Character Concept Progress

Now that the Uni year has truely kicked off it was time to start our first module of which consists of gathering up knowledge and data from things around us in order to create a character and environment for said character to inhabit. Sounds easy enough but its surprisingly difficult when you think you have a sterling idea only to find out that its already been done before.

My gatherings at first mainly consisted of anthropomorphic animals, sporting armour, clothing and other gadgets.

Vulture Priest

Armoured Bear (Close)

Armoured Bear (Far)

Cyber Great White

Cyber Hammerhead

This first idea then developed into an egyptian God theme, following a pattern of Animal headed humans, eg: Falcon headed God, Horus. My own designs shown below.

Bear Warrior

Snow Ram Prince

Anubis Escort

However after gathering more pictures and piecing together my thoughts my character developed into a somewhat more sinister one by taking a new route into Masked Humans. The following are concepts of some masked characters, aswell as my first attempt at using Photoshop to create concept art for my characters mask.

Mattah'l Shaq'Sai - Sun Mask Concept

Masked Titain/Brute

Masked Dancer

Masked Warrior

Masked Dancer & Warrior Pair

Under The Mask (Rough Sketches)

At this time in the module I am in the process of giving my character an Archetype and filling in more character sheets for it in order to provide a greater understanding of the character itself and the world in which it lives. All in all I dare say its coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing how my thoughts and findings progress over the next few weeks.

Super Mario 64: This Plumber Has Hat Wings?

As requested, we take a trip back through time to the days of Nintendo's Super Mario 64. Although not a big fan of what Nintendo has had to offer us throughout the ages, the days when our friendly neighbourhood plumber was still fresh and new reminds me of the publisher's glory days.

As the name would suggest, Super Mario 64 was developed for the Nintendo 64 console and follows a strict platform genre much like the other games following suit at the time and was one of the first launch titles for the console's release. Many of you who own a DS will also be aware that a more buffed up replica was released, aptly named Super Mario 64 DS. But of course, we arent discussing the DS version now are we? We, my chums, are reviewing the real deal which kept many of us away from the harsh glare of the warming summer sun and away in the shadows where we truly belonged. Pfft, sun, who needs it eh? Anyway...

As previously stated, SM64 is a charming little platform game in which main Italian protagonist Mario must delve deep into the heart of Princess Peaches Castle where antagonist King Koopa Bowser has locked away your friends with the magic of Power Stars and over run the grounds with beasties. As can be expected its up to you, the height deprived plumber, to retrieve all power stars, keys and all the other bits and bobs in between in order to save your friends and return the castle to its original peaceful state. Sounds easy huh? I thought that too. Then I found out I was extremely mistaken.

Lets start with the aesthetics of the game, characters, scenery, Whomps, everything. To say the N64 is now older than time itself the graphics of the game could not exceed higher expectations. Although rather choppy in appearance compared to present day games, Super Mario boasted a bright, colourful world with a menagerie of characters to boot. You'll find no Gears of War browns or Call of Duty greys in this game, no sir!

The game play on the whole is stunning, sporting open worlds to explore generally at your own leisurely pace with a range of secret areas to discover as the game progresses also through the crafty use of portal paintings dotted around the castle. Another remarkable point to add is the games use of both 2D and 3 Dimensional graphics that in turn create an experience to gaming previously unheard of which to this day can still be argued as revolutionising the games industry all together, well how about that!

Taking a break from escaping the jaws of Chain Chomps, ducking out of the way of Fly Guys and grabbing what would appear to be hallucinogens of which make Mario believe he is a racoon or that his hat has wings, I thought I'd comment on the catchy tunes this game delights us with. Rather than the common sound of 8 bit buzzing gamers of its time would normally hear when playing games such as Jurassic Park Rampage Edition, Super Mario 64 boasts a variety of sound tracks that change according to the location Mario is exploring. From the charming elegant feel of Princess Peaches Castle, to the icy chill of the wintry wastelands, the tunes of Super Mario 64 really do immerse the gamer further into the mushroom kingdom. Sweet ear nectar.

