#based off one of shinkawa's works : )

[mikashida]

meryl redraw

#based off one of shinkawa's works : ) #metal gear #metal gear solid #meryl silverburgh #mgs fanart #mgs #metal gear art #metal gear fanart #meryl mgs #meryl silverburgh mgs #illustration #doodle #artists on tumblr #art #mikart

[floatingcatacombs]

Patlabor is On Lock

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 3

While Gundam is the most recognizable mecha anime I got into this year, most of my time was really spent working my way through the Patlabor franchise, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites. I’ve always loved the quiet moments in mecha shows, which makes sense considering I started with Macross and live for the bridge bunny gossip and off-duty downtown hangouts. Patlabor is built with this downtime at its core, operating with more of a slice of life mentality than anything else.

A lovable cast is crucial for making this work. Thankfully, Noa Izumi is a wonderful and unique protagonist, a scrappy soft butch who’s in it for the eroticism of the machine. The first Patlabor opening is a love letter from Noa to her mecha, and I get it! The AV-98 Ingram is an iconic design, with its asymmetric bunny ear antennae and shoulder lights and comically oversized revolver that requires the right hand to pop out in order to draw, exposing the arm wiring in the process. This is a show clearly written by first-generation mecha otaku, and plenty of time is dedicated to showing how the Labors have to be transported and recharged, how the movement software depends on reinforcement learning, showing off corporate model revisions, and of course repairs in the hangar.

Going back to the human characters, Noa’s work partner Asuma is clearly the more passive one within their dynamic, and it’s sweet to see that played out sincerely. And then there’s Kanuka Clancy, the stern weirdo badass from New York who’s constantly swearing and dropping one-liners in English. She’s the obvious breakthrough character of the show, and also the perfect opposites-attract pairing for Noa if you’re the kind of person whose yuri meter went off the charts during their drinking contest episode. Most of Patlabor’s cast seem fairly one-note at first, and one of the great tricks of the show is giving them just a little bit more depth than you would expect. Pretty much everyone, even the most jokey characters, eventually get a standalone episode or two that further sketches them out and offers real interiority. Captain Goto is another fan-favorite, and it’s definitely his mixture of laziness and wicked perceptiveness that does it, plus his main character billing in the movies.

SV2 may be a law enforcement unit, but this really isn’t a police procedural at the end of the day. These guys are the bum department out in the sticks who everyone hates, and the upside of that is that SV2 gets stuck with the oddest of jobs instead of cop work. Sometimes that’s dealing with a runaway military prototype, other times it’s arguing with the insurance company. The best kind of episodes are the ones that take almost entirely on base as everyone tries to solve a problem of their own making, like an Ingram falling into the sea or the mechanics getting into a fight with the only restaurant that delivers to them.

A main plot does eventually emerge, with a shadowy company developing a mysterious jet-black Labor piloted by a child who is the girlish boy to Noa Izumi’s boyish girl. The Griffon is sleek and curvy and has superiority in the water and air – it’s a machine designed to defeat Ingrams, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoji Shinkawa looked here when designing Metal Gear RAY. Automation is a fundamental ideological enemy of mecha – faceless mass production and artificial intelligence mean an end to the era of personal combat. Even Patlabor, a warless series, dips its toes into this idea in the later episodes, with Noa and the mechanics alike worrying that the neural networks in their new Labor models will make them redundant.

Overall, this show is hilarious and sweet and clearly loved by an older generation of otaku. So why didn’t I hear about it earlier? Partly it’s on me for not hanging out with the right mecha fans online for a while. But if I had to guess, it’s also because Patlabor is one of those works that’s straightforwardly, unobjectionably good in a way where it already says everything there is to be said about it. You can have near-infinite arguments about Zeon ideology or mobile suit powerscaling online, but there’s only so many times you can say “yeah, Noa Izumi, love that girl” precisely because everyone agrees. It can also be hard to pitch things by their vibes in a genre known for adrenaline and intrigue. Patlabor’s vibes, for the record, are immaculate.

I'm probably gonna be chasing the high of cel-era sunsets forever

Mecha’s also a bit looked down upon from the outside. Anything that makes it into the larger conversation has to be understood as “elevated” or a “genre deconstruction”, even if the very first Mobile Suit Gundam is already about Amuro’s trauma and PTSD from being made into a child soldier. This elevation is actually happening to the second Patlabor movie as we speak - it’s becoming increasingly discussed as a major component of Mamoru Oshii’s filmography, divorced from its source series and instead compared to his subsequent Ghost in the Shell movie. Funnily enough, Oshii’s contributions to the Patlabor TV show are actually the more lighthearted gag episodes.

