Clash of the Titans: Dante's Inferno vs Bayonetta vs God of War 3

Hi folks, I had the occasion to play the demo of Dante's Inferno on PS3, and let me tell Ya: it ain't no DEAD SPACE by a long shot.Indeed it is a mass brawler a la God of War and Bayonetta, and actually it doesnt either look as good or is as interesting as any of the two others.
The graphics are somewhat clean, the backdrops somewhat flat and the character models not very convincing for such a big title.The gameplay is what You would consider a pretty hefty copy of God of War, including quik time events, giant enemies and hordes of demons attacking.
While I was eagerly waiting for that game to try (beeing a huge DEAD SPACE addict), it was rather disappointing, specially compared with the originality of Bayonetta and the raw good looks of God of War.
Its gonna be a hard time for Dante's Inferno, competing with these, unless Visceral does some major polishing to the visual appeal.
Bayonetta has even larger enemies and even weirder weapons and special attacks (besides beeing more attractive).Kratos has much better graphics, and Darksiders has the more different gameplay.
Let's wait and see how Dante will perform, I doubt it will be as successfull as DEAD SPACE....

Christmas presents :D

Hi everybody !
Christmas was awesome this year again! Got some great games: Brütal Legend and (finally) Oblivion GOTYE.
Plus: the Millenium Falcon, the X-Wing and Obi-Wan's starfighter to assemble.
Plus Spectrum 16.Plus Watchmen, StarTrek, Forrest Gump, Braveheart and Gladiator on Blu-Ray !
My favourite stuff.For that Falcon, I waited 25+ years to get it, I was never getting this one:

So at least I have the one from revell.

Later I got pretty many of these:

Which I loved to death and created adventures for, also dealing with the gem of my collection:

Damn, that was GREAT, much cooler looking than Castle Grayskull !

That Millenium Falcon kit brought a lot of memories back :D

Now I feel the urge to wish for the Tie-Fighter, the Snowspeeder and the Tidirium Shuttle :D

Especially the black Tie-Fighters look awesome....

Awesome modeling learning material

Ten24 has some awesome (commercial) tutorial on their site for modeling cars and photorealistic (as in: this is top level movie quality) humans.One of the best I have seen in years.Here is a preview:

Epic brings Unreal Engine 3 to iPhone

Wow, this is pretty awesome.Smooth and pretty high poly looking.
Anandtech has a nice article about the Unreal Engine on the iPod/iPhone :)

Health, happiness and love for everybody in the galaxy :D

Alien Breed Evolution

Well, today I downloaded and played Alien Breed Evolution from the Xbox Live marketplace.
Beeing a HUGE fan of Alien Breed on the Amiga, I was pretty excited to try out a new installment of the series (especially since the announcement of such a game has been done several years ago, I believe 2004 or so).
After I donwloaded it, I called the wife to support me as a second player, casue ya know, AB is played best ina team.
When I heard the "Intex" computer voice again, it felt really cool, its been a loooong time.
So the game started, Anna joined me, and the first thing we noticed: its dark, and its hard to tell the characters from the environment.
Ok, dark and moody is good, but we felt its a bit too confusing, and no, we didn't play on an old CRT, we play on a 40-inch Samsung.The perspective is slightly isometric, I feel a straight topdown would have worked better.
Of course, there is the problem with the camera if Youn play 2-player coop locally on the Xbox, but that probably can be avoided by playing the game on-line so that each player has it own screen.
Secondly (and that You can accustom yourself to): the controls are not THAT easy.
The aiming is a bit difficult, as you aim while standing still by using the right stick.You move with the left one, so strafing is pretty cool, although difficult.
Third: you fire away at an incredibly high rate, because precise aiming is difficult (see above), bruing through those ammo packs faster than You would believe.
Fourth: the environment(in the demo) is pretty indestructible, and if there are things to shoot, they explode and may harm You.
So our first impression is just average.The original Alien Breed didnt allow for environmental destruction either, but I thought this would be includede now, especially when using the Unreal 3 engine.
The graphics are nice, though :)

Voice cast for Mass Effect 2

This is pretty cool: see who has been voicing the characters in BioWare's upcoming Mass Effect 2 !

