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We are not alone on earth. This statement is one that drives many of the great science fiction stories throughout pop culture involving extraterrestrials. Sometimes these visitors are friendly, just looking for friends and curious about the way human beings interact, but others are hostile, looking to conquer, dominate, or destroy everything on earth. It’s rare to find a story where the alien is neither friendly nor evil, but instead just wants to play a good joke on someone, the way a mischievous young teenager would...

Set in England’s Victorian period, Black Butler is an anime that at first seems to be about a young heir to a very large family fortune, Ceil Phantomhive, and his amazing butler, Sebastian Michaelis; but as the story unfolds what is shown is a much darker story about a queen’s young guard dog and his demonic butler who will one day devour his soul. After his parents are murdered when a fire destroyed their manor, Ceil is left as the heir to an estate and business that seems to be that of a simple, but very successful toy company. Before he is left with the business of his family, he is first captured by a mysterious organization to be tortured, but a month after this he returns to the Phantomhive manor with a black-clad butler...

Art work and design have an interesting way of creating an initial dialog about a game. Often, one finds that the game is nowhere near what was expected, and sometimes it delivers something above and beyond. Recently, I had the opportunity to play Smash Up for the first time with my cousins, age 15 and 13, and Ravenshire manager Grant, age 40-something. I, at age 26, was the one to open to the box for this genre mash up game, and became the one to lead play by reading the rules. This would be a true stress test across very...

Inti Creates’ new game Azure Striker Gunvolt is in many ways a re-imagining of the classic Mega Man, specifically the X and Zero series, franchise, but with a new story, universe, and original characters. This is no coincidence for several reasons. Inti Creates was the studio responsible for the Mega Man Zero series that appeared on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS handheld systems. Also, they are currently working on Mighty No. 9, along with Keiji Inafune’s Comcept studio. Inafune, is the creator of Capcom’s Mega Man (or Rockman in Japan) franchise, as well as being the producer for...

Thankfully, as the video game market grows we get to see some of the stranger Japanese games, that in the past would have been regulated to a Japanese only release or PC adaptations, receive official translations and proper releases stateside. This particular game, Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, is a game that will take many people who are unfamiliar with anime, anime fandom, and especially Tokyo’s Akihabara district, aback. At first glance to these people they may misinterpret the game as being either Akiba Strip, that crazy Japanese game where you have to strip people on the streets of some...