A lot of recent Patlabor retrospectives have drawn attention to the artist’s collective Headgear, established and owned by the series creators so they would be able to retain the rights for the franchise. This structure is fairly unique for the anime industry and probably only makes sense for established creatives, but it does seem to have worked out great for them, providing financial stability and strong creative control over the franchise. This allowed Patlabor to thrive in the relative wasteland of late 80s TV anime, a time when even Gundam had fled to the OVA market.

That being said, it does take Patlabor switching back to OVAs to truly spread its wings. The New Files are a conclusion and continuation of the TV series that are willing to move at their own pace, resulting in some dramatic and surprisingly thoughtful stories. It’s genuinely touching to watch Goto and Nagumo try and fail to communicate their feelings for one another in a very restrained episode as thick with long-stewing emotions as it is empty space. Of course, the very next episode has half the cast get stuck in the sewer labyrinth underneath their base and there’s a bunch of Wizardry references. Oh, Oshii.

The Patlabor movies fully lean into this melancholy and uncertainty, and it’s a welcome evolution for the series. The first movie still ends with an all-out action set piece in a half-built mecha factory that stands in for the Tower of Babel, but the second one stays serious the whole time through, going as far as pivoting to a more realistic artsyle. It’s a challenging film. The politics are all-encompassing but fairly straightforward, as Oshii effectively infodumps a presentation on the postwar history of the JSDF throughout. Instead, what the makes the movie so difficult is its willingness to face the end of an era – the Cold War is over, the bubble economy has popped, and the former members of SV2 have all gone their separate ways. The conditions that have created Patlabor, both internal and external to the show, have dissipated. And the movie makes it clear by having the military stage a raid on SV2’s headquarters, tearing their Labors to shreds with gunfire in a beautifully animated act of desecration.

After watching her be a lovable mecha dweeb for 50 episodes, it hurts a bit to hear Noa Izumi say that she doesn’t want to be that girl obsessed with robots for the rest of her life! These characters are growing in such a way that will remove them from the focus of the narrative, and it’s a movie about letting go just as much as it is about looking towards an uncertain personal and national future. I love Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso, but the fact that Oshii put this out just one year later paints a delicious contrast between the two directors with regards to escapism versus reality with regards to militarism. There's some great interviews from the era where they're just taking potshots at each other about all this.

#12 days of anime #patlabor

[rad-hound]

Do you have anything to say about metal gear: survive? It feels like you’d have some opinions on that

Oh, I most certainly do. As a matter of fact, I'll go off on a limb and say that there is a really good video on the subject which likely will hit more bases than I will in my own... "review," per se. (Granted, the video in question is a little lengthy, capping off at around 40 minutes, but if or when you have the time to, I would most certainly reccommend it.) And the video in question appears to void or ignore several instances which may have proven the creator's points wrong, BUT ALAS.

This is my opinion, not his, so here it is.

For those of you who might not know, Metal Gear: Survive, developed and published solely by Konami Digital Entertainment—and I'll try my best to describe it without sounding ironic or patronizing—was a little more-or-less a... "deviation," from the already-established base of the franchise, for more reasons than just one. However, the star aspect of the game in question which sticks out like a sore thumb above all the rest, would be the fact that you... fight zombies; the gist of the story following that of "the Captain, an MSF soldier who enters a parallel dimension and establishes a local command center to unravel the mysteries of a strange virus that turns people into zombie-like creatures."

Which, yes, isn't an entirely foreign concept within the Metal Gear franchise at all; given the existence of the Skulls / Parasite Unit within Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, joined with the vocal cord parasites, which—more or less—caused a similar, almost zombie-like effect within infected soldiers... however I believe that within that game—and every other Metal Gear game—such a presence of... idiosyncrasy, so to speak, was at least digestible without necessarily being overbearing. But, within a game like Metal Gear: Survive, it's the entire plot.

In essence, the game was quite similar to the likes of Bloons: Tower Defense, perhaps Clash of Clans... but instead of popping balloons, you're bursting blood vessels at the mere thought of not only having to micromanage platforms and... "survive", but at the cost of having to sit through a near-infuriating, almost comically disconnected story which is so far separated from the source material, that you wonder to yourself; "Is it true that Kojima greenlit such a thing?"

