Well, I fought through the game in Free Play mode. It took about two hours to complete all told, and it was a lot of fun! It remains to be seen if I can do this in Arcade Mode or not - that final boss is a doozy. Even when you know what you're supposed to do, he's tricky. The boss fights are a highlight of the game. Though they aren't as numerous as in the original games, they made each one count.

It's not a long game, but it's not like the original Rocket Knight games were either. It does seem equally replayable, however. There's a ton of stuff to find in every stage, three difficulty levels, and a myriad of Achievements to unlock, including the ability to play as Axle Gear.

Perhaps what makes the game feel short is that it seems like there are enough enemies and moves for a game twice as long. Every stage brings some new twist or enemy into the gameplay and keeps you on your toes, and every stage utilizes Sparkster's abilities to their fullest. It's also difficult without being cheap. There's virtually nothing in the world that causes instant death and there are always health power-ups if you search for them. Now, of course, if you want to be a masochist, there's always the Hard and Very Hard modes for you. Normal mode should be a decent challenge for everyone.

So what's wrong with the game, other than its shortness? Well, two things. The first? The price. Now, I got it on Steam with the pre-order discount, so it ended up being around $10. That seems like a fair price, considering what other games you can find at that rate. But the actual price is $15, which is a bit steep for something this short-lived and it makes it difficult to recommend to friends who aren't fans of the series. That said, you know, I'm not terribly down on $15 as a price point. Heck, if people will spend that kind of money on a bunch of second-tier Call of Duty maps, it doesn't seem unreasonable to charge that for a full-on game, but your mileage may vary.

The second is the music. Yes, they remixed the first level theme, but everything else is instantly forgettable. They could have stood to at least bring over one of the boss tunes, because every game like this needs memorable boss music. Nothing has the sheer energy of the space shooter level in the SNES game. Konami should have sprung to get someone from the original series to help out with the music.

All-in-all, it's about as good a sequel as you could ever hope it to be. So if you liked the original Rocket Knight or Sparkster games, you're going to enjoy this too!

With Kyreeth's help over at Furvect, I'm pleased to announce that http://www.kyouryuu.net has been updated with a shiny new gallery, as a little gift to the nearly 50,000 visitors there. ^._.^

Actually, this was pretty amusing to set up. The gallery houses some 445 images, some dating clear back to the early 2000s, so there's a lot of stuff I haven't seen in years!

I gots Rocket Knight!

I took a bit of a chance and got it for the PC through Steam. Fortunately, it seems to run just fine with all settings up and max resolution. Everything looks pretty nice and the character expressions come through clearly.

The gameplay is quite polished and, to me, the control tweaks they made are justified and improve the game. On a 360 controller, X uses the sword, A jumps, and B causes you to rocket in whatever direction you are holding the Left Analog, which also moves you to the left and right. You can double tap A for a boost jump. There are also some combos you can do with firing projectiles from the sword and spinning in midair. The camera is pulled farther back from the SNES and Genesis games, and while this comes at the expense of the sense of speed, you ultimately feel like you are in better control of Sparkster.

Then, there's the flying stages. These are probably more at R-Type than anything else, since you can fire individual shots or charge for a more powerful shot. You can also hold down B to boost. All rocket related things deplete your rocket's power bar, which automatically refills.

This is only about 20-30 minutes into the game in Free Play mode. The only thing that stood out as bugging me were Sparkster's eyes. He looks tired. I don't know if that's the intent, given that he's older and jaded, or if they were going for a Buzz Lightyear kind of thing, but it's a little distracting. Axle Gear has the same deal.

Oh, that's one other thing. As near as I can tell, the characters only talk through squeaks and chirps, just as they did in the originals, and Axle's "voice" is adorable. XD

DJ Hero is awesome!

I know next to nothing about turntablism, but my ears love what they hear from this game. Just hearing old songs mashed together, or familiar songs in brand new ways, is candy for my ears. And the game itself is pretty fun. Unlike in Guitar Hero, which feels linear in comparison, DJ Hero makes you feel like you're trying to spin a bunch of plates at once. In addition to just pressing the right colored buttons at the right time, you also have to deal with scratching the turntable in the right direction, shifting the crossfader between the two tracks, and turning the effects dial. Sometimes, you need a third hand.

