Shenmue time

Will be kinda focusing on the monumental release of shenmue coming in a mere 6 days time. I will play through both games, find all hidden stuff I missed in my initial play through and such and what not then purchase and play shenmue 3 deluxe edition.

As for who I am in relation to shenmue. I was there when it came out, I still have the dream cast that I played it on. Yes, I know I'm an old ass man 33 years old and 1999 was a million years ago. I get it...

But yeah I can give you a history lesson on that year, how we all felt playing shenmue, having no clue of the absolute bomb that was going to drop in the wake of shenmue's proof that games like that could be made.

It's a full article you could write about the first few steps in gaming towards the open map go anywhere, total immersion idea. Shenmue was truly the first to try it.

To get the sequel at all was a dream us fans had and it's finally here, the story, the legend continues. I can only hope they will do a lot of things with shenmue now that there's a door opening up again to getting it back on track to becoming a true franchise that it deserved to be.

So what was going on in my head when shenmue dropped and I rented it at blockbuster for my dreamcast since gamestop and Adam Sessler and Kate Botello made a big deal about it so I said ok I better take a look at this thing...

Well I remember playing sonic on my dream cast and then I tried a few others specifically crazy taxi and I believe I might have had tony hawk 2, but the game that I was into most was Spawn and the demon's hand, to play a spawn game that good was just bliss. I was all about that game. Still am, still want to finish it.

The thing you have to understand is that shenmue is really at its root a multitude of games simply put into an open map you can wander around in. We've had rpgs, fighting games, driving games, asian cinema inspired games. Shenmue finally was the time when all of these were combined. And it came out at a time when asian cinema was starting to really get popular. I grew up watching asian stuff here and there if it ever happened to air on tv, I looked forward to laundry day as a kid since they seemed to always show asian kung fu flicks on sunday afternoon so that was when I got to see those jet li movies etc. and did my laundry while watching that.

Ah ha, but you couldn't play it. The only kung fu ninja game was tenchu stealth assassins, other than that, which was a revolutionary game in itself, not much besides fighting games like mortal kombat.
So when shenmue dropped it really was all by itself. There was no yakuza series, sleeping dogs, none of the copy cats that came after.

It's basically what I think we all wanted as fighting game fans, a game where you'd play street fighter as ryu and fight then go train for a while then go walk around etc. Not just fight fight fight, but other stuff... and it catered to that. And it was at the right time when kung fu cinema was popular. The game did well, but unfortunately it was released on a sinking ship. Sega spent too much money and just didn't in my opinion dedicate time to online play like they should have. I mean I think the true demise of the dreamcast came when the Ps2 prettymuch future proofed itself with an ethernet port built in. Other than that, the dreamcast wasn't some punk system, it should have lasted way longer and we should have gotten a dreamcast 2 but sega spent too much on things and had no choice but to bow out...

So about the open map idea. Rpgs kinda have been doing that for a while. I never thought of that as particularly revolutionary. Play some old ass rpg and there it is, a game where you can go anywhere, the idea isn't new. And I did glance some kinda text based choose your adventure games on commodore 64 when me and my sister used to try those games out. So again not new the concept of diverging storylines based on your choices. But none of this was ever done in a full 3d environment despite us having the tech to do it for some time. Only one I can sort of think of is Mario 64. In some ways Mario 64 is the precursor to what shenmue would eventually get right. Yes indeed the time when I could finally just walk around and do nothing in a mario game, have freedom, that was pretty huge leap in gaming too.

Shenmue took it to a new level. Total immersion type of thing and I do understand some don't like the game, consider it too slow, too boring, and repetitive especially the jobs and races etc. I can only tell those who think that way, do you actually have a job? Shenmue was just being realistic about it...jobs are boring and repetitive. Yes that's what the developer wanted to do, make you feel like you had to go do a boring job, make you feel what Ryo was feeling... Susuki is no idiot.