The answer towards which would be: no, he didn't, and even touted its existence in the very same fashion, alongside Yoji Shinkawa, who stated that, "If [he] were to have worked on Metal Gear: Survive, there most certainly would have been mechs [present within the game.]," to paraphrase. Predictably, all of this was entirely out of Kojima's hands—for reasons I'm sure we're all aware of—and thus... inevitably resulted in being a massive mess. Despite its... mixed reception.

Would this game have been better as a standalone, far separated from the Metal Gear franchise in its entirety? Perhaps... but seeing how this game appears to have been created for the sole purpose of... "milking the Metal Gear cashcow"—given how eager Konami Digital Entertainment was to resume production of its Pachinko machines, mobile games... already having brought into consideration throwing Metal Gear into the mix, even before all of this mess occurred—I find that to be highly unlikely, given how this game wasn't necessarily made with... good intentions.

Even aside from its messy production, and the entire... "Kojima v. Konami" debacle, I find that the game's artistic and programming design absolutely, positively pale in comparison to Metal Gear games of old. Which could likely easily be explained by Metal Gear concept artist Yoji Shinkawa's absence in said game's creation... however I find that the game pales in almost every category, not just in regards to its visual design. Even if, that too, is a little...

Like... I don't even know what to say, or how to describe this, in complete honesty. And with little-to-no valuable information upon this... creature's Wikia page, much less within the game itself, it seems it would be inconsequential to just pass this off as a hiccup on Konami's behalf. And while this game is non-canonical, and a spinoff, it just... it makes no sense, at least within a Metal Gear-centric context. As well as a visual aspect, and from a conceptual aspect. Both in theory and in execution, apparently.

This, alongside its music and sound design, I find to be appalling and almost shameful, because... even if you've never touched or seen anything out of this game, nor have you desired to so much as poke it with a ten-foot-pole, you can just tell that its music is completely soulless. As evident by the lack of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's primary composer, Ludvig Forssell, alongside several other musicians and composers which have come together over the years of Metal Gear's conception to carefully craft many masterful and memorable pieces we've all come to know and love.

If I asked you to compare these two soundtracks, blindly, which one would you prefer? If I were to give no other description, other than "ALBUM #1" and "ALBUM #2," in your honest opinion, which do you truthfully believe you would fancy better?

ALBUM #1?

Or ALBUM #2?

I'm not so sure about you, but without a shadow of a doubt, I would choose the first album. With the conception of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's music, near-instantly could I pick apart not only rhythms and patterns within Mr. Forssell's writing, but trademarks, of which are near-impossible to miss. I cannot say the same for the music of Metal Gear: Survive; all of which sounds too corporate and generic to have even a fragment of soul within it. As evident between the difference of "Ludvig Forssell," and "FILM SCORE LLC," present beneath each of either album's tracks on Spotify.

Because, as we all know, a very important factor of a video game's irrefutable success is its music; its memorability, its notoriety... being able to hear even a single set of notes from a piece, which near-instantly causes you to point at your radio or device screen and exclaim, "Hey! I know that song!" A very good example of such musical genius being—despite my vices against its base—Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. And even if you've only ever listened to a single song from that game, you'll know that it KICKS ASS, even if you've never once played the game in your entire life. A sort of general consensus that all of the game's "fans" can agree upon.

But, I suppose, at the end of the day, even bad games have their fans, just as horrible, irredeemable villains have their fans. And even if I were to never touch Metal Gear: Survive with a ten-foot-pole, there are people who find it to be entertaining; viewing its punishing gameplay design as a sort of plus, in a way. And, if you were to play the game without thinking too hard about its associations or deeper themes, I would agree with that sentiment. Sometimes, just playing a game to play a game is the better route to take.

And even if that game is nothing more than a cheap grapple with relevancy, all the while remaining false to its home series's pretexts, then by all means: be my guest. Just don't expect me to make a post—as long as this one is—praising the game for anything.

#text #essay #rambles #ask #rant #anonymous #metal gear #metal gear survive #mgs #metal gear solid #mgsv #metal gear solid v the phantom pain #we love corporate greed /s #art stuff #music #(Sorry this took so long Anon!)