You can't fail in the game, regardless of the difficulty, so you're competing for high score more than anything else. Which is fine by me. Anyone like me who gets to the ninth minute of Green Grass & High Tides and fails knows how much that stings. Scoring is similar to Guitar Hero where hitting consecutive notes causes your score to multiply to a potential x4. You also collect Euphoria, the game's version of Star Power / Overdrive, which bumps your multiplier to a x8 and automatically does the difficult crossfading for you. On top of that, if you hit enough notes perfectly, you're given the ability to rewind the track by spinning the turntable backward. You get to play the same section again for more points.

Or you could be like me, overspin, and totally miss the buttons on the way back. ^_^;

I think my only gripe with the game is the crossfader. It's like the bass drum in Guitar Hero and Rock Band where you have to be mindful of it underneath everything else, but there's something about the switch or the timing that's unforgiving. Don't get me wrong - the game would be pretty easy without it so I can understand why it's there - but it seems like it may have been better handled as a different kind of switch that didn't have so much dead space to the left and right, or maybe even snapped back to the center if you let go of it. But the controller itself is excellent, feels solid, and is nice and smooth.

Saw the Fantastic Mr. Fox last weekend. It was a great movie. I don't think I liked it quite as much as Coraline - another stop motion wonder from last year that really blew me away - but it is a lot tamer. If I was a hatchling, Coraline would be nightmare fodder. But as an adult, it's just surreal and imaginative.

Mr. Fox doesn't quite have that same magic. It's a fairly basic children's story brought to life with incredible puppetry, wonderful camera work, and intricate stages. Of course, if I wasn't immersed in teh furreh, maybe the talking animals would seem more surreal and wondrous?

Either way, it's unfortunate that films like Mr. Fox and Coraline don't perform better at the box office while the 4,000th sequel to Shrek does.

Also, Ash and Kristofferson are murrworthy. ^._.^;

Awesome news story on the BBC about crows and tools. We've known for a while that crows are able to create and use tools. What we didn't know was their ability to combine them to achieve a goal:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/.....re/8631486.stm

Just saw Astro Boy. To be honest, everything I know about Astro Boy and Tezuka I learned from the Game Boy Advance game, which was a really great, underrated game. But that probably puts me in a good position to see the movie because I don't really care about the source material that much.

Like TMNT (which coincidentally also had a great, underrated GBA game, go figure), it was an okay movie. They captured the look of Tezuka's characters well in CG. It's obvious they took some liberties with the storyline, but the basic parts are in place. Dr. Tenma, a renowned scientist in the field of robotics, loses his son. He builds a robotic replica, but becomes frustrated and angered with "it" and disowns him because he's a mere machine in his eyes. Robot kid goes on a quest of self-discovery in an attempt to appease his father. You get the idea.

The movie was at its best when Astro Boy used his rocket boots for the first time. It was the only part in the movie that screamed, "Wouldn't it be cool to be Astro Boy?" He's screaming around the city, halfway out of control, still not entirely sure why he even has rocket boots. That was good fun.

The worst part of the movie? The politics. Why are they even here? The only thing I can figure is that the writers were trying to leverage the same Cold War mood as The Iron Giant, but horribly underestimated that movie's attention to subtlety. What's left is a parable as clumsy as "evil red energy" and "clean blue energy" would suggest. I can say with some degree of confidence that kids are not interested in a dissertation on the socio-economic implications of the military-industrial complex.

But ultimately, it's a movie that was fun while it lasted. The end of the movie has an amusing art deco postcard: "When in Hong Kong, visit Imagi Studios!" Unfortunately, this movie bombed so badly at the box office, the studio no longer exists. It wasn't deserved; I'd certainly watch this over tepid CGI like Monsters vs. Aliens any day of the week.

Now those great Orangina commercials on the other hand...

Well, I added another sketch into the scrap pile. This is one of my Rocket Knight, Jato, and some sketches of his nemesis / foil, Fenris: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3724353

I was CG'ing something earlier in the week, but I didn't like how it was turning out so I stopped working on it.

Finally over the cold. Haven't stumbled on anything I want to CG at the moment, but it's nice to be able to draw again. If I'm not using the Wacom, I prefer to draw in bed right before I sleep on mah belly. Obviously, when you have a cold, it's hard to look down without getting all stuffed up.

