Metal Gear Flexible...
So I’ve been playing with this package called SketchUP quite a bit. Think I’ve pretty much got the hang of it so I thought I’d try a ‘real-world’ test. Decided to build the first section from ‘Metal Gear Solid’. Now this is from memory and I didn’t use any measurement (so it’s sketched basically) but I think it give you some idea of how it can be used for pre-vis and design mock-ups. And to think we used to use graph paper...
Oh yeah – build time was 10 minutes at the most.
Nic.
Fargo...
So a little snow hits the UK and everything shuts down. Stupid me was out in Watford when about 2 inches of snow just fell out of the sky. Like everyone else I decided it’d be a good thing to try and get home before it got any worse. Took me four hours to do a thirty-minute journey. Joy!
My GF and I watched ‘Battle Royale II’ last night. I love the first movie (so does she). One of my fav films of all time (and one of hers). I’d heard the second one was not as good – but nothing could prepare me for just how awful this movie is.
Okay – so the first movie needed a little leap of faith with regards to the premise, but it was so well executed that any reservations dissipate. Unfortunately the second movie is so ridiculously stupid that no amount of love for the first movie could help you get through it.
Basically the hero from the first movie is now an international terrorist (for some reason) who, along with his trusty band of rebels, has taken over a small island off of Japan. He vows to kill any adult that comes after him. So – the ‘government’ decided to send in a load of high school students.
Now, the ‘government’ want this guy dead – so why them do they add the ‘rule’ that if your partner is killed (the kids are grouped into twos) then your neck collar explodes.
Anyway – after the kids reach the island, and we’re treated to a poor-mans ‘Saving Private Ryan’ moment, things get worse. The story then flip-flops between dull ‘action’ sequences where a bunch of people who are pretty much all dressed the same are shooting at each other, to overly long sequences of melodrama.
I cared for the kids in the first movie. I couldn’t have cared less for the kids in this movie. It seems to want to say something about global terrorism, 9/11, and America’s history of bombing countries over the last 60 years. If there was an even halfway coherent message threaded into the movie – it was totally lost on me.
So, if you loved ‘Battle Royale’ – do yourself a favour and never let this movie cross your vision. Hey – the last 20 minutes might have been excellent, but I couldn’t be bothered to finish the movie. I ended up watching ‘I’m a Celebrity – get me out of here!’ instead. Hmmmm. Now adding ‘Battle Royale’ elements to that. I think I’m on to something...
Nic.
Has it really been a week...
No update for a while cos not a lot has been happening (that I can talk about at least). I did check out the Korean movie ‘Natural City’.
Very, very ‘Blade Runner’. On the plus side – it’s looks great and has some nice ideas. It’s directed well and moves at a pace. The gal who plays the prostitute is really good and she looks like she just stepped out of a Final Fantasy game. On the minus side, the lead ‘hero’ is a hateful character that I couldn’t get close to. Also the last act makes no sense whatsoever. Couldn’t really get a grip on anybodies motivation for what they ended up doing. Hmmmm, maybe it worked better in Korean.
Been playing with a package called ‘SketchUP’, and kinda fun it is too. It’s ‘Nendo’ for architects (if that makes any sense). Really easy and intuitive to get results from – but I did find myself cursing the package when I simply wanted to move some points in the Y axis. Really useful for knocking out level idea, but I’m not sure it’s ultimately that much quicker, or practical than Worldcraft and UnrealED. In fact I’d probably say do a quick tutorial in Maya and be done with it.
Got a copy of ‘Battle Royale 2’ to take a look at later. I don’t have high hopes. Loved the first movie. Got a feeling this is not going to be a patch on the original.
Nic.
"Spit on it for a minute will ya"...
Think I’m going to have to buy one of them flashy graphics cards things for the PC. Been playing a lot more stuff on the PC and on the whole things look and move pretty good. Unreal works fine for example. But then I play a demo of PES3 and it just chugs. I play a demo on Armed and Dangerous and it’s practically unplayable.
Part of me thinks that if Unreal looks and plays nice – then so should everything else. Guess PC developers are a bit lazy and expect you to have hardware for all those flash FX.
Thing is – for the price of a new graphics card I could:
A: Buy food for a month
B: Buy a second PS2/Xbox/2xGameCube
C: Go part way to my airfare if I go to GDC
Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll just hang on until Half-Life 2 is out. Then again – I’m grabbing the demo of Far Cry and I’m guessing that’ll need some ATI help.