[mi4014lottiedwyer]

Process

Artists

Yoji Shinkawa - Japanese artist, known for his art in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. I chose this artist because I find his almost messy art style quite interesting and it stands out a lot to me. He is also the artist for my favourite game franchise, and I love seeing how he drew the characters concept art and how it developed in production.

Anya Boz - I love this artist as she creates interesting art dolls which have a very specific style. All of her dolls are based off of mythical animals, and all of them have a flowey design to them all.

Jessica Penfold - I love this artist's style of tattooing and I find them really inspiring for my own work which is why I had chosen her. I also have a dream of becoming a tattoo artist, and she is one of my biggest inspirations on working towards my goals

Designers/Architects

Rafael Viñoly - An architect known for designing the most inconvenient and ugly buildings such as 432 Park Avenue in NYC and the Walkie Talkie building in London. The community around hating these buildings are very amusing to watch, and I also find it interesting learning why these buildings upset so many people.

European Gothic Architecture - I love how complicated the architecture is and all of the small details is extremely interesting to me

The Sage - Reminds me of my friends and many good memories

Writers/Poets

Sylvia Plath - I enjoy her poetry style

Dante Alighieri - Purely because Dante's Inferno was the inspiration for my favourite game series

Erin Hunter - Created one of the only book series that I enjoy, and as someone who is dyslexic, and finds reading very difficult and frustrating, these books mean a lot to me.

Overall this task was quite difficult for me when it came to thinking about the designers, I had to think outside of the box to try and find different architects that I like, but when I thought deeply about it, there are quite a lot of different types of architecture I enjoy for a multitude of reasons. I found the artists easy to find as I love art and all of these artists are massive inspirations for my art. When it comes to creating my world of delight for this project, I am going to be including a lot of the artists work into the project.

[thearkhound]

Drama CD Metal Gear Solid interviews

The following is a series of interviews that were published in the booklets for the Drama CD Metal Gear Solid series. The booklet for Vol. 1 contains an interview with Hideo Kojima himself, while Vol. 2 contains interview with Motosada Mori (the series’s military advisor, who served as the audio drama’s screenwriter as well) and illustrator Yoji Shinkawa. The scripts for the Metal Gear Solid radio drama has been translated for quite a long time now, but the interviews have not until now.

The Metal Gear Solid radio drama is a non-canonical continuation of the game in which Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh, Roy Campbell and Mei-Ling continue working for the U.S. military following the events of the Shadow Moses island takeover as they become involved in new missions set in various conflict zones. You can read a translated transcripts on the following links: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

Hideo Kojima

It seems that the story for the Drama CD is set after the events of the game itself.

Don’t think about it too deeply. (laughs) That was my biggest concern when it came to discuss the radio drama. There are quite a few inconsistencies if you think about it seriously. More importantly, I don’t think they [the main characters] would be willing to return to the battlefield after the ending of the game. You’re better off thinking of this audio drama as an alternate story using the same characters.

Mr. Motosada Mori, who worked on the game as a military advisor, seems to had been in charge of writing the script this time...

Originally I was told to write it myself but I wasn’t able to due to various circumstances. So when it came on deciding a writer, it had to be someone who was not only be knowledgeable of the Metal Gear universe, but also be familiar with military and world affairs, as well as firearms... I was wondering if there was such a worthy candidate. Not only does Mr. Mori has the expertise and experience, but he is also a published author. On top of that, he provided entertainment advice on the game itself, so I was confident to assign the job to him. At first I wanted Mr. Mori to employ his own unique gimmick and we thought a lot of what he could add to the script. But then the amount of technical terms he added to the script became too much for the average listener to understand, so we ended up reducing them. (laughs)

By the way, the character of Allen Iishiba was based on someone we knew... When we went to the United States for research, we were able to observe a tank in person thanks to a friend of Mr. Mori in the U.S. Army, so he became the inspiration for that character. [Translator’s note: The person in particular is Tomoaki Iishiba, who is credited as one of the military advisors alongside a Michael Allen.]

Were there any difficulties when it came to the difference in expression between a videogame and an audio-only CD?

Perhaps this is the fate of videogames as a medium, but there is a chance that if you only hear a line of dialogue once, you might not understand it the first time, so we have to repeat things like a parrot during conversations. [Translator’s note: This is why most conversations in the MGS series end with Snake repeating what the other person said in the form of a question] As a result, we end up writing dialogue that would seem out of place in a normal conversation. We had no choice but to write like that in order to make the game easier to understand, but because this is purely an audio drama this time, it covers more acoustics than the game itself. Therefore, the difference between the mediums was not a problem at all.

