Category Archives: video games
The Good:
It’s a new Street Fighter!
The Bad:
The roster is too small and the characters’ move lists have been greatly reduced. Both of these were conscious decisions by Capcom to make this game more like Street Fighter 2. They are trying to recapture the Street Fighter 2 fanbase and ignoring fans of the Street Fighter Alpha or Street Fighter 3 series’.
The Ugly:
As a big fan of 2D art forms, I always had my qualms about the main Street Fighter canon going 3D. Indeed, a valiant effort was made to preserve the art style of the older Street Fighter games… but it wasn’t enough for me. The 3D character models are clunky and awkward. Admittedly, some of the 3D models are much better than others. Ryu and Ken (of course) look amazing. But there’s something kinda… doofy about everyone else. Whether its the animation or the model itself, none of them have the grace and elegance of the 2D Street Fighter sprites.
For me, there is a huge disconnect between the beautiful calligraphy inspired promotional art, the clumsy in-game 3D models, and the traditionally animated “Pokemon-esque” story elements in the game.
Obviously an effort was made to link the calligraphic promo art style to the 3D models because here and there the 3D models get what looks akin to a black brushstroke ink outline. But the brushstroke effect is too little and happens too rarely in the game to match the beautiful promo art.
And then there are these weird cartoon cut scenes that look as far away from the promo art and 3D models as you can possibly get. The animation is limited and character design is over-simplified and completely off-model. It literally looks like Pokemon to me. These little mini-toons are supposed to tie-in to the Street Fighter 4 animated movie, done in the same style. Personally, I think they should’ve kept these cut scenes out of the game. It gets too mis-matched.
In previous Street Fighter games, the promo art, gameplay art, and story art all looked like they were done by the same hand. That brought a sense of cohesiveness and gave those games a tight, complete feel.
In conclusion, yah I’m playing it like crazy because it’s a new Street Fighter. But I’m constantly wishing I had more characters and more moves. It pains me to look at a lot of it. I skip the story scenes. Whenever I have to fight Dhalsim, I try to beat him as quickly as possible because I hate that 3D model. What’s wrong with him? Is the head too big or something? He looks like a baby. None of the new characters impress me that much. El Fuerte is welcome, I guess, but kinda… expected. C.Viper I find boring. I mean, come on, ANOTHER female agent character? Rufus is stupid and a little offensive. Everytime I have to fight him, I get sad that so much effort was put into him while E.Honda, the original fat guy of the series has been totally ignored.
Abel is cute… sometimes, but again, somewhat yawn inspiring. His outfit is lame, he’s got redundant moves, and his personality puts me to sleep. It’s a good thing he has that alternate singlet outfit or else he would have never made it to my sketchpad! hehe! Enjoy this drawing and the raunchy NUDE, ERECT rollover version. (Oh, and sorry Doug. He’s French and French people don’t circumcise.)
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the awesomeness of the Geefster. So take a look at this quickie I whipped up. Roll over for the SHAVED version. Yeah, who knew he’d be so fucking hot beardless?! YUM! And for nude and erect versions of the Red Cyclone, visit the Fan-Boy section of the Anti-Heroes.net Members Gallery. Dosvidanya!
Basically here are some of the reference materials I use. Some are pics from the internet, rough CG models from my partner, and some are photos of me! Sorry I’m censoring my face and bulge in these. As vain as I am, I am not comfortable with my face (or cock) being plastered all over the net.
I do however want my pecs to be appreciated though– haha!
10) Act 1 (Ms. Pac-Man)
I always thought this tune was a little too jazzy and dramatic for the love story of two yellow circles.
09) T.Hawk (Super Street Fighter 2)
He was my least favorite guy in that game– but I loved his theme. MEKSHIKO!
08) Flying Stage (Rocket Knight Adventures)
One of Konami’s best little-known titles, it had a great mascot (very Smash Bros. worthy) and great music throughout.
07) The Ocean (Vectorman)
This one is good with headphones. In this game’s options menu, under ‘music’ it read “click off if you don’t like good music.”
06) Sandopolis Zone (Sonic & Knuckles)
They really get down in old Sonic games, don’t they?
