So hey, it's been like a year since I've updated my blog. Funny how that works.
So, you know how some people only update their blog occasionally to make a post about how they wish they could think of a post? This isn't one of those posts.
So, last year my wife got my a brand spanking new computer for Christmas, the only downside of which is that it has my old video card in it preventing me from playing new games significantly better than my old computer; this is still an improvement however given that my old computer had been dead for a while and my attempts to build a new one ended in tragedy.
So now I've got 8 gigs of RAM and a terabyte of hard drive space and I'm running Crysis on medium everything, and Assassins Creed on low. Crysis still manages to look good, Creed looks like an eight year olds water painting.
So then I saw a commercial on TV that changed my opinion, and I've posted it here for your convenience:
After admiring the rugged handsomeness of the host, I decided to make a list of all the games that I'd always meant to play through, perhaps spending an alarmingly large amount of time dedicated towards, but never finished, or worse yet, never even got around to playing.
Never Finished: Thief 1,2 Alice Undying Pain Killer Omnikron Black & White Fable
Never Played: Messiah Wolfenstein KISS: Psycho Circus Serious Sam Doom 3 Matrix Path of Neo
The games in Italics are ones that are particularly embarrassing because I've spent QUITE a bit of time on them without finishing. Like, more than 40 hours, probably. This varies; sometimes it's because the game just gets too hard, other times something happens to my computer and I lose the save files and have to start over.
I've decided to start with Messiah, because it's one that I've begun multiple times. It's on the Never Played list because I never managed to get past the first level, for reasons that will become clear.
I acquired the full version of the game, installed it, and immediately ran into trouble. The main issue was that the game crashes often during setup, occasionally during game play, and always whenever I die. I've gone in on Safe Mode multiple times, and have now got it to play more or less consistently without crashing, if I can get the game to start. I've probably spent an equal amount of time playing the game and trying to get it to work.
"Well Gordon," you're saying, leaning back with a sigh. "That's the price you pay for playing an old game on Vista 64."
"Well," I'd reply, "You would be right about that, except that this game had all of those bugs back in 2000 when it first game out." It's true; all these bugs and more have been a consistent struggle on the last fifteen computers I've owned, and judging by the comments I've seen online, I'm not alone. The game itself is a wonderful concept, but its execution is so mangled it's a struggle just to play the thing. Outside of all the bugs, the games controls are reminiscent of a console port, except that it only came out for PC. Apparently, there was a version for the Dream Cast that was supposed to happen, but was cancelled, so it inherited all the lousy controls without the benefit of bug-free version to run on.
I may have to switch to Wolfenstein a little ahead of schedule...
Have you ever seen Uwe Boll and Jack Thompson at the same place at the same time? No you haven't, and now you know why.
Sorry, for the late post (roughly one week late, cough), however things are, as usual, hectic. I've got this and some other creative projects cooking, so stick around and hopefully one will turn out well.
I should really get back to making 3-D backgrounds for some of the art. This could have looked a lot more interesting with a rendered skyline, which I have made previously. Maybe next weeks comic will be bryce-tastic?
Trying something a little different with the art, making the eyes much larger and more noticeable. Hopefully this is not horrible.
hiatus is officially over! True I got back from my honeymoon more than a week ago, but you're forgetting a crucial detail...I don't care.
This comic is all too true. I dumped years into Diablo II, and my characters all sucked. I'd probably still be playing, except I had to force myself to stop because even after playing consistently for a fairly long time, none of my characters reached max level, and their equipment was barely functional. The best equipment I had was stuff that was given to me, for free, by players who were trying to make room in their stash for REAL loot.
This is my first attempt at a redesign for my avatar in the comic; I'm not sure how I feel about it. Profile works alright, portrait needs a bit of work. I used a pic from Black and White as a model to work from, which made sense because that is what the character is based off of. I may have to reinstall the game and get some better screenies to use for the comic. Also, I'd like to, you know, finish the game at some point.