Finally, can you give us any last words?

I think that the Drama CD will depict a lot of things that could not be done in a videogame. Give Mr. Mori my regards. (laughs)

Motosada Mori

You worked as a military advisor in the original Metal Gear Solid game, but this time you’re writing the screenplay...

I actually played Policenauts when it was first released, so my feelings are rather complicated. I became a fan of Kojima because of Policenauts. While observing the game’s development process, I thought many times about how it would be like to be one of the players anticipating its release. Putting it in another way, I might be wondering if it was going to be a good game and I would wish to play it without knowing anything about it... (laughs) If there is ever a next game, I want to be just a player.

This time you’re working on an audio drama. Did that present any difficulties?

How to depict the world of Metal Gear without the use of visuals? That was the biggest challenge. Moreover, whether you’re listening to just one episode or the one that comes after, you have to write them like a single storyline. On top of that, I intended to write a drama that would appeal to both, people who played the original game and those that didn’t. Nonetheless, it was difficult. Writing the screenplay was an everyday hell. Basically, the story takes place after the events of the game, but like Mr. Kojima said, writing a story that follows the ending of that game was the best opportunity to show off my skills. To what extend can you demonstrate a unique worldview? The results is a kind of progression that proceeds from the video game to the audio drama and vice-versa.

Were there any instances where you based the story or characters on your experience?

Most of the incidents, including the characters who appear in it, are fictional, but some of it is partly based on my own experiences. For example, is it possible to distinguish between good and evil on the battlefield? The characters in this story, like Schultz, Cortez and Ivanovich, all act in their own interests, believe in themselves and try to justify their means. It’s a rule that doesn’t work at all on a normal society, but somehow you can get away with on the battlefield. Those with power seize everything. This is a drama about tragic men who were drunk on a power struggle and were conversely swallowed into it.

Finally, can you give us a few last words?

Enjoy this audio drama and let us know what you think! I want to make the best use [of your feedback] next time... Will there be even be a next time, Mr. Kojima?

Yoji Shinkawa

There are many characters being drawn for the first time for the Drama CD. What kind of mood do you usually have when you design a character?

My creation method varies depending on the character. For Allen Iishiba... well, he was modeled after a real person. (laughs) He was actually a gentle guy, but he became a bit scary in the artwork that I drew. 

For Sergei Ivanovich, I originally drew him as an older man in his 50s or 60s, but then Mr. Kojima requested him to be “a younger and cooler type.” When I asked him what kind of feeling he wanted from the character, he answered “someone like Tony Redwood [a character from Policenauts].” I then drew him younger, but he still didn’t stand out, so I wanted him to hold a small arm. I asked Mr. Mori if it was alright if he was holding a knife and he answered that was fine. It’s the same feeling I had when working with Mr. Kojima.

The image of Marc Cortez was that of a brave soldier with a decisive military history. However, since he is a character of questionable allegiance, I gave him a hat that obscured his eyes in order to make him look very suspicious. Maybe it’s just like Roy Campbell and his beret or Master Miller and his sunglasses. Can you recognize a character with just that [an accessory] alone?

The familiar characters from the original game all appear in new outfits here too. Especially Meryl Silverburgh, who looks cool in her sneaking suit!

After the Metal Gear Solid game finished development, I wanted to have [Meryl wear the sneaking suit] and did a drawing. It felt quite right, so I asked Mr. Mori about it. She’s armed with just a single Desert Eagle pistol, so she would need the infinite ammo bandanna to match Solid Snake... (laughs). Just kidding about that. I wanted Meryl to be depicted much closer to her namesake from Policenauts.

Speaking of weapons, there’s seems to be quite an elaboration on them in this Drama CD...

That’s right! Even the AKM assault rifles wielded by the bad guys was chosen by Mr. Mori. I’m pretty sure it was his choice. I always think of the visuals first in my case. We had a few meetings before producing the Drama CD and I was surprised when they brought in an AKM without any prior announcement, as it was very different from how I was imagining it. But it was fun to collect reference materials. I was grinning while drawing them.

#metal gear solid #hideo kojima #motosada mori #Yoji Shinkawa

[hypnoticcastiel]

VALERIAN: skyjet conceptart & interview with Ben Mauro.