OUTLANDER mini review

Yesterday we watched "Outlander" with Jim Caviezel.I checked back with boxofficemojo, and was very surprised to see that the movie is what You can call an epic failure at the box office.
We actually liked it very much.The story is not beyond awesome, but it is pretty interesting:
A space soldier crash lands on Earth (which in the movie is an abandoned human seed colony), 700 B.C., and an alien creature lands with him, starting to feast on the people living in the area.
Although he loses his futuristic weapon, he tries to protect the people and kill the alien beast, feeling guilty to have it brought to the rather primitive culture.
The special effects are really good, with an truly vibrant, living and original creature, some spectacular space scenes, alien planet backgrounds and vistas.
Caviezel does a great job, on par with Christian Bale I would say, and the rest of the cast including John Hurt and the great Ron Perlman is more than involved.
I would say its a good rental, much better than for example "Public Enemies", and it should have done better in the theaters....

Code cats....

Next time I wanna be a cat, dammit !

Mass Effect 2 Cinematic trailer

Now thats an awesome trailer, especially the woman is outstanding.They are getting away from the plain, puppet like looks finally :)

Interesting "Making Of..." articles

EDGE has a few interesting articles on the Making Of Syndicate, IK+, Populous and Cannon Fodder.
Always nice to read those.Populous was awesome, is awesome and will ever be, and Syndicate is just even awesom-er ! Especially for a BladeRunner fan such as the writer of this blog !

But all things considered...

...there is only one truly timeless pixel program, and that is:




Happy me has WinUAE running along with Cloanto's "Amiga Forever", and uses his original version of the classic tool.
If it aint broke, dont fix it :)

The best pixel tool ever, and its free: GrafX 2

GrafX 2 is the one of the best pixel programs ever.Having used the Deluxe Paint line of pixel software on Amiga for a straight 10 years, from Deluxe Paint 2 (my first commercial purchase) to

Dpaint V, this feels like coming home from a looooong trip :D

Working with 8-16-32 colours is really challenging and motivating.And it makes filesizes really small :D and artwork really sharp.Ideal for mobile platforms.

I have to admit I like it more than ProMotion, which nonetheless is a great tool, too.But sometimes, the simpler the better.

Hail to the Champs: a tribute to "The Chaos Engine"

The Chaos Engine (1993) by the legendary Bitmap Brothers was one of the most popular Amiga games of all times.The pixel art was awesome (rarely has there been a developer making so much with so few colours).Playing it with a friend was just as great as playing Kick Off . Good old times....

Chris Jones: The Passenger

Well, this is an awesome piece.8 years in the making.Am example of determination, strength and vision.I really admire this guy, he surely deserves an award for his work.

GameSalad for iPhone

If somebody is looking to create iPhone games without programming knowledge, give GameSalad a try.Its realtively cheap and seems to work for simple game ideas.Let me know how You like it.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex

Suprisingly, Treyarch seemed to have delivered a pretty good game, if You wanna believe Metacritic.
OKish graphics and all the gameplay of the HD version on Wii, I must say, its tempting.I havent got the original game for my Box or Station, maybe I will give this one a spin.
Of course it aint a New Super Mario Bros. Wii , but I doubt that I will get that one anytime soon.
My Wishlist is pretty exclusive:

1.Aliens:Colonial Marines
2.Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
3.Alien vs Predator

Ok, I am an ALIEN franchise fan, I admit it.
And now that Gearbox have let go their pretty average "Borderlands", they might "gear up" for Colonial Marines !!! Get it done guys !!!

Motionbox, everyone upload, edit and share Your videos in awesome quality

Motionbox makes it easy to share your videos online and is a great alternative to YouTube; better quality, more privacy settings and online editing features.Give it a try.
Motionbox is giving away 3 brand new Roku players to 3 random people who sign up for a free account during the month of November and there is only one week left. Please check out this microsite which explains everything :

http://motionboxnews.com

My Amiga history

Just found myself on the internet.That means: I am listed, therefore I exist !
Ahhhh, good old Amiga days :)

Ahhhhh, Appdate !

