Something to think about and someone to remember

A funny thing happened today while I was in the supermarket parking lot. A haggard but friendly-looking man approached me near my car, and explained that he was just laid off from his job and was scrambling to get $115 to pay his rent, and was looking for donations. Because I'm a horribly compassionate person when it comes to this kind of story, and because I had just bought Kingdom Hearts 2 the day before (Great game, by the way) and had no must-buy-right-away items, I pulled out $10 and wished him luck.

Now, this man could have very easily been a liar and a con. He also could have easily planned to grab my wallet when I pulled it out. He didn't do the latter, and I'll never be able to disprove the latter. And yet I did what I felt was right because of both the situation and my conscience. If there was so much as the chance that I was really helping someone in need, I hopefully did the right thing. What would you do?

On a much, much, sadder note, tomorrow is going to be a very tough day. Sometime before 10 AM, Nellie, our beloved golden retriever of almost 10 years, will be put to sleep to end her sad battle with cancer. This is a sorrowful and tough experience, no doubt, but I am at least looking on the positive aspects, such as the fact that Nellie has lived a long and happy life, given and recieved much love, and is promised that the last thing she sees will be me holding her and telling her how much I love her.



1996-2006

NINTENDO SIXTY-FOOOOOOOOOUR!!!!!!

NOW WE CAN RENT GAMES FROM BLOCKBUSTER!

A tote bag of miscellaneous ramblings

3 AM, work tomorrow morning, and still not sleepy. Curse you, Sunkist, for making your orange soda so tasty.

Something that I didn't elaborate on in my admittedly crazy post on games and animation as art was that something that is still holding games back from being truly immersive is the ever-elusive goal of attaining total immersion. By this, I mean how there is still much fine-tuning to be done in games to make them look less glitchy and more realistic. I'm still seeing cinema scenes where character's heads clip through their collars. As smart as ragdoll physics are, there are still many incidents with them that make deaths look just silly. And, of course, there's the immortal problem of a lot of dialogue being given looped body animations and flapping mouths instead of lip sync. Wether or not this problem will ever become much less noticeable really depends on how much the industry grows and how much time and money a company is willing to spend.

But enough rambling. Let's talk about stuff everyone else cares about.


While I attempt to get the hang of Ghost Recon on the 360 (my first go at trying a realistic squad-based game), I am getting hooked on the newly-released Arcade game Astropop. The visuals and soundtrack are very slick, and the gameplay structure is both very original and challenging. And while many puzzle games offer different playable characters, this is one where the one you play as actually makes a difference- all four characters have different special attacks to charge up that can blow up blocks in an emergency. The game has also been out on the original Xbox's Arcade and the PC, so go try out a demo.



In making Wario Ware Tooned 4, I am continually frustrated by my utter inability to make decent-looking backgrounds. I've basically been forced to stick with stylistic UPAish stuff because I can't do any better- perspective and I have a long and bitter history. On the other hand, the episode is shaping up to be better-written and better-paced, and once again co-written by the very funny Sean of kisland.net. Still no clue of the release date, as not even all the voice recording is done.

I finally got around to purchasing Laputa/Castle in the Sky, and it is still my favorite Miyazaki movie. So I am excited that it will finally get some real nationwide exposure by airing on Toonami next Saturday. If you haven't seen this movie but like any sort of animation, or film in general, watch this. It is perfectly paced, genuinely exciting, and skillfully animated. The only problem is the English dub, something even Mark Hamill couldn't save.

There's a small fortune to be made cleaning out your shelves for eBay selling.

A plea to all those involved with Futurama

Please, if there's a possibility that the show will be revived with new episodes, DVD movies or whatever, do not go around telling everyone until it's going to happen. Yesterday, Billy West said the next season was almost ready to start production- then retracted it today. This is at least the fourth time this has happened, and many fans are being let down hard by all the false alarms.

Let's get something out of the way

In your typical elitist animation geek's blog, and especially in any gamer's blog, there seems to be a topic that pops up frequently: The argument over wether these fields should ascend to the ranks of painting, film, literature, and so forth, to be considered legitimate art forms by the public.

And so I'll just go and say: Why the hell not?

In their early years, it would be hard to classify either field as art. And yet animation managed to make itself stand out in its infancy with Winsor McCay's famous short/performance, Gertie the Dinosaur. Do a little research if you don't know anything about Gertie; the entire premise is genious and it's a shame that anything like it has ever been replicated.

Animation itself was also limited by the early limits of film itself. Low budgets, deteriorating film, no color and no sound presented obstacles to those with big ideas, and they had to find clever ways to get around them. Nowadays we have digital surround sound, multimillion dollar budgets, high-definition color, and several totally different techniques for animating. Quite a difference.

Quite a difference, too, is what a 30-year difference makes for the video game industry. Pong is not really art. Sure, anything can be called art, but calling Pong that is like calling a kindergartner's crayon scribbles a modern masterpiece. But yet, when you stop and think about it, Pong is art in its own weird way, because it was not only a technological marvel but launched an industry that would lead to truly amazing ideas. It's essentially the seed of a plant.

With animation, the amount of expression and originality has always been totally dependent on the animator and writer. There are now few limits to what can't be done (outside the realm of censorship) because of the techniques and technology available. For games, on the other hand, there are still many limits. Even with all the big features of the Xbox 360 and PS3 being touted, processors are not yet able to handle realtime graphics on the same level as that of a professional CG production. But that is not the only thing- so many aspects of the fact that video games are interactive are actually still holding the industry back. For example, it is simply too costly to have all the dialogue be voice-acted and given lip sync and unique body/face motions for every bit of most 20-30 hour games. It's things like this that prove the industry is still in its infancy.

But the question remains for some: Is it art?

Animation can easily be proven as an art form. One of Walt Disney's driving forces behind Fantasia was to combine visuals and audio like never before, not deliver the same slapstick or fairy-tale adaptations the studio was known for. While there are many who will make an animated project just because it "looks cool" (Think about how many imitation anime ads you've seen), there are also many projects that people do because it would be impossible to pull off in live-action. Cartoons are a way to pull off what you can't do in real life.

And video games? They're a way to escape, in the vein of books. Yes, reading Catcher in the Rye and playing Halo are obviously two different types of experiences, but they're both examples of how one can roleplay. Maybe people who didn't grow up with them in this day and age will never show interest, but I believe this will eventually change.

On a side note, anyone who has a remote interest in animated music videos (I certainly do) should check out the Gorillaz' latest, El Manana. This is how I like videos to be done- the atmosphere of the video goes very well with the song.