I went with my partner to see Pacific Rim this week on our usual Orange Wednesday 241 deal, which makes the whole cost of going out to see a movie far more palatable. Went to a 2D showing, because I'm not all that impressed with most 3D, Avatar excepted, and the show timing was better for us.
This is not going to be a review as such. I thought Pacific Rim was the best B movie I have seen this year. I was rooting for the heroes, cheering them on and loved every minute of it. However, this paean to the Japanese giant robo monster genre by Guillermo del Toro while visually stunning and hitting all the right notes and tropes left me feeling a bit hollow.
This is mostly down to the fact that my first love is real robo shows like Gundam Universal Century, Fang of the Sun Dougram and VOTOMS, where this is more emphasis on the pilots. Even so Pacific Rim rocked my boat and like most anime fans I had fun spotting the shout outs.
As for playing games I might look at the HeroClix models that have just been released, but of course one could always adapt Monsterpocalypse CMG, or The Creature That Ate Sheboygan for playing games monster munching robo mayhem.
I can recommend 'Giant Monster Rampage' which allows for both monsters and robots and will adapt to any old figures you have around. Ganesha Games have 'Mighty Monsters', based on the 'Songs of Blades and Heroes' system, but I have less experience of that. Both are fairly cheap to buy as pdf downloads.
ReplyDeleteThere's an interesting piece about the biology of these creatures, err robots, here http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2013/07/25/tet-zoo-guide-to-pacific-rim/ It is written by a zoologist so it has an angle.
ReplyDeleteGreat link and it has given me a lot to think about, and by extension inspire things in my writing.
DeleteAnd just in case anyone thinks that my hollow feeling I had meant anything bad, I would like to add that it should be taken as I wanted more, rather than I didn't like what I saw.
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