Hehe, yes, I have been silent quite some time, although there would be PLENTY to tell :)
Let's start with one of the classic games I played, and actually FINISHED.
Playstation 1 players will remember this one, its one of those love/hate games, and its name is
SILENT HILL.
I started it almost a year ago, then I had to pause it (not literally) until three weeks ago.
Then I ordered myself one session every two or three days.
Genre:
Well, SILENT HILL at the time was one of its kind.It is an adventure, it is a survival horror action game, it is puzzling, frightening and hard to control.
Actually it shares the control scheme of another famous genre mix: RESIDENT EVIL.
So You move Your 3D character on screen as if it was a car rather than a human beeing.

Gameplay:
The game plays like RESIDENT EVIL with more puzzles and a more psychological plot.
You got an inventory, You got weapons, You can pick up things (mostly health restoring items and ammo for the various guns).
The game itself plays around the story, and it has You walk around A LOT, fight many enemies and use special items here and there to open doors and paths to other locations.

Story:
The story of SH is actually a point of discussions, and the fans of the series do that a lot.
Its much like the typical, strange asian horror flick story, where a lot happens, but in the end (and there is 4 of them in this game) its all a convulted mess and You dont go "Aha!", but rather "Say, what ?".Basically its You looking for Your daughter Cheryl, who, after You were driving with her in Your car and crashed, disappeared towards the village of SILENT HILL.
After that crash, You wander around in SH, trying to find Cheryl.You encounter several people (which are as strange as the surroundings), have non-interactive dialogues, find clues, fight strange creatures who for whatever reason attack You...and thats it.Not much happens in SILENT HILL.The story progresses slowly and is really told with the least effort possible.So, at the end of the day, You would call this a very repetitive, boring game. What saves SH though, is the eerie atmosphere and sense of surrealistic haunting that comes with the masterfully created surroundings, sounds and events.
There is a constant fog around You, allowing You only to see so far.There is strange noises, screams, howlings.There is the surroundings transforming from peaceful, quiet village into rusty, dirty and bloody nightmares.Its all about frightening You, and the developers really use every trick in the book to achieve that.And they do.Despite the fact that I was playing this PSX game on my PS3, it kept me hooked because the art design is so successfull.The enemies and creatures are so totally sick an weird, that even by todays standards, they are just fantastic.

Graphics:
Well, this beeing a PSX 3D game, it didnt age as gracefully as many of the PSX 2D games.
Nonetheless, its still awesome as the graphics are very inventive and straight to the point.
Its a horror game, and the artists knew how to frighten You even with muddy low res textures.
The player character wears a flashlight, and that lighting effect is really well done.
Some of the cutscenes are prerendered, and again, for that time, they were nice to look at and well animated.

Sound/Music:
Creepy.Eerie.Cruel.Shocking.The sound effects and the score have already left their mark in history, they underline the constant feeling of terror and loneliness, and their timing is well done.

Verdict:
If David Lynch would do a japanese horror movie, it would probably be like this game.
Its fascinating, sometimes (especially versus one of the ends) tedious and repetitive, yet never really bad enough to NOT let You try to escape this village for good.
The movie based on the game is very well done, too, with exactly the same strengths.
If You wanna start the seris, start here: SILENT HILL welcomes You.....

A retro gamers wet dream comes true !

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I thought it would have been awesome if LucasArts had made the original StarWars trilogy in a series of adventures à la Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.Well.They never did.
Now, a fangame does what LA should have done, and it looks great, too !

Mysterious Xbox 360 offer at Amazon.de...disappeared ?

This morning I saw an offer for an xBox 360 with 250 GB HDD, two controllers and one game for 279.- Euros.Now its gone.Where ? Why? And...who ? Wanna, wanna, wanna !!!!!

Paul Linsley Blog, awesome artist !

Paul Linsley is just awesome, 'nuff said !
Be there or be square !

GamesCom in Cologne, afterthoughts

Last week we were at the new GamesCom in Cologne.
We had great exspectations, but it was rather disappointing.The variety was great, but unfortunately, the ueberlong chains waiting to be let in to watch Diablo, Dead Space Extraction or Dante's Inferno were just unbearable :(
So, instead of waiting 3 hours to see Diablo 3, we just checked all the non-adult stuff, and skipped ALL THE COOL GAMES.
Either they change that next year, or it was our last trip to that fair.

LEGION, the sequel to the holy bible ?