Still trying to motivate myself to write. Not used to doing work for no pay :) I’m loosing faith in the ‘Strange Hours’ story. If I was writing it for a one-hour drama – that’d be fine. The story just can’t sustain a 100-120 page script. (Hmmm. Maybe I should just write it as a one-hour drama).
Been thinking a lot about my ‘good’ idea, ‘Everybody’s Special’. I really should be writing it while I’m looking for a job but – and this is going to sound weird – I’m scared I’ll ruin the story.
The concept and potential for this script is awesome. It really is high concept with a heart. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should just force myself to get on with it.
Played the I-Ninja demo on the PS2 mag cover disk. Tasty. Played the level before when I was at Argonaut – but those boys (and girls) did a great job. Looking forward to playing the final release.
Nic.
Sorry – I kinda just fazed out there...
No updates for a while cos I was up in Innsmouth to see my Mum. Back in sunny Dunwich – with busted heating and cold toes.
My buddy Wayne is finally in Japan. For all updates Japanese goto:
PLOOM2.com
Speaking of the nation I call my spiritual home (even though I’ve never been) – listening to Lil’Ai’s album ‘Ryukyu Rhymer’. Cool kinda charty R’n’B from the East. A little bit Missy in places.
So anything new in the land of Dunwich? Not much. Time suspended a little while I was out of town and as such I’m working on spinning the wheels 'o' time back into action.
Things I need to do.
Write some more tunes
Write some more ‘Strange Hours’
Get my heating fixed (again)
While in Innsmouth I had a play around with Maya and UnrealEd a bit more (on cutest of the Sony laptops). Maya is everything I’d ever wanted out of a 3D package (basically ‘Nendo’ with a grid snap) and UnrealEd is da bomb G. Nice to see how the rest of the videogame world develops games. The old company has some serious catching up to do if they want to be even slightly competitive.
Nic.
Rubba-dub-dub...
I(...I...i...i...,...)’ve been listening to a lot of dub stuff recently (which kind of explains my lame attempt to recreate the effect of a tape delay at the start of this sentence.)
Love dub Reggae. Reminds me of growing up in the seventies. I was a kid who was heavily into Ska. Loved the Specials, Selector, etc. Only when I got a little older did I start to do to the source. There are lots of dub compilations out there and most are cheap as chips. Picked one up yesterday for £4.99.
I am now the ‘Dunwich Soundsystem’.
Also picked up the Múm album for 2002 – Finally We Are No One. Wonderful album. Haunting, clicky, and beautiful. Like Bjork? You’ll like Múm.
So my buddy Wayne is moving to Japan this week. Lucky, lucky, lucky!
Had lunch with him today and took even more of his stuff off of his hands (DVDs – Games and a USB audio interface). He’s also under strict orders that if he sees ‘Natsuko Tohno’ in the street, he is to FedEx her back to the UK.
You’ll be able to catch up with his exploits here: http://www.ploom2.com. Check it out.
What else? My heating is busted AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! It sort of works if I mess with it – but it’s not in a good way.
EXPLOSION!
Nic
Busy doing nothing...
For some reason I’m watching the darts. I say watching – it’s on while I’m working. Bizarre sport – but somewhat compelling. Weird.
I’m having trouble finding enough hours in the day at the moment. I’m currently:
1: Writing/Re-Writing ‘Strange Hours’.
2: Refreshing my 3D skills.
3: Playing with UnrealEd.
4: Playing the Christmas top selling games.
5: Writing tunes for the ‘andjuliet’ album.
I think I need to divide my day up or something. Anyway – finally sorted out my reference board for the ‘Strange Hours’ re-write/write. About 20 pages will stay from the original draft. It was a mess. A mess with a good story in there, somewhere.
I think I’ve found it and I figure it’ll be a quick write. The action stuff takes ages to get down on paper cos I pretty much plan it all out like I would a game. ‘Strange Hours’ is a very small story. Couple of locations – five characters – no metropolis destruction.
If/when it’s finished I’ll do the deed and pop the 1st act on the site. Thing is – it’ll be pretty much the same as what’s there cos that’s the bit I like!!!
Nic.
She’s Unreal...
