people smile,” remarked Reni Mimura.

G

G N I AM

NEWS november 2015

First Details Revealed About Orsinium For ESO The first trailer and preliminary details have been revealed for the next expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. Orsinium, named for the ancestral home of the Orcs, will take players to the mountains of Wrothgar and the Orc capital itself as they attempt to rebuild their society.

This will be the most ambitious and largest game pack to date, featuring new quests, a new single player arena, and public dungeons all within the spacious new zone. All occurring under

the orders of King Kurog, Orsinium will be an exciting chance to participate in the rebirth of Orc civilization.

The pack will feature over 20 hours of content regardless of player level. There will also be new crafting options inspired by Wrothgar and exciting new rewards available.

active ESO Plus membership or can be purchased for 3000 crowns via the ESOTU store. PC players can take advantage of the testing phase on the Public Test Server right now.

Have a look at the trailer for Orsinium below:

Orsinium is set to launch on the 2nd of November for PC/Mac, 17th of November for Xbox One, and 18th of November for PlayStation 4. It is included with an

James Franco vs Lenny Kravitz in Awesome Guitar Hero Spot Guitar Hero has made a return and is better than ever according to Activision. The fun is starting early with the release of a new live-action trailer featuring superstars James Franco and Lenny Kravitz duking it out to see who is the king of the music festival circuit in Guitar Hero Live.

Featuring Kravitz’ hit track Are You Gonna Go My Way (which will be playable in the game), the

90 second Win the Crowd spot was directed by Jonathan Krisel, whose previous work includes Portlandia and SNL. This sets the stage for the return of the franchise, which will include two new ways to play the game including GH Live, playing in front of real crowds who will judge your performance, and GHTV, the world’s first playable music video network.

Activision claims this is the beginning of a new era in music games. “Guitar Hero Live gives you the chance to live out your rock star fantasy in front of a real audience that reacts to how you play, so watching James Franco and Lenny Kravitz challenging each other to win the crowd in the game brought that excitement to life in a really cool way,” said Tim Ellis, CMO, Activision Publishing, Inc.

YO-KAI WATCH Release Date Brought Forward to December O-KAI WATCH has had its release date fast-tracked, from 2016 to the 5th of December of this year.

Given the previous release date period of 2016 at E3 2015, the Yo-Kai Watch franchise will be made available in Australia in three ways; by game, by television show, and by toy.

Rare Shows Off Cancelled Conker Title In a recent announcement, Rare Ltd has released a video revealing a cancelled Conker title that was in development back in 2005.

Entitled Conker: Gettin’ Medieval, the Xbox game was intended as a follow-up to the release of the Conker: Live & Reloaded.

Within the video, Concept Artist Peter Hentze and Lead Designer Chris Seevor explained that Gettin’ Medieval was never in-

This RPG franchise has been developed by Level-5 and is based on yokai, monsters found within Japanese folklore. Yokai, however, are mischievous creatures based on the fears of children, such as forgetting to do homework.

More than 200 Yo-kai will be available in the game to battle other Yo-Kai. Through feeding them food and defeating them, players can acquire Yo-Kai Medals to be able to summon the respective Yo-Kai. In December, the anime YO-KAI WATCH, based on the game, will air on Channel 9’s GO!, and will follow a young boy who finds himself involved with the Yo-kai.

Through a certain watch, he can befriend and summon other YoKai. Following this, a toy series

by Hasbro will be released during the first quarter of 2016.

YO-KAI WATCH released in 2013 to critical acclaim. Last year in Japan, three iterations of YO-KAI WATCH 2 were within the six best-selling games. This sets a strong precedence for the release of this new franchise outside of Japan, but it is a franchise that relies heavily on Japanese imagery. Whether it sells as much as it did in Japan is yet to be seen.

YO-KAI WATCH will be released on the 5th of December for the Nintendo 3DS.

tended as a direct sequel to Live & Reloaded, but instead a spinoff that was heavily focused on competitive multiplayer.

In regards to the story, ‘Death’ was apparently meant to star the main role, with our infamous little red Squirrel making numerous guest appearances throughout the title. With this news, who knows how many more cancelled games Rare has kept secret all these years.

Wargaming Recreates Historic Battleground in 360° As part of sharing their passion for tanks, MMO developer Wargaming has released a video titled 1941 Battle: 360° Reenactment in cooperation with Google showcasing a historic 1941 battle recreation. Featuring four tanks (including the T-34 and Panzer III), 40 infantry re-enactors, artillery and warplanes, it is the first time viewers have been able to see the spectacle in full 360° range.

It’s no wonder the World of Tanks developer is so interested in showcasing powerful vehicles to fans. This latest work comes not long after the release of five videos made with Google and The Bovington Tank Museum earlier in the year. Dubbed Virtually Inside the Tanks, these covered famous machines such as the M4 Sherman from the movie FURY. Have a look at the recreation below. Multiple viewings may be necessary to see everything though!

IO-Interactive Outlines Release Details For HITMAN

Developers of IO Interactive have recently announced new details surrounding their highly anticipated stealth title, HITMAN. Having been pushed back for a 2016 release date, Studio Head of IO Interactive Hannes Seifert wrote within the following press release about the upcoming release schedule for HITMAN’s DLC packs.

With HITMAN set for a “digitalonly” release, IO Interactive has announced a $35 (USD) ‘Intro Pack’ for players wishing to try out a significant portion of HITMAN’s planned content.

With the Intro Pack, IO Interactive lists off that the pack is said

to include three sandbox locations (Paris, Sapienza and Marrakesh), six campaign missions and a ‘Contracts mode’ for all locations featured in the pack. Additional content for the Months of April, May and June are said to also feature levels set in Thailand, USA and Japan, with more weapons and missions included.

Players wishing to upgrade for a full release can do so for a further $30 (USD).

HITMAN will be available for digital download from March 11, 2016 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. A disc version of the game will also be available later in 2016.

Black Ops 3 To Have “Most Ambitious” Campaign Yet Treyarch, the developer behind Call of Duty: Black Ops III, has shared a video discussing the work that has gone into the storyline for the much anticipated instalment of the beloved FPS series. According to the team, it will feature the most “in-depth narrative” ever for the franchise.

Studio Head at Treyarch Mark Lamia begins by mentioning how with each release, they aim to push themselves creatively to achieve the most immersive experience possible.

“With this game, what we wanted to do was provide a deeper and richer narrative,” Lamia said within the following video. “The more you play, the more you look, the more you experience the game – there’s something more there.”

The game will take place in an apocalyptic future, with notes taken from scientists regarding climate change to shape the grim reality in which the player will find themselves. The rapidly declining state of the world has further increased the gap between wealthy and poor, causing extreme social unrest and even war over resources.

Ultimately, the information about society, technology, the envi-

Fallout 4’s Minimum PC Specs Announced Bethesda has released details surrounding the minimum specs required for the PC release of Fallout 4. As copied from the initial press release, the statement for the PC version follows; “PC Systems Requirements (Requires Internet Connection and Free Steam Account to Activate) Minimum Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required) Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent 8 GB RAM 30 GB free HDD space NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/ AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent

ronment will be available in the game for those who go looking for it. Campaign Game Director Jason Blundell said, “We put all that in… Essentially we created a codex. We have this PDV – this Personal Data Vault – which is actually in a new concept called the Safe House.”

Lead Writer Craig Houston also discussed how the decision to make the game co-op influenced the development and the level of customisation.

Recommended Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required) Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent 8 GB RAM 30 GB free HDD space NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent.”

In addition to this, the statement goes onto detail the amount of storage space require for consoles, including details on languages and the upcoming PipBoy App that is expected on release. For more information be sure to check out the press release. Fallout 4 is set for release November 10th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

And just to top it all off, a hint from Mark Lamia: “Black Ops is dark and gritty and twisted and messed up. Even though you think you know what’s going on, we love to mess with your head.”

Call of Duty: Black Ops III will release on the 6th of November for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. Unfortunately only PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One will feature the campaign.

Stan launches on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 users can now access the subscription video-on-demand service Stan right on their consoles.

The Australian streaming service launched on the 8th of October as part of a new deal with Sony.

Those who are already subscribed can now log into Stan on their PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 by downloading the app from the PlayStation Store and entering their login information. As always, new subscribers can sign up on their website to receive a 30 day free trial of the service.

The pricing afterwards remains the same at $10 per month.

This move comes just at a good time for fans of Ash vs Evil Dead, the new season of which will release on the 31st of October. CEO of Stan Mike Sneesby commented, “Launching Stan on

PlayStation is a significant milestone in our roadmap as we bring Australians more ways to access our exciting line-up of content in HD on the big screen.”

DXTV Showcases Milestone for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided DXTV, the candid video series from Square Enix and EidosMontréal that takes fans behind the scenes of the video game franchise, has released a new episode. This instalment focuses on a development milestone for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – the first time members of the press were invited to play the game.

The game is set to release on the 23rd of February 2016 and the new video offers a taste of what to expect as journalists play through two early levels, which include the Dubai tutorial

and infiltrating the Dvali Theatre in Prague as main character Adam Jensen. Viewers can also take a look at the development nervously awaiting the reactions of those lucky enough to play.

This episode allows those with the Deus Ex Universe app to unlock a new piece of music by Michael McCann from the game’s soundtrack by scanning the triangle icon that appears in the video. The app is available for

iOS and Android. Check out the new episode of DXTV below and see the Deus Ex YouTube channel for previous episodes:

Ubisoft Releases An Eagle View Of London Ubisoft announced one of the most ambitious filming projects ever to hit London’s skyline, in celebration of the upcoming launch of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. For the first time, a Bald Eagle was flown over London, launched from some of the most iconic and tallest buildings in Europe with a 4K camera (four times as much detail as 1080p Full HD) attached to its back, offering stunning, never before seen footage of the UK’s capital city from an Eagle’s eye… literally!!

This project was undertaken to showcase a feature in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, where players can use ‘Eagle Vision’; a tool enabling players to have an Eagle-Eyed perspective and vision to locate enemies and key features at distance. The game, set in Victorian London during the industrial revolution, has taken over two years to develop by the global video games publisher, Ubisoft, who have painstakingly recreated 1868 London in stunning detail.

For the Eagle flights, launch points used included; the Walkie Talkie (20 Fenchurch Street) 35th floor Sky Garden (492 feet above ground level) and Sushi Samba at The Heron Tower (792 feet). Other landmark launch points included Trafalgar Square, City Hall and The Shakespeare’s

Guitar Hero Live Full Tracklist Available Now on Spotify

To celebrate the launch of Guitar Hero Live, Activision have created a Spotify playlist that includes every song that is currently playable in the game.

ber 23 in New Zealand on PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U™ console as well as iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

At present, there are over 240 songs accesssible, with new music being added regularly. Guitar Hero Live is available now in Australia and this Friday, Octo-

For more information, please visit: www.guitarhero.com www.facebook.com/GuitarHero www.youtube.com/guitarhero or follow @guitarhero on Twitter and Instagram.

Globe Theatre. Falconry Expert, Chris O’Donnell, along with his 29 year old Bald Eagle, Sidney, were recruited to make the filming concept a reality; “An Eagle has never been flown to this extent in an urban environment, so this was a very exciting project to be involved in. Sidney is a Bald Eagle who is used to large crowds of people and was highly

adaptable to a busy city environment. We developed a bespoke harness and fitting for the camera and spent months testing it for comfort and stability. We had good flying conditions, incredible launch points and the footage we captured was utterly remarkable.” The making of video can be found at: www.eaglevisionlondon.com/makingof

THE WALKING DEAD AT GAMETRADERS!

R E B EM

V O N

E M A G

!

S E S EA

L E R

R E D R O E R P T A W !

O S R N ETRADE M A G

DATE

TITLE

FORMATS

1/11/2015

Chibi Robo Zip Lash

3DS

1/11/2015

The Sims 4 Get Together (Add On)

PC

3/11/2015

Anno 2205

PC

3/11/2015

Anno 2205 Collectors Edition

PC

5/11/2015

Need for Speed

PS4, XB1

5/11/2015

Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker

3DS

6/11/2015

Call of Duty Black Ops 3

PC, XB1, PS4

10/11/2015

Fallout 4

PC, XB1, PS4

10/11/2015

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5

PS3, 360

10/11/2015

Rise of the Tomb Raider

XB1

10/11/2015

StarCraft 2 Legacy of the Void

PC

12/11/2015

Sword Art Online Lost Song

PS4, PSV

13/11/2015

Football Manager 2016

PC

17/11/2015

Deadpool

PS4, XB1

19/11/2015

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Special Edition

PC

19/11/2015

Rodea The Sky Soldier

Wii U, 3DS

19/11/2015

The Crew Wild Run Edition

PS4, XB1, PC

19/11/2015

Star Wars Battlefront

PC, XB1, PS4

20/11/2015

Game of Thrones A Telltale Game Series

PC, XB1, 360

21/11/2015

Star Fox Zero

Wii U

21/11/2015

Mario Tennis Ultra Smash

Wii U

21/11/2015

New Style Boutique 2 Fashion Forward

3DS

26/11/2015

Trackmania Turbo

PC, PS4, XB1

TRADE AT GAMETRADERS & GET IN-STORE CREDIT &

BIG SAVINGS! Got unwanted games or consoles sitting around at home? Bring them into Gametraders and we’ll give you store credit that you can use when you buy anything in-store!

Ask staff on how you can trade & save now!

PLUS at Gametraders you can choose from our massive range of discounted pre-owned and retro gaming!

Buying, selling & trading retro now!

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MUST HAVE

FEATURE

GAMES

Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Xbox One, PS4, PC) - November 6 Call of Duty: Black Ops III will arrive Friday, November 6, to take fans on a journey to the dark, twisted and gritty world of Black Ops with a true next generation experience that redefines Call of Duty. Delivering a campaign that can be played as a full single player game or co-op online with up to four players, the deepest, most rewarding multiplayer ever offered in Call of Duty, and, a mind blowing Call of Duty Zombies experience that, for the first time, features its own XP progression system.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops III campaign deploys players into a future world, where bio-technology coupled with cybernetic enhancements has given rise to a new breed of Black Ops soldier. Through Direct

Neural Interface (DNI) technology, players are now connected to the intelligence grid and their fellow operatives during battle. In a world more divided than ever, this elite squad consists of men and women who have enhanced their combat capabilities to fight faster, stronger, and smarter.

own look, personality, voice and battle-hardened weapons and abilities, fundamentally changing the way players engage in combat.

