Quit Your Day Job

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper part 4

Lee — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:09:38 +0000

Quick concept sketch – Kite

Lee — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:00:02 +0000

For some reason I really loved the character Kite from the Goodies and Baddies card set.

John Romita Jr makes me not hate the new Iron Man armour as much

Lee — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:00:05 +0000

I know this seems to be an Iron Man themed end of week with three Iron Man themed posts in a row, which of course isn’t that out of place here.

But I saw some images of the new Iron Man armour as featured in the upcoming post-Siege Avengers series and I’m warming to the idea. Not so much the superfluous lights all over the armour unless they explain it off like a distributed reactor system. But the way that John Romita Jr is handling the suit is more armour than latex which was my chief complaint originally.

You may remember my absolute outrage and horror (maybe it wasn’t quite so strong a reaction) to the release of the newly designed Iron Man armour.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that I love John Romita Jr’s artwork anyway, I picked up a Thor trade paperback based on this alone and I really like the other ‘posters’ in this “I am an Avenger” series.

So it looks like I can go back to reading Avengers again and maybe the Iron Man series although I have to wait to see who will be doing the art.

Does this version of the armour sit better with you?

The Iron Man 2 video game trailer leaves me trembling with fear and loathing

Lee — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:20:11 +0000

When the first Iron Man film came out I was so excited because apart from a kick arse comic book movie I knew that we were going to get toys (and we did) and a video game.

I know I should have been more wary because very rarely do video game adaptations of movies or comic books for that matter assure any quality. There are exceptions of course but Iron Man was not one of them, this is what I wrote originally*:

Iron Man PS2 game – what did I do to deserve this?

I’m not buying a Playstation 3. I can’t afford one right now, I don’t really have the need for one and honestly it would be wasted on my current television. That does not however mean that game developers should be punishing me.

So I came down off the high that resulted from seeing the Iron Man film and picked up the PS2 Iron Man game after some debate over the sense of buying it now and how long it would be before it came down in price. Unfortunately I forged ahead.

It’s not that it is a particulary bad game in that it just isn’t a really good one. I couldn’t find any reviews on this version but did find video of people saying wonderful things about the PS3 one, I figured this would just be a lower resolution version of the PS3 with some of the features removed or shortened or whatever.

What I got was this clunky game that handles badly and won’t let you skip long winded dialogue. There is no spark in the game that makes it even vaguely fun or captures even the slightest joy found in the film.

It generally follows the plot of the movie and you start off in the Mark 1 Iron Man armour as you make your way through the terrorist camp. It took me all of a minute to realise that this game was not going to fullfill any sense of fun. It won’t allow you just to learn as you go and forces you almost literally jumping through hoops. When I was eventually able to actually punch I thought awesome I’ll hit something and watch it go smash. Hey!? My fist just passed through the wall and did nothing? Oh wow it’s Super Nintendo quality nothing breaks and when you hit an enemy he just disappears *rolls eyes*.

The controls are unnatural, there is no jump button for instance!? Sure you can fly but it is a standard thing to be at least able to jump up a step!!!

Flying is no fun at all, if you use the afterburners you fly straight up and get told off for leaving the battlefield, they are just really hard to control.

The game itself involves blowing up Stark weapons in various battlefields that essentially are long strips with nondescript enemies and remarkably boring level bosses.

I wonder if Sega actually should (sic) this version to Marvel or if they just presented footage of the next generation console versions?

Rent this game, don’t buy it!!! You’ll knock it over in a weekend and be glad you only paid the rental cost.

One very minor positive, when you smash through the first iron doors the Black Sabbath song Iron Man strikes up as it does in the trailer. Oh and apparently you can unlock other armours but as far as I can tell all that changes is the skin not the abilities or features… yawn.

I got a lot of comments from others who felt the same way and in the campaign of Iron Man the film this appeared as one of the few weak points.

Now I’m looking at that trailer for the new game and I’m not convinced I’m looking at anything any better, it looks like they are really hopeful that the footage of War Machine is going to sell this game.

What do you guys think of the trailer? Played any good movie related games lately?

*this was prior to changing web hosts and losing all my posts.

Charlie Brown is a cool exec with a heart of steel (Iron Man / Peanuts mash-up)

Lee — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:50:54 +0000

I think I still prefer the old school Charlie Brown / Iron Man…

Music to draw robots by: No idea

Lee — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:00:48 +0000

I think when I started drawing this one I may have had Thunderstruck in my head but then it didn’t sit with the pencil sketch I put together and from there on I put the song out of my head. So I don’t have a song attached to this one.

I’d like to though.

Leave the name of a song that the image reminds you of and when I’ve got a couple I’ll pop a poll up for the ‘group’ to decide!

Awww c’mon you’re not even trying

Lee — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:00:48 +0000

Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery and that’s all very well and good until someone actually copies you and then you reconsider how flattered you are that someone would out and out copy you.