A sign of my incompetence using photoshop is the fact that I spent over an hour trying to get the texture on Diablo's hand working. I could have just filled it in with red, but nooo, I had to get all fancy pants with it. At any rate, I had to learn to work with it better, if I ever expect to bring Madam Logic back into the comic; under no circumstances am I drawing plaid manually.
Also, hello to anyone stopping by from the forums where I posted the guest comic.
I was hoping to post a video of me and Shannon's new pet guinea pig at some point, but apparently that's not going ot be happening, so I'll just post here real quick. His name is Tiger, and he likes Timothy Hay.
Edit: I took a quickie video with my cell phone camera so you can see him:
Also, if you have ever wanted to hear the "long version" of how me and Shannon became a couple, we've set up an extended history on this blog: http://shayandgordon.livejournal.com/
So after posting the comic I ran down to McDonalds, because on Thursday they have this deal where you can get their new chicken sandwich for free by buying a drink. I hadn't had McDonalds in a while so I thought it might be worth checking out. I can now tell you as an informed individual that what you get for $1.69 is certainly worth that amount of money, but there's little chance I'll be getting the sandwich outside of this special.
The sandwich itself is actually quite good, don't get me wrong. The chicken is crispy and golden brown on the outside, and tender and juicy in the all white meat inside. The bun was soft and tasty. That's about all I can describe, however, because that's all there was. The sandwich came with only one single slice of pickle for a condiment; I guess they felt that a translucent aged vegetable was all the sandwich needed.
I'm not even sure the pickle was supposed to be there; it may have been dropped into my sandwich completely by accident. Or maybe it's meant to have more than one slice, but they were irritated by my sheer cheapness that they decided to cheap me right back. Hard to say over all.
So the breakdown is: Southern Chicken Sandwich is very good, but to insubstantial for $3.20
I only saw a few minutes of the movie Juno, and really, that's all I needed to see. If I really wanted to watch a girl complain and talk down to everybody else for over an hour, I'd watch the View. Or this movie, I guess. Everything about this comic is based off the one scene of Juno that I did happen to see, and more specifically the way I felt it should have gone.
Art wise I'm pretty sure this is my weakest comic; I am out of practice and have been short on time lately, so all the figures were traced from a shot directly from the movie:
That and all three panels are EXACTLY the same, except for the text. And that one drawing isn't even shaded. I'd have tried to make them a bit different in each one, but my schedule has been packed lately. Three people who used to work at my gas station are no longer working there, which severely bumped up my hours, not to mention that I still have a lot of things I need to do around the apartment and for the wedding.
Because of all this, the comic is officially going off weekly updates until I get back from my honey moon. If I have time to draw something, I will, but I'm waiting until after the wedding to relaunch the regular comic. Makes me glad I actually hadn't announced the comic yet.
Sorry, a lot more of my time was sapped up this week than I had expected; I may try to get a comic done later today, but in the mean time, here's some filler.
Wallpaper of Hellgate London I made for my fiance:
Halloween pictures I'd said that I'd post like 8 months ago:
I announced yesterday I wouldn't be posting a comic, but I figured I can still post a filler strip.
Be back next week. Check below for how I felt about the first five minutes of my first Uwe Boll movie. I tried going in with an open mind, but Uwe slammed it shut again.
So as everyone has already heard by now, there is a petition set up because at some point Uwe Boll said that if 1 million people signed a petition requesting that he stop making movies, he would. Naturally, it won't get up to a million, and even if it does, Uwe would keep making movies anyways. The fact that a lot of people don't go to see his movies is of little consequence, as his films are built upon giving German investors a tax shelter, and not on actually earning anything. Postal will probably be more his speed though, since it isn't actually a serious movie and doesn't require as much actual talent and subtlety.
I was about to sign the petition myself, when I realized I hadn't actually even seen a Uwe Boll movie. So today, I decided to try slacking off for a bit instead of doing homework and cleaning up like I was supposed to, and started watching Alone in the Dark. Five minutes later, I was ready to go back to scrubbing crap off the stove.
Here's a list of problems with the beginning of AitD:
: Opening Text :
There's a few good solid paragraphs at the start of the film to get some back story out of the way, which by itself isn't to bad but there are some real problems going on with it. Here's what I picked up on with my first time through:
There, he conducted savage experiments on orphaned children in an attempt to merge man with creature. Hudgens victims survived as "sleepers" - lost souls awaiting the moment of their calling.
In 1967, mine workers discovered the first remnants of a long lost Native American civilization - The Abkani. The Abkani believed that there are two worlds on this planet, a world of light and a world of darkness. 10,000 years ago the Abkani opened a gate between these worlds.
I can believe that a new native american tribe was spontaneously discovered, fine. The fact that their exclusive, long lost religion happens to be the correct one is a bit of a jump, but that happens so much in horror movies we'll let it slide.
Bureau 713, the government's paranormal research agency, was established to uncover the dark secrets of this lost civilization.
The fact that the government established a paranormal research agency for the sole purpose of looking into an Indian tribe is when things fall apart. Even if you assume it was a miss-statement and that they merely used an already existing paranormal research agency, it's still an odd reaction.
"Sir, we just discovered a new native American civilization." "Send in the ghost busters!"
Under the direction of archaeologist Lionel Hudgens, Bureau 713 began collecting Abkani artifacts. When the government shut down his controversial research, Hudgens built a laboratory hidden within an abandoned gold mine.
So this Archaeologist begins collecting a bunch of artifacts, before the government shuts down his "controversial research." Alright, maybe he was doing some research on the side that had nothing to do with collecting artifacts, but it's worded so that you have to assume it does. And just what the hell kind of experiments do you do with artifacts anyways? Archeology isn't exactly a young science.
"In today's experiment, I took a very rare vase that took us three years to carefully dig up, and dropped it off the top of our office. It broke. Must drop another vase tomorrow as a control to see if the same thing happens."
There, he conducted savage experiments on orphaned children in an attempt to merge man with creature. Hudgens victims survived as "sleepers" - lost souls awaiting the moment of their calling.
Ok, granted, that's pretty creepy. Remember the glory days when the worst you could expect from an Archaeologist is that he'd melt the faces off of a bunch of Nazis? Nowadays they're all messing around with more children than Michael Jackson.
: Opening Segment : Nothing wrong here, as long as we've swallowed the whole "evil archaeologist" premise. Which I haven't. My main problem is with the hand held camera. I don't even blame Uwe Boll for this, a lot of movies are using hand held movies way to often, even when they have the budgety for huge car chases. The third Bourne movie did this too, and it pissed me off then as well.
When two people are just talking to each other, you don't need a shaky camera. In fact, you almost never need a shaky camera unless the point of your whole movie is that it's supposed to be done my an amateur, ala Blair Witch and clover field. When you have a shaky camera for every last shot, that's what it looks like: complete amateur. People do this because they feel it gives their film a “documentary feel”, which is nice and all, except they aren’t making a documentary. And for a good reason too, allow me to explain why with a visual aid:
: Next Scene :
A guy wakes up, and it’s pretty clear that the kid in the last shot is the man who wakes up now. I’ve got no complaints with that technique, it’s a good way to get some back story in. Except that the kid did not view any of the preceding actions. He should have spent the entire dream locked inside of a closet if he was actually remembering anything, but hey, it was a dream, so he just dreamt what could have happened. But that means we don’t know what actually happened, so we just wasted the last three minutes of our lives.
So Will Scarlet wakes up with a jolt, and a kid sitting next to him asks if he had a nightmare. He then adds that his mommy say’s that “There’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark.” Which is a nice sentiment, I guess, except that it’s pretty clear that he isn’t in the dark. It’s still daylight outside, and inside the cabin lights are on. It’s actually a lot brighter than any plane I’ve ever been on.
: The Scene After That : After his plane lands, the main character hails a cab. After some needling from his driver, the guy tells him that he’s a paranormal investigator. The cabby replies “Are you fucking serious? Really, what does that mean, exactly?” I’m going to guess it means he investigates paranormal shit. This was the point where I decided I’d rather be doing something productive with my time. Thankfully I came to my senses and did this instead.
So I’m not entirely sure I can sit through a Uwe Boll film, but I’m going to try again at some point, simply because it’s a nice change of pace to hate something for purely valid reasons.
I've got to work on some projects for school, plus two people left work so my hours went up. Between those two things, there's pretty much no way I'm getting the comic up tomarrow. New comic next week.
So me and my fiance bought a wii, and it pretty much went down exactly as it does in the comic. We literally flipped a coin, and destiny said to take it home. An interesting bonus comic would have had us talking to the sales guy you can sort of see in the background, who told us that they had gotten five wii's in just a few hours before, and they were currently down to two.
Drawing mine and Zentha's advatars was a lot more difficult than I remember, altho9ugh the difficulty involved probably explains why I never did that again until now. What's really nice about doing everything digitally is that I was able to have a picture of a tiger right underneath my electronic pen as I was drawing, making it a lot easier to make it look decent. That's right, I'm a cheater. A tracing cheater. At least this strip doesn't have any copy and paste.
Honestly I haven't played to many wii games yet, I've been short on time, but paper Mario is pretty fun with a surprisingly decent plot line, and House of the dead works rather well with the wii zapper. We also have a back catalog of game cube games that we picked up a while back, knowing that SOMEDAY we'd own a wii and actually have a use for them. Now they don't feel like a complete and utter waste of money. At least they won't once we pick up a couple of gamecube controllers to play them with.
I understand that Mario Go cart is online. Something tells me that we'll somehone end up with a copy shortly after it comes out.
So I made the mistake of actually putting a little bit of effort into the art for this one. Huge mistake; it took a really long time. Then I got done with it, and realized I had forgotten the punchline for the comic. Which means I had to draw a fourth panel, and try to make it look decent, which is why this wasn't up sooner today.
I'm thinking of moving the update for the comic to Monday, since it would be easier to remember considering that a lot of other comics update then as well, but it may be a better idea to have it on Thursday so that I'm not crowded out; it's rather hard to say. I could try updating it on both days, but then there's pretty much no way I could try to make the art look decent. Oh well.
This comic is based on mission three of the first Hitman game. You are supposed to assassinate the chief of police and frame the Red Dragon triad for it. The recommended way of doing this is to first stash a gun in the bathroom, then track down the red dragon guy, slit his throat, drag his corpse to a sewer, and steal his clothes. The consequences of this are never mentioned b anybody in the game, which is strange becase otherwise the game is fairly sensitive towards your actions.
Also, I'm testing something to see if the system I'm using will let me post comics in advance and then only reveal them on their appropriate due date. If you're reading this and it isn't Thursday yet, then apparently I'm doing it wrong.
Also, I'm still trying to work on the balance between time and quality. Right now I'm still leaning pretty heavily on the time button, simply because there are other things that I should be doing, not to mention other things that I'd more enjoy doing. But I'm going to try and see if I can find a fast method of adding in shadows and such, improve the quality of things a little. Also, I need to find a better way of doing backgrounds, because they have been consistently blah this entire time. Going the PvP route didn't work either, as visible in #3.
So as it turns out, no. No, you cannot set a posting for a date in the future and then expect it to only appear at that particular point. Looks like I'll have to actually post the comics on the day I intend to, huh.
This is not an exaggeration; later in the game you get a quest to deliver a message to two men standing right next to you. Which initially sounds like an easy quest, right? wrong!
First piece of my new web comic, Suspension of Logic. I've decided to use this blog as a way to post the web comics, hoping that i'll be forced to update more often this way. Who knows how that'll turn out.
The situation described inthe comic is something commonly found in Hellgate London multiplayer; other people who have completed the quest can go through the supposedly broken door. The name of the comic is taken the company from Portal, which I felt was appropriate here (aperture means opening, after all).
Well, the last time I posted I did 100 bicep curls and 100 arm raises, and my left bicep had hurt up until yesterday. It was dragged out so long I was becoming afraid I'd strained it somehow. I've been coming down with a cold, unfortunately, which makes me reluctant to continue any sort of training at this time. When I'm feeling better, I'll have to see how well it goes over doing all the exercises in one day.
excited
annoyed
nostalgic