Multiplayer is rounded out with an all-new weapon customization system that give players more powerful tools than ever to build and personalize that perfect weapon.

The most engaging and rewarding multiplayer offering to date debuts a new momentum-based, chainedmovement system that allows players to move fluidly through custombuilt environments with finesse, all while maintaining complete control over their weapon at all times.

Treyarch also introduces its new Specialist system, which lets players choose and rank up nine elite Black Ops soldiers, each with their

No Treyarch title would be complete without its signature Zombies, rounding out the offering. Call of Duty: Black Ops III delivers a completely unique Zombies experience and is the most immersive and ambitious Zombies to date, complete with a new XP progression for players, adding unprecedented levels of depth and re-playability.

CTC

YO-KAI WATCH

(3DS) - DECEMBER 5 YO-KAI WATCH has had its release date fast-tracked, from 2016 to the 5th of December of this year.

This RPG franchise has been developed by Level-5 and is based on yokai, monsters found within Japanese folklore. Yo-kai, however, are mischievous creatures based on the fears of children, such as forgetting to do homework.

More than 200 Yo-kai will be available in the game to battle other Yokai. Through feeding them food and defeating them, players can acquire Yo-kai Medals to be able to summon the respective Yo-kai.

Following this, a toy series by Hasbro will be released during the first quarter of 2016.

YO-KAI WATCH will be released on the 5th of December for the Nintendo 3DS.

FALLOUT 4

(Xbox One, PS4, PC) - November 10 This is the one that we had been waiting for since Bethesda made their announcement in June at E3.

Welcoming you to their most ambitious game ever and the next generation of open-world gaming! As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war.

Every second is a fight for survival, and every choice is yours. Only you can rebuild and determine the fate of the Wasteland. Welcome home.

Do whatever you want in a massive open world with hundreds of locations, characters, and quests. Join

multiple factions vying for power or go it alone, the choices are all yours. An all-new next generation graphics and lighting engine brings to life the world of Fallout like never before. From the blasted forests of the Commonwealth to the ruins of Boston, every location is packed with dynamic detail.

Collect, upgrade, and build thousands of items in the most advanced crafting system ever. Weapons, armor, chemicals, and food are just the beginning – you can even build and manage entire settlements.

CTC

STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT (Xbox One, PS4, PC) - November 19 Take The Force! Star Wars Battlefront is an action first and third-person shooter based on the Star Wars franchise. In Battlefront you play as either a soldier of the Empire or the Rebel Alliance in large scale battles across sprawling multiplayer maps that support up to forty players. These conflicts are set in some of the most iconic locations from the movie, such as the ice-fields of Hoth and the sun drenched dunes of

Tatooine. Each level will also have plenty of vehicle options scattered through them. X-wings, Tie Fighters, AT-ATs and more are all able to be piloted, ramping up the player’s capacity for destruction. The recent BETA was a huge success with over 9 million players jumping online to carve a way though the battlefield.

This is definitely one to add to your purchase list!

Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

(wII U) - NOVEMBER 21 Mario sports fans will be comforted to now that they weren’t forgotten this E3 with the announcement Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, up to four players can duke it out to see who has the best swing. Changes to the Mario Tennis formula aim to get those once out of reach shots with Jump Shots and Giant Mushrooms to make players larger than life. Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash will be released in the fourth quarter of 2015 exclusively for the Wii U.

Just Cause 3

(Xbox One, PS4, PC) - December 1 Set several years after the events of Just Cause 2, players will assume the role of Rico Rodriguez once again – as they aim to liberate the island of Medici from the tyrannical dictator, General Di Ravello.

Set in a vast open world, Just Cause 3 will feature a map size of 400 square miles (1,000 km2).

Similar to Just Cause 2’s map size, the new setting is set to feature new and improved environmental aspects to the game – including ‘subterranean caverns’ and improved scale in climbing buildings.

As well as an improved setting, Just Cause 3’s gameplay will also feature the same level chaotic destruction as what the original games have. With a heavy emphasis on environmental destruction, a new mechanic called ‘Rebel Drop’ will allow for players to drop weapons and vehicles within the world.

Just Cause 3 is set to launch December 1st on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Rainbow Six: Siege (Xbox One, PS4, PC) - December 1 Inspired by real world counter-terrorist organisations, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege puts players in the middle of lethal close-quarters confrontations. For the first time in a Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game, players will engage in sieges, a new style of assault where enemies have the means to transform their environments into modern strongholds while Rainbow Six teams lead the assault to breach the enemy’s position. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege gives players unprecedented control over their ability to fortify their position — by reinforcing walls and floors, using barbed wire, deployable shields and mines, and more — or breach the enemies’ using observation drones, sheet charges, rappelling, and more. The fast pace, lethality and uniqueness of each siege sets a new bar for intense firefights, strategic game-play and competitive gaming.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege also features a technological breakthrough that redefines the way players interact with a game environment. Leveraging Ubisoft Montreal’s proprietary Realblast engine, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege incorporates procedural destruction that is realistic and unscripted, meaning the environment reacts authentically, distinctively and dynamically, based on variables like the calibre of bullets or the amount of explosives used. This advance allows players to leverage destruction in meaningful ways. Walls can be shattered, opening new lines of fire.

Ceilings and floors can be breached to create new access points. This ability to modify the level design in real time enables players to create new game-play opportunities directly within the game level.

gameS REVIEWS & PREVIEWS reviewS:

BLOOD BOWL 2 DISNEY INFINITY 3.0 TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC

MAD MAX

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

TEARAWAY UNFOLDED animal crossing:

happy home designer

S

BLOOD B

BOWL 2 review

REVIEW

BLOOD BOWL 2 Blood Bowl 2 often struggles under the weight of its own lore. Since the tabletop game’s creation in 1987, Blood Bowl has had decades to mutate into The Living Rulebook that exists today. Only the most zealous fans would have expected developers Cyanide Studio to bring every little detail to the video game adaptation. However, the amount they have had to cut is not only disappointing to fans, but also to newcomers as the poverty of material detracts from the robust strategy of the game.

suited to stomping on faces. The success or failure of every action is determined by their underlying stats and the luck of the roll.

The gameplay of Blood Bowl 2 comes from a curious mix of American Football and the Warhammer tabletop game. In the most basic terms, your goal is to get the inflated pig bladder across the field to the end zone, while your opponent does their best to stop or, if they’re lucky, kill your players before that can happen.

Unfortunately, Blood Bowl 2 leans towards the latter category by placing too much power in the outcome of dice rolls. Meticulously laid stratagems can crumble at the hand of a few bad rolls and because chance is always a factor, there is nothing you can do to plan around it. Perhaps the system works better in the tabletop game where you can see your opponent go through the same stages of frustration, but, up against an unfeeling computer or distant online player, there is little satisfaction to be found.

This all occurs over a turn-based system as each team is allowed to move all their players before control is switched over to the opponent.

The premise is simple to understand, but Blood Bowl 2 hides a deceptively large amount of number crunching behind its streamlined interface.

Your team is made up of different character types, each with their own skills and weaknesses. Some players will be better at throwing or running the ball, while others are more

Luck has a difficult role to play in games that require strategy. When it’s implemented well, it can throw an organic level of conflict into your best laid plans that’ll keep you constantly planning and adapting. However, when it’s abused it can turn a well-structured advance into a frustrating series of fumbles that can cost you the game.

Not all of Blood Bowl 2’s problems come from the source material. It manages to make a few of its own along the way. The most obvious of these is the blatant disparity in the content. Blood Bowl 2 boasts a total of eight races (far less than the 20+ found in the tabletop game). Each team has a different play style. For example, Humans, as always, are

varied and can do well with most styles, but they don’t have any areas that they excel in, while Chaos players excel in strength and dealing damage, allowing them to knock out an entire team and then just walk the ball over the line for an easy touchdown. They’re also extremely slow and can be circumnavigated if you’re quick enough.

However, to create these different play styles, Blood Bowl 2 resorts to ripping character types from these teams.

Team building is an integral part to the strategy of Blood Bowl. Deciding if you want a majority of Lineman, Catchers or Runners is crucial to taking down your opponent.

However, while teams such as the Humans and the Orcs allow you to choose between five different categories of players, others, such as Chaos, are much more limited. To the systems credit, the gameplay remains balanced, but it comes with the cost of lowering the strategic options in many of the teams.

Furthermore, it also results in less character models across the board, which may be the greater shame because Blood Bowl 2 is the best looking game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe to date. From the rolling maws and tendrils of Chaos to the shifty and virulent Skaven, Blood Bowl captures the bombastic and bloody feel of the Warhammer universe. Every stage bursts with so much colour and crunchy sound

6.6 /10 PROS: TRUE TO THE SOURCE BLOODY AND BEAUTIFUL

CONS: RELIANCE ON DICE ROLLS LIMITED PLAYER SELECTION THE ANNOUNCERS

effects that it is almost enough to counteract the cringe worthy commentary by the games resident sport casters.

Blood Bowl 2 is built upon a solid foundation. When you’re not ripping your hair out in frustration after a series of bad dice rolls, Blood Bowl 2 remains true to the original in providing both rewarding and fun gameplay. Throwing in a competent, if slightly short, campaign mode and an effective, easy to use online matchmaking system, Blood Bowl 2 does everything that’s expected of it. However, Blood Bowl 2 often doesn’t do more than succeed at the bare minimum and ends up feeling like a barren port of the original tabletop game.

Click to view the trailer here!

WRITTEN BY CONOR DELANEY WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

OUT THIS MONTH! 19.11.15

DISNEY IN

TWILIGHT O

NFINITY 3.0

OF THE REPUBLIC

review

REVIEW

DISNEY INFINITY 3.0 TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC

Long before Nintendo bought out the Amiibo, Disney Infinity had been wowing audiences of all ages with its inclusion to the ‘toys to life’ genre. With more character figures that you can poke a stick at for each version released and the latest edition bringing the ever popular Star Wars franchise to the table, you could say that the force is strong with ‘Disney Infinity 3.0 - Twilight of the Republic’.

I was not a fan of the first instalment of Disney Infinity when it came out in 2013. There were several bugs, the controls were shonky, it crashed and at times it felt like Disney had copied the tried and tested model from the Skylanders team, but failed to deliver. Disney Infinity 2.0 –Marvel Super Heroes edition was much the same – less buggy and with less play set discs in the start pack to the original.

Accepting the error of their ways and heeding the feedback from their fans, Disney have presented a well-polished, visually stunning and enthralling game in Disney Infinity 3.0. Using the recently acquired LucasArts asset that is the Star Wars franchise, Disney have combined what feels like a mini movie into a game with the Disney Infinity 3.0 starter pack - Twilight of the Republic and presented a fun, family oriented game.

Much like version 1.0 and 2.0, to play the game, explore the Toy Box

Hub, learn, build and create etc, you need the Infinity base as well as a play set and two characters to get you started. Buying the Starter Kit is your best value for money as you have everything at your fingertips to plug and play! Once set up, you are ready to explore the Toy Box as Anakin Skywalker who comes with the 3.0 starter kit. Test drive Pod Racers and helicopters in the driving portion of the tutorial or play mini games such as ‘The Grid’ from Tron Legacy and ‘Flying to Neverland’ from Peter Pan for example.

Collect ‘sparks’ to use as in-game currency to build your own world, build up your skill levels and much more!

The focus of the Starter Pack is obviously Star Wars and as you make your way through the Toy Box Hub and complete each tutorial, additional parts of the Star Wars universe become available to play. To be honest I was kind of torn between the Star Wars levels and wandering around in the Toy Box Hub at times, however the hum of the lightsaber, the iconic music and sound effects and playing as a teeny little Yoda kicking butt and taking names won me over in the end!

By completing the Star Wars portion of the game, each character you play whilst doing so increases their skill levels which become beneficial as the game proceeds.

It did however feel like a bit of a tease when I had “ran out” of levels

to play with Anakin, however you can simply swap him over for Ahsoka Tano (who also comes in the starter park) and continue the battle against evil as they fight to save the Republic. Other characters (which are purchased separately) can also be used...as long as you have unlocked them! That’s right, unless you have gained the skill levels and unlocked the character for use on the portal, you can’t use them! This might be a frustrating experience for younger kids, especially if they purchased their favourite character only to find that they can’t play it right away. But the good news is that you don’t need to purchase more characters to be able to complete the missions and side quests which I’m sure is very much appreciated by not only mums and dads, but fans of the Star Wars franchise.

Speaking of characters, there are things you can’t do… I had a few extra non Star Wars characters that I put on the portal base and took for a test spin - Sam Flynn from Tron Legacy and Minnie Mouse.

Whilst playable in the Toy Box Hub, I thought I might see how Minnie went up against a drone as she puts up a pretty mean fight by swinging her hand bag , causing lipsticks and make up to fly out! To my disappointment though, non Star Wars characters are not playable in the Star Wars game mode.

Gameplay wise, there are hours upon hours of play here! Not only with leveling up your Star War’s

characters, but also building and customising your own world with the use of collected sparks and with the additional purchase of power discs (discs that allow certain characters to power up or added vehicles to drive within the game for example).

One thing that did perturb me a little in the game were the lack of control functions – as in being unable to adjust any of the settings on the con-troller (besides using the axis control in the PS4) controller. I felt that there was a lack of precision in some areas of the game and it wasn’t due to shoddy gamer skills from yours truly! In driving and flying sequences, you can only drive at full speed or slam on the brakes – there’s no degree of control in between.

A new added feature to the game are sidekicks. Your sidekick is like your own personal assistant throughout the game who can help you in battles, replenish your character’s health (if they are skilled as a medic). While they are a nifty idea on paper (or in a toy box), I think I used my sidekick once and really didn’t see the point of using him again.