Of course if the effort is made to at least differentiate a little, deviate enough to show your mark then maybe it’s a little easier to swallow.

Such is fact of life in the popular culture universe. If you are popular then there will be similar material produced in order to try and catch some of the overspill. Currently Twilight is probably a good example in the book world, with their distinctive covers I’ve lost count of the number of knock off covers trying to cash in on the chances that your dodgy great aunt might pick up the wrong book by mistake.

Then others argue that Twilight itself is derivative of its own predecessors and I am of course in no argument there although I don’t condemn on this basis either. One of those predecessors was Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was a trailblazer most certainly, now take a look at these two covers:

The first is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and features an iconic publicity shot from either season one or two, the second is from the Vampire Academy series:

All I’m saying is that they could have tried not going down that path. OR are we going to call “homage” in this case?

SingStar reveals brilliant if not crazy and completely inaccurate lyrics – The Final Countdown

Lee — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:00:15 +0000

So Tracey and I have been playing a lot of SingStar.

No I can’t sing.

But the game is still a lot of fun and you get reminded of some pretty neat songs. Another by-product of playing SingStar is that you begin to learn the lyrics to some of your favourite songs and then get to realise how batshit crazy some of them are!

Take for instance The Final Countdown by Europe that I think is showcased nowhere better than in the TV series Arrested Development:

But I found that when singing the song that the lyrics are… well… batshit crazy and very inaccurate.

The Final Countdown

We’re leaving together
But still it’s farewell
And maybe we’ll come back
To earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
We’re leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?

In fairness to this first part you can easily argue that they are being cryptic and that there is some special meaning in what they are saying, others might argue that English is not the first language of the writer, either way I’ve seen worse lines in a song, although in the grand scheme of things these are pretty wacky lyrics.

It’s the final countdown
The final countdown
Ohh

The chorus doesn’t really add anything to the wacky, but hang on to your seats as shit is about to get real.

We’re heading for Venus and still we stand tall
‘Cause maybe they’ve seen us and welcome us all, yea
With so many light years to go and things to be found
(To be found)
I’m sure that we’ll all miss her so

There is so much wrong in that part of the song that it feels like there are about a million WTF’s trying to fit through a WTF hole built for one.

So lets dissect this.

First off you don’t want to head to Venus, Venus is a pretty inhospitable place where the clouds are made up of sulfuric acid and the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth.

So you would not be standing tall.

Now just say that the acid clouds, lack of breathable air and the pressure doesn’t get you, then you can also leave that scarf behind as temperatures on the planet were recorded at 500 °C. Needless to say that anything living on the planet certainly wouldn’t be welcoming to us.

Secondly a light year is around one trillion kilometres and Venus is actually around 41 million kilometres away from Earth so even if you were going to take one light year (as opposed to ’so many’) then it is most certainly the scenic route which would explain why there are so many things to be found.

From that point on they simply reiterate the point that it’s indeed the final countdown which personally I think is probably for the best.

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper part 3

Lee — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:00:56 +0000

Thexder – A game from my past back again

Lee — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:49:16 +0000

When I was a young man there was only one company worth knowing about when it came to computer games and that was Sierra Online the makers of the Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest, King’s Quest and so many other games that helped define my childhood.

Amongst my friends and I these game franchises were as big as any movie, TV show or comic book series. We knew all the characters and the story lines and without the internet it was always exciting to get any news of what Sierra were doing next.

Then one day a game came across my path, one that would provide me hours of entertainment, frustration and ultimately satisfaction: Thexder.

Basically in Thexder you were a Robotech like machine that would transform from robot to jet fighter depending upon the need of the screen, the game itself was a side scroller and frankly I think it was one of the hardest side scrollers that I ever encountered with such a rich and varied series of screens.

Apparently there were 16 levels to get through in Thexder, I made it to 12 and in my circle of friends and acquaintances I’m the only one I know of to have made it that far. I attribute this to two things, 1) I played it constantly for hours on end over and over and 2) my computer set up was that rare perfect alignment between game, player and peripheral.

I had a Tandy 1000 with 16 colour graphics and a perfect fit joystick, nothing fancy, just the standard Tandy joystick but I knew it’s feel and reaction perfectly.

I can’t say I miss the old Tandy 1000, but I do miss Thexder, I never played the sequel, it didn’t look as much fun and since I hadn’t finished the first one there seemed little point. I also only ever played Thexder on one other computer, using a new joystick/keyboard and it all felt wrong.

I did see though that the game has resurfaced on the PSP and now the PS3.

I’m definitely buying Thexder, I’m not sure how we’re going to get along with new controllers and different screens etc. The graphics on the new one are amazing and completely respectful to the original game which I see is included in this “Thexder Neo” as well. It’s exciting to revisit my youth in a game that I suspected was barely known or have that much of a fanbase.

It also makes me feel a little old, sad and nostalgic.