Author: Trafficblast

F1 2018 Review

Over the past few years, Codemasters has quietly shaped its F1 franchise into one of the most superb sports series on the market. Today’s F1 games fuse a deep and rewarding racing experience with the same kind of supplemental reverence to a real-life sport that you get from the likes of FIFA, NBA 2K, or any other licensed bat-or-ball sweatfest. F1 2018 is easily the studio’s best effort yet, despite its increasingly stale look.

Aside from seeing Liberty Media’s divisive new F1 logo wedged into as many places as possible (and all the titanium thongs bolted to the current season’s cars) you could definitely be forgiven for not spotting a huge number of immediate differences between F1 2018 and F1 2017. With no real changes to the UI it feels like slipping into yesterday’s pants: familiarity and ease at the cost of freshness.

Continue reading…

An Ode to the Late, Great Anime Auteur Satoshi Kon

Satoshi Kon, who passed away from pancreatic cancer at 46 on 24th August, 2010, was, to me, the boldest and most distinctive creator of Japanese animation. I was only introduced to his work a few years ago but the more I revisit them, the more his unique storytelling and animation stands out in my collection. During his decade long filmmaking career, the late anime director made some of the most viscerally animated films in the horror, romance, comedy and science fiction genres. His films blend dream and reality while providing a harsh social commentary on Japanese society, our imagination and creativity. With that in mind, here is a tribute to his legacy.

Kon began his career as a young manga artist competing in a Shonen weekly magazine competition. Shortly afterwards, he was taken under the wing of Mamoru Oshii as an animation artist for Roujin Z, collaborating with the Ghost in the Shell director on their co-created manga Seraphim 266, 613, 336 Wings. In 1995, he made his directorial debut when Akira director and idol of Kon’s, Katsuhiro Otomo, requested him to direct one of three short films featured in Otomo’s Memories anthology, Magnetic Rose.

Continue reading…

Black Panther: Marvel’s Campaigning for Best Pic, Not Popular Film

The Academy’s recently announced Best Popular Film Oscar category reportedly won’t change Marvel Studios and Disney’s plan to campaign for Black Panther to be nominated as Best Picture.

Marvel has already begun the groundwork for a Black Panther Best Picture campaign, including hiring a veteran Oscar strategist and putting a “significant” awards season budget behind it — something, as The Los Angeles Times points out, Marvel had never done before.

Marvel’s strategy for getting Oscar voters to consider Black Panther for Best Picture includes leaning into the movie’s “creative accomplishments and the global impact it made,” according to the Times. In other words, Marvel’s Oscar campaign will play up the personal nature of director Ryan Coogler’s accomplishment and what the film has meant to so many around the world, particularly to underrepresented artists and audiences of color. Black Panther was not only a huge box office hit, it was also a film that mattered deeply to both the industry and to filmgoers. Marvel aims to remind Oscar voters of all that.

Continue reading…

Little Dragons Cafe Review

I’ve been up until 5 a.m. for three nights in a row, trapped in a loop of fishing for eels, exploring the forest, and feeding my (hopefully) harmless dragon heaps of food in an effort to turn him blue. This is all, ostensibly, in the interest of running a café and saving my mother. The details are hazy. But even when the controls get in the way and the repetition sets in, I’m still enjoying my time as a lost boy.

If it sounds a bit like a weird-world farming sim, that’s because it is. Little Dragons Cafe is helmed by Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, and Little King’s Story. Like its addicting siblings, it’s all about the simple but rewarding tasks of gathering ingredients, building relationships, and earning money. But Little Dragons Cafe is its own beast, with pleasing storybook graphics, a much slower pace, dozens of hours of gameplay, and much, much lower stakes. In fact, it may be the only game of its type where there’s no money at all. Just better ingredients, baby.

Continue reading…