Pokemon | Pokemon Black & White Sells 2 Million Copies in the First 2 Days

Seriously, was there ever any doubt?

Pokemon Black & White, the newest generation of games in the long-running Pokemon game series, were launched last week in Japan. The games already topped a million pre-orders and were awarded perfect scores by Famitsu, which probably drove millions of Pokemon fans crazy enough to grab every single copy during the first two days of release--about 2,558,000 copies of them, in fact.

The 3 new starters greet the audience during
the Pokemon Black & White Tour held last August in Japan

According to Japanese industry reports, Pokemon Black sold a little bit higher than Pokemon White, but together both copies set new records for highest DS game sales in one week, and highest first week sales ever for a Pokemon game.

The games were also responsible for surges in DS hardware sales for the week. The DSi was at the #1 spot, selling 3 times as much as last week. In #2 was the DSi LL, with almost twice the amount sold as compared to the previous week. Hell, even sales figures were up for the good old reliable DSLite, even beating the sales for Xbox360 units. And here I thought that every single Japanese person already had at least 1 DS by now...looks like I was wrong; they probably have 3 DS units each by now, LOL.

While I'm happy for the state of the franchise, I'm not too keen on the new games; I've seen most of the new Pokemon, and boy, are they ugly--it's like they were designed by retarded kids who used a dart board to decide where the body parts should go. This 5th Generation should rightly be called Generation Ugly because of the sheer number of fugly Pokemon. Watch out, Mario and friends--the uglies will beat your record yet.

LEGO | Build Anything

As a kid I had several LEGO sets, and they were (still are, actually) one of my favorite toys ever. Those little plastic bricks never cease to amaze me, as you could create and build anything with them, and only be limited to your imagination.


And "Build Anything" is the theme of this short video advert made by Temujin Doran. The London-based illustrator and filmmaker used LEGO pieces from the old sets that he and his brother used to play with, and cleverly superimposed them on everyday scenes.

The result is a video that's just awesome in its simplicity, yet perfectly captures the concept of building anything with LEGO. For his efforts, Temujin won 3rd Prize in the Cannes Lions Film Festival advert competition last June 2010, and it's a well-deserved honor. Build anything indeed.

Gizmos | Dual-toned PSPs

At the recent Tokyo Game Show in Japan, Sony announced new colors for their PSP-3000 models, also known as the PSP Brites. Two of the new color schemes are dual-toned, which uses two different colors for the front and back panels, as well as the buttons. There's a White/Blue version, and a Black/Red version.


The third color is called Blossom Pink, which is a light, pastel shade of pink that will appeal to girl gamers. The Blossom Pink version isn't really that new though--it was released in a Limited Edition bundle back in March 2010 as part of a tie-up with fashion designer Jill Stuart.


The dual-toned ones look rather nice, particularly the Black/Red one, which give the PSP a rather distinctive look. These new colors will be out in Japan only on November 18, 2010.

Film | Resident Evil: Afterlife

I've been a fan of the Resident Evil games ever since I played the very first RE game on the PlayStation more than a decade ago. However, my enthusiasm for the games is quite the opposite for the movies.

The Resident Evil movies have all so far been meh, featuring soulless versions of familiar characters in the games. Maybe it's because the films focus too much on the lead character named Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, who doesn't even appear in the games. Alice is essentially a superpowered, unstoppable character in the movies, which renders every other character in the movies lame as compared to her.

In Resident Evil: Afterlife, it's pretty much the same as the other RE movies: humans escape zombies, Alice helps them, humans mostly die, Alice survives. This time around, we get prominent game character Chris Redfield making his first appearance in the movies, along with his sister Claire, who returns from the previous movie. And as always, they're pretty much relegated to the background while Alice saves the day most of the time.

I have to admit though, of all the 4 RE movies, this one seems to be the best of the lot, with faster pacing and rather inventive action sequences. And they've managed to incorporate many elements of the recent Resident Evil 5 game, which included the Majini Executioner, Majini dogs, Majini zombies, Albert Wesker's fighting moves, and even an enslaved Jill Valentine.

Resident Evil: Afterlife was filmed in 3D, and while the use of 3D enhanced the viewing experience, I thought that it wasn't really necessary. There's a hint of yet another sequel, so maybe they'll get it right next time...maybe.

Music | Smoke City - Undercover Love

Smoke City was a band that came out in the late 90's, and they shot to fame when one of their songs, Underwater Love, was used in a Levi's commercial. That commercial never aired here, and the song never became a hit here, but Underwater Love caught my eye when I saw the video on MTV.


I liked the song the first time I heard it, and I thought they were a South American band because they had the smooth, sultry Latin sound with hints of samba beats. I was dead wrong, and was totally surprised to find out that they were a British band. Their music mostly blended trip hop and acid jazz with Brazilian rhythms, aided by lead singer Nina Miranda's hypnotic vocals.

The music video for Underwater Love is surreal, employing tricks like reverse motion and Matrix-like bullet-time photography, which really fit the music well. Smoke City disbanded in 2002, which is a crying shame, but this gem will remain as their legacy.

Gizmos | iPod Nano 2010

Apple held its annual September music event recently and as is customary, unveiled new models of their hardware. I'm still meh about their iPod Touch, but I was completely taken by surprise with their new Nano.


The new iPod Nano is a lot smaller, and the familiar click wheel in previous versions is gone, replaced by a Multi-Touch display running a modified iOS. With a much smaller screen, only one album cover can be shown, but I really like how it fills up the entire screen.The display is switchable from white on black to black on white, and best of all, the battery can last up to 24 hours this time before recharging.


There's a sturdy clip at the back, and it comes in 7 colors (the dark gray looks cool). There's also a built-in FM radio, pedometer, and clock--which opens up a lot of possibilities, since its small form factor means you can clip it anywhere, and can do away with wearing a watch entirely, LOL.

Purists will probably moan about the loss of the camera and video capability, but why on earth would you want to take photos and watch videos on this tiny thing? The pricepoint for its 8GB and 16GB models isn't really that expensive, but as always, Apple products tend to be way, way overpriced when they arrive here. At any rate, this bears further watching, as I might just get one, heh.