Visually, Disney Infinity 3.0 is a treasure for the eyes. Characters are rendered and coloured beautifully, with the scenery and textures looking crisp and detailed. While the game is certainly striking from a visual standpoint, the camera system and angles could have certainly used a bit of polish. Yes, you can change the angles using the right thumb stick, but we learnt with Super Mario 64 way back in 1996 that

if your camera system doesn’t work, it will drive gamers insane! Disney Infinity 3.0’s camera was almost unbearable in my experience, and I can’t imagine a child having the necessary patience to continuously monitor and fix the camera angles.

As to be expected from a Disney title, with it comes to their soundtrack, they are second to none. Disney’s team of composers have always done a brilliant job of writing and performing original scores for classic films such as Peter Pan, A Nightmare Before Christmas and Tron Legacy, and these have been translated seamlessly into DI 3.0 creating a perfect atmosphere for the player, depending on the scene being played. It’s hard not to become excited when John William’s iconic Star Wars score begins to play!

Overall, Disney Infinity was a great game to play if I take out the few pet peeves (the camera angles and lack of controller options) off the table. The annoying bugs have been resolved from the previous two installments and the game now comes with co-op to allow to players to share in the adventures. The game overall, is well presented and executed.

As a standalone release, Disney Infinity certainly feels like a complete experience, but gamers left wanting more will be delighted to know that there are more character kits approaching release, such as an additional Star Wars kit and a kit featuring characters from the recent Pixar film, Inside Out. Ultimately, Disney Infinity 3.0 is a great game for little and big kids alike!

PROS:

CONS:

BRILLIANTLY PRESENTED

CAMERA ANGLES CAN BE CUMBERSOME AT TIMES LACK OF CONTROLLER SETTINGS

FUN FOR ALL AGES GREAT STORY LINE

9.4 /10

Click to view the trailer here!

WRITTEN BY kylie tuttle

WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

OUT N

NOW!

MAD

D MAX review

MAD MAX

REVIEW

The International Federation of Film Critics has named Mad Max: Fury Road the best film of 2015, and it has scored an IMDB rating of 8.3.

It was a bold and exciting film from Australian filmmaker George Miller and easily the best mainstream action movie of the last few years.

Max comes too in the scorching sand, wounded, and without proper clothes to protect him from the harsh desert sun. Scrotus’ dog is also wounded, and after an uneasy re-introduction to each other, the pair depart in search of water, medical treatment and transport.

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and Avalanche Studios have brought us the chance to experience the Aussie apocalypse in ‘Mad Max’, a video game based on the series. It’s not a tie-in game to Fury Road (which is probably a good thing), but rather an all new adventure featuring Max – so how does it play?

It isn’t long before Max is introduced to Chumbucket, the hunchbacked mechanic who prays to the god of combustion, and treats cars as holy tools of the divine. He instantly takes a shine to Max, who he sees as a “saint” and divine warrior of the gods. Chum offers Max his support, and the two treat Scabrous’ dog’s wounds (Chum referring to the dog as Dinky-di) and head to Chum’s hideout.

Mad Max opens with Max being pursued by Scabrous Scrotus, the third heir to the Wasteland, and son of Immortan Joe (Fury Road’s antagonist). Scabrous’ War Boys force Max to crash his car, in the hopes of taking it. Scrotus arrives with his enormous truck – a beast on wheels with a tow hook – strips Max of his clothes, and makes off with his car. Max quickly comes too and leaps onto the back of Scrotus’ truck, trying to free his vehicle.

A fight ensues, with Max wounding Scrotus by literally driving a chainsaw through his head. Scrotus successfully defends himself against Max, and hurls Max towards the ground, along with one of his attack dogs.

After this initial story mission, the player is able to pursue a number of side activities and missions in any order they wish. Being an open world game, a huge part of Mad Max’s appeal is in the ability to simply explore and get distracted by your discoveries. I have often been on the way to a side mission, only to spot one of Scabrous’ scrap convoys travelling along another road, causing me to give pursuit and end up in a completely unknown area.

Speaking of side activities, Mad Max is packed to the brim with ‘em.

There are death races, stunt jumps, reconnaissance missions, scaven-

ger areas, side missions and more to complete, with each one being an absolute blast. By comparison, the story feels extremely light, and is barely existent for the bulk of the time players will spend with Mad Max. This is a shame as Avalanche Studios had the opportunity to flesh out the world of Mad Max, and they didn’t. The best films in the Mad Max series, focus on fast-paced action and wonderfully eccentric characters, and while that is a great thing for a two-hour movie, a video game offers much more time to the player – simply providing raw action thrills isn’t enough.

While the story is barely present in Mad Max, the characters are a mixed bag. Some are great (Chumbucket, Max), others not to much.

This is odd considering that Avalanche developed the Just Cause games, with which they did the exact opposite: create characters so exaggerated they often became annoying (I’m looking at you, Bolo Santosi). Still, for the bulk of the game you’ll be obliterating your enemies in intense car-based combat or brutal hand-to-hand brawls, with Chum’s brilliant religious rants and ravings never failing to entertain.

The combat is where Mad Max truly shines. While some could easily dismiss it as the same thing that the Assassin’s Creed and Batman: Arkham games offered. While Mad

Click to view the trailer here!

6/1 0

Max has similar combat, it feels more violent, more brutal and ultimately more enjoyable than Assassin’s Creed and the Batman: Arkham games. For one thing, Max fights as though his life depends on it. He doesn’t throw punches lightly and he doesn’t hesitate to get as rough as he needs to in order to win. The counters are also more satisfying than the parry-fest offered by Assassin’s Creed, as they require a follow up move in order to capitalise on the counter itself. This often leads to another enemy attacking Max, which was much more entertaining than the strange circle of enemies that doesn’t nearly attack as often as it should in the Batman: Arkham games.

Landing enough combos in combat activates Max’s Fury ability, which sees him deliver truly punishing blows and attacks on his enemies in combat. I know the whole “fury” and “rage” attacks have been done in games before, but Mad Max delivers some truly satisfying animations that will absolutely provoke a reaction out of the player. There really is nothing quite like watching Max German suplex a guy and snapping his neck in a mad frenzy.

Visually, things can range from quite impressive, to notably dull. The little things, like the particle effects and animations of footprints forming and disappearing in sand and wind, look fantastic. The character design though, is pretty poor, with Max looking particularly bland.

And that’s when it hit me: Mad Max has some brilliant moments, but every single department in the game manages to deliver something bland accompanied by something enjoyable. The side missions and activities are entertaining, but the story is thin and doesn’t pick up until the end of the game. The visuals have nice little details here and there, but the character design and the environments can look bland.

The soundtrack and sound effects are adequate, but nothing in particular stands out as noteworthy.

Mad Max is a game that will appeal to die-hard fans of the movies, and action games in general, but won’t offer much to people seeking an engrossing story. The combat, cars and the game world are engaging, but this is one car-focused apocalypse that could have used a tuneup before release.

PROS: COMBAT IS ENGAGING TONS OF SIDE ACTIVITIES VERY AUSTRALIAN

CONS: BARELY HAS A STORY BLAND DESIGN OF MAX INCONSISTENT VOICE ACTING PERFORMANCES.

WRITTEN BY NICK GETLEY

WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

OUT 06.11.15

METAL GEA THE PHAN

AR SOLID V: NTOM PAIN review

REVIEW

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

“Expansive” and “Addicting” are the two words I would use to describe the gameplay of MetaI Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I was 64 hours in when I finally finished my initial playthrough, having spent so much time forwarding the story, developing Mother Base, roaming the wilds of Central Africa and Afghanistan during side missions (AKA “Side Ops”) while also taking time to infiltrate the Mother Bases of other players online. Metal Gear Solid V is a game that offers so much variety on such an epic scale, that a single playthrough of the main story would fail to fully define the diversity of its gameplay. In fact, it’s a game that is best defined by its abundance of content and the multitude of options you can take to address it.

The Phantom Pain opens in spectacular Kojima fashion, following on 9 years after the events of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes that left the game’s legendary protagonist, Big Boss, comatose in a Cyprus hospital. Of course it’s not long after he awakens in the year of 1984 when things start catching fire… In fact, a lot of things start catching fire near straight off the bat as our hero quickly finds himself being pursued by a literal “Man In Flames” and a floating boy wearing a gas mask. Following his escape from the hospital, Big Boss soon meets with an old series ally named Revolver Ocelot and together they set out to rescue their old comrade,

Kazuhira Miller, from the clutches of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan before the trio can set out on a mission of revenge against a mysterious cowboy-hat wearing villain named Skull Face.

The Phantom Pain’s buddy system may seem rather simple at first, with so many major releases in recent years focusing on a large cast ensemble of companions, it would be easy to underrate the handful of companions to choose from, and yet the ways these companions can be used continues to impress me even after 60 hours of gameplay. Thanks partly to buddy-specific commands, which unlock as the player’s bonds with their companions increase, and an in-depth understanding from the developers that no two players are likely to take the same approach.

While one player may be reliant on their buddies to create opportunities to progress, others may prefer going alone as much as possible and only using their buddies when they need backup. This reflects a wider mechanic in regards to choice, as The Phantom Pain doesn’t force the player to explore every nook and cranny through its missions.

Rather it assumes the player will explore all of these options in their own time, leaving the player to utilize buddy abilities, research different items, customize as well as manage their base and discover different regions of the open world

environments under their own initiative.

Speaking of environments – the use of the ‘Fox Engine’ in generating dynamic locations is certainly something to behold. With the various different level designs offered Metal Gear Solid V, Hideo Kojima’s next generation lighting systems, provide some gorgeously cinematic sequences in both gameplay and cutscenes. This provides some rather seamless transitions between the two at times, as it’s also interesting to see how the visual aesthetics of different scenes play out under different weather conditions, and stages of the day and night cycle.

Stepping out of that ‘cinematic perspective’ though, the most impressive and practical aspect is how the weather can actively change how the player can progress through a mission. With rain or sandstorms, these weather patterns afford players a greater ability to remain undetected by the enemy forces, while also affording them the same benefit to a lesser extent. This additional layer of tension is especially effective when it comes to sandstorms but also interacts with the game’s camouflage system rather well…

It’s also a nice way to develop the franchise’s continued use of different camouflage uniforms… Alongside its trademark cardboard boxes.

The Phantom Pain also does an outstanding job of balancing both its action and stealth. Getting caught while infiltrating an enemy position doesn’t feel like the game has cheated you, rather it feels like an escalation in the player’s own little narrative. Nor does it feel like you’re being punished; it simply works in providing a challenge rather than generating frustration. At no point did I ever feel cheated because I made a mistake that caused a base full of armed enemy soldiers to be put on alert.

This sensation is also felt during the online “FOB Missions” but there is an added thrill in sneaking into another player’s base and then getting caught out by their own customized security system. Getting caught on camera, tripping a sensor or just getting spotted and knowing that player could show up at any moment to defend what is theirs is enough to keep you coming back to this palpitating game mode. The fact that these FOB Missions can also benefit your own mother Base makes for a very nifty byplay be-

tween Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

However the intricacy available to a player planning their base’s defences also means you may never experience the same security system more than once when infiltrating a large variety of bases.

All of these aspects are meticulously well-constructed strong points for The Phantom Pain. But unfortunately the biggest loser for this final entry in this 28 year old series, is the story.

numerous ways, it robs the audience of some pretty vital insight to its central character.

Which is a shame as Sutherland’s performance is perfect for the character, it’s just rarely witnessed by the player and in a franchise that revels in the performances of its ensemble casts it’s a real letdown.

Especially seeing The Phantom Pain involves a series of character studies, Sutherland’s absence effectively means the game’s most central character is missing from most of the plot. This would be fine if Kojima’s direction had a better sense of communicating his main lead’s emotions and intentions in a physical sense but Kojima’s solution most of the time is to let his other characters talk around Big Boss.

The best example highlighting the main character’s silence has to be a sequence where Snake reacts to a grandiose monologue from the game’s main villain by sharing the remaining two and a half minutes of their jeep ride in silence while overly-dramatic music fills the void.

Something that has historically been the greatest source of discussion, it’s no secret that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had a troublesome development cycle.

With the series lead developer/creator Hideo Kojima leaving Konami in early 2015, the closure of the game’s developer studio “Kojima Productions” soon thereafter, and the scheduling issues concerning booking Kiefer Sutherland for additional voice over for the game’s lead character: Venom Snake/Punished Snake/Big Boss – all of this

is then compounded by the revelation that The Phantom Pain was released with an incomplete story as cutscenes, audio and concept art for the game’s missing third chapter have come to light.

Without spoiling anything, the result is a rather jarringly weak story with an uncomfortably silent protagonist.

It’s something that doesn’t mesh with rest of the franchise and considering the game’s themes concerning a main cast of individuals suffering from a sense of loss in

Big Boss isn’t the only character to suffer, continuing fans of the MGS series will note returning characters Kazuhira Miller and Revolver Ocelot appear oddly one-dimensional and that Revolver Ocelot’s portrayal doesn’t seem to mesh with any other iteration of the character.

Meanwhile Quiet, the only female character in the main cast, is fetishized through the vast majority of her scenes and her titillating design is also shamelessly exploited during her idle animations when she appears in the game’s “Aerial Command Centre” (the fuselage of your chopper). Whereas “The Floating Boy”, Eli and The Man in Flames all have story-arcs that just seem to end suddenly. In fact, without spoiling anything, that’s pretty much how

The Phantom Pain ends. Suddenly and without motivation.

However it’s not all a loss when it comes to the story and characters.

While Skull Face proves to be a rather theatrical villain tastefully familiar to the franchise in his performance, the real winner is Huey Emmerich, a disabled scientist whose loyalty is under constant scrutiny throughout and the story does a terrific job of muddying the waters throughout his own story-arc. Even so, The Phantom Pain has some rather thrilling action sequences and when its drama reaches its highs it really gets up there… Though some of these moments would probably have better emotional impacts if the main story episodes didn’t start off credits detailing what game assets would be featured and thereby spoiling these events for the sake of an episodic aesthetic. Still, when these memorable moments occur, they end up standing out as some of the best storytelling in modern video games and for very good reason.