I do agree that the QTE is silly though and sadly lead to a lot of dumbing down of the button combo system in many games after. Since shenmue did it, other games thought stupidly that they needed QTE too, but that's not gaming, that's guitar hero or some stupidness like that. I'd like to have to develop some skill rather than quick repetitive reflexes instead. Other than that I can't agree with any complaints towards the series. It's tough, it's brutal, old school no punks, man up and get good gaming like I had as a kid before we all got these soft wimpy bitch games today.

Gaming's gone to hell, that's why we are excited a real game maker from the gritty tough old days is coming back. You'll see, people will flock to a game that doesn't treat you like you're a 5 year old and of course we've all been waiting for the next chapter in the story. It's an old story though so I don't know how it's going to hold up this many years later. That's the only thing that concerns me, we've gotten so many new things since shenmue did its thing, games that allow us to have full online open world adventures, more modern stories about today's world and tech like that one about hacking phones or something to solve crimes. All I'm saying is that gaming has changed, I mean essentially we have swimming and stuff in games vs the days of shenmue when you couldn't hope to do that, destructable environments, drivable cars, aircraft, millions of options now. Will people want to sit and play a more old school traditional dreamcast style play by yourself single player game. I know I can, but today's punks out there, I don't know... They're missing out if they don't that's fo sho.

Went to the Last Dragon Anniversary

Decided to sleep on it rather than just brain fart out my thoughts directly after the predictably chaotic awkward experience that is these kinds of cons. I'm used to it by now, that feeling of wtf am I doing standing around with these people I don't know. Let's go beyond that...

Enlightning as hell day. Yeah, surprised me that Jai was there for hours. He's legit very busy right now, got no time to be hanging with fans who want to exploit his fame, but the man honored his word and was there for the fans for waaaay longer than the spawn anniversary which was a blip. If I had missed him there, I'd have caught his autograph and photo op this time for sure but my real intention was to celebrate spawn with him and I did that, so I wasn't persuing him at all, he just showed up and gave great advice and stories during panels.

Honestly I have to say I don't think they know what power these community gathering events have on black youth. That's a point I want to make. We don't have heros is the theme that's constantly present and is why they started doing this. And it's true. It might be a long day and burdensome, but giving people like me hope that I can see myself as a hero in cinema, and ultimately HOPE that I can have a decent existence in this world, is just severely needed. I don't think they know the magnitute of what it means to go and see powerful strong black heros in a good honest way both in life and on screen. It's no small thing.

About Last Dragon.

I want to make this about that film, and it's what got me into going to these expos so of course I'm going to discuss it majorly. It's just still amazing to me to be wowed by seeing a character like Bruce Leroy. It shouldn't. I mean, think about it. I can go see a lot of movies today and be seeing some typical hollywood hero teen or whatever tackling some adversary. Spidey or Kickass or supey or like all of them, just all mainstream hollywood...

The movie's great on its own regardless of race, but that black soul it has is so strong and exotic that it knocks you out with how different and unconventional it is to see a black lead for a change. Maybe it's an illusion of greatness since it's just not the norm and goes against the grain of what we're typically fed, but yeah we all are attracted to it simply because it is oil in the water of the film world we know.

I'm attracted personally because I am Bruce Leroy. I'm just watching myself when I watch that movie. I've been a weirdo black kid martial arts and fitness nut forever. Finding that film was like finding myself.

It's still important and may forever be important as that one awkward hair going against the flow of the other hairs in the world of films...

And that's it. I did a lot of stuff all in one day. Congrats to Jai the new black dragon. Taimak, thank you for being so open about the film this time, incredible Q and A at the end, learned so many details on the inner workings of the classic and how it came together. Certainly was to me special to sit amongst fellow fans and just talk like people, no pomp and celebity bullshit. That's what was going on all day to be honest, all that hollywood mask shit was gone. Nobody bullshitted. Just spoke like people, no body gave a shit about putting the happy chuck jiving negro mask on and who knows why but part of me was delighted by that 'realness'

Well... Looking forward to the sequel series as it's long overdue and deserved it far more than a lot of other movies that got sequels nobody asked for. That's it, got work today try to bite into all the money I spent, then who knows what the future holds.... I don't have a definitive plan.

