The Best of the Best VIII

The weirdest (and greatest) anime ever made. This list is full of the odd, the short and sweet, the magnificent, and the darkly prophetic. However they might differ, they have one single thing in common, they are great anime (in no particular order):

The Best of the Best VII

Here lies the broken dreams, the forgotten promises, the disappeared but not unloved. Here are the children of entertainment, television, video games, and movies that nearly saw success but were cut down before their time. In the words of the immortal John Keats, ‘Here lies one whose name was writ on water’:

The Best of the Best VI

What is a great movie without a great villain, a good movie? With apologies to the heroes of the story, no great movie can withstand the absence of a great villain. Without further ado, the greatest villains in modern movies (in no particular order):

The Best of the Best V

This isn’t your parents Saturday morning cartoons. Japan might not have the best television shows but in one area of entertainment they have no peers. Japanese anime is now more popular than ever, but finding the diamonds among such a huge library of material can be daunting. This list isn’t every single great anime and as befitting my gender is slightly skewed toward action. However, not a single anime on this list won’t leave you wanting more and isn’t that the best compliment?

The Best of the Best IV [Modern Movies]

The best romances in modern movies. Yes romances and not romantic, I loathe most romantic movies; blissfully ignorant of reality. You ever notice how most romance movies never tell anything about the happily ever after; it’s just assumed? Life is the afterwards and yet somehow they always manage to ignore it. I just finished Halo 4; the Master Chief and Cortana. One a genetically modified human who is seeing for the first time cracks in what defines him as the other an artificial intelligence is faced with an all too human mortality. Halo 4 dared to say that War had welded Cortana and The Chief into something even they couldn’t fully understand, something that they knew had meaning beyond all hope. For Cortana, the best romances in modern movies.

The Best of the Best III

The Most Visually Impressive Movies ever made, the awesome, the awe-inspiring (in no particular order):

The War of the Dragon VI

I finally took a character past level thirty today. I’ve had a bad case of alt-itice and I’ve managed to level three or four different classes to level thirty or thereabout. As such I’ve managed to make sure I’ve delved quite a bit into each different crafting profession and about half the classes. Here then are my tips for playing Guild Wars 2:

The War of the Dragon IV

So I lied. Well maybe not lied as much as I spoke too soon. I still haven’t picked my main character yet. Guild Wars 2 gives you five character slots for free with each new slot costing you ten dollars. Since the game is free after initial sale and the slots are more than enough for most people, its fair. I like making new characters though. I probably deleted a hundred hours of playtime in three or four months of playing The Old Republic simply because I would delete characters. There’s something that’s so bright and shiny about making new characters, as if all the mistakes that you’ve made can be learned from and made better. It likely says something about me but at the end of the day, all that matters is that it takes me a while to find my rhythm with a new game.

The War of the Dragon II

There is something completely cathartic about my memories of Final Fantasy XI. It’s not that I have rose colored glasses about that wonderful, frustrating game. I remember the highs and the lows. I remember reading James Mielke's blog post about the game. It filled me with such wonder and awe that somebody could love and invest themselves into an MMO like that. Final Fantasy XI was a great game and an experience I am not likely to ever see again. The industry has largely moved away from the grinding, party heavy MMOs of yesteryears and that’s a good thing, still it leaves me with some melancholy. Those days of sitting in an XP spot grinding out levels with a good party, shooting the breeze about nothing in particular are over. Guild Wars 2 has been a fresh breeze of delight in recent days. I’ve often been helped by and helped a passerby kill a boss or revive themselves; good deeds are not only customary, they are rewarded in Guild Wars 2.

The Best of the Best II

The best cult favorites, the shows that never were; the best television shows to ever grace your television that no one ever watched (in no particular order):

The Best of the Best I

Best TV Shows Since the Turn of the Century

(in no particular order)