The 2017 New York Toy Fair took place last weekend, and as usual, there were a ton of awesome looking products on display. Like most of you, I wasn't able to make the trip, but that doesn't stop me from going over all the awesome reveals and drooling over them. Let's run down some of the awesome shall we?
Marvel Legends Gets Obscure
Ex Nihilo is getting a Marvel Legends figure. I guess he's a recent Avenger (joined in 2011), but still...that's an odd choice.
DEATH'S HEAD!
Not the first figure of him, but easily the best and still one that will have 99% of the public going "Who?"
Captain Universe Spider-Man.
If you haven't read it, check out the Acts of Vengeance event on Marvel Unlimited to see cosmic Spider-Man throw down with Gravitron and Magneto.
A reminder about the Justice League movie
Movie version of Cyborg!
Khal Drogo lives!
Sure, this Wonder Woman is from her upcoming movie, but if not for her, would anyone have high hopes for the Justice League movie?
Speaking of Superman...
Have you not seen The Iron Giant? Go watch it.
LOBSTER JOHNSON ACTION FIGURE!
Truly we live in the Golden Age of Nerds.
I should play The Witcher 3
I've played the first one in the series!
LINK!
And now the show stopper...
....the main event....
....the one item everyone knew was coming...
There's a lot of cool things that were shown at the Toy Fair, and if you want a good look at pretty much everything, head on over to Toyark.com as they have an incredible round-up that has you covered, no matter your fandom.
In honor of Crash Bandicoot making a return later this year with remasters on the Playstation 4, I thought I'd take a look back at other platformer games that had some WILD and ZANY characters that were no doubt the result of the same focus group testing that gave us Poochie. As we go through, you'll notice that most of these games are actually pretty good just suffer from a complete failure to stand out from the crowd.
10) Aero the Acro-bat - SNES/Genesis
Released in 1993, Aero the Acro-bat was one of the many anthropomorphic mascots that followed the wake of Sonic's success. Despite what you may think, Aero was actually pretty cool! No really! He's a bat, that works as an acrobat! How is that not awesome!?
It helped the the plot was simple (save the circus), the levels were absolutely massive and well-designed, taking full advantage of tight platforming controls. Aero has some success with a sequel and a spin-off (Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel). These days, Aero is available on the Virtual Console but is otherwise forgotten in the dustbin of 90's platformers.
9) Pandemonium - Playstation 1
Pandemonium was a cool platformer with a strange, Medieval dream-world type of aesthetic to it that also gained good marks from critics of the time for the top-notch character design of the two leads. In fact, the game was a bit of a hit and warranted a sequel that resulted in....
.....a 90's makeover!
The whole sequel suffered from a horrible case of "Trying-to-hard-itis". Which is a shame, as the first game is really good and worth your time to hunt down for a snapshot of platforming at the dawn of the CD era.
8) Chuck Rock - Genesis
EXTREEEEME CAAAAVVVEEEEMANNNN!!!!!
If you remembered Chuck Rock, and the sequel, Chuck Rock 2: Son of Chuck before reading this, then congratulations, you've made the same sort of poor life choices as I have. Chuck Rock is a perfectly competent platformer that features dinosaurs offering their assistance to Chuck as he rescues his girl from evil caveman Gary Gritter. While you can't tell from this cover art, Chuck Rock was a rock'n'roll caveman with ATTITUDE. So much attitude, that he actually became a company mascot!
What company? Well maybe you've heard of Core Design. No? Well then I'm sure you heard of the mascot that replaced Chuck, a British character by the name of Lara Croft.
7) Radical Rex - SNES
What better way to follow up a caveman with attitude, then with a DINOSAUR THAT LOVES TO SHRED!? Can you feel the focus group testing that resulted in Radical Rex? Are you snickering a little that this was published by Activision? Yeah, they made some poor choices in life before Call of Duty helped make them a very, very rich company.
