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| Now that I finally have some free time, I've been playing the PC title, Titan Quest, developed by Iron Lore (published by THQ).
At first I immediately thought how much of a Diablo 2 ripoff it was. I played it some more and now I think it deserves its own recognition as a great game. Although it heavily repurposes what worked for D2, its fresh multi-class skill system, fun gameplay, and amazing graphics make it more than just a clone. Everything is in 3D and a lot of attention was put into the environments and characters. Bushes and grass part and sway when you run through them! Monsters display ragdoll physics and they go flying in the air when slain with a powerful ability (it is bizarre how fun blowing apart skeletons can be).
Here's a screenshot of my Stormcaller in action.
My only gripe is that it is a resource hog and totally overheats my video card if I play it with the video settings too high. Other than that, if you are looking for a great-looking, mindlessly fun romp through ancient/mythological Greece and Egypt, then this game is for you. | | |
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While waiting around for a United flight that was delayed for eight hours, I passed the time by reading, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King. I kept thinking to myself how fortunate I was to have the book with me, to transport me away from the droll of Burbank Airport to a place where men lived passionately and fought fiercely for what they believed in. As often described the book itself, time and space seemed to fade away and I found myself standing next to the last king of a doomed race.
I came upon the book completely by chance. While waiting for Lai at Santana Row a couple weeks ago, I decided to wander around at Borders. As usual, I ended up in the fantasy section, despite the fact that I rarely make a purchase there. I can easily spend hours just flipping through fantasy art compendiums and D&D books. As I was leaving the aisle, I noticed several works of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. It was a meager offering, crammed between crowds of contemporary fantasy novels. I have always wanted to check out his work since I am a huge fan of the first Conan film. One book, immediately caught my full attention. It shared the same name as a character I created for a short CG film of mine. Bran!
Bran Mak Morn. What a funny name. Yet the description of the character was strangely compelling. He was the last of a pure line of kings. A brooding barbarian that ruled over a broken and forgotten race of men. My character, too was supposed to be the last of his kind... and he too is selflessly devoted to those he swore to protect. Well, anyways, back to Bran Mak Morn. His people, the Picts, as Howard refers to them, are the barbarians who had inhabited Britain before the Celts. This threw me off. I was a bit confused how the book mentioned Romans and Celts. Wasn't this supposed to be a fantasy novel?
Well, the book turned out to be great. One of my favorite fantasy artists is Frank Frazetta, who is known for his artwork depicting Howard's characters. Reading Howard's words was like viewing one of Frazetta's paintings. In fact, I give less credit to Frazetta for the imagery he created now that I have read the source material. In many ways, he is simply putting what Howard created down on a canvas. Needless to say, Frazetta does it brilliantly, but the idea behind his art is no longer just his. Howard paints with shadowy, primal, and energetic strokes simply with his words! Furthermore, the book is illustrated very well by Gary Gianni, who leaves much to your imagination, which is perfect for Howard's work. As an added bonus, a collection of his sketches are included at the end of the book. The beautiful image above was done by Gianni as well... unfortunately, the print that I bought was in black and white. :(
Howard is a great storyteller. I really liked how Bran was so brooding... and how he kicked ass despite being lean and "compact" in build. The action is described in gory detail and the battles seem to flow through the pages. I loved reading Kings of the Night. That story probably weny by the quickest. The way Kull is summoned is hilarious. The painting above is from a scene in that story. In Worms of the Earth, a darker sentiment pervades and we get a glimpse of Gollum-like creatures that put Gollum to shame in terms of loathsomeness. Gollum almost seems pleasant after reading Worms.
On the other hand, there are also a few failings in Howard's writing. Howard tends to repeat the same words ("heather" and "fog"), phrases ("driven before them"), and even paragraphs. He explains the origin of the Picts without much variation across many of the stories, which gets a bit repetitive. His work is also seething with blatant racism. At first it was simply directed at the Romans, and I thought nothing of it. Later, I realized that it wasn't just them and that many people in his stories were also described with racial hatred and stereotypes. At times, a bit of disgust rose in me but it quickly disappeared... to me, he was simply looking out of the eyes of his characters.
Howard lived in a time of racialism, social Darwinism, and eugenics... when science and facts were warped to fit the agendas of bigotry and extreme nationalism. I do not forgive nor blame Howard for having these elements in his fantastic stories. I do not think he is necessarily racist either. His works have something of a universal truth behind it, something that transcends the mere hatred between races. His focus is the rise and downfall of all races of men. Like the Picts, the native Americans were driven from their land. Before them, there were surely other races of men who were driven away by who we call the native Americans. This cyclic destruction can be seen as a metaphor for many things. To me, I think it means that man is cursed to forever revert to his barbaric ways, no matter how civilized and advanced we may seem.