Repeated on the previous Blue Dragon review, its time for my final thought scores:

Graphics: 8.5/10
Creativity: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Music: 8/10

Total Rating: 9.5/10

So there we are, a trip down memory lane for us all, I love nostalgia. Sweet sweet nostalgia...Until the next time guys!

Jess~

Blue Dragon (ブルードラゴン-): Roaring Fire or Flakey Ember?

Blue Dragon (ブルードラゴン-), developed by Mistwalker & Artoon, published by Microsoft Games and directed by Takuya Matsumoto, is an RPG (role-playing game) made exclusively to the X-Box 360 and was one of the first multi-disk games to be released on the platform at the time. The story follows main protagonist, Shu and his two best friends, Kluke and Jiro on an epic quest to save their once peaceful home of Talta Village from the evil clutches of antagonist Nene whilst honing their skills as shadow weilders.


On a first look at the aesthetics of the game I got a strong desire to launch myself at the nearest laptop to partake in a spot of Dragon Ball Z. Perhaps you felt the same upon admiring the unique character design? If so then I doubt it will have taken you long to realise that the mind behind the character visuals was none other than DBZ artist and creator, Akira Toriyama. When playing through Blue Dragon I realised that one of the main reasons I continued to crawl through the hours of travelling and meaningless conversations with strangers was to fulfil the need to know what new monsters my characters would encounter and from the word go I was pleasantly surprised at the sheer volume of beasties lurking around every corner, from the feeble Apocalypse Moths to the gargantuan Flamboyant Dinoram. It felt like some real effort and thought was put into designing each monster but as the hours of gameplay progressed I couldnt help but realise that some of the creatures I ran into were, to put it bluntly, half arsed copies of previous monsters I had encountered only sporting a different colour or added item on its person. To say the least, encountering 10 species of the same giant rat in different colours only to find that my creature encyclopedia regards them as brand spanking new beasties was slightly off putting. In fact it pissed me off greatly. But I digress...


The gameplay on a whole was average, nothing stood out to me in particular and at times I felt slightly desperate to find a near by Sheep Tribe camp to save and quit as the long distance travelling quite often became tedious and repetitive to a fist clenching degree. However on the other hand I enjoyed the feeling of not being in any rush to get things done in order to make progress as their always seemed to be hidden chests to unlock as well as seemingly hundreds of stones to kick and punch of which unearthed hidden treasure, most of which were money. Seeing as though from this fact we can now establish the inhabitants of the Blue Dragon world did not have banks and lived a very simple life of hiding their spare dollar in rocks scattered around the perilous wastelands I shall now continue the rest of the review in ye olde speakings. Seriously though im not.


On the whole I found Blue Dragon to be an enjoyable and chilled out game. I strongly believe that if it were a person Mr.Blue Dragon would be more than happy laying in the middle of a flower strewn medow in the buff, dooby in hand. Although sporting an extensive land to roam around the lack of side missions makes it rather linear. Monsters are creative and fun to battle when not being replicated with different colours and boss battles range from being so easy that you can almost see them blushing with embarrasment and shame as they enter stage, to so colossal and armour clad that your team commits suicide in order to spare the agony of being pulled apart by a 900ft Poo Snake....Music wasnt too bad either...


It's getting to the point now where my fingers are nothing more than bloodied stumps from the stellar rant about rats and ye olde rocks, so I'll leave you with my final thought scores:


Gameplay: 6.5/10
Storyline: 5.5/10
Aesthetics: 8/10
Music & SFX: 7/10

Overall Rating: 7.5/10


Next Review Coming Soon. 
Jess~

Introducing Yours Truely

So this is it. The beginning. As this is the first blog of mine since the beginning of time I'll just say this, I'm a Digital Film, Games & Animation student at Uni. Bits n bobs I'll be including in these will be games reviews, art work and more.