January 30, 2012

A Wealth of New Korra Footage!

The floodgates have opened! Watch as Korra battles thugs, metalbending police, firebenders, and has a heartfelt conversation with (HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOLIARZ!) Katara.

January 26, 2012

Halo: Helljumper is here!

Remember that fan-made Halo miniseries I mentioned earlier? The first episode was released today. It's pretty good! Not the best fan film I've ever seen, but definitely not the worst. Check it out:

January 25, 2012

Slightly New Things

As you can clearly see (unless you're bling... but then what are you doing on the internet?) I've created a well-deserved custom font for I04. Also changed the font for the post headers. Also, new stuff should be posted soon. I'm pretty busy, but I think it's lame when people say "YES, I WILL DO THIS THING" and then it never happens and you never find out why. While my mind's on it, The Daily Awesome... it turns out that's a bit more a hassle than I thought. I might just go back to the whole posting interesting tidbits to FB and G+ which you can find in the sidebar thing. That post I did a while ago about what I'm posting soon? Turns out that by soon I meant probably within the next six months. Of course as I go along, that might turn out to be an outline for most of 2012. You can scratch the 3DS review off that, obviously, as well as the Tower of Heaven thing. You can access "life in teh real world" (a secondary blog) from the menu up top now. I update that when I remember. Next on the agenda is a preview for Kingdoms of Amalur, followed by the BOOTYs. I promise to have that done before the month is over and it becomes irrelevant. I've got a pice on Gurren Lagann planned for soon, too, while it's still fresh in my mind. Other things will come when they come. I'm just letting everyone know because I believe in transparency.

January 12, 2012

The NEW new review policy

I've been doing some thinking, as often tend to do, and I have finally come to a conclusion: Installation 04 will no longer be reviewing games. Well, not in the traditional sense. I've decided to scrap our new review system completely, optioning instead for a new system that's not really a system at all. Our new "reviews" aim to answer one question: "Worth playing?" What will result is a review that focuses more on the important aspect of how the parts of the game work together as a whole. Is the game a fun and engaging experience? As I said before, readers often skip right to the end, so the answer to that all important question comes right at the start. Within the first paragraph, you will know if the game is worth playing, and you can read on for a more detailed look as to why if you wish. There are no sections. There are no colors. Just a straight discussion of how the game may or may not work. The idea actually came from what I was doing before with reviewing shows, a thing I called "worth watching".  We hope you find it... refreshing.

Review: Tower of Heaven

The GameBoy graphics are simple, yet strangely effective.

How did I miss Tower of Heaven when it came out two years ago? How did I miss it again when it was ported to flash with extra content last year? I may be late to the party, but this party is so damn good that I don't care. A lot of us here missed this gem, so the logical conclusion is that it flew under many a radar. Well, I'm here to introduce you. This is Tower of Heaven, and he is a work of art.

Nintendo 3DS: Worth Buying?

The Nintendo 3DS: the point of a lot of discussion and controversy this last year. It had a rocky start and some thought it would never make it. The terrible launch lineup, no eShop, and $250 price made it a tough sell in early 2011. Then came word that this year would bring Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Star Fox and Kid Icarus along with the launch of the eShop. Unfortunately, two of those were remakes, two more wouldn't be out until the year's end, and Kid Icarus would be pushed to a release almost a year after the system's launch. The eShop didn't have much going for it early on either, with no original games and only Super Mario Land worth buying. No one expected what would happen next. The surprise $80 price cut was like cutting the weight off a balloon. Sales jumped 260% and by the end of the year and the system ended up selling over 4 million units in the US alone in 2011. Nintendo didn't stop there with the craziness. They threw in 20 free games for early adopters, and soon announced the circle pad pro which adds a second c-pad. It's been one crazy first year for the machine.

If you didn't pick one up at launch, after the price cut, or for the holidays, you may be asking yourself if it's worth getting considering the PSVita is right around the corner (though it's having similar launch troubles in Japan). Read on to (hopefully) reach a verdict.

January 6, 2012

Korra media for reals!

As expected, Viacom is having any leaked clips from The Legend of Korra removed. As such, the links I had in the previous post don't lead anywhere. But fear not! I've uploaded the videos myself now and you can watch them below!

Opening (mirrored b/c of copyright–only one I could find):

Clip:

January 5, 2012

You should probably play Super Kid Icarus before it's gone

Someone went and remade the original Kid Icarus as a 16 bit game and it's kind of awesome. I'd play it soon, too, because Nintendo will probably catch on soon and have this shut down.

January 3, 2012

Introducing "The Daily Awesome"

Remember that thing I mentioned in the post below? That new thing I called "The Weekly Awesome"? Well I decided to make it daily. What is it, you ask? It's a collection of all sorts of awesome stuff from the web and our own site aggregated in one place. You can find it easily a number of different ways: on our Facebook page by clicking the "Paper.li" link in the sidebar, on the bottom of the site, the menu botton on the top of the site, or by clicking this link.

January 2, 2012

New Legend of Korra media leaked!


*EDIT* See this post for videos.

Watch 'em quick before they're gone! First, we've got the show's opening sequence. It doesn't really explain anything we don't already know, but it's noteworthy for a few reasons. First, unless I'm mistaken, the four benders shown in the beginning are Kyoshi, Roku, Aang, and Korra. More importantly, it's narrated by Tenzin (Aang's son) who is voiced by J.K. Simmons. When I heard he would be voicing Tenzin, I was worried that I'd never be able to unhear Cave Johnson. This intro, however, proves what a versatile voice actor he is. You have to really listen to pick up that it's him. I think the voice is just perfect.

But the real treat is this sneak preview clip that reveals a little something special. Lets just say not everyone from the original series is dead yet.

January 1, 2012

Next time on Installation 04 Z...

So, 2012 then. Lots to do. Installation 04 is back. And I mean back. There are plenty of great original features coming up including:

NeoToonami is on track for awesome

This is probably the best first post of the year I could have hoped for. I hopped on Twitter after the New Year's festivities settled down to find a new teaser for NeoToonami. You might remember they put out their "Big Preview Pt. 1" about six months ago. Since then, the team said they were working on a massive CGI overhaul to get everything looking amazing for the premier. It was originally set for 2011, thought that obviously didn't turn out. The stream will premier in 2012 now, but from the looks of this new teaser it will absolutely be worth the wait. They were seriously not kidding about the overhaul stuff. It now honestly looks like something Cartoon Network would put out on their own and it gives me that warm fuzzy feeling that things will pick up right where they left off (when Toonami was still awesome). So enough talk, check it out:

Welcome to 2012...