I've been spending a bit of time formalizing how Vixen's hair looks and I think I've settled on an appearance I like for it. I also made a little change to the Tank Rats line-up where I integrated Star from the Xenosaurs plan into it. As a rat, she's now the somewhat ditzy leader of the Tank Rats. It's created a nice chemistry between them now. Still don't really know where I'm going with the overall idea yet.

Been sick with a cold for the last week. Seems like a lot of people have this plague going around. Be vigilant! You don't want it!

Kind of put me out of the mood for drawing at the moment and thinking about anything beyond resting and getting better. I'll be back at it soon enough.

My original home, kyouryuu.net, is closing in on 50,000 hits, which makes me really happy ^_^

Thing is, I keep neglecting it. I really need to look into setting up a gallery script and keeping it in sync with FurAffinity, just in case something happens to FA. Ideally, it would allow me to categorize images into folders and keep some folders private from unregistered users.

Anyone have gallery script suggestions or testimonials about various gallery scripts? I know that Coppermine Photo Gallery, Zenphoto, and Gallery 2 are popular.

The other day, I was fixing myself a glass of chocolate milk and I happened to read the back of the chocolate syrup bottle - there isn't even chocolate in it! It's just crappy corn syrup! "Would you like some corn syrup in your milk?" sure doesn't sound appetizing.

Turns out Hershey's has been doing this for a while, to the point where many of their candy bars can't even legally advertise as containing "milk chocolate" anymore. It's all "chocolatey" or "chocolate flavor" or "pasteurized process cheese food."

Lame!

Oh, on an art note, I know I haven't posted anything lately, but I've got something nice in the works. :)

Y'know what's sleazy? When ICANN-certified domain registrars "buy" domain names and try to resell them. Since they are registrars, they don't have to pay a dime to do it, but you can bet they expect to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand the domain over to a legitimate buyer.

Everyone else has to buy domain names and renew them every year and that cost adds up. Yet the companies responsible for delegating who-gets-what-name are able to cheat the system for fun and profit. In fact, one of these registrars goes insofar as to monitor hits to the WHOIS lookup database and register names based on queries, in addition to trying to hijack domains.

Maybe if ICANN wasn't so busy "certifying" any lowlife who wants to be a registrar, they'd be more effective.

So, when I did that Ratchet image a couple weeks ago, I had a little help from the action figure I got. Yes, believe it or not, they actually have Ratchet and Clank action figures. Cool, right?

Well, sort of. Mine had a really loose arm and he couldn't even hold his wrench. I learned that you could put some superglue in the socket and rotate it as it dries to tighten the joint, and it did, but it still sucked that I had to do that. I mean, the figure wasn't exactly cheap.

There are other things about it too. He comes with his little robot pal Clank, of course, and I guess you're supposed to be able to "transform" Clank (that is, shove his legs inward) to fit on Ratchet's back. But it never quite works. Clank's legs end up resting on Ratchet's tail and it looks weird.

And speaking of looking weird, there's just something odd about the figure's face. Too much Cheshire cat, not enough cute adorable Lombax. It's probably a combination of his mottled fur (which makes him look too "realistic," imho) and oversized eyeballs.

But, y'know, I guess it is Ratchet. And given that it is relatively rare for video game characters to have action figures in the first place, and even less so for franchises that aren't Japanese, it's better than nothing.

 onta mentioned this on his Hard Blush journal a couple days back and I thought it was pretty hilarious. Basically, Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons of KISS fame, plagiarized Bleach for his own comic book.

http://community.livejournal.com/bl.....ss/446299.html

This isn't just a few isolated frames either. It's outright tracing! Now the publishers have suspended production.

Serves them right!

I don't know about you, but I think this kind of thing is as frustrating as it is pathetic. There are people all over the world who would love to have the chance to make their own comic book, and they are rejected by the same publishers who go nuts because some spoiled rich kid with a celebrity dad wants to draw, regardless of whether the kid has an ounce of talent or creativity.