In my continued self-skooling (or refreshing) of 3D packages – I’ve been playing with UnrealEd. It’s kinda fun. I remember taking a look at the original editor for the first game and not really having the time to get my head around it. Thanks to 3dbuzz a lot of the early, painful steps are out of the way pretty quickly.
If you are looking to get into using any of the major 3d or animation packages – check out the video tutorials on the site. Even I understand them.
I’ll probably spend some time working through the Unreal tuts (and some of the basic Maya ones since that’s my new best friend) and should I produce something worth playing (unlikely given my time limits at the moment) I’ll post em’ on the site.
Nic.
'Jujshing'...
Got all ‘Queer Eye’ today and went for a much needed hair cut and bought some new clothes. I simply love the new jeans I bought! Also picked up some new ‘product’ at the salon.
Been having a quick play with Maya (not the gal from ‘Orchid’ – or any other sexy femmes – but the 3D package from Alias). Sweeeeeeet. Took about 10 minutes to get to grips with and once I figured out where the essential stuff was hiding – away I went.
I think I’ll install unreal and have a play with the editor they built into Maya.
Going to take a quick look around gmax too – try and remember all the max type stuff.
I do like that you can download free versions of all this stuff now instead of having to grab the ‘warez’ versions. It’s great for the companies too cos people can train up on this stuff – then when they get a job, the companies pick up the bill for the full version. Good business model.
Nic.
Who stole LA?
So I’m in LA. Don’t really remember the flight, picking up my rent-a-car, or leaving LAX. First thing I remembered was cruising through Venice. This is cool – I know Venice a little. I know it’s on the way to Santa Monica, which I know very well.
Pulled down Pico and onto 4th to check in at my Hotel. But it wasn’t there.
Okay – erm. I’ll go shopping. Off to the 3rd Street Promenade and stop in at Fossil. Oh – they must have moved cos now it looks like an adult movie store.
Hmmm. I’ll go see my friends at Lighthouse on El Camino. Took Wilshire all the way. Pulled into EC – "Hey - wha happened?" There’s now some crummy grey house where their offices used to be.
Got back in my car. Actually – truth be told my car was on fire so I stole someone else’s car. Headed up to West Hollywood to stop off at Pearl’s. Went by Fox first. They were kind of there I suppose.
Reached Pearl’s. Wait – I know she has a place out of town, but that doesn’t explain why I can’t find her house!!
I continued down Sunset, should have passed The Standard and The Mondrian. I’m seeing a common theme here. I carried on to the Virgin Megastore. Erm…
As you may have guessed – I’m not in LA – but playing True Crime: LA. Not exactly a perfect copy of LA – but fun to drive around and refresh my mind as to where things ‘should’ be. But if I’m finding weirdness (like the lack of any gradient in the road as you head up Highland to Sunset) – I’m sure the locals will find it all a bit weird.
I’ll give it a ‘real’ play tomorrow.
Nic.
HELP!!!!!
I’m stuck in a jazz rut. I’ve got this great groove going on one of the new ‘
andjuliet’ tracks – but like driving with the brakes cut, I’ve got no idea how to stop it!!!
HELP!
Rented another heap of games from the Dunwich Blockbuster. Even with my life of leisure there aren’t enough hours in the day to play all these games and watch my now huge backlog of movies.
HELP!
Still playing the title sequence to ‘Se7en’ – sorry, I mean ‘In Memoriam’ – but it pissed me off something rotten last night. I knew the answer to one of the puzzles – but it had to be spelt in the Greek alphabet, and could I find a website with the Greek spelling for ***** (removed just in case you're playing it too).
HELP!
New Year sees me jumping up and down like a crazy fool to Kylie and Dexy’s again. Yep – Dancing Stage is as camp as Christmas – but I don’t care. I love it.
Nic.
Updates...
Forgot to mention that I popped a couple of the new ‘
andjuliet’ tracks on the web site. I’m still working on new material – so hopefully this year will see an album by us.
Also – noticed that the ‘fabulous’ (and clearly insane)
Kat Dennings has revamped her web site. Go check out the future queen of Hollywood.
Nic.
SPIRTUS...
‘In Memoriam’ is fantastic. Truly wonderful. What is it? Well – erm – I guess it’s a game, but at the same time it’s like a wonderful piece of interactive media. Imagine being an investigator in the movie ‘Se7en’ – it’s that kind of vibe. It’s wonderfully unique, and with the lights off at 1:30am – it’s kinda spookie.