Hi Ben. Tell us a little about your background in design – was film always the field you wanted to get into, or did you start in another discipline? I got my training in industrial design and entertainment design from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA where I got a good set of skills to begin my career as a concept designer many years ago. I think initially I really just wanted to work in videogames, I was a huge fan of games like Halo growing up so I thought it would be fun to design levels and architecture for worlds and experiences like that. This led me to Seattle initially to explore that path out of high school, but in the middle of it I found I was more interested in the design side of things and ultimately shifted my education from more of a 3D direction into more of a design focused one down at Art Center, where it was a pretty easy transition to working in games and films afterwards with the skills I learned there.

As you began designing for films, which artists and illustrators have provided the most inspiration to your personal style? I don’t look at much art anymore while I design, but starting out I definitely tried to learn and study everything in school, I wanted to know what had come before to get a holistic understanding of all film/automotive/product/aerospace/architecture/nature and any other form of design throughout history. Through that study, the more entertainment based artwork that resonated most to me was mainly a combination of French and Japanese artists such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Shirow Masamune, Katsuya Terada, Kow Yokoyama, Yasushi Nirasawa, Yoji Shinkawa and Makoto Kobayashi on the Japanese side of things and artists like Moebius, Meziere, Sylvain Despretz (who I was lucky enough to get to work with on Valerian!) and Juan Gimenez on the French/European side of things. These two main groups of artists were sort of a melting pot of influences for me starting out, and of course American artists like Syd Mead, Doug Chiang, Ian Mccaig and Ralph McQuarrie are hard to not be influenced by growing up here.

When I started working professionally I sort of turned off a lot of my personal preferences for the sake of learning new skills, the first 7-8 years I just wanted to learn as many different things from everyone I was working with to grow as much as possible. On the one hand this approach was good to create a very diverse range of skills to offer clients/projects, but it also means a lot of your individuality gets lost quite a bit. Luckily the projects with Luc tend to overlap with a lot of my early influences that I enjoy the most, so Valerian came at a very good moment, I was able to sort of go back in time to all the work I loved at the beginning of my career but armed with a lot of new skills to help build this universe in much more detail than I could have when I was younger. In a way, Valerian sort of felt like the project I had been training most of my career for, which was a really cool thing to be a part of.

As a 21st century artist, what type of design do you feel is more challenging: Something that evokes the past through fantasy, like The Hobbit, or something that projects futuristic realism like Elysium? I definitely think sci-fi work is more challenging than fantasy as far as being a designer on the project, with (live action) fantasy design it usually means taking real world elements and slightly tweaking/exaggerating them to be more fantastic or mixing ancient designs cleverly with natural or geometric forms and patterns. Something like Elysium which is a more realistic near future design direction, I guess kind of falls into a similar logic as a lot of the design was referencing real world technologies to make everything more believable while obviously exaggerating/tweaking it to create something new. I think even under those circumstances the world/scenarios created in a sci-fi setting like that are more new/interesting (to me at least) than what can be found in fantasy based projects. The most challenging projects (to me) would be sci-fi universes like what we created for Valerian, where it’s not necessarily always based on anything found on earth/reality so we are going pretty far into uncharted territory creating something new/original, those types of projects definitely push you to your limits as a designer.

Valerian is your second project with Luc Besson (Lucy was the first); how did you come to work with him and what about his world-building do you find most creative? I actually worked on an early version of Valerian before Lucy around 7 or so years ago now. Luc found some of my early work created when I was still a student and got in touch with me, I had just started working on film/videogame projects at the time and helped him out on an earlier version of the film for a few months before things went on hold for a couple years. At the time I remember being a little sad that things went on hold for so long, but in hindsight I’m kind of glad as I feel like I needed those extra years in-between to get better and be ready artistically to do the job I ended up doing on the final film.