PROS: PHENOMENAL GAMEPLAY BEAUTIFUL OPEN WORLD ENVIRONMENTS FREEDOM IN MOVEMENT, ACTIONS AND CUSTOMIZATIONS VARIETY IN GAMEPLAY SPECTACULAR SOUNDTRACK

Returning to the game’s overall content, I could create so many essays using Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as a main subject. I could discuss the continuing marriage of video games and cinema, the eroticization of female characters and failure to equally sexualize male characters in video games, an analysis of Hideo Kojima’s directorial style and his evolution as a storyteller, the relationship between camera and subject in image composition and so on. The thoughts I’ve developed across all of these subjects having played The Phantom Pain is a rather remarkable reflection of the sheer volume of content inherent in the game.

8.7 /10

With a nice list of customization options, online content (notwithstanding the soon-to-be-released Metal Gear Online), singleplayer gameplay, thrilling soundtrack, and a fun buddy system – Metal Gear Solid V is a spectacle stealth-action title with an abundance of content that more than makes up for the story’s shortcomings.

CONS:

Click to view the trailer here!

INCOMPLETE, LACKLUSTRE STORY ONE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERS

WRITTEN BY SEAN FOX

WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

ANIMAL C

HAPPY

CROSSING:

Y HOME DESIGN

review

REVIEW

animal crossing:

happy home designer

With Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, throw away everything you know about the Animal Crossing franchise. This isn’t a sequel to the Nintendo 3DS game Animal Crossing: New Leaf. It looks like an Animal Crossing game, it sounds like an Animal Crossing game, but it couldn’t be any more far from it.

Is this spin-off just as good as the main series? Or is this furniturebased game in need of some renovations?

The game starts out as a new employee turns up at Nook’s Homes, a home design service. You’re not a mayor, or a fellow villager, your role inside and out is an employee. Your very identity is an employee, and that’s what Happy Home Designer stays true to.

Your job as an employee is to scour the town for potential clients. Reel them in, listen to what they want, and then you design their house.

With that villager you unlock various amounts of new furniture to try out.

From the land the house is on, the front yard, and inside, you have a surprisingly large canvas.

This is where the bulk of the gameplay comes in. On the touch screen has all of your currently available furniture pieces. Tapping on them places them in the house or yard, with a grid representing the available space now appears. This grid opens up a world of design not seen

in an Animal Crossing game to date.

Furniture can now be grabbed and placed anywhere in the room with the stylus, with a simple tap to rotate the item. With a game focused heavily on furniture design, this is an incredibly welcomed change when compared to the previous Animal Crossing games, which had you grabbing an item with your character with A and pushing the control pad to move or rotate the item.

That option is still available to you, but there’s no reason when you can move furniture with the power of today’s technology.

Another simple, yet game changing change from typical Animal Crossing furniture placing is that furniture can now be placed on a half-grid instead of a full one, so furniture can be inched along meticulously instead of only having the option of moving furniture whole grid by whole grid. Players can also move through these narrow spaces, giving further design opportunities.

The number of design opportunities opens way up, even if it’s only half a grid space. There’s a couple of other cool things you can unlock with Play Coins (and trust me, you want to unlock those cool things), but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Your first meeting with a client has you utilizing per-determined favorite items that must be included in the design. I mean, sure, you could just set them all in the middle of their house and call it a day. But that’s

missing the point of Happy Home Designer.

They say the customer is always right. As long as you use those three items, they’ll be chuffed as chips. In previous Animal Crossing titles, the mysterious Happy Room Academy (HRA) would manage to sneak into your house, see how you decorate, and judge your decorating skills with a score. They were the top authority when it came to design. In Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City for the Wii, the NPC otter Lyle became a worker for the HRA, the only visible member of this clandestine organization. Since New Leaf, the HRA has been re-branded to the Happy Home Academy (HHA), but up until then, mysterious higher-ups judged you on your décor know-how.

Also in New Leaf was Nook’s Homes, a store that the racoon Tom Nook set up for the purpose of home construction and renovation. I’m not sure if a corporate merger happened somewhere along the line or not, but in Happy Home Designer, the role of house construction, renovation, and designer knowledge has been rolled into one. For the first time in an Animal Crossing game, you are now the authority of what looks good and what does not look good. As you’re an employee, you wouldn’t surely give your clients a terrible looking house. That’s why whatever you come up with is always accepted by the client.

Click to view the trailer here!

It’s not just homes that can be designed, but other buildings in the main town too. Players will be tasked by Isabelle to set up a school at first, and can create multiple different buildings in the main town.

It’s the only way to expand your city from quiet hustling and bustling to a lively hub of commerce and knowledge.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer takes the furniture design of previous Animal Crossing titles, and expands it tenfold. Other aspects of previous Animal Crossing games those are sacrificed though.

As you’re an employee and not a villager or mayor, interactions with other animals are limited. You’re not here to chat, you’re here to work. Each area you visit an animal in gives you a single piece of dialogue. It’s well written dialogue, but it only crops up once. This opens up a bit more when you visit the animal in their own home, but it’s still limited. Gone are fossil, bug, fishing and painting collecting. There’s no more day and night cycle either, with work staring in the morning. After you help out an animal with their design, it’s evening, or afternoon if you decide to renovate an existing animal’s house instead of making a new house. At the end of the day, you sit at your desk, save, and then it’s the next day again.

The biggest and possibly most glaring omission however is that in a game where you design homes for others, you don’t get your own home. Each time you try and fit the aesthetics of the animal you’re working for, but you never get a place for yourself to make up as

you see fit. While we’ve had four games (five in Japan) to make our own places, I really want to make up my own place with the stylus, half-grid system Happy Home Designer has going for it. There’s nothing stopping me from renovating an existing animal’s room and taking it over with my own sensibilities, but it wouldn’t feel right. I’m the employee and they’re the customer, it wouldn’t be right to straight up take over someone else’s house.

The much coveted amiibo functionality of Happy Home Designer uses the newly released Animal Crossing amiibo cards. Instead of hitting the streets for an animal, the amiibo card summons that animal right away for you to design. Unless you’re a massive Animal Crossing fan and have a wealth of favourite villagers, you don’t them. They’re entirely optional. You can play the whole game to your heart’s desire and never spend a single cent on the blind packs. It’s a fantastic way to use amiibo; it’s great if you’re dedicated enough, but nothing is missed out. Well, the major NPCs like Isabelle, K.K. Slider, and Resetti can only have a house if you have their amiibo card, but with over 400 total animals to design houses for, you’ll still be a fair while designing for them.

Online functionality comes in two flavors; The Happy Home Network and SpotPass. The Happy Home Network, when unlocked, allows you to upload designed houses online, which can then be viewed by other players. Designs can be search by newly uploaded designs, facilitates, the animal the house

was designed for, popular designs, or the more precise QR code or eleven digit number. Players can rate your designs on a scale of one to three on the basis of “Cute”, “Cool”, “Unique”, and “I’d live here”.

If you’re looking for constructive criticism, it’d be better to visit a forum online.

Designed houses can also be visited, which can include player-designed patterns. Considering that’s a step from customized house to a blank canvas that can be painted any literal way a player sees fit without the need of a friend code, it’s a big step for Nintendo. Through the Happy Home Network are challenges, where players have so many days to design a home to meet a certain theme. Then players have the opportunity to vote on designs as they see fit.

SpotPass functionality is accessed in the most meta way possible, through a 3DS item in-game. Doing so connects to the Internet and checks if there are any special animals available to download, with various items being made available with them.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is not the traditional Animal Crossing series we all know and love. It’s a spin-off of some of Animal Crossing’s best bits, refined.

The parts that are gone are missed, but what’s here is some fantastic room designing. With the blank canvas of a house to be designed, and a splash of imagination, Happy Home Designer is the kind of game you can sit down and play with forever.

8.5 /10

PROS: REFINES ANIMAL CROSSING FURNITURE DESIGNING TO A TEE NEW FURNITURE DESIGN OPTIONS ARE AMAZING AMIIBO AREN’T NECESSARY TO PLAY INTERACTIONS WITH ANIMALS HAVE SOME FANTASTIC WRITING

CONS: NO HOUSE OF YOUR OWN INTERACTIONS WITH ANIMALS ARE LIMITED

WRITTEN BY sasha karen

WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

TEAR UNFO

RAWAY FOLDED review

REVIEW

TEARAWAY UNFOLDED Ever since the release of Tearaway back in 2013 for PlayStation Vita, never have been able to find a Vita title more captivating than this little platforming gem. Through its delightful visuals, simple gameplay, and creative implementation to some of the more supposed ‘gimmicky’ aspects of the PS Vita hardware – Tearaway was a title worth admiring, and still holds up to today (in my opinion) as one of those rare Vita titles that has able effectively in delivering both a fun and compelling narrative.

Now ported to the PlayStation 4 hardware, Media Molecule has shown once again to remain committed in embracing whatever new hardware Sony throws at them, with the release of Tearaway Unfolded.

Serving as remastered port, Tearaway Unfolded provides fans and newcomers an alternative experience into one of Media Molecules most charming titles, with this time centralizing everything into the DualShock 4 controller.

If you’ve played the original Tearaway, then you’ll be more than familiar with story. Set in a vast and mysterious paper world, players assume control of the messenger Iota (or Atoi, depending on which gender you wish to play), who is

tasked in delivering a message to a portal that has appeared mysteriously in the sky. Traveling through snowy mountains, gloomy caverns, and treacherous oceans – players will not only be able to guide their messenger through these dangers, but will also have the ability to customize Tearaways vast papery landscapes throughout various segments of the game.

With the removal of the back touch screen and the dual camera functionality, initial gameplay elements from the original have either been replaced or rearranged accordingly to compensate for the DualShock 4 controller. The results; a mostly successfully transition that manages to deter from well from its portable counterpart.

With the new crafting system for example – to which players at various points craft new looks to design new elements– that has been tweaked to work with the DualShock 4’s touchpad area. The lightbar on DualShock 4’s has also been added some functionality, serving as torch illuminate dark areas or blind enemies in battle.

Whilst the lightbar sensor may at times not be angled always to your liking, it’s an otherwise welcoming

feature that manages to keep the flow of combat and puzzle solving engaging. What I most love about the lightbar function in particular, is being able to get supposed enemies to attack one another and trick others into traps during these sections. This otherwise keeps players on their feet, and fixes some of the more minor criticisms of the combat being ‘too easy’ to play.

For the touch screen commands, I felt as if they responded rather fluently. With the added ability of blowing gusts of wind, and hurling enemies as deadly projectiles through your controller, I feel it makes up for the removal of the back touchscreen support. The only exception I think this new touchpad has, is the new crafting system that Tearaway Unfolded prides itself on.

With very little room to work around – players using the DualShock 4 controllers touchpad, may find the interface at first is little too small to work with. Whilst admittedly the portable had its fair share of faults, the limited room provided on the controllers touchpad is at times very finicky to work with – as newcomers will find themselves stuffing up easily with their creations.

If you’ve played the original PS Vita release, then you’ll be more than familiar with the presentation with Unfolded. Running on 1080p resolution, Tearaway Unfolded, much like the original, is absolutely stunning to look at. With its neat the papercraft aesthetics, every little character, creature, and piece of the environment is uniquely crafted in such a polished manner that it’s hard not to admire the effort gone into designing this game. Animations are quirky to look at, and the colour palette presents Tearaway

8.7 /10

Unfolded very much like a children’s storybook.

Though whilst remaining faithful to the original, Unfolded does however have its own share of design problems. One of the few things that bugged me in particular within the earlier stages of Unfolded, was the constant reminder throughout about the added features for microphone or PlayStation camera functionality.

Whilst not an inherent problem throughout the entirety of Unfolded, the frequency of this reminder made me feel as if I was missing out on certain content because I lacked these added hardware features. In comparison with the initial PS Vita release, this was of course at a very minimal given the device already had a already built in camera and dual touchscreen functionality.

Whilst the PlayStation 4 does manage to capture the initial charm of the original Tearaway, its just through it’s desire to remind players about the external hardware support that Unfolded at times, rubs off across as a lesser experience because of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that is a genuine sense of player engagement. It’s just that the portable version serves as the more superior aspect in that regard.

Through its gorgeous visuals and charming narrative, Tearaway Unfolded does an excellent job in capturing the heart of what made the initial PS Vita release so engaging.

Whether you’re new to Tearaway or not, Unfolded is an astounding title that I’d highly recommend to anybody wishing to treat their creative ambitions.

Click to view the trailer here!

PROS:

CONS:

STUNNING PAPERCRAFT VISUALS ENGAGING GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS A WONDERFUL REMASTER THAT CAPTURES THE CHARM, AND ENHANCES BY ADDING NEW ELEMENTS

EMPHASIS ON THE TEARAWAY APP DETERS FROM THE IMMERSION TOUCH SCREEN COMMANDS FOR THE NEW CRAFTING SYSTEM IS AT TIMES FINICKY TO WORK WITH

WRITTEN BY jason english WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

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geek o the gamer diaries: 1979-1987 retro COLLECTING POPS! COLLECTIBLES

CODENAMES BOARD GAME REVIEW

WHEN MARNIE WASanime THERE REVIEW MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU comics

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retro It’s rare that I take the time to look at my childhood and the games I grew up with. I have experienced the games I write about on these pages, so you can be assured that I know my stuff. The problem is that I never got to play many of them as a child, and a lot of them have been ‘wishlist’ games that I have only been able to get my hands on as an adult. This month I felt like hitting the rewind button and taking you all back to the 80s. So let’s do the timewarp… hold on, that was the 70s. How about we party like it’s 1999… that’s not right either. Well, it’s a song reference from the 80s so we’ll go with it!

I think we can skip the first few years of my life. They involved He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, reruns of 1960s Batman and a whole lot of Lego (but what good childhood DIDN’T have a whole lot of Lego).

So we’ll begin our journey in 1984, when I was 5 years old. While I can’t remember the first ever video game I played, I can tell you that the first ever console I played it on was an Atari 2600. Though I never owned one as a child in the 80s every older child or teenager had an Atari console, either a woodgrain or a Vader.

Even back then I noticed the difference between the 2 variants and often wondered why there were two types. It would be another 2 years until the 3rd official variant, the Atari2600 Jr was to hit the market.

The first games I remember playing were ‘Pacman’, ‘Joust’, ‘Enduro’ and ‘Space Invaders’. I was beginning to form opinions on genres and very clearly remember how people would rave about ‘Enduro’. Personally I couldn’t stand the game, and I’m not a fan of racing games in general. I enjoyed ‘Pacman’ but only in short bursts. To this day I don’t how people can marathon that game. I did have a lot of time for ‘Joust’ and enjoyed challenging friends to multiplayer battles. I recall one of my

The Gamer Diaries:

younger birthdays being an “Atari Party”. My parents borrowed 2 Atari 2600s and a television, as most families only had 1 TV back then, and all my friends came over to play video games for a few hours. When I think about it, many of the adult parties I attend today are very similar…

I did keep going back and playing the odd Atari game from time to time. My best memories are of more advanced 2600 titles, such as ‘Pitfall’, ’Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and ‘Adventure’. The problem was, as I mentioned earlier, I never owned an Atari 2600. I have a nice Vader model now that I acquired from Jarrod at Gametraders Salisbury, but the first system I can claim as “my childhood” was the Amstrad CPC. We’ll get to that a bit later though.

In other articles I have written in the past I have mentioned the playground fights at my school. In the mid to late 80s it was Commodore 64 vs the Amstrad CPC, and you HAD to pick a side. I had encountered a Commodore 64 prior to Alan Sugar’s wonder beast, but it didn’t make much of an impact on me. My first memory of a C64 was at my junior primary school, where they had 2 computers that received very little use. I remember being taken into the computer room (the size of a large broom closet) and being asked to navigate a maze. The maze was a piece of perspex that was sellotaped

to the monitor and I had to move a pixel that left a trail behind. This was 1985 and I had already seen much of what the Atari had to offer. By comparison this felt like such an archaic way of using technology, and it was. It would have been more than possible to have a proper maze program on the C64, but the school either didn’t have the resources or the know how to make it happen.

My junior primary school and primary school were on the same block, though junior primary and primary kids did not interact and were separated by an invisible barrier in the schoolyard. The barrier was the edge of a building and teachers were very quick to stop anyone from venturing into areas they shouldn’t. In 1986 I was in year 2 and it was time for my first tour of the primary school part of the campus, as I would be studying there the following year. This tour involved a look at the computer room which blew me away. I can still remember my first look into that room full of Amstrad CPC6128 computers and 2 Star printers! They were 9 pin, dot matrix, imaging masterpieces.

During the tour I was told by one of the kids, whose brother was already in primary school, that there was a game called Fruity Frank that I absolutely had to play!

The following year was 1987 and I was in year 3 and my first year of primary school, which wasn’t as daunt-

1979 - 1987

ing as I was led to believe. Yes, I had my first encounter with the dreaded multiplication tables but that was the worst thing I can remember about it. I was, for the most part, with the same kids as I was in the previous year and I was allowed, nay encouraged, to draw artwork. I was given total freedom to draw anything I wanted in some lessons, though for the most part I was scribbling images of Garfield. I was the ultimate fan of Jim Davis’ creation, and I became quite adept at drawing him.

While my artwork was coming along, I also had my chance to discover the wonders of ‘Fruity Frank’, ‘Finders Keepers’, ‘Electro Freddy’ and others on the Amstrad CPCs in the computer room. I think it’s safe to say that I was hooked from the very start.

While most of the kids fell in love with ‘Fruity Frank’, I was enamoured with ‘Finders Keepers’. Little did I know that ‘Finders Keepers’ was the first game in the Magic Knight trilogy. I still have yet to play the other 2 games in the series, ’Spellbound’ and ‘Knight Thyme’, but they are on my list.

tive, though you see yourself and the enemies side on. You collect fruit in the level, using apples to squash enemies, as well as your… well it looked like an apple seed to me. If you were in a pinch you could hurl your apple seed at the enemies and eliminate them. The problem was that you had to wait for your apple seed to respawn, and it would take longer every time you used it. ’Fruit Frank’ was the first game I played where I discovered hidden secrets.

You could unleash bonus monsters by running through the portal that the enemies entered from. You had to be careful that an enemy wasn’t coming out of it at the time though! Once you completed the game, you would start at level 1 again with a slightly higher difficulty level.

Though the enemies are plentiful and hard to avoid, ‘Finders Keepers’ gives the player plenty of health and four lives as they attempt to find a present for the princess. The mix of platforming and arcade adventure tested my reflexes and made me think about which items would work in different situations. There are multiple endings, the ability to buy and sell items and even use them together. It felt much more advanced than anything I had ever played on the Atari 2600. My long standing desire to own an Atari 2600 was eliminated with a single game.

1987 was also the year I remember playing my first arcade game.

Though I had gone to the massive Downtown Leisure Centre on Hindley St a couple of years earlier I have very little memory of that trip (I was 5 or 6 at the time). I remember Downtown had a skating rink, lots of arcade machines and mini golf, but that’s all. I can tell you that I definitely played mini golf and I probably played an arcade machine or 2, but have no recollection of what I might have played. Sadly I never got back to Downtown before it closed, but I do remember that I caught a train for the first time to get there. I remember playing my first arcade machine at a little fish and chip shop at Para Vista, which is still there today. The game was Double Dragon, and in my eyes it was revolutionary. I can still remember standing on a milk crate to reach the buttons and trying to beat up the bad guys, but not really lasting very long.

While not my first love, I did also have a soft spot for ‘Fruit Frank’, and I spent a lot of time on Kuma’s classic ‘Mr Do’ clone. The game is viewed from an overhead perspec-

On a side note, and apologies for the social commentary, but it was after the death of Downtown that Hindley St started to develop its poor reputation. Prior to that parents could hap-

pily drop their kids off at the leisure centre without a care in the world.

At around this time I started receive invites to birthday parties at Skateline Modbury (I believe there was also one at Woodville). This was an indoor skating rink that has long since closed. Infact, if I’m not mistaken, it’s now a church. Prior to that it was my personal place of worship as I encountered about a dozen arcade machines, including ‘Bomb Jack’ and ‘Rygar: The Legendary Warrior’. I had been to Skateline previously, but I was 4 or 5 years old and I wouldn’t have even been able to reach the controls of an arcade machine. While I quickly became quite an adept skater, and later a competent speed skater, the arcade machines would draw me every time I went. Of course, the coins would run out which would lead me back to the skating rink.

Skateline was also where I remember playing my first ever pinball machine. ‘Buck Rogers’ was the game, and it’s a classic table that’s worth playing if you can find one. Every time I went to Skateline over the years that table was there, they never got rid of it. Other people I have spoken to have fond memories of that playing it, though it’s the only ‘Buck Rogers’ table I’ve ever seen.

This brings us to the end of 1987. I had completed my first year of primary school, clocked up many hours on their Amstrad CPC6128 computers, played my first of many arcade and pinball machines, developed some decent balance on a set of skates and drawn many pictures of Garfield. I hadn’t completed Finders Keepers yet, had completed Fruity Frank many times, but obviously game time wasn’t the primary focus of our lessons. Learning how to type and use Logo was what our actual lessons comprised of. We could play educational games like ‘Cordial

Thanks for joining me for the first part of this rather self indulgent look at my life through video games. Join me next month as I reminisce about ownership of my first computer, the first friends I made through video games, the teacher who mentored me and more.

1979 - 1987

Stall’, ‘Granny’s Garden’ and ‘Convoy’, which was programmed by my teacher, as much as we wanted. The other games were for on Fridays if we got all our work done early, or special days such as the last day of term. On the home front I still didn’t have a means of playing video games and I was envious of those who did. Little did I know that this was all going to change in the next 12 months.

WRITTEN BY paul monopoli

COLLECTIBLES

COLLECTING

POPS!

Staring at me is a Freddy Kruger vinyl figure along with an Angel. The Freddy is numbered 02. The Angel is 123. I don’t collect Pops but I find it fascinating that people do. Seems to me anything from pop culture can end up as a collectable line. Pops from Funko are quite collectable and this accounts for their massive popularity. But most people would likely “collect” them as they like them and want the set of say, Harry Potter Pops. Not everyone is going to collect them seriously in as much as looking for rare pops. So, let’s take a look a bit deeper at Funko Pops and collecting them.

Firstly how did Funko become the giant it is today? We need to go back to the San Diego Comic-Con in 2010 when Brian Mariotti showed off a new line of collectables from Funko. Mariotti had purchased Funko from founder Mike Becker. Mariotti showed some prototypes they’d been developing and included were Green Lantern, Batgirl and Batman.

They weren’t originally a huge success but women seemed to like them and buy them and so they kept developing the Pop range. The company had licenses for DC, Marvel and Lucasfilm Star Wars, and soon contracted 25 more licenses and pushed out the Pops into a range of stores. The low price point and cute nature took off and today Pops are massive.

Numbering system Pops are numbered so the Angel that is 123 means it is the 123rd pop in this series. However some collectable pops come in a numbering system such as 1 of 100, that means

that this pop is number 1 out of only 100 made… so rare! For example, in the Freddy pops some are so rare that there is only 12 made like the Freddy Funko - Metallic Ghost Rider where there is only 12 made.

Collecting Pops is fun, but can be overwhelming. There’s just so many Pops out there. So where do you start. Firstly they don’t always produce pops in massive numbers like a toy company might. So they can become quite collectable when there is maybe a run of a few thousand.

Keeping your Pops in original boxing can be a good way to ensure that if they become a collectable, you’ll get the most return should you sell one day. But you may need to wait for some time for them to become what collectors consider rare. Maybe years.

Pops are cool and artistic and that’s probably one of the reasons people love them. They are simple in design yet have enough of the characters look to make them instantly recognisable.

So to start collecting, look at buying what you’re interested in. If you love Game of Thrones - start with them and collect the set. Keep them boxed and well looked after and they could just become quite valuable. A complete set is always a good way to build your collection. Keep an eye on forums and discussion groups where Pops are the topic and learn to sift out the serious comments from real collectors to the more casual discussions and comments.

Have fun and get collecting now!

board games Codenames is a fun word game in which players must give one word clues to the other members of their team to help them discover the identities of their fellow field operatives.

While the game can be slow paced at times its basic style of play and simple rules matched with identifying similarities and puzzle solving really brings the game to life.

At the start of the game players divide themselves in to two teams of as equal size and skills as possible.

One of the players is decided as the Spy Master while the other players are the field operatives. Set up is a breeze in Codenames. Players take their seats with the Spy Masters sitting directly opposite their field operatives. The two teams decide on their team colour of either red or blue and twenty five code name cards are laid in a five by five grid between the Spy Master and the field operatives.

Lastly the key card is randomly selected by a Spy Master and placed in the stand provided in any orientation facing the Spy Masters. Now that the cards have been set players are ready to start the game. Each team has eight field operative cards whose identity must be discovered.

A double agent is also used and is given to the team who starts which is determined by the colour of the boarder of the Key card. There are seven white bystander cards who act as a turn stopper due to their cards being placed on the code name card when the identify doesn’t belong to either of the teams. Lastly a black Assassin card is used in each match and if they are identified the unlucky team who discovered him automatically loses the match.

The Key cards feature a five by five grid with seven of the squares being white to identify the bystander cards, one black to represent the Assassins and the remaining fifteen are eight red and blue with the starting team

CODENAMES BOARD GAME review given an extra square. These coloured squares are jumbled and feature a different pattern on the forty cards provided. This grid shows the Spy Master the names of their squad as they match to the word listed on the code name cards. Lastly the game provides players with a sand timer. This can be used against your opposing team if they are taking too long to provide the clue or it can be used on yourself if you work better under pressure.

At the start of the game the first Spy master will provide their field operatives with a word followed by a number. The word will relate to a word or words on the table and the amount it relates to is depicted by a number. For example if Nut and Bark where two of the names the field operatives have to guess the clue could be Tree 2. The field operatives can then choose to guess these two names. They can also choose to only answer one and skip on the second if they are unsure of which is the second name. As they haven’t attempted the second name they can choose to come back to it in later turns when more names have been marked off. Choosing to skip the extra names can be beneficial if the operatives are unsure.

You do not want to name the wrong name and give away the oppositions operatives, waste a point on a bystander or accidently name the assassin. When a name is identified correctly one of the colour field operatives is placed on top of the name

card. Play continues in this fashion till one team has correctly identified all their operatives. Play is restricted on what words can be used. A clue cannot be given which is the same as a name on the board. Also part of the word cannot be used. For example Gland cannot be used if England is on the table. Also the words on the table cannot be used in a different language.

When I was reading through the rules and how to play the game seemed quite limited to me with the code name cards. It seemed to me that if you were to play the game enough times you would be able to memorise the majority of the code names. The game combats this by providing two hundred cards; printed double sided giving a total of four hundred names to play with. As the code name cards are shuffled and randomly laid out the amount of possibilities is more than enough to keep the game feeling fresh each game. Combine this with the forty key cards which can be used in four different ways the chances of having a majority of the cards the same with the same colour guessing is extremely limited.

Where Codenames can suffer is with the skill of the both the player providing the clue and the player or players trying to determine which words are being referenced. Just because a word to describe two names made sense in your head, it may not make as much sense when said aloud or in the minds of your team members.

GET IT AT GA

METRA DERS!

The better you know your team mates and how well you know how they think is a huge advantage in this game. My partner was my sister and as we both know Pokemon extremely well I was using different Pokemon to name the cards. This worked quite well however when this wasn’t a possibility and the Spy Master could not think of any word to join more than one card the game became a taking of turns between the two teams in which only one name card was being named.

This took the excitement out of the game as if each team kept naming their one card per turn the team who doesn’t have the double agent was guaranteed to win the game.