"How can I wear the harness of toil
And sweat at the daily round,
While in my soul forever
The drums of Pictdom sound?"
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| Stealth
So, I just saw the movie Stealth. I kept hearing how poor it was and swore not to see it. Rottentomatoes.com even reports an appallilng 13%! Today, however, I saw a presentation by Digital Domain on their visual effects work for Stealth (along with a bunch of other films like Lord of the Rings and I, Robot). Their technical and artistic achievement in making Stealth sparked my interest enough to rent the video... and I was pleasantly surprised by what I watched.
Visual Effects
The main reason I rented Stealth was to check out the visual effects work done by DD. Their accomplishments are nothing short of amazing and it was shocking how much was actually done completely in the computer, especially the environments and planes. I did notice the environment looking a little fake in one shot (the one showing the farmer village nestled in the mountains), but otherwise the terrain generator they used yielded impressive results. The clouds and gaseous effects were also amazing in the film.
Unfortunately, my super-critical (aka anal) eye noticed a few more flaws. There was this one shot that had this camera move that flashed the wreckage in the foreground and, for some reason, the flames and smoke just looked they had no volume. In another shot, where EDI (the artifical-intelligence plane) is flying through the clouds and Jamie Foxx's character (Lt. Henry Purcell) is tailing him, a group of 5 large white dots appear in the bottom middle of the frame and quickly fades. It was bizarre how that could be left in there... maybe it was DVD compression or something. Oh well, aside from a few mistakes, the visuals were terrific. Digital Domain rocks.
Director Rob Cohen used his signature zoom-into-the-guts-of-the-machine (or ZITGOTM, my made-up acronym) shot that he used several times in his The Fast and Furious films once again in Stealth. I liked the idea of it in his racecar movies since they conveyed the power of the vehicle and provided a means to visualize the connection between the driver and the intricate mechanics of the car. The ZITGOTM shots do that to a degree in Stealth, but I felt that they were used gratuitously and, in one case, served no purpose at all. I only thought it was appropriate when a ZITGOTM shot was used to show what was internally wrong with one of the jets, but even that was a bit repetitive since the viewer sees a close-up of a diagram in the cockpit relaying the same information.
Story
Despite naysayers, I felt the story wasn't bad at all. In fact, I thought it was quite exciting and even exhilirating. Story should not be confused with originality because, as my mentor once told me, that is only a component of storytelling. Besides, everything's pretty much been done before when it comes to story. A good story gets the viewer engaged, has a lot of tension, and usually follows a certain story-arc pattern. Stealth constantly ups the stakes and hits its climax well and takes you back home on an amusing note.
Even on the topic of originality, it isn't all that bad. When I first saw the trailers, I immediately thought to myself, "Oh, great, a Terminator/I, Robot knockoff." Heck, even actor Joe Morton (Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson in Terminator 2) plays a major role in Stealth. Then again, this could be also viewed as being self-referential and even a homage to T2 and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. The "robot" in this movie even has to follow Asimov's Three Laws of Robots... well, minus the killing humans part. To learn more about the author, check out asmiovonline.com.
Cinematography
I thought some of the transitions Cohen used in this film were badass. There's one where there's a shot of the ocean flying by and, without you even noticing, it blends into the ground under a man's feet as he's walking by. This is awesome because on a microcosm scale, our feet are indeed moving blazingly fast while we are doing something as simple as walking. Interesting transition, both visually and mentally. The film also features some really nice transitions where you're looking at what must be CG planes in the sky and the camera slowly pushes in until you are looking at the live actor moving around in it. Done before, yeah, but never this up-close and seamlessly (that I've seen anyways). I also loved the visceral shots of the planes in flight. I definitely got the feeling of speed and power from the way these shots were designed. Hats off to Cohen for having the vision to come up with stuff like this and to the FX houses involved for pulling it off.
Cast
Interesting factoid: the voice of the AI plane, EDI, is played by Wentworth Miller from Prison Break.
I like Miller's performance in Prison Break because he does a very convincing job of portraying a highly intelligent and analytical person. I read up on his biography on IMDB and it turns out he graduated from Princeton and eventually moved to LA to work in a "behind-the-scenes career" in the movie industry. I wonder if that career involved visual effects work...
... more to come, I'm getting tired and I still need to watch the rest of the special features on the DVD.
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| Lai got a new pet, a chinchilla! He's sooo cute! He looks like a cross between a squirrel, a hamster, and a rabbit...
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| Here's a new digital painting I did for this web site, www.drawergeeks.com. In case you couldn't tell by the stone medallion around his neck, this character is Bizarro. In the comics, he was created by Lex Luthor who used a duplicator ray on Superman. Unfortunately, Bizarro came out... well, backwards. He reigns on the square-shaped planet of Htrae, where there are tons of other odd clones of himself. He wears that medallion to make sure everyone knows he's the O.G.
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