"Believe it nor not..."
I'd rather not, unfortunately, the Internet Movie Database rarely lies.So they are making a movie that sounds like a mix between God's Army and The Seventh Sign, along with a bit of The Astronaut's Wife and, oh, Rosemarie's Baby.Did I forget something ? Let me know here in the comments ! Looks like the "big return of disaster movies" for this year and the next.

The Knowing microreview

Ok, watched "Knowing" with Nic Cage, and I guess he is just so lost because he didn't get Tom Hanks role in those Dan Brown book movies.
"Bangkog Dangerous" was lousy, "Knowing" is just even more stupid than "Signs".Although the special FX are cool.Three thumps down, Nic.Better check those screenplays BEFORE signing up.
This movie is not only ABOUT disasters.It IS a crash.
Oh, and Moe, this movie really suxx big time.Thanks for the tip !NOT !

Games for FREE ?? Where ? When ? Who ?

Yes, it IS possible ! It IS happening as we speak ! Go to www.intermediaware.com and get Your free games ABSOLUTE BLUE and PSYCHOBALLS.Do it now. It's all good.No hidden message.No obligations.Just fun.Do it.Take the blue pill ! Or the red ! Take them BOTH ! And enjoy the gift :)
Did I mention there are FREE games at www.intermediaware.com ? Now !

Concept Art update

Here's some minor concept sketches for a game I work on.I still dunno how to call those beasts, so if anybody has suggestions, please let me know here in the comments. I might be tempted to give away a free copy or two of the game, if the ideas are good :) So be creative and name your worst nightmare...

Gears of War 1 and Gears of War 2

So I paused JADE EMPIRE and UNCHARTED and played with my buddy Matze through GoW1 and with my girl through GoW 2.
They are EPIC, no pun intended.The texture work and sheer amount of content in both are breathtaking.The action is intense albeit a bit repetitive, but playing coop and using tactics like crossfire and flanking is VERY satisfying.My gamertag is emme1973, so if anybody wants to cut with me through waves of Low-Cost (hehe), just drop me a message.

Mark Jones

This is Mark Jones website and gallery.If You, like me, remember fondly the times of Amiga games, then You should check it out, he did artwork for Darkmere which looked fantastic, awesome palette, awesome pixel power ! Kudos, Mark !

More Jeff Vogel insights

RPG Vault has a nice article about addictive elements in RPGs, by Jeff Vogel. Worth reading.

Listen to the man !

All brave indie developer should listen to people who "made it".

Someone I really admire, look up to and worship is Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb.

Yes, the man, the myth, the legend.He does "his thing" since more than a decade, and he is doing it his way, and he is doing it good.

Jeff, You rock man ! Kudos !Keep those RPGs coming !

Adventure Screen

This is a WIP from a graphic adventure (old school style) I am developing.

Catching up with the classics: Jade Empire (Xbox)

Thanks to Moe I just was reminded that although I purchased JADE EMPIRE a while ago, I never took the time to really play it.Started it now and played for two and a half hours.Its good.The graphics are great (beating anything I have seen on Cube or PS2 except maybe for FF12) and its very moody.Not to mention the fabulous concept art.Once I am through with it, I will write a little review here.Then I will go on with Knights of the Old Republic.

More game stuff...

The Don and Voodoomaster...old stuff from school...

And while we are talking spaceships...

...that's one I once made for a game that is still in the making, secretly :)

Great Star Trek stuff !

The Lightworks is an awesome site with fantastic Star Trek related artworks.
The provide breathtaking intros for Star Trek conventions ! Tobias Richter, who runs the studio, is what You would consider a veteran in the biz.
He also started out back on the Amiga, where he did artwork for Black Gold, or "Oil Imperium" as it was called in germany.On Amiga he also made a Star Trek fan game, which I purchased.
Great guy, and great stuff.

Sacred 2 (xBox 360) suxx

Okay, so me and the lady played Sacred 2 for about two hours.She has played both parts on PC and LOVED them.After two hours we gave up on it.In our opinion, its a waste of time.The graphics are not "next gen" (constant problems with the frame rate, sudden jumps to new locations, colour choice is quite strange, and when playing together on one screen, the chars are so small You hardly see anything).
The controls are OK.The atmosphere is severly lacking, too much text.The sound is buggy, sometimes NPCs move their mouths and You hear nothing.And all in all, for an RPG, there is not enough You can do with Your character (no change of appearance, no good choice of races or classes).At the end, its a pretty huge yet generic action hack'n'slash that never reaches the class of its predecessors nor the ultimae competitor DIABLO 2.
So we hope and pray Blizzard will bring Diablo 3 on XBox 360, because that we will preorder twice :D Heck, we will even buy a second XBox for that game.Come on BLIZZARD !!!