After the success of Lucy, Valerian came back and we began on that project full-time for the last few years. I think the thing I enjoyed the most working with Luc on a world building creative level was how much he wanted to see something that was cool/original above all else, style over reality. Most of the other projects I worked on in my career followed a pretty strict ‘reality’ based logic, it’s almost more of an engineer like approach to design where everything has to be ‘grounded’, you need to be able to find something in real life and extrapolate functionality/form language from it to create something that would/could possibly exist. This logic works fine for many projects and is easy to grasp as a designer, but I find it can be restrictive creatively and sometimes hard to break out of if you go too far down that line of thinking. I remember early on for Valerian having to break out of this mindset and sort of ‘unlearn’ a lot of things I had experienced over the last few years because it was getting in the way of me solving problems successfully for Luc. That moment came when I was designing this big spaceship that splits into 1000 smaller ships, I was trying to design something that could logically fold up and connect together in a way that allowed all the pilots to get into each of the individual smaller ships and I remember struggling with this assignment for a little bit until Luc said something along the lines of “Ben, this is a movie, not real life! Don’t worry too much about that, this is what I want the ships to look like and here’s what I want to happen in the sequence, it will be a cool moment”. After that I learned to start turning off the more ‘reality’ based logic and just having fun with the designs on the film, coming up with the funkiest/coolest things I could imagine.

You’ve spoken before about the iterative process of concept art for film, and how complex that can be. How close would you say the designs for Valerian ended up on-screen versus the initial concepts? On Valerian I felt like Luc was very good about making sure the approved design he likes ends up pretty much identical in the final film which has been amazing to see! It’s a very rare occurrence to work with someone that knows what they want on such a massive project and able to make decisions years in advance and stick to them. Because of this he has also been the most efficient director I have ever worked with, it was really inspiring to see and made for a very pleasant working experience all the years I was on the film. After working on other projects where we are sometimes asked to do 500+ designs/revisions on small insignificant objects in a movie, I kind of didn’t believe it when Luc approved the first design I did for one of the big creatures we see early on in the film, the Megaptor. I remember really liking the design after creating it and thinking “Well, at least this first idea is cool, it will probably change 100 times”, but he ended up liking it as much as I did and approved it! Even after that I still kind of didn’t believe it until I saw it running around in the trailers 2 years later, ha!

What was Luc’s vision for the SKYJET originally? Luc was after something simple and iconic, something the audience would be able to easily understand and remember long after they left the theater.

What is the main inspiration for the design of the ship? The exterior design inspiration mainly came from nature, looking at things like dolphins, orca and sharks to create a very fast and aerodynamic looking design. I also looked at more man made objects such as fighter jets, luxury single seater submersibles and other aquatic/flying vehicles to make sure the scale and level of detail was suitable for the SKYJET in the world we were trying to create in the film.

What is the primary function of the SKYJET? Is it a personal commuting vehicle for future motorists or is it a more specialized mode of transportation? The way I understood it was that the SKYJET was more of a specialized military type vehicle built specifically for Valerian and Laureline (or whichever agency they work for) to be used by highly trained agents on their missions and adventures all over the galaxy.

Do you design a vehicle like this thinking of material components? For example, is the outer shell composed of something like carbon-fiber or a completely new material from the future? I imagined it would be some sort of advanced future military grade metal material capable of withstanding any blasts and attacks from various alien technologies/weapons they might encounter on their missions.

How fast does the SKYJET travel? Can you give us details on its proposed performance? Does it have an altitude limit, or can it fly in outer space? I imagined the top speed and altitude limit to be comparable or exceed modern day fighter jets (An F-22 Raptors top speed is 2,410 km/h) while flying on planets with atmosphere. While flying in space I imagine it would go faster without any atmosphere/friction to slow it down.

What role do you think AI might play in cars of the future? I think AI and autonomous driving will become a big part of cars in the near future, especially in larger city based locations congested with traffic. Those technologies will definitely help streamline commutes and keep things moving more smoothly while cutting down on accidents. A car will most likely start to become more of a moving extension of a person’s office or leisure/entertainment space with all control given up to AI. That being said, I hope manually driven car technology will still exist in some form so that cars can be used for fun.

Lastly, for our fans and followers who might want to get into concept design for films one day, what advice would you offer them that you feel is invaluable? If you really want to do this job for a living then go for it! When I was starting out a lot of this information was really hard to find and isolated to a few schools in California which not everyone could afford, but I feel like now all information needed to be a competent designer/illustrator in games and films is easily available/affordable in books and the dozens of online schools or artists Gumroads/Patreons offering very high level training for not a lot of money. It’s almost the opposite of what I experienced starting out, the difficulty now is from there being too much information available to you which I think is a good problem to have. So if you know what you want to learn and are self motivated enough to put in the time to learn it, the sky’s the limit.