05) Dreamer (Streets of Rage 2)
From stage 3– where you walk around beating the shit out of people at the amusement park.
04) Gemini Man (Mega Man 3)
It manages to be kinda spooky yet super groovy at the same time– definitely the Thriller of NES game music.
03) Begin Treasure Hunting (Kirby SuperStar)
This is here mostly because it is WAY too epic to be in a Kirby game. It sounds like you’re on a grand quest to save medieval Europe.
02) African Mines (Duck Tales)
I used to time Scrooge’s jumping sound to the beat of the music. If he was ever off beat, it was bad luck.
01) Juggernaut (Marvel Super Heroes)
It’s somewhat dangerous for me to walk around with this playing on my ipod because I get so into it that I wanna punch through glass screaming maniacally like Juggernaut’s voice actor.
For those that don’t know, The King of Fighters is a long-running fighting game series produced by SNK/Playmore. But what makes KOF12 so hot is that they’ve set out to make the MOTHER of all 2D fighters, redrawing EVERY sprite in HD and upping the animation frame-rate more than double what it was! What I’m tryna say is that the animation is so good, it frikkin’ looks like you’re playing a Disney movie!
This must come as such bad news for Capcom and the Street Fighter 4 camp, who (controversially) decided to abandon 2D for their popular franchise. They thought 2D was dead. Oh, ye of little faith. Part of me feels bad for Capcom because by making the game 3D, they’re competing with the likes of Soul Calibur and Tekken, a battle they’re destined to lose.
SNK/Playmore is basically “running unopposed!” So, kudos to the folks over at SNK/Playmore for believing in 2D and thusly believing in the fans that made their franchise so popular. And Capcom? Well, sorry ‘cuz Street fighter 4’s gonna look like a hot mess when compared to ANY of the other fighters coming out.
X-Men Legends is a great game but it suffers from a syndrome from which most X-Men games suffer: a boring cover. Cue my redo. Choosing which characters to use was easy enough. I picked the 4 most iconic characters (all male of course, as this is the secret SEXY GAY version of the game.) Deciding to use the costumes I designed for them was also a quick decision. I figure, if everyone and their mother gets to do it, I should, being a devout fan and historian for decades.
The tough part was figuring out what they should be doing and how to pose them. I mulled through a myriad of different ideas, but none of them seemed as solid as the classic X-Men splash image. You know, the type of drawing that sells millions of comic books and never fails to make fans kick themselves after discovering that only one or two of the characters from the cover are actually in the book. haha.
I also had issues deciding how exactly to make this XXX erotic (particularly because I’d already drawn them all fully clothed!) I never tire of my rollover images, so I went with that, along with that cool glowing “X” that serves as the x-ray vision peephole for you guys. I have to say that even though he is not my favorite of the 4 I chose, I am most pleased with Logan in both the clothed and raunchy versions. I think after days of mucking around with it, I finally captured that Logan snarl!
I expect massive amounts of feedback, people– this is X-MEN FAN-ART here. ^__^
Humbuged had some pics that he’d drawn on his Nintendo DS. Being the annoying guppie that I am, I always have the latest tekkie gizmos. Before I got my iPhone, I had a really amazing pocket PC smart-phone that was super customizable. At the time, I was friggin’ obsessed with finding a good digital painting program for it. But alas, none of them really worked.
I dunno why I was/am so preoccupied with a portable digital painter. So needless to say, when I discovered that I could get one for my trusty lil’ DS, I jumped all over that!
The application is called Colors! and it is a homebrew game created by Jens Andersson. It keeps things incredibly simple for ease of use. And the resulting works can look really amazing. I was never a real lover of any traditional media other than a pens and pencils, but this program makes it look like I can watercolor with the beat of ’em! Haha
My favorite feature of the game is that it records every single brushstroke so you can view an animation of the progress of your drawing! I’m so enamoured with this game, it’s not even funny. The only real problem is since I only really play with it in public (on the subway) I can’t really draw anything all that raunchy. When you have a DS or PSP or whatever, it’s a given that folks are gonna look over your shoulder. I don’t know if I could take the guilt of exposing some impressionable young tyke to a giant cartoon cock.