Overall codenames is a quick and fun game that gets all players thinking. Games took roughly fifteen minutes to play and with the easy and quick set up it’s a game which can be played on a whim whenever people have a few minutes to kill. The game gets you thinking and while you are the Field operative the buzz and laughter that comes from randomly spitting out words while trying to link the clue and code names is something both casual and hard core board gamers can defiantly enjoy!

WRITTEN BY jess wilson

anime

When Marnie Was There When Marnie Was There is a very deep anime. It follows Anna, an asthmatic girl who is extremely unsociable. After having an asthma attack at school, she is sent away to live in the country where the air is cleaner. I absolutely loved the depth of this anime between the supernatural story and the heartfelt problems that each character holds deep in their hearts.

Following such an interesting character such as Anna makes this story easier to relate too due to her look upon herself and others. If there is one thing that I love about anime, it’s that you can never predict what will happen before you have watched it.

Story: After an asthma attack, Anna’s foster parents send her to a seaside community to rest for the summer.

She’s instantly drawn to a mansion on the marsh, that’s reportedly haunted and often accessible only by rowboat when the tide is high. In the upstairs, bedroom window, Anna spots a girl named Marnie, with whom she becomes friends one night.

Marnie is the physical opposite of Anna. Marnie has a bow in her long, blonde hair, and only wears dresses.

Anna has cropped black hair, shorts, and wears a collared shirt. Marnie is playful, almost childlike—laughing, smiling, and taking risks like standing on the edge of a moving rowboat like a mini-“Titanic.” Anna is sullen, but her new best friend opens her up to the world.

I found this anime to be quite a different one because I’ve never seen a supernatural anime that has so much of it focused on making a person remember another. While it was difficult to catch a grasp of it at the beginning when everyone is still being introduced, it clears up all the questions in the end, which I was very happy about. There is no hanging feeling and you are at ease knowing that the story is over until a new chapter approaches.

Art: [8/10]

While the art is in no way spectacular, it is absolutely beautiful in the way that they project it. The characters all have independent aspects that make them extremely appealing to the eye. The land and buildings

also sew their looks into your eyes as you watch the story unfold.

Character: [10/10]

The characters in this anime are completely adorable and heartfelt (except the main character at the start). Each character has a story to tell, and each one tells it so well.

While the characteristics of the characters in this anime are hard to grasp, they make the entire story flow better than with cliché characters.

Overall: [9/10]

While this anime is quite difficult to understand for some parts, it’s a beautiful masterpiece to end the animation studio that has produced 30 years of outstanding animation, Studio Ghibli. The work of Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the creator of works like the Secret World of Arietty, is shown clearly is this wonderful anime. Between the beautiful characters, their lovely stories and the vibrant scenery, I seriously wonder how I didn’t know of this one sooner.

9/1 0

WRITTEN BY Jesse Richardson

comics

MAY THE FORCE

November and December 2015 is undeniably the months of STAR WARS! With the Force Awakens hitting theatres on the 17th of December world wide the world has once again been caught up in Star Wars fever. Comics are no exception.

With Marvel Comics newest range of comics hitting shelves with force and their trade paperbacks coming out just in time for Christmas, there hasn’t been a better time to be a Star Wars geek or a comic book geek.

STAR WARS First up we have Star Wars Trade Paperback vol 1, collecting the first six issues of the new acclaimed comic book. The book features great stories set in the original (and best) universe, covering the time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The great writing and amazing art delivers the ultimate Star Wars experience and give you a solid helping of all of your favourite characters from Luke Skywalker to Boba Fett and beyond. This trade is a must buy for all fans of the Star Wars universe and is available now.

of Episode 3. It is a darker themed tale taking us to the darkest parts of the dark side. We learn how he became even more lost from Anakin Skywalker and grew more powerful as the sith lord and right hand to the emperor. Darth Vader may be a little dark for younger readers but it is a top notch Star Wars story!

Star Wars: Kanan Now for the kids coms Kanan, following the adventures of Kanan from the hit cartoon Star Wars Rebels. We learn even more about this impressive character as he escapes Order 66 and becomes one of the founding members of the Rebel Alliance. The book is entertaining enough for older readers but still spins a tale delightful enough to keep all the younger readers entertained and engrossed in the story of the cartoon they love. Also if you haven’t seen the cartoon yet do it now! It’s great! The art is fantastic and brings a level of maturity to a younger audience’s book. Really worth a read with a great bunch of rag-tag characters.

Star Wars: Darth Vader

Star Wars: Shattered Empire

Now we have a personal favourite, Darth Vader. This book is one of the better in the character spin off comics. The art in this book by Salvador Larroca is simply breathtaking.

Some of the best art I have seen in a long time! It tells a dark story of Vader in the first few months of his mechanical conversion at the end

Finally THE BIG ONE! Star Wars Shattered Empire is the must read comic book of the year! The trade paperback of all issues will be available in late November just in time for the movie. Now, why is this book so awesome? Because it is the official version of the events that occur between Return of The Jedi and The

Force Awakens and contains some answers to the questions burning in your mind! Why is the Empire still around? Who are the new characters? READ THIS COMIC! It’s so very, very good. The art is sensational as is the writing and it does a great job getting us ready and getting us pumped for what is sure to be the most awesome movie of the year!

Star Wars is a global phenomenon and has been since 1977. These comic books are all crafted with great care and love by Marvel Comics and will get you in the mood for all the excitement coming to us from a galaxy far, far away.

E BE WITH YOU!

WRITTEN BY scott f. sowter

TRADING CARDS

5 TRADING CARD TOURNAMENT TIPS! FROM TIM AT GAMETRADERS SEAFORD!

Get to know your Tournament store and judge.

lot of time and money finding cards they need.

Your store and judge are there to help you. Don’t be shy, they want to get to know you. They probably have some great tips too!

Network with your fellow players.

These guys want to make sure your having fun, and are always there if you have a question or concern.

Sleeve your deck with a deck protector.

TOP TIPS TIM’S

Real Bear hugs are often fatal.

Never trust someone who puts the milk in first, then the cereal.

Be yourself, Unless you’re a Unicorn. Then be a Unicorn.

Never make eye contact while eating a banana.

JUST SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU SMILE...

There’s nothing worse than spilling something on your cards or having one gone missing. But a sleeved deck could save that really rare card from being destroyed, it can also be easily identified if it goes missing Checkout a tournament stores range of singles.

So you’ve used your new deck a few times and have discovered a few cards that would fit better?

Gametraders stores sell single cards. So many players save a-

These guys are your walking encyclopaedia’s! Getting to know them will not only be useful for general knowledge, but will also create a friendlier atmosphere.

Don’t take the game too seriously, just have fun.

Everybody loses games all the time, when you’re not winning at a tournament, think of it as an opportunity to see where your weaknesses are and come back strong.

It’s also great to win, but it’s not great to see a bragging winner. Be mindful of your opponent, shake their hand, say ‘good game’, have a chat and be friendly. You never know.. they could be the one winning against you next time.

TRADING CARDS

Buying trading cards with confidence

You’re getting into trading card games… but you want good decks and you don’t want to end up with fake cards and get banned. Here’s a few tips to help you with buying.

First up buying from a retailer like Gametraders ensures you’ll get cards that are the genuine thing.

Buying online from places like Ebay can be good but be careful if the seller uses images that look to be stock photos not actual photos they’ve taken. You really want to see what you’re buying before you bid or “buy now”.

Check sellers feedback if buying from an online site. Ebay has a rating system so you can ensure you’re not buying from someone dodgy. If you’re not sure - you can always contact them with questions. If they don’t respond - stay clear. Also checking their photos of their items can let you know the condition of the cards, you

don’t want dog eared junk so ask if unsure.

Check that the holo you want is an actual holo and not a reverse … again here’s where checking the sellers photos and then asking questions will help you immensely.

Know the value before you go shopping. In your excitement of finding a good or rare card, you might pay more then you should.

Do some research on the value before you go shopping. You’d kick yourself if you paid double…

Finally most card retailers can help you with identifying fakes and give advice on buying. Many sites such as Wizards have online resources. There’s also some great information on the Wiki How website - you can check that our here: www.wikihow.com/Know-if-Pokemon-Cards-Are-Fake

Have fun, play well, don’t get sucked into buying fakes..

NOVEMBER S

& TOU

VICTORIA BACCHUS MARSH Magic the Gathering Draft - Friday 5:30pm Magic the Gathering Standard Constructed - Sunday 12pm Board Games and Magic Modern Constructed - Wednesday 5:30pm

HIGHPOINT Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 3pm

GAMETRADERS LIVE MILDURA 1st November @ 12.30pm Yu-Gi-Oh! - Dimension of Chaos Sneak Peek.

14th November @ 12.30pm Cardfight Vanguard - Sneak Preview G Comic Booster Vol. 1: Vanguard and Deletor.

PokĂŠmon League - Wednesday 4.30 - 6.30pm We also run: Pokemon both TCG & VG, MTG FNM, MTG Constructed Tournaments, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Star Wars X-Wing, Warhammer 40k, Cardfight!! Vanguard, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros & Ultra Street Fighter IV Tournaments, plus heaps more.

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STORE EVENTS

URNAMENTS! QUEENSLAND CHERMSIDE Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 3pm Cardfight!! Vanguard - Wednesday 6:30pm Pokémon - Saturday 3pm Magic the Gathering - Tuesday & Friday 6:30pm

MACKAY Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 4pm Magic the Gathering - Friday 6pm MTG Monday Night Modern - Monday 6pm Pokémon - Monday 4pm Board Game Night - Monday 6pm

MORAYFIELD Magic the Gathering - Friday & Wednesday 7pm Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 2pm Pokémon - Wednesday 12pm

LOGAN HYPERDOME No current tournaments.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY HYPERDOME Yu-Gi-Oh - Saturday 10am Pokémon - Saturday 2pm

NEW SOUTH WALES BLACKTOWN Advanced Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 10:30am Magic the Gathering - Thursday 6:30pm & Sunday 10:30am

MACARTHUR SQUARE (CAMPBELLTOWN) Yu-Gi-Oh - Wednesday 5:30pm

PARRAMATTA Yu-Gi-Oh - Thursday 6pm, Saturday 2pm Magic the Gathering - Sunday 11am Cardfight!! Vanguard - Sunday 2pm Weiss Schwarz - Saturday 10am School Holiday Additional Tournaments: Yu-Gi-Oh - Monday, Wednesday & Friday 2pm Cardfight!! Vanguard - Tuesday & Thursday 2pm

GAMETRADERS LIVE PENRITH Cardfight!! Vanguard - Saturday 5pm Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 11:30am Yu-Gi-Oh (Traditional Format) - Thursday 6pm Magic the Gathering - Friday 7pm Pokémon - Saturday 12pm Weiss Schwarz - Saturday 6pm My Little Pony - Saturday 6m Board Game Night - Wednesday 6pm Nintendo Fight Night - Thursday 7pm

GAMETRADERS LIVE HORNSBY Magic the Gathering PPTQ - November 14th at 10am Yu-Gi-Oh - Sunday 12:30pm Pokémon - Sunday 2pm Magic the Gathering - Friday 6pm Magic EDH/Commander - Sunday 2pm Board Games/Role Playing & Tabletop - Wednesday & Thursday 6pm Retro - Saturday (check FB for times) All other systems - Casual Play Saturdays

NOV

SOUTH AUSTRALIA INGLE FARM No current tournaments.

MARION Pokémon - Please call the store for details. (08 8296 1144) Cardfight!! Vanguard - Tuesday 6pm Yu-Gi-Oh - Wednesday 6pm Magic the Gathering - Friday 6pm

SEAFORD Yu-Gi-Oh - Thursday 6pm (5:30pm registration) Cardfight!! Vanguard - Friday 4:30pm Magic the Gathering - Monday 6pm (5:30pm reg) & Friday 6pm (5:30pm reg) Pokémon - Sunday 1pm (12:30 registration) My Little Pony - Tuesday 5pm (4:30pm registration) Future Card Buddyfight - Thursday 5:30pm Board Game Nights - Wednesdays from 5-8pm

MT. BARKER Board Game Night - Thursday 6pm Yu-Gi-Oh - Saturday 4pm Magic the Gathering - Sunday 1pm

SALISBURY Magic the Gathering - Thursday 5:30pm & Saturday 11am Yu-Gi-Oh (Advanced Format) - Saturday 12.30pm

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COSPLA RAYCHUL

MOORE interview

crazy cat interview

charmaine morgan interview

variable cosplay interview

convention report:

sydney oz comicCHATTYcon ANNY!

tell the whole story photography tips

AY

COSPLAY Last month we introduced Raychul Moore in our “Tips from the Tomb” section, Raychul is a gamer, YouTuber, Cosplayer & journalist. With all that on her plate, we have no idea how she found time to talk to us, but thankfully she did.... First up Raychul, tell us a bit about your cosplay beginnings, what got you started?

I think cosplaying was kind of a natural progression for me since I’ve been gaming my whole life, but it was a friend of mine who really got me started. We were going to SDCC for the first time with a group of friends and we decided to do a group cosplay together. I fell in love with cosplaying instantly. The creation phase is definitely my favorite part, I love figuring out how to create certain weapons or props and then finally seeing the finished product and being like, “Whoa, I made this!!!”

You’re also a gamer, what are your favourite games and what are you playing now?

Some of my favorite games are Mass Effect, Borderlands, the entire Bioshock series, Uncharted, Dishonored, God of War, Eternal Darkness, Dragon Age, Gears of War, Silent Hill 2, Halo and of course anything Mario.

Right now I’m playing a lot of Elder Scrolls Online and the new Witcher 3 DLC, while waiting for Halo 5 and Guild Wars 2’s expansion to come out this month!!

Back to cosplay, do you feel that cosplay can be a career?

Oh yes, definitely…and even in the bigger picture, I think cosplay can also lead to many very successful careers in stuff like costume design, prop making and even just creative

RAYCHUL

MOORE www.FACEBOOK.COM/RAYCHULMOORE

design in general. I’m always learning new ways of doing things and new materials to work with, cosplay is an ever-evolving skill and art form.