[Nicole Campos,lootcrate]

#valerian movie #valerian and the city of a thousand planets #skyjet #spaceship #concept art #artwork #scifi #ben mauro #design

[aion-rsa]

How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started

https://ift.tt/2EpTlgx

The collaboration survival horror fans have been waiting for may finally be happening, according to famed mangaka Junji Ito, who confirmed that he’s been talking to video game auteur Hideo Kojima about working together on a new horror project, which has been the subject of much speculation since the release of Death Stranding last year.

Ito shared this tidbit while talking to Viz Media during this weekend’s Comic-Con@Home event (via IGN), where he was asked whether he was currently working on any video game projects.

“So, the simple answer is no,” Ito’s translator Junko Goda told Viz Media. “However, I do know director Kojima and we have been in conversation that he might have a horror-based game that he may be doing, and so he has invited me to work on that, but there are no details on it yet.”

Those who have been following Kojima’s attempts to make a horror game over the years likely know that Ito was previously set to collaborate with the video game auteur and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro on Silent Hills, a new take on the beloved survival horror series starring The Walking Dead and Death Stranding actor Norman Reedus. But the collaboration never got past a few initial meetings and a karaoke session.

“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke,” Ito said while speaking at the Toronto Comics Art Festival (via Game Informer) in 2019. “I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”

In an interview with IGN about approaching Ito to work on Silent Hills, del Toro called the mangaka “completely one of the masters,” saying that he loved how Ito seemed to “get high on his own supply” while imagining the grotesque monsters, body horror, and extreme violence that are trademarks of the mangaka’s work.

“In the way that you feel Dario Argento in the early movies was getting off on each murder or you feel David Cronenberg was secretly aroused by body horror – in the same way, you feel Junji Ito being titillated at a very basic disturbing level by his stuff,” del Toro said of Ito.

However Silent Hills would have turned out, it does sound like the trio had some interesting new ideas about how to push the survival horror genre forward.

“We had a few working sessions where we were talking about using the console, the next-generation console in a way that would surprise people. Let’s really freak out people. Let’s really cause a panic with Silent Hill. Let’s go for it. Let’s go for full-blown social madness,” del Toro told IGN. “We were planning this stuff. Ito was mainly being nice, making notes. He didn’t sing either. He was a very serious man.”

Unfortunately, when Kojima and publisher Konami had a falling out during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the game director left the company and Silent Hills was quickly canceled. Konami has done little with the series since (besides making Silent Hill-themed pachinko gambling machines).

It’s a shame this all happened before Ito could even put pencil to paper. I personally would have loved to see what monstrosities Ito’s chats with Kojima and del Toro might have inspired. Fortunately, Kojima and del Toro’s P.T. demo was a stunning proof of concept for what Silent Hills might have looked like. It was also its own experiment in “social madness.”

When P.T. was mysteriously released at Gamescom 2014 by a fake studio, many gamers quickly became obsessed with solving the confounding (and terrifying) demo’s seemingly nonsensical puzzles. Within hours, P.T. had become a viral marketing phenomenon, the subject of countless reaction videos, forum threads, walkthroughs, live streams, and social media posts. Of course, beating the demo revealed P.T.‘s biggest mystery of all: that it was, in fact, a “playable teaser” for Kojima and del Toro’s Silent Hills. Yet, by the time the truth had come out, P.T. itself had morphed into its own unique experience destined to outlive the game it was created to promote.

Much has been written about the making of P.T. and its influence on the horror genre in the years since its release. You can also find plenty of videos dissecting different aspects of the demo, including videos of players, dataminers, and modders trying to figure out how the demo works. Siux years later, certain things about the demo remain a secret, including the meaning of its cyclical narrative.

The demo is a notable example of a game going viral, as players worked together on the internet to solve the puzzles, while word of mouth on social media got others to try the demo. While Kojima explored this idea further in Death Stranding, which has its own social mechanics, del Toro and Kojima originally planned to take all of this one step further with Silent Hills, using “every aspect” of the PS4 to “create a state of widespread social panic,” according to IGN. While I’d stop short of saying it caused widespread panic, P.T. itself did spread like wildfire through internet gaming communities in 2014 like some sort of interactive urban myth or creepypasta. Or a meme.

Fans of the Metal Gear series know Kojima loves to insert metafiction and other metaphysical elements into his work, such as with the Psycho Mantis boss fight in Metal Gear Solid and the final twist in Metal Gear Solid 2, which some believe predicted the pervasive nature of meme culture on the internet as well as how technology could be used for social engineering. Many of Kojima’s games specifically