Street Fighter Classic – Volumes 1 and 2 Review

Now one of the things I’ll be doing a bit more often in 2021 is covering some non-Doctor Who comics, thanks to finally being all-but caught up with them (and not planning any more DW comic marathons after the currently-on-going Eighth Doctor DWM one) but I thought as I had a week or so in between some even-rarer book reading, plus I’d just brought the Street Fighter (plus Darkstalkers) comic Humble Bundle, I’d start a look at Udon’s comics based on the classic fighting series. I had to do some research as to which of the several different titled comic series that came in the bundle actually came first, and turns out the “Street Fighter Classic” series! It’s set in between the original Street Fighter series and II, but doesn’t really adapt what little story appeared in the Alpha games set during the same gap. After all that waffling, is it any good? Let’s find out!

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Doctor Who: Flip-Flop Review

I’ll be honest with you, this time last week Flip-Flop wasn’t part of this marathon. It’d been well over a decade since I listened to it last and the fact it takes place on Christmas Eve/Day had completely slipped my mind. Still, a random look at a forum thread on “Doctor Who stories set at Christmas” and here we are! Flip-Flop isn’t actually very Chirstmassy, beyond a few mentions here and there, but it is very cleverly written! So let’s take a look…

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Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious – The Minds of Magnox Review

Time Lord Victorious continues this month, in several different formats, but starts with this one-hour audiobook. Now while I prefer full cast audio drama, I have no issue with a good audiobook, and thankfully Jacob Dudman does a good Tenth Doctor and has a good enough range for the rest of the characters, plus reading the prose. All that being said, is it actually any good? Let’s find out!

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Doctor Who: The One Doctor Review

The One Doctor is a bit of an odd-ball in this Christmas specials look, as it technically doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. It was released in December 2001, but that’s about it… except it’s clearly a light-hearted comedy affair set up to be Big Finish’s “Christmas Panto”. For that reason I feel it deserves to be here on this list, unlike the next year’s release “Bang Bang-a-Boom”, which while more light-hearted felt more like a Star Trek parody than anything Pantomime-y. ANYWAY, so let’s have a look at the first of five audio Christmas offerings in a row!

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Bleach: Soul Society Arc (Episodes 30 – 41) Review

The Soul Society arc kicks into full gear as we get confrontations, battles, murder mysteries and more blood than you can shake a stick at … does that phrase makes sense in that context? … Oh well, whatever! It’s funny watching this back how quickly some events happen one after the other, but it’s still an enjoyable ride. Let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan Episode 7 – The Feast of Steven Review

Kicking off this rundown of Christmas stories I haven’t reviewed already is the very first one (which makes sense as I’ll be putting the reviews up in Doctor order…), though it’s oddly a single episode in the middle of a larger serial. Thankfully it’s also completely standalone, the six episodes before it and the five that air after it make up the real meat of “Daleks’ Master Plan”, this is merely a comedic interlude because the episode happened to end up airing on Christmas Day. Is it still funny, even though it now only exists as a soundtrack and some still photos? Let’s find out!

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Doctor Who: Ghosts Review

Ghosts sees The Doctor and River Song arrive on a planet of ghosts, unsurprisingly. Thankfully unlike the bland title it’s a clever story, more so than most, so now more than ever pay attention to the spoiler warning! Don’t want spoilers? Then just skip to the score to see if it’s worth your time (there are no spoilers in the Overall Thoughts, I should make that more obvious really…) After a great and a good story, does the “Doctor and River Song” set end on an equal high, or a disappointing low? Let’s find out!

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Doctor Who Christmas Catch Up Marathon Starting Tomorrow!

Hi all!

Alongside my regular, roughly 9.10am posts on most weekdays (plus Scrolling Sundays of course!) I’ll be putting up an extra Doctor Who review at 2:30pm between tomorrow and December 23rd. Each story is a Christmas themed story (that I haven’t already reviewed) that will culminate with a “Ranking all the Doctor Who Christmas Stories” list on Christmas Eve (which WILL include the ones I’ve already reviewed, obviously!) In order to not give the game away the reviews will be uploaded in Doctor order, rather than any order of preference! (Also it won’t feature “Spare Parts”, because although there are references to the Mondas version of Christmas, it just… doesn’t fit in my mind as a “Christmas Story”. Also I’m sure there are one-off comics set at Christmas by Titan and IDW, but they don’t end up in the collected GNs I have, so I can’t comment on them!)

For the sake of not over-Who-ing this blog I have put the DWM Eighth Doctor comics/Lost Stories rundown on hold until January, though given the amount of Big Finish releases and Time Lord Victorious stories there are this month a few days with two Doctor Who reviews going up is unavoidable, so sorry if that part of the blog doesn’t appeal!

After all, given how 2020 has gone, who doesn’t want some extra Christmas things? (though being honest I started this last year then ran out of time, so… yeah. Some of these reviews are a year or more old! … of things much older, so makes no difference to anyone but me, but there you go… man this is a rambling bracketed comment… I’ll stop now.)

Akira 4K UHD Anime UK News Review

I had the pleasure of receiving a 4K UHD Blu-Ray of Akira to review for Anime UK News, which you can read HERE. While I do talk about the picture quality more than I normally do for reviews, there is still plenty of talk about the all-time classic there as well. Sadly it soon became known that this release was a bit of a step back compared to other 4K releases, but hey-ho. Thems the breaks!

Die Hard Arcade (Saturn) Review

Behold! Most likely the only Sega Saturn review to go up on this blog! Yes, I own a Saturn, but I brought it at a car boot sale roughly 15 years ago, so a good while after it was still relevant. It was super cheap and had a few games with it, among them were two Saturn exclusives that I always wanted to play: Fighting Vipers and Die Hard Arcade. I remember seeing this game in magazines at the time and being extremely jealous of Saturn owners getting a 3D (!!) beat ‘em up, and with the Die Hard license no less! Was it worth the wait? Erm… sort of? Let’s take a look at the first 3D entry in this marathon!

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