Talk About Android

Talk About Android

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Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings (Wii) minireview

Indy is back, and this time he's bringing old gameplay mechanics, unfair restart points, non-skippable tutorial and cutscenes, bad (voice) acting and less-than-intuitive controls.
For all fans who played through the other Indy games, this one is nothing special.It has better graphics than both Infernal Machine and Emperor's Tomb, but the general acting is bad, the voice acting in particular, and the WII controls are less than perfect.
Add to that the fact that especially at the beginning You have to sit through the same tutorial texts and speeches over and over again if You fail (and most of the time You fail without knowing why), and You get a cumbersome and not-so-rewarding Indy experience.
I really wanted this to be great, I love Indy, and the whip-based gameplay was a very appealing idea.Alas, the execution is so poor that even a fan like me can't spend so much time redoing parts just because I failed near the end of a chapter.
I recommend this only to die-hard fans, because at least the graphics are nice and it's INDY.

STOP SMOKING

Went to my dad's tomb today.He died 5 years ago from lung cancer.All I can say: You definitly do NOT want to end like this, fighting for weeks, fighting for every single breath, needing all Your strength to fight for oxygen.If You smoke: stop now.If You don't: don't start.
If You have children: stop smoking.Don't be weak.
My dad was a strong man, and a strong smoker.And I miss him each single day.

Bad start today, our bathroom door couldn't be opened anymore.So we had it opened by a professional, and that was over 100 Euro (including new lock).
Started reading Perry Rhodan Volume 39 "Paladin" today.Love that story, its getting "faster, more intense" all the time.Will start posting art stuff quite soon.

Blu-Ray micro review: Wall Street and Robin Hood-Prince of Thieves

Last weekend we watched both movies, and compared to spectacular stuff like BladeRunner or 2001 , these two have not been properly remade for the big format.The picture quality is (maybe) slightly above the DVD quality, the picture looks flat, as well as the colours.
Soundwise they're ok, but only just.If You have the DVDs and a player that upscales, don't bother buying those two as Blu-Ray.

We are not worthy :)

Larry Shultz, also known as SPLINEGOD has interesting stuff on his website, if You look for things LightWave, then this is the place to go for training.
Larry is one of the most dedicated and experienced LightWave artists in the world.He more than knows his stuff.Kudos, Larry !

Janosch Obenauer, more than worth a look

Janosch Obenauer (aka Jaymo) has a cool website where You can check out his art and design works.He's an excellent artist with plenty of experience.

Transformers 2: Every schoolboy's wet dream

Ok, so yesterday we went watching what seems to be THE blockbuster of the year.What can I say, its a big badda-boom, some nice glamour shots of sexy Megan Fox and a bit of nasty teeny jokes à la American Pie.Good special FX, but I am through with gigantic, transmutating robots.The story is getting...rusty.

Absolute Blue

Here's a trailer for "Absolute Blue", a great retro shooter game (SHMUP) we made.For all fans of classic action games, this should be worth checking out
at intermediaware.

There is also a little free game You can download.

Very interesting book

NFGman has a book out which I would like to recommend to any games artists who is interested in pixel art and pixel art history.
Nic stuff about Henk Nieborg, one of the absolute best artists out there.

My friend Arne is working on his website...hopefully soon back...

Check out Theplasticage .....awesome artwork !

Also, Adrian Maleska has some stunning work to show !

So it begins...

Space.The Final frontier.These are the voyages of Emme...
A new book with a cover illustration by me has just been released:
http://www.basilisk-verlag.de/index2.php?sf=18&news=01

Its so much fun to do these :) Actually cover illustration was my first love !

Did also covers for Frank M. at Atlantis
I love series.
Just heard that my illustration for the Perry Rhodan Yearbook was accepted as a back cover, yay :) Thanks to Andy.