Oh and that's kinda goes to my point about going to these cons and such. Yeah gotta have a game plan. Just the whole "show up" idea doesn't fly. I did that like that this time since I wasn't really thinking I needed to be thinking that far ahead, but my advice going forward. Never jump into these things without a clear goal or plan. I didn't know what to do with my self half the day and because of that missed out on doing things asking questions and seeing films and just was spinning around aimless... I look back on that and realize it was a mistake to not have a set clear idea of what I wanted to do.

Gonna do one last pass

Should be interesting. Kinda strange nobody gave a hoot about my stuff. Maybe I didnt hash tag it right. That messes ya up a bit yeah putting effort into something good and pure then crickets afterwards. Thats not right but I can take it. Ha maybe switch over to the black dynamite vip event. Oh too late now.

Nevermind... Nevermind. Gonna do what I think is right... Ive met both my idols already so thats done. Gonna be other celebs there tomorrow to bother. Should be worth it.

Edit:

All of the finished stuff, now I'm truly done, enjoy do whatever with them, don't really give a toss. I'll see ya at the theater tomorrow and be there all damn day.

one last experiment, ok now I'm done...

End time

Can't think of much else to do with these. I've adjusted and played with the last image I wanted to expermiment on and since that's all done, well gonna do the final fixes on all deez shits and then it's time to pop em off into the wide web or whatever.

Learned quite alot about tablet art at substantial mental cost, law of equivilent exchange or something. It is a giving process, making art, you must give your own soul to it and it's a burden to live with that effort. It's never just boom boom boom done, you're playing god afterall, creating, it's a lot of drainage on the brain's batteries. Which is why I don't do this often, but hey, the time is right here. 

Busted as hell, so much work, so much time crunching to mold something decent out of all this... Anyway, will be posting them on my twitter thing, the wonderful living hell that that thing is, and facebook, and I mean, my stuff ain't professional but Last dragon tribute might appreciate what I did. It's labor of love. 

I'll be at the UAE this sat, see what the heck is going on... Jai going to be there for max 3 minutes then go back to shooting outlaw, but I'm gonna hang out with taimak, paid money so he better have some good ass stories about the daily shoot and not be so reticent about it this time. I watched all the vids of the last anniversary, I know they had a big celebration, sad I missed it... damn, nobody said anything about it, would have gone for sure... but that's life right...

show off time

did this despite breaking a nib on this bamboo ink thing, amazing how you drop a digital stylus the only one you have that works and it falls exactly in such a way that the nib breaks off. How extraordinary a chance that can happen... luckily they provided spares in the box or I'd be screwed and have no choice but to post pone or cancel all my current stuff...

but the show still goes on.

It's meh ok, i guess... not all that but whatever. Sick of playing with it, it's my feet wet kinda thing. Just wanted to acclimate myself to shading with this program. Not fun to do from this novice standpoint but once you warm up and get grooving you just know where to go and what to start smoothing out.... not liking the lettering, will be fixing those...add more clouds too... but the airbrushing is so great and seems to just bring it to life and work so well. great stuff. yeah not a bad finish. I dread working on the big harder one but so be it, gotta grind that out. here we gooooooo

Update:

Oooh we having fun now...

Just spent a few hours doing a lot of coloring and experimentation, I think I'll leave the basic format of this alone. I want to go wild and do some cowboy bebop pop art stuff on it but, if I do that I'll change the game totally and it'll need a lot of adjustment to work...

Word to the wise, don't ever try to do the big league collages, it's murder... :/

I want to be optimistic and say today is the day this will be done and I'll do a massive twitter release of everything and submit them to last dragon tribute and all as planned. So yeah I'm hopeful. I've gotten better than average with sketchbook pro as far as layered coloring goes. It's something I've discovered needs planning. big spaces color first, tiny spaces leave for later, it's a lot to put into it. 