So there are a bazillion shows on TV about ghost hunters. They go into these creepy locations in the dark and try to determine if they are haunted or not. It's too bad the shows are such farce. Why don't they ever have cameras on their heads? They always have audio recorders running, but never video. Gee, I wonder why. I mean, half the claims they make are "Did you see that?" "I saw something at the end of the hall!" "Oh my God, check this out!"

No, we didn't see anything because the camera wasn't there.

Any actor can feign a shiver or pretend they saw something. But if you're trying to demonstrate paranormal activity, the proof is in the pudding, isn't it? :)

The other day, I finished BioShock 2. Amazingly, despite all odds, I feel it's an equal and worthy sequel to a game that didn't need one.

I honestly can't criticize much about it without feeling like I'm nitpicking. The combat and gunplay tweaks are very well done. Whereas the first BioShock was a decent FPS coupled with a great story, BioShock 2 really brought the gameplay up to a similar par. Coupled with a very welcome streamlining of the hacking mechanic, the best parts of the game are easier to trigger too.

As far as the story goes, people have argued over how it compares to the first game. Without being spoilery, I would say that it's simply a different story. Rather than hinging on one key plot twist, the buildup and payoff in BS2 is a lot more sneaky and sinister. The way it unravels is actually a bit more mature and satisfying. As a whole, it's very well done. While it kind of lags in the middle of the game, the last couple levels are really what push it sky high.

Which brings me to the last point - the levels. If I had to fault BS2 for something, it's that the (enormous) levels aren't as memorable as those in BS1. Now granted, BS1's levels were more trope-based. The hospital, the theater, the industrial district, and so on. And, of course, the whole underwater city thing was new and exciting. In comparison, BS2 makes me think of the lower levels of the Titanic. It's consistently industrial, utilitarian, and dirty. There are few locations you could ever imagine being pleasant at some point. And by the dozenth flophouse, it gets a bit repetitive.

The flip side is that while a few of the physical environments aren't that interesting, they are populated by a rich and detailed assortment of story characters. I always thought the best levels in BS1 were the character-based ones (Steinman, Cohen, etc) and it's great to see more of this type in BS2. So, I guess you could say that the character of the levels comes from, well, characters this time around!

All-in-all, it's a great FPS. You should check it out if you're into that kind of thing.

Aww man. First the whammy bar on my Rock Band guitar breaks, and now the drums don't work anymore. I've tried several USB dongles and neither the 360 nor my PC detects it. I hardly even used them! They gathered dust for months. Every now and then I hear something like the Spirit of Radio and have a sudden inclination to play them (badly) and... well... disappointment.

Kind of unfortunate. Seems like from day one, Rock Band was marred by inferior peripherals. The Guitar Hero stuff was seemingly invincible. The old guitar I got in Guitar Hero 1 still works just fine, although the glossy plastic on the strum bar is gone.

Course, now that Activision went and shut down RedOctane, I expect further mediocrity to ensue in the fake plastic instrument market. >_>

Everyone remembers Doom, right? Remember the soundtrack? The tinny MIDI guitars blaring through your Sound Blaster? Yeah, I know you do.

This ain't new, but there's a video that shows the similarities between Doom's music and heavy metal music at the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H3BB2gKKeY

Apparently, the similarities are very deliberate. It seems the composer wrote the soundtrack as a homage. Still, it's pretty fascinating. Not "Michael Jackson had a role in Sonic 3" fascinating, but fascinating.

Funny thing. As you probably know, Cloverfield is that monster movie from a couple years back that was filmed in a handy-cam perspective from the people involved in the incident. It was used very effectively and I liked the movie a lot.

So, thing is, I get nearly to the end and the frames start sputtering and getting choppy and I'm thinking to myself, well, must be intentional. After all, that handy-cam has been through a lot. Then the credits appear from out of nowhere, and I'm still thinking - well, that's weird, but okay, interesting way to end the movie. So I go to Wikipedia and... say what? There's a whole chapter I missed?

Curse you damn skippy Blu-Rays!

How strange that I didn't hear the news until now that the TMNT IP was sold to Nickelodeon last October. It's actually out of Mirage's hands now completely, having been created there more than 25 years ago. Of course, Nick has some grand plans. A CGI series in 2012 and a new movie as well. But it's going to be different, I'm sure. It's also unfortunate that the old ninjaturtles.com will be coming down at some point. What a great little site. Its webmaster did such a fantastic job over the years of keeping it a very fan-oriented site - a surprisingly low-key operation for such a major franchise - but that's what made it cool. The fan art contests, the ever-growing archive of figures, comics and stories - even those cheesy ID cards on the packaging of the old figures. You just don't get "old school" web sites like that anymore.