It uses the Internet and email brilliantly (I cleverly set up a new account to separate fantasy from reality!!!!), spitting you out of the game to check a web site for clues – or checking an email ‘someone’ has sent you with information on the case.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS ‘GAME’. I can see I’ll be wasting many an hour on it.
Nic.
YAY!
The heating engineer will be here tomorrow... I AM FUCKING FREEEEEEEZZZZZIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!
Nic.
Chiller...
It’s very cold here. My central heating has decided to pack in, so I’m waiting on someone to fix it.
Been playing a lot of games recently. It’s taken about 6 months to get back into games after the whole Orchid/Argonaut thing.
Rented Max Payne 2 and Medal of Honour – Rising Sun. Didn’t really get into either of the them. I’m crap at FPS games anyway. Put a console controller into the mix and I’m all fingers and thumbs. Max Payne suffered from the usual laughable script. Why don't they hire a decent writer. Games Designers should never be allows near the games story/script (erm... unless it's me :)
I’ve just picked up ‘Zone of the Enders 2’ (£29.99) for PS2. Liked the original – played a demo of this one a while ago and seemed like my kind of thing. Also grabbed ‘Chaos Legion’ (£9.99) and ‘In Memoriam’ (£19.99) – both for PC. I’ll play ‘Chaos Legion’ on the PC in the front room (like ‘Need For Speed: Underground’ – see lower post) but ‘In Memoriam’ will sit on the PC in the study. Been looking forward to this for a while. Like the concept. Hope it lives up.
My girlfriend picked up a load of VCDs while out in Hong Kong. Some I’ve never heard of – but she grabbed a bunch of stuff I’ve been looking out for. Particularly ‘Dolls’. Will report back on all this stuff in the near future.
Work starts today on getting a job and re-writing ‘Strange Hours’ since I now know what to do with the story. So it's now a race to see if I can sell a script/get representation before committing to a job.
Nic.
Beyond Tricky and Fiddly...
I’m getting frustrated with ‘Beyond Good and Evil’. I played for about four hours before Christmas and just picked it up again today. Played for about six hours and spent most of that swearing. Sometimes it’s so unclear what you have to do, sometimes it’s just needlessly tricky. Also found a nice bug that froze the player movement.
I like lots about this game but I’m not sure if I’m going to play it anymore. I’d prefer to remember the good things about it.
Been playing Need For Speed: Underground a lot as well. I rented the X-Box version and thrashed it for a couple of days. The slow down on that version bugged me so I picked up the PC version and since the PC is plugged into the widescreen TV and has a PS pad connected – it’s like playing a console version.
It’s weird, the things I hate about NFS: Underground are the same things I love about it. I hate that a perfect run can be ruined by some random piece of traffic hiding in a blind spot. But then at the same time, when you do a great race, skimming traffic, powersliding into some tight corners – it feels so great.
Something that isn’t frustrating, tricky, or fiddly is the ‘Ryo the Skywalker & Friends’ album – ‘How to Hunt in the Bush’. I love this album!!!
Nic.
Happy New Year!!
Now that 2004 is finally here (THANK GOD!) I can post my 'best of' lists, and here they are:
Top 5 Movies 2003.
1: Pieces of April
2: Kill Bill
3: Lost In Translation
4: May
5: Azumi/The Rules Of Attraction
Top 5 Games of 2003.
1: Dancing Stage Fever - Konami
2: Viewtiful Joe - Capcom
3: Eye Toy - Sony
4: Beyond Good and Evil – Ubi Soft
5: Dancing Stage Mega Mix - Konami
Top 5 Albums of 2003.
1: Fannypack – So Stylistic
2: T.a.T.u - 200 Km/H in the Wrong Lane
3: Boom Boom Satellites – Photon
4: Erykah Badu – Worldwide Underground
5: Prefuse 73 – One Word Extinguisher/Extinguisher outtakes
Top 5 Web Sites of 2003.
1: Belle De Jour (
http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/)
2: Perverted Justice (
http://www.perverted-justice.com/)
3: Totally Sidetalking (
http://www.sidetalking.com/)
4: The Magic Box (
http://www.the-magicbox.com/)
5: Angry Naked Pat: Ice cream Fantastic (
http://www.angrynakedpat.com/network/icf/)
Nic.