Update:

Busted my ass on this one, hope didn't screw it up too bad... That's the lion's share of it I think, now it's just adjust and fix and stuff from here on out. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaah, done with the long boring part, at last...

Update:

Ok well I think I'm very close to finishing these things. Just wanted to show the way I'm approaching the text on the big tough as balls collage piece that murdered my ass today. Looks like some 80s thing that's what I remember seeing a lot back then, they had a thing for trailing text stuff... I'm specifically refrencing masters of the universe which tried to rip off superman the movie's text and failed, but yeah I'm an 80s baby if you haven't noticed... 

then there's this. Not hard to adjust and put in the glow stuff. Had a fun idea of throwing text in there on the boxes and junk.

Gotta give myself credit. I wanted to procrastinate but I knew it'd be a waste of time so I just brute forced my way through a lot of it today and toughed it out. Now it's just simple little things to do and we're finished with this mess... it's been a f'n beast but I guess if somebody likes it I did my job...

polish time

hate coloring, at least with sketchbook, true though coloring is tough in layers trying to keep track of what you're doing...

Oh well good luck dark fate.... I am neither all in or all out with this new T3, it's just a what if comic book they decided to spend millions on and relase world wide, ha ha, good luck with that...

Got work tomorrow so once that crap is done, come back here and polish and play with these things till they're done enough... I want to experiment with all kinds of ways to get it done, some with details and colors and others with kinda a dream-like no color style. We'll see how it all goes.

Terminator Super Nintendo

Saw it. Its a fan film. They can't think this is anything more than that, it's fanboy movie making youtube vid stuff. But anyway it's going to be divisive for sure. Such a late and truly exaustive entry in the series. People will hate it out of spite for merely existing as the last nail in the franchises coffin after several attempts to reawaken the corpse. I enjoyed it because its fine if you're like me and have the ability to imagine different diverging paths for the story... But i definitely feel its yet another pointless sequel to add to the pile and it will be viewed as such. Nothing else was possible with the story. No, you know what this movie is comparable to, Robocop 2. People calling it force awakens. So small minded. It's a lot like f'n Superman 4, robocop 2, like a damn disney sequel or something... I want to say Superman Returns but that's got none of the original cast in it so it doesn't count. But yeah imagine it as one of those flicks you might catch that maybe bring back one of the original characters from the first movie and the rest of the movie is about a dif character and new people... it's like those, uh dtv movies trying to capitalize on the name. If you want to get with it. Basically a mediocre sequel, take your pick there's a billion of them. It's not outright terrible but it it's not on the first movie's level and in this flick's case, it's like an aimless meaningless mediocre next chapter of a franchise we've seen before.

So this movie essentially Indy 4 asking us to view it on the same league as T1 and T2. Ha ha ha, no, no soup for you....

On its own, yeah it's ok. I don't hate Indy 4 on its own. It's got some merits but next to the classic 3, get out of here with that mess.

This ain't going to stand next to the first two. That aside. Hamilton is brilliant. Would have been fun to see her in a proper T3 and that hurts to know we'll never see that. So that's it, this is what happens after T2 if you want to take it as truth. I mean I guess yeah, some kind of ai eventually just popped up like out of somebody's ass somewhere. Oh and the thing with John, just get out of here with that shit, no. I'd prefer he met his fate in a way different way. That decision to create that drama there was not needed. Sarah hating terminators has been well established, probably one of the most hackneyed ways they've ever brought back arnold. the film would have been more interesting if he actually was just a man named carl who looks like arnold and helps them, the whole terminator that just wanders around aimlessly with no programing is a perfect metaphor for the frachise at this point and they simply seem to be oblivious to it?

It's a fan film. On par with T3. I feel like and truly have wasted oh... 16 years of my life dedicated to terminator sequels.

It's been a blast!