As with most video game dinosaurs, Rex can not only shred but he also breathes fire. I'm okay with a skateboarding, radical T-Rex but breathing fire? That is just too far. I question the level of research that went into designing this game.
As always, for the rest of the list, hit the jump and make sure to bust out a 720 while you do it!
Last week after the Daily Ten of Awesome Video Game Openings went up, I immediately got comments from readers that I missed some great ones. Which is true, there's so many awesome things out in the world that it's impossible to capture them all in just one list. Presented here is the Reader's Choices for Awesome Openings, in no set order:
10) Soul Edge - Playstation 1
9) Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 - Playstation 1
A cinematic opening is something of a lost art these days. I'm not talking about the actual opening segment of a game, in which case The Saboteur is one of the best, but rather the movie that plays when you first insert a disc, leave the main menu on the screen for awhile, or first press the 'play' button. Usually these are done in an anime style with some sort of J-Pop music playing over scenes that either have nothing to do with the game or involve characters wistfully looking into the middle distance.
I'm a complete sucker for these. If I missed any good ones, just let me know in the comments, and I'll definitely check it out.
10) Lunar Silver Star Story Complete - PlayStation
First off, how may times can they repackage Lunar Silver Star Story? Sega CD, Playstation, iOS, Gameboy Advance, probably some other formats I'm missing. I'd be more accepting of the re-releases if Lunar Eternal Blue needed more then just the two releases. Regardless, the opening for Lunar Silver Star Story is exactly what I'm talking about with the lost art of the opening cinematic.
Random shots of characters in the game? Check.
Possibly poorly translated J-Pop song? Check.
Wistful stares into the middle distance? Check.
Does it get you PUMPED UP TO PLAY THE GAME!? CHECK~!
9) Chrono Cross - PlayStation
The PlayStation was clearly the Golden Age of the opening cinematic. Witness Chrono Cross, a game best known for "not being Chrono Trigger", and the GLORIOUS intro. Starts off gentle with text that hints at some large, epic destiny and then launches into the anime! CG-style, as that was the style of the time, but it's still anime!
Random shots of characters in the game? Check.
Possibly poorly translated J-Pop song? Check.
Wistful stares into the middle distance? Check.
Does it get you PUMPED UP TO PLAY THE GAME!? Sort of.
It did remind me of the not-Harley Quinn jester though, so that's something.
8) Ninja Gaiden 3 - NES
The worst of the original Ninja Gaiden trilogy is still a really good game. The original was actually the first use of a cinematic opening, but it was the third entry in the series that pushed the envelope. Irene Lew, your intrepid sidekick in the previous two games, is killed by someone that looks exactly like Dead or Alive combatant, Ryu Hayabusa.
Random shots of characters in the game? Nope, clearly setting up story.
Possbily poorly translated J-Pop song? Nope, just some killer MIDI tunes.
Wistful stares into the middle distance? Check.
Does it get you PUMPED UP TO PLAY THE GAME!? Only if you scream "MENDOZA!" at the sight of Irene falling off of the cliff.
Yesterday I managed to stay positive with games that turned out to be much better then I had expected, well, today is the opposite: Games That Turned Out To Be Disappointing. There's some games that for one reason or another, get built up and turn out to be either not exactly what we expected or just a complete flaming turd.
For the sake of argument, I'm sticking to games from previous generations, and I also never played No Man's Sky.
Sometimes a game can surprise us. Back in Ye Olden Times, every Friday my parents would take my brother and I to the local gaming store to rent one game each. Now, when you're 8, this is the single most important decision of your week. What if you pick up a crappy game!? You're stuck with it until the next magical weekend when you can pick up something else.
For every time you grab Spider-Man and X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, which is a horrible game that will be covered later, you get a game that defies all expectations. For the inaugural Top Ten list here on Positive Nerdery, we're going upbeat by running down my personal Top Ten Games That Turned Out To Actually Be Good!
