I am Mog Anarchy, and I like to play games. Whether they are old, new, retro, modern, online, offline, console, computer, critically acclaimed or notoriously bad. Here on my blog, I rant about, review, trash talk, praise and generally talk about all of my favourite and least-favourite games. I also write my own guides on how to accomplish tricky tasks, show off my creative endeavors and challenge myself with crazy in-game tasks. I also have a bunch of gaming merchandise which I am glad to show off. So drop me a comment, I love hearing your questions, criticisms, comments and general gaming discussions. :)
Here's something a bit different... While browsing teh interwebz I found some videos about a set of collectible toys in the style of Mexican Jumping Beans - called Mighty Beanz. In the comment section of one of these videos, somebody mentioned that they made a Pokémon themed set. So onto eBay I went - and there I found tons of loose Beanz being sold from £2-£5 each - and a NEW, SEALED pack for £7! Are you shitting me, I thought - and snapped them up within seconds. Since I bought them, I haven't seen another sealed pack on eBay for less than £20... I'm going to have really pissed off some collectors by opening my pack. :) So as you can see, I got a Graveler (common), Beautifly (ultra rare), Kyogre (rare), Blaziken (rare) and Poochyena (common). And here's some photos of the Beanz themselves, a front, top, back and bottom view. From left to right: Graveler, Beautifly, Kyogre, Blaziken, Poochyena.
On Saturday the 11th of June, I went down to the Wycombe 2016 Comic Con with my mate Leigh. Admittedly as we both live in the North - it took us like seven hours to get there... Why does everything good have to be south of Manchester? Anyway - we had MEDIA PASSES - so we got cool guest lanyards and wristbands and could essentially go wherever we liked. They also gave us free tins of Coke, cups of tea and sandwiches. Our job was to take lots of photographs for their official media - a job I quite enjoyed doing - especially asking to take photos of the numerous different cosplayers. Admittedly as this was a comic convention, the majority of the stalls, cosplayers, celebrities signing autographs and props from TV and films were mainly to do with films, comics and TV - primarily Star Wars, Dr Who and Marvel/DC superhero comics. There was however some game stuff I was most interested in - and lots of different cosplayers from Disney movies and general nerdy/geeky tropes like zombies and monsters. It was great that there were tons of children and families there too - especially when you could tell the parents had chosen their costume based on how well it would fit with what their kid had chosen. It was so cool to see little kids going up to adults dressed as Spiderman or Stormtroopers and asking in a starstruck manner if they could ask their mam to get a photo of them together - and all of the cosplayers were great sports, some of them striking poses with their props and weapons. There was a ton of props there from the Dr Who TV series, as well as a replica of the KITT car from Nightrider and Bumblebee from Transformers. Oddly, there were celebrities from British TV shows there too - including Eastenders and Only Fools & Horses - stuff I didn't think would fit in with the general theme of a comic convention, but they went down pretty well. Here's some photos I snapped of some cool video game merchandise people were selling in the trader section. The majority of this stuff is handmade and is awesome - perhaps a tad too pricey, but what do you expect for handmade stuff?
There was also this guy's stall, he was selling tons of retro consoles and games - it was all awesome stuff and looked like it was in good condition, but some of the prices were way too high. Though I suppose he had to justify the cost of renting the space to set up his stall...
Here's something that made me laugh though - remember those fake Chinese Pokémon Legos I reviewed not long ago? Well some dude was selling Lego minifigures for TWO POUNDS EACH - and I noticed THESE on his stall. Hmmmm...
Look at all these fucking Funko Pops. What an absolute waste of fucking plastic. Don't you just want to set fire to them? BURN EM ALL.
And here's a selection of awesome cosplayers, including Jessie and a Blastoise, various Dragon Age characters, a Vault Dweller and a zombie:
And here's my personal favourite cosplayer from the event - this girl pulled off an amazing Esmeralda cosplay - complete with a tambourine!