Even though Nick drives the franchise off a cliff, at least it ended with a bang in the 4Kids/Mirage era. Turtles Forever was a three-part miniseries that circled around the amazingly clever concept of the different generations of Turtles converging on the same reality. The whiny 80s Shredder and Krang bicker with the darker Shredder from the 2003 series, Bebop and Rocksteady muck things up as they always do, the 80s Turtles rescue April O'Neil (in yellow jumpsuit, of course) from a horde of killer mutant food (which confuses the living daylights out of the 2003 Turtles). The B&W comic book originals show up and wonder how their cousins sold out, while they conversely wonder why they are so dark, brooding, and narrate their own adventures. Even Tokka and Rahzar show up. All in all, it was a comedic send-off of everything that's great about the series.

I swear, I wish I could create something as successful yet unflinchingly ridiculous as TMNT.

On that note, I'm caught in between working on a new map right now and a drawing of Haxx from Extreme Dinosaurs. Hopefully I'll get Haxx done soon, but it depends on how I feel. ^.=.^

Posted an image of Stegz, that stegosaur cutie from Extreme Dinosaurs. Yep yep.

Y'know, I think we are blessed to have grown up in a time when we could have legitimate action cartoons with dinosaurs. What I mean is, way back when, I used to watch Dinosaucers. Extreme Dinosaurs came a bit late, but it was a similar vein, right? Whether it was ray guns or "saurian stomping," the emphasis was on action.

But then we get to Dino Squad, have you seen this? It's horrible! It's like being subjected to a 30-minute long Public Service Announcement. Every last second is dedicated to teaching some kind of moral lesson-of-the-day. Like, if you took the last 30 seconds of G.I. Joe and made an entire show about it.

That's because it is a PSA, by design. You see, some years ago, the FCC mandated that local TV stations dedicate some portion of their time every week to E/I shows - meant to be edumacational. As a result, a lot of TV executives thought it would make sense to replace Saturday morning cartoons with these glorified PSAs since a lot of kids would be watching anyway. And Saturday morning has been lame ever since.

So the end result is that instead of good dinos fighting evil dinos, you get a wishy-washy study of teen angst and how they overcome their differences through teamwork. Doesn't that just sound like fun? XD

(Edit: Yes, the FCC, not the FTC :))

Hey all!

Uploaded a new pic. This one is of Jato the Rocket Knight, a character I made up based on Konami's Sparkster. I last drew Sparkster over a year ago, and between then and now, Konami actually announced a brand new Rocket Knight game. Wonder of wonders!

Anyhow, give Jato a warm "G'day." I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Also, I got a new scanner over Christmas break. Annoyingly, my previous scanner was a casualty of Vista x64 incompatibilities and I've essentially been without it for almost a year. I drew Jato a couple nights ago and he was the first subject on the new scanner, a CanoScan LiDE100.

Happy new year!

Gee, now with 2010, we should take the time to think about all of those things the past promised us that we still don't have.

- According to Blade Runner, we've got nine years to create more-human-than-human Replicants and send them to off world colonies.

- In 2010: The Year We Make Contact, we're supposed to reunite with HAL who was left floating up there in 2001 and flee from an imploding Jupiter.

- If Back to the Future: Part 2 is right, we should expect that the Mattel Hoverboard will be the toy everyone wants in 2015, clothes will automatically resize to fit us, and we'll have flying cars. I'd be happy if we just got the Hoverboard - that thing kicked ass.

- We're supposed to have The Running Man by the end of this decade. Actually, given the state of reality television today, this may be the most probable prediction of all.

When I was working on Vixen, I made an odd observation. Rudolph is usually portrayed with a Mickey Mouse nose that glows red. Remember those old claymation Christmas specials? The funny thing is, reindeer actually have snouts, much like cows or horses.

I have a feeling a red snouted reindeer would have looked really odd... o._.O

Got two new pics coming up, they should be done in the next couple days!