You’re also a blogger and a YouTuber - tell us about those roles.

I started my YouTube to help myself get over being so camera-shy.

It’s definitely helped a lot, and I post mostly video game centered videos, like reviews, top 10 lists and stream live gameplays. I also post stuff of my travels to different cons and being a guest cosplayer at them…and, of course, a lot of videos of my many trips to Disneyland. :D If someone wanted to make a career with their love of pop culture, where should they start?

Well, I always tell people if they wanna do something, then just do it…that’s the great thing about YouTube and the internet as a whole, we can now do anything we want. If you wanna be a YouTuber, well, you’ve probably got a cell phone with a camera and the internet…so there ya go! If you wanna be cosplayer,

YouTube has a so many cosplay tutorials to help you get going!

I think the main thing is to not get started on YouTube, or as a cosplayer or as a livestreamer with your goal being to become famous or financially successful. These things take a lot of time, work and money…the most important thing, and the thing that will help you more than anything else is passion. You have to be passionate about what you’re doing, not why you’re doing it. People can see your passion for what you’re doing, even if your skills are still being perfected, it’s the passion people see that will drive them to your content.

Cosplay is more mainstream now, has it changed from its roots?

I definitely think cosplay has very much changed, as everything usually does the more mainstream it becomes. Like I was saying before, cosplaying is all about passion…it’s about showing your love for a character or a game or a comic that you personally relate to or that you just really, really adore for whatever reason. I do feel a lot of people have lost

Photographer: Rick Basaldua

sight of that, and for most, cosplay isn’t really about the passion anymore, unfortunately.

is so easy to forget when there’s a lot going on around you. Also, safety pins are a lifesaver. :D

But, at the same time, because of it’s popularity; crafting materials and the processes used to create things have become so common place that now people who maybe 3 years ago never would’ve even considered trying to make an Iron Man suit completely on their own…actually can!

And because of this, people are finding new talents and a new love for creating things that they never even knew was a possibility!

Ok, fun time now, if you were going to meet the President and he asked you to be in cosplay, what would you go as?

Tell us about your photoshoot experiences and what tips would you like to share for those new cosplayers about to do their first shoot?

Ain’t no shame in practicing in front of a mirror until you feel you have the poses or looks down. :D Usually each character has a signature pose, so that one is easy. But practicing in front of a mirror will help you find what you feel is your best expressions and angles and help you feel more confident in those poses.

But remember…you’re an adult in a costume…that’s silly, so have fun!!!!

Talking about tips, do you have any tips for cosplayers attending their first con?

Eat and drink lots of water. I know it seems silly, but it’s something that

“

HA! Well, if I could meet the President and be in any cosplay ever…I’d probably wanna be dressed as a totally game-accurate Motorized-Patriot from Bioshock Infinite. I mean, just the picture of the President standing beside a George Washington Motorized-Patriot would be beyond badass…but then have that Motorized-Patriot be you?! Yeah, that’s definitely the cosplay I’d chose.

Tell us five things a cosplayer must pack in their travel bag when heading to a con.

1. Band-aids for your feet 2. Safety pins 3. Stick-on Velcro 4. Spear needle and thread 5. Gel inserts for your shoes Best and worst con experience?

I’ve been super lucky and haven’t really had a bad con experience. I mean, the worst I can think of was a con I was at in the middle of the summer which had no AC so it was almost unbearably hot in there and another con where they had a live metal band play in the same room

Cosplaying is all about

as the guest and vendors which made talking to people who came up to your booth nearly impossible. So yeah, neither of those experiences were horror stories.

As far as my best con experience, I usually tend to enjoy the smaller cons the most. I like having time to be able to talk to people who come up to me and get to know them better. The more people I get to meet and talk to, the better the con is for me! :D But, my favorite moment from a con is when I was dressed as Kratos at SDCC one year and was asked to come on stage during a God of War panel to meet the creators of the game. I fan-girled pretty hard.

Finally where can our readers go to find out more about you?

Oh, I’m all over dem internets! www.Raychul.com Twitter.com/theRaychul Facebook.com/RaychulMoore YouTube.com/RaychulMoore Instagram.com/theRaychul I also do a live chat every Tuesday at 3pm PST on my YouTube and then I do a live game stream every Thursday at 3pm on my Twitch.tv/theRaychul where you can laugh at me getting angry at NPC’s or trying to romance all the female characters.

Come by and say hi!!!

passion…

it’s about showing your love for a character or a game or a comic that you personally relate to or that you just really, really adore for whatever reason.

- Raychul Moore

Photographer: Mike Rollerson | www.facebook.comMikeRollersonPhotography

Photographer: Seth Hendrix

Photographer: Seth Hendrix

Photographer: Mike Rollerson | www.facebook.comMikeRollersonPhotography

Photographer: Adam Patrick Murray | www.facebook.com/adampatrickmurray

Photographer: Seth Hendrix

Photographer: Brian Recktenwald

Photographer: Mike Rollerson | www.facebook

Raychul

k.comMikeRollersonPhotography

Photographer: Brian Recktenwald

ul Moore

COSPLAY

CRAZY CAT This month we spoke to Crazy Cat Cosplay, first up tell us how you got into cosplay and when, plus some of your favourite cosplays...

I got into cosplay late in 2012 but not really seriously until 2013 once I had left school and began university. I think thats why it took me so long to actually get into the community and meet more people. Like many others, I was in awe of costumes and cosplay when I first got into it, I didn’t know where to start and spent several months worried that I couldn’t do it. Once I gained enough courage I finally dove straight into it. I guess in a way I’ve always been drawn to Japanese Culture and style. When growing up, both my brothers would play a lot of JRPGS or watch anime.

Even know both my brothers have sort of grown out of that sorta thing, we can always play Final Fantasy X and its almost like a time warp back to when we were younger.

I’ve always focused on Video Game cosplays, I find that its usually due to the fact that I can play a character or at least discover more about them through their interactions within their universe. In the last 2 years I’ve produced over 15 costumes from a range of source material, each of them meaning something different to me and used a variety of techniques.

I have some standout cosplays and cosplay moments - In 2013 I

www.FACEBOOK.COM/crazycatcosplayy

met Monty Oum dressed as Nora Valkyrie, one of the characters he created from his RWBY anime.

Meeting him was an amazing experience which inspired me to remake the cosplay nearly 3 months later which has probably become the cosplay I’m more known for.

In August of this year I competed in the World Cosplay Summit Preliminarys where my partner (Ticaju Cosplay) and I placed second with our Atelier Rorona: Alchemist of Arland skit.

One of my favourite cosplays is my Yuna from Final Fantasy X. Growing up playing this game really was something that brought me closer to my brothers. Even now with the remasters we are constantly chatting to try and remember how to defeat all the dark Aeons and stuff. I was really drawn to making Yuna and spent nearly 3 weeks painting all the designs on the Obi and Skirt with my room-mate, sometimes til early the next day.

I think what really draws me to characters is their designs. I left University in 2014 to pursue Fashion and Costume Design and will be graduating in a few months. I guess that since starting this course I’m more drawn to taking my cosplaying to the next level by working on my beading and embroidery work. I’m glad

in a sense that I started with cosplay, it really helped me build my confidence, make some amazing friends and learn different skills. I’m in the process of trying to get into my costume design which means I’ll likely be moving away from cosplay in the future, which is a sad thought, but means that I will be open to making costumes and in particular I want to make tutus of my own design and style. Cosplay as been a growth place for me as a designer.

What tips do you have for those just starting out in cosplay with regard to creating costumes, doing photos and attending events?

I recommend people to try and give their costume a test run at least a week before the convention - this gives them time to see if any seams will tear or where there might be mobility issues. The biggest tip I have is to take your time, there is a habit in the community to try and make things as fast as possible and often this works - for one day events. If like me, you want to wear something multiple times, it becomes more important to take your time and do things right. There have been many times where I’ve been really annoyed at myself after a convention because I didn’t take the time to finish my costume off to the best of my ability. Cut your loose threads as you sew! There is nothing worse

Photographer: Brett Wooglar | www.facebook.com/brettwphoto

than getting photos back and seeing hanging threads off it.

Who inspires you?

I have a couple of cosplay inspirations, all for different reasons though.

Lisa Lou Who, Rufflebutt Cosplay, Sushi Monster and Its Raining Neon inspire me to have more fun with my cosplays - to appreciate the experience of conventions with friends and not just focusing on specific aspects of cosplay. I love cosplayers like Kamui Cosplay, Mango Sirene and our own AmenoKitarou (A.K. Wirru) as they provide the community with tutorials and tips that without them would make this hobby so much harder in some aspects - they even inspired me to do some of my own cosplay tutorials. I draw most of my inspiration from my local community where we have a variety of people working with such crazy materials on even crazier projects. Brisbane has some of the best leather workers, 3D printers, Worbla gods, fabric queens and prosthetics nuts and I think being in this sort of community really helps me go on with this hobby when I’m not really feeling it.

Finally where can readers find out more about you?

I’m most active on Facebook so you can find me there: www.facebook.com/crazycatcosplayy

but I occasionally make sarcastic comments on twitter (@tumbycat) and use instagram for most of my updates (@tumbycat)

Photographer: Lorenzo So Photography | www.facebook.com/lorenzosophoto

Photographer: Ducky Jessica | www.facebook.com/duckyjessicaphotography

Photographer: Carlos Mayenco / Nexus Photography | www.facebook.com/NexusRetouching

Photographer: Charmaine-Morgan | www.facebook.com/charmaine.morgan88

“ costumes and cosplay Like many others, I was in awe of

when I first got into it, I didn’t know where to start and spent several months worried that I couldn’t do it.

- Crazy Cat Cosplay

COSPLAY photography Welcome to Live Magazine Charmaine! Tell us how you got into photography?

I cosplayed a little bit, many years ago and started bringing a point and shoot to conventions and meet ups. I grew to admire all the wonderfully creative people around me and wanted to make more memories. It wasn’t until after I bought my first dSLR camera that I realised I was looking at movie stills and editorial shoots for more inspiration and from there I was hooked.

You do cosplay and fashion - do you find the two go together and what are the similarities if they do?

Like with any art form it varies with personal style and perspective. It can depend on if the shoot is being directed by yourself, the client, or if you’re collaborating.

Some photographers prefer to shoot both cosplay and fashion in studio- a more commercial style to best show off all the details of an outfit, or location to best represent the outfit. You can be creative and dramatic with both on location and studio. Or treat them separately, i.e. shoot fashion commercial style and shoot more freeform and creative with cosplay.

I enjoy both natural and added light so, while I shoot, I can be flexible and shoot multiple ways. One, so the client has the nice over all shots of their outfits, then the creative, posed, dramatic shots.

How would you define cosplay photography versus fashion?

In cosplay you’re personifying preexisting or creating characters.

Fashion, however, is an expression

charmaine

morgan www.charmaine-morgan.com

of personal style from every day denim, to Harajuku, or Haute couture gowns.

What gear do you take on a convention shoot and does it differ to a location shoot?

At a convention I need to stay comfortable while having easy access to gear. If it’s a location I know I can’t walk around easily then it needs to be minimal. Weather can also change the situation as I mainly shoot out doors. I’ll carry a 50mm and/or 2470mm lens, body with reflector OR 1 Speedlight and soft box/light stand if I’m familiar with the area and know I can get under cover.

On location, I can afford to be flexible with time and what I can bring.

I stick to my 2 main lens, but I will occasionally swap in an 85mm lens.

2 light stands with soft boxes, or 1 soft box and 1 umbrella. And I especially ALWAYS bring with me: Water, snacks, nail scissors (for loose threads), nail file, tissues or wet wipes, pocket mirror, masking tape, bobby pins, batteries, a small torch and 1 spare plastic/eco bag.

Tell us about your favourite shoot so far.

A Mass Effect with Nathan DeLuca and Rascal Cosplay, with BTS video

by Ken Abbott.

Nathan had flown in from Canada for Sydney Supanova and I’m a huge Bioware games fan.

So we organised to shoot him as Kaidan, Rascal painted her herself up as Jack in the morning and we shot on the eastern beaches of Sydney. Ken generously donated some time to create a cool behind-thescenes and highlight video.

There was a crazy strong winds that day but we had lots of fun in the sun and everything went smoothly! (facebook.com/nathandelucacosplay) (facebook.com/RascalCosplay) (facebook.com/kenazconcepts)

Do you do much processing on your cosplay photos?

Firstly, whether I spend 15 minutes or 2 hours with a subject, I communicate what my intention is with the

Cosplayer: FeistyCuffs | www.facebook.com/FeistyCuffs

Cosplayer: Okashi Photography & Cosplay | www.facebook.com/okashiart

“ wonderfully creative I grew to admire all the

people around me and wanted to make more memories.

- Charmaine Morgan final shot. At a convention I’ll ask if they’re comfortable with me retouching them (usually as this stage you would be showing them one of your photos on your phone or business card), then I’ll let them know I’ll be cleaning up things like hair, skin, and possibly armour/paint. I find this helps them relax a bit and most of all, know if they’re not comfortable with certain retouching, which is important to respect.

I can spend from 20 minutes to 2 hours per photo. In Lightroom, I start with a cull of any duplicates or out of focus photos and apply a batch colour adjustment, this helps me get a feel for the mood of the photos, and then I can start rating them from 1-5.

4-5 rated photos will get more detailed adjustments in colours, contrast, shadows and highlights before taking them into Photoshop where I spend the most time with background and hair clean up, followed by skin, tiding up clothes and smoothing out paint/armour (if I’m allowed).

And lastly, if I know the model I’ll try to forward the final photo to them for their approval before uploading online.

What advice do you have for cosplayers being photographed?

At a convention you can always say “no”, or ask the photographer to wait a moment while you put your things down. If it makes you feel more comfortable, take a moment to check your wig/makeup/clothes.

If you’re not used to being in front of the camera, that’s okay. Have some character references on hand/on your phone. Practice 2 poses in the mirror to get comfortable.

Feel free to ask to see the photos on the back of the camera and grab contact details.

Try to have a good night’s rest, drink lots of water, snack and rest. If you’re feeling too hot/warm/dizzy, don’t push yourself, tell sometime ASAP.

”

At a photoshoot, same rules apply, plus a few small extra courtesies: Communicate with your photographer/team. Try to give as much notice as possible if things are running behind. Have a wet weather plan.

If you can, avoid staying up all night preparing the night before. Personally I would prefer to reschedule knowing you were well rested and stress free on shoot.

Make sure everyone has the same details. IE, date/time/location, WHO is attending and HOW are people getting there.

And remember to have fun!

Finally where can we find out more about you? www.charmaine-morgan.com www.flickr.com/photos/csmorgan

www.facebook.com/charmaine.morgan88

www.instagram.com/fluffyltd www.twitter.com/FluffyLtd

Cosplayers: Busted Jetpack Cosplay, Vespidae Cosplay, Four Dollar Cosplay www.facebook.com/BustedJetpackCosplay, www.facebook.com/vespidaecosplay, www.facebook.com/fourdollarcosplay

Cosplayer: Soylent Cosplay | www.facebook.com/SoylentCosplay

Cosplayers: Milly & Chloe’s Cosplay Closet | www.facebook.com/millyandchloescosplaycloset

Cosplayer: Calibre Cosplay | www.facebook.com/CalibreCosplay

Cosplayers: Samuryan Cosplay | www.facebook.com/Samuryancosplay

Cosplayer: Lucie Bee

Cosplayer: Soylent Cosplay | www.facebook.com/SoylentCosplay

COSPLAY This month our Cosplay Editor, Anny Simms, was fortunate enough to chat to the amazing Cosplayer Variable! Lets take a look at what they got up to...

Hi there Variable, and thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.

While I already know about how fantastic you are, but how about you tell our readers about yourself?

I’m an Australian cosplayer who’s been in the scene for a few years now, having put together over 150 costumes so far. In “muggle life” I work as an artist and special effects make-up artist for video games, theatre, television, and films such as The Great Gatsby. In more recent years I’ve also been afforded the opportunity to travel to events around the world to represent cosplay and special effects make-up as a cosplay ambassador, special guest, panellist, and judge.

Over 150 costumes! That’s amazing - are there any that really stand out to you in your memory?

My first costume was Lara Croft’s jungle suit from the original Tomb Raider, which still holds a special place in my heart, but every costume has different experiences associated with it, which gives it unique value. Sometimes there’s a strong sentimental attachment to the costume from nostalgia or because the character has been a tether for strength during a difficult time. There might be a new skill you learned or a piece that’s technically “good” in particular that you’re proud of. It could have special memories from a time you wore it. Earlier this year I wore Ravager from DC Comics to pay tribute to my “Cosplay Dad”, Justin Costello (aka Justin Acharacter), a fellow “causeplayer” who cosplayed Ravager’s father, Deathstroke, and

VARIABLE INTERVIEW BY ANNY SIMMS

www.facebook.com/variablecosplay tragically passed away late last year, so that costume is particularly dear to me.

So I know you do charity work through your cosplay - would you mind telling us a bit about that?

My introduction to cosplay was through group hospital visits with The Starlight Foundation and The Make-A-Wish Foundation, which completely defined my experience and aspirations as a “causeplayer”.

I strongly follow the mantra “be the change you wish to see in the world”, and knowing that this hobby has the capacity to bring smiles, spark a little bit of fairytale magic in the real world, and help others while doing so is something truly special.

We still visit incredibly brave children and their loved ones, and a few years ago my friends and I began organising themed fund-raiser events and fan-screenings of movies, which are traditions I hope to continue. It’s heart-warming seeing people come together for a good cause, making new friends through mutual interests, and encouraging each other to take a proactive role towards a positive common goal. My cosplay prints also fund-raise for causes close to my heart, but that idea wouldn’t have gained momentum if it wasn’t for the amazing support of my friends and followers. It’s one thing to dress as

a hero, but a very different thing to act like one, and I reckon the “nerd community” has more heroes than any comic franchise.

How would someone wanting to join in and help out in charity work go about that?

It can be a little intimidating leaping in head first, so if you’re not sure where to start or you don’t want to go it alone, it’s worth heading online to check out charity websites and see what they do, and to find groups for your area. Some already have a system in place that you can join, as well as resources for learning and for you to use towards your efforts. Depending on the laws for where you live, you may need to fill in paperwork to be an agent to fund-raise, and children’s hospitals will likely always need documentation with approval.

If you’re not able to contribute financially towards a cause, you might be able to donate your time, or use your social media powers for awareness drives. The sky’s the limit!

I know you have cosplayed all around the world now as a guest and traveller - what were any stark differences you found versus Australian conventions and cosplayers?

Australia’s convention and cosplay communities are - comparitively -

Photographer: Eurobeat Kasumi | www.facebook.com/Eurobeat-Kasumi-Photography-181144498573739

“

Don’t worry about not looking like the cosplayers you look up to, we all started somewhere and we’re all still learning every day, this is just the first step in your

”

incredible journey.

- Variable Cosplay

new and small, with fewer events on the calendar, and each one a social occasion. This makes us a tight knit family where everyone knows everyone and we all attend the same events, so we’re compelled to encourage one another not only as peers but also as friends. This closeness, coupled with our geographic isolation, promotes the exchange of ideas and skills at an extraordinary rate. Overseas convention-goers often remarked on the resourcefulness of Australian cosplayers, improvising with alternate materials, found items, and some creative engineering.

They love to ask us what batty things we’ve used to make our costumes, and when they ask “do you know another Australian cosplayer called...”, the answer is always “yes”.

Our community is still growing, and malleable, and this grants us the opportunity to shape our convention environment into an idyllic one, learning from the experiences of other countries where their culture is more established and harder to resolve. We’re at the forefront of fostering a welcoming, safe space at conventions, and have a strong

dialogue emerging with mainstream Australian cultures for the respect cosplay deserves as an artform, and the respect cosplayers deserve as people, from having cosplay repair stations at events to making sure cosplayers are fairly paid for their work. We’re incredibly fortunate to be able to raise the bar and become a role model for other countries in this way.

With all your experiences in the cosplay world, what advice would you give to cosplayers just starting out?

I’ve written a couple of “beginner cosplay” guides to help out those who are fresh to the scene or still thinking about cosplaying, and let them learn from our experiences (and our mistakes)! Some of things that come up fairly often are that I recommend starting with your favourite characters. It’ll motivate you to finish your costume and do them justice, but more importantly you’ll have a great time embodying a character you love. Don’t worry about not looking like the cosplayers you look up to, we all started somewhere and

we’re all still learning every day, this is just the first step in your incredible journey.

It’s a lot of fun cosplaying with friends, and you’ll inevitably meet new ones. There are many amazing groups online, full of advice and likeminds to help you breathe life into your dreams, and this community is full of people who are more than happy to talk to you about how they made things.

If you’re nervous about cosplaying at conventions, maybe attend a convention out of costume first to experience it that way, or attend different costumed events to get your feet wet. And wear comfortable shoes!

Where can our readers find you outside this interview?

I’m @variablecosplay on most social media, which are linked on my website: www.variablecosplay.com And of course you can find me in person at conventions and other events.

Photographer: Strawdoll

| www.facebook.com/strawdoll

Photographer: Alastair

Photographer: Echoing Artemis

| www.facebook.com/EchoingArtemis

Photographer: Pireze

| www.facebook.com/pirezevisual

CHATTY ANNY: COSPLAY EDITOR

convention report:

sydney oz comic con WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ ferretcosplay

Sydney Oz Comic-Con might have it’s issues regarding overwhelming crowds, strange organisation, ridiculous lines and location (with parking being full before the convention even started each day and having to be redirected to Darling Harbour to catch a free ferry back to the event) it’s efforts regarding cosplay were a delight to behold.

With a set-aside area solely for cosplayers and their associated needs (cutely named ‘Cosplay Central’), Oz Comic-Con pulled out all stops to make sure it’s costumed guests had a good time. As one of the first conventions in Australia to wholeheartedly support the ‘Cosplay is not Consent’ movement, huge signs lined the area reminding people to be respectful of cosplayers as people inside their costumes and to always be on their best, most courteous behaviour around others.

Cosplay Central itself was wonderland - Bethesda-themed background walls were set next to a professional photo booth manned by some of the best in the cosplay photography business, while costumes hand-

made by local cosplayers such as Rose Cosplay, Nutmeg Cosplay and Sare were placed on display for curious minds to investigate. A cosplay change-room and repair station was manned by Captain Patch-It (a local hero whose goal at any con is to simply help others fix their own costumes) meant there was space to relax and regroup if anything went wrong, and a crowd was always lingering inside the space.

Aside from it’s great use of space, Cosplay Central was set up to accommodate some fantastic cosplay guests too with the internationallyrenowned Yaya Han visiting from America to a constant crowd at her booth. Other guests included local cosplayers Eve Beauregard and Variable who both spent time chatting with fans and cosplayers alike and bringing good cheer to the area.

Overall, despite Oz Comic-Con’s flaws, it was a cosplayers dream and was a fantastic event to experience. One con-goer described it to me as “a slice of home right here at the convention”, and I couldn’t agree more.

WRITTEN BY anny sims

Photographer: Decade Three Photography

| www.facebook.com/DecadeThreeArt

sydney oz comic con

Photographer: Decade Three Photography

| www.facebook.com/DecadeThreeArt

“ PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

So you’ve got a cosplay shoot lined up. Cosplayer - set. Costume and Make up - set. Camera and lights… set.

TELL THE

WHOLE STORY

Most times when we’re shooting a cosplayer we might get lost in the moment and excitement of a cool photo shoot that we forget to tell the story. What is the character? What does the costume ad? How about the make up, is this integral to the character? What about props?

In the past I’ve photographed many weddings, some boudoir and also family and events. All of those photo shoots benefited from going deeper and capturing details. Here’s one way of going about it.

Firstly when you’re planning your cosplay shoot, ask the cosplayer about the character they are doing.

Ask about the characters story, the costume and make up and any weapons or props they use. Then make some notes in a note book or on your phone or tablet and take them with you on the day of the shoot.

Let’s say your character is Cloud.

Cloud cosplayers usually have the spikey hair, the sword, the belt and shoulder armour so don’t forget to do some close up shots of those.

Also get Cloud to pose in the way the character would pose. Don’t forget the facial expression as they are perhaps swinging the sword. Ensure they are holding the weapon correctly… not sure how to do that. Get on to Youtube and check out some martial arts videos featuring sword training. Those guys and girls will

be holding the weapon right in most cases.

Consider getting a close up of the hands on the handle of the sword.

Also the shoulder pad/armour might make a good close up.

Perhaps a shot of the hair as the focus as the character is looking downward. That way you get to show off those spikes.

Wedding photographers are brilliant at doing this. They’ll shoot the shoes, rings and flowers separately in the best light with a clean or contextual background. Also they will ensure the dress is hung in such a way that it really shows off the beauty of it.

Do some browsing of amazing wedding photographers like Jerry and Nick Ghionis or Jasmine Star to see how they feature details. Then use those ideas and techniques with your cosplay shoot.

If you’re shooting a female character with amazing shoes or boots - consider getting those as a detail shot.

Weapons and jewellery too make excellent detail shots but watch your background and context. Many photographers will use a fast aperture lens such as 2.8 or faster and zoom in to get a nice bokeh so that only the weapon or jewellery is in focus and the background a soft blur.

So plan your shoot, make notes and create the story and then feature the gallery of the shoot in such a way that it tells the story of the character.

Detail, emotion, context and action.

See you next month!

www.facebook.com/robjenkinsphotography

In this p right exp hoto Suzanne h as res ment he sion and to com the r look, w e’ve addplieffects to ed th e make it lo w ok more eapon and menacin g.

s splayer ldier co this shot o s e s e Th rops, azing p s to tell had am on those prop tory. d the s focuse more of

Soldier photo - focus on the prop - gun… show’s off the weapon but keeps the cosplayer in the scene.

COSPLAY COMPETITION AT BBC DOCTOR WHO FESTIVAL 21 - 22 NOVEMBER 2015 - SYDNEY Details at: www.cosplaylive.com.au

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Any advertising of unclassified films and games must display the CTC message on posters, trailers, on the internet, and any other types of advertising.

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The G classification is suitable for everyone. G products may contain classifiable elements such as language and themes that are very mild in impact.

However, some G-classified films or computer games may contain content that is not of interest to children.

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The impact of PG (Parental Guidance) classified films and computer games should be no higher than mild, but they may contain content that children find confusing or upsetting and may require the guidance of parents and guardians. They may, for example, contain classifiable elements such as language and themes that are mild in impact.

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ORK: Board

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A person may be asked to show proof of their age before hiring or purchasing an MA 15+ film or computer game. Cinema staff may also request that the person show proof of their age before allowing them to watch an MA 15+ film. Children under the age of 15 may not legally watch, buy or hire MA 15+ classified material unless they are in the company of a parent or adult guardian. Children under 15 who go to the cinema to see an MA 15+ film must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian for the duration of the film. The parent or adult guardian must also purchase the movie ticket for the child. The guardian must be an adult exercising parental control over the person under 15 years of age. The guardian needs to be 18 years or older.

Parents and guardians may need to find out more about the film or computer game’s specific content, before deciding whether the material is suitable for their child.

R 18+ - Restricted to 18+.

The content is high in impact.

R 18+ material is restricted to adults. Such material may contain classifiable elements such as sex scenes and drug use that are high in impact. Some material classified R18+ may be offensive to sections of the adult community. A person may be asked for proof of their age before purchasing, hiring or viewing R18+ films and computer games at a retail store or cinema.

There is also an X 18+ for adult films and these titles are only available for sale in the ACT and the Northern Territory.

Sometimes games are refused classification. This can cause gamers to be frustrated, citing that the R18+ classification should take care of adult content. But still some games don’t get classified until the publishers/developers have addressed the concerns of the Classification Board.

CTC

Want to know more? Visit the Australian Classification website - www.classification. gov.au

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