It's no secret that sometimes the Crash Bandicoot games can present an unfair level of difficulty. Some of the secret areas in the later levels in particular are full of difficult platforming sections, sudden death drops and tons of enemies and Nitro crates - mix that with having to complete sections with no Aku Aku masks or having to do a ton of backtracking - these five gems are in my opinion the hardest ones in the entire game.
While this box gem is tough, I quite enjoy the challenge because I'm a big fan of the polar bear levels. The main issue with polar bear levels is that you can only move in one direction; miss a box? You'll have to kill yourself and respawn. Totally Bear is easily the hardest of the polar bear levels, complete with tons of obstacles, water hazards and jumps that require expert timing. It's also DARK - making it hard to predict what's coming up next. To add insult to injury, Totally Bear is a SECRET LEVEL, so if you screw up the box gem, too bad - you'll have to complete one of the secret warps in order to get back to the warp room.
Every Crash Bandicoot game has a token level with a secret area that requires all of the coloured gems to access - Crash 2’s is level 25, Spaced Out. This consists of area after area of tricky jumps, awkward enemies and lots of instant death pits to fall into. This area combines every single enemy and hazard from the space factory style levels, such as pistons, electric spiders, scientists with shields and more.
This box gem requires both the use of a skull platform and tons of backtracking - backtracking that is made 10 times harder by electrified fences, tons of pits and BEES. There's beehives everywhere and the bees will relentlessly chase you as you try and dodge the pits and time your jumps so you don't get electrocuted. You can make the skull platform section easier for yourself if you run ahead and hit the Nitro destruction box, but that means even more backtracking! You decide, backtracking, or Nitros.
What's more frustrating than having to complete a tough skull platform section then do a ton of backtracking? Backtracking through a skull platform section that is made up entirely of ICE. Ice, pits, crushing tree stumps and tons of Nitro crates. In order to get the box gem in this level, you need to make it all the way to the end of this section, hit an awkwardly placed exclamation box and then slide all the way back to the main level, avoiding all of the poxy Nitros. This level also features the most easily missed box in the whole game. This box in the bonus stage caused me so much grief as a kid, I can tell you. There's nothing more annoying than being told you missed ONE box.
This is the one gem in the entire game that caused me the most grief. For starters, this box gem involves both a skull platform and backtracking - a theme you may have previously noticed. However - on your first attempt at this gem, you'll likely screw it up. If you take the skull platform FIRST, you'll reach a end of level warp and won't be able to go back to clear the rest of the boxes, including the bonus stage. What you need to do is essentially play the level as normal, right to the end - then TURN AROUND and go back to the skull platform. What makes this so difficult are hard to time slide jumps, pistons that squash you and those god damn laser beams that shrink you. By far the most frustrating box gem in the game.
It's time for my seventh monthly Arcade Block! As I've previously explained; for a fee of $20 CANADIAN per month, Arcade Block will send you a lovely box of gaming merchandise, including a T-shirt. Shipping costs vary, depending on where you live, and larger T-shirt sizes cost a few $ extra - overall, my boxes including shipping, work out at about £24. This one was shipped on the 25th of April and arrived on the 6th of June. I'd received an e-mail about Nerd Block struggling with getting blocks shipped on time and that they have a backlog, but I seem to be getting them in a reasonable timeframe.
Guess what I've got to unbox this time? :) I believe it was around August 2015 that these toys were in McDonald's in the UK - I wanted to go to my local one and order 8 Happy Meals, a mix and match of hamburgers and chicken nuggets - ask if I could have one of each toy - then have a banquet with Shelly and Ash. But sadly it wasn't meant to be. Instead I found a complete set of the toys on eBay for a fraction of what the actual Happy Meals would have cost - and I didn't have to consume a vast amount of calories in the process. So as part of this set, we had a Yoshi, a Luigi, a Princess Peach and four different Mario toys. There was also a Mario hat style visor which I stupidly forgot to include in my unboxing video. D'oh. Regardless, I had a lot of fun unboxing this set of toys and having a play around with them: Here's some pictures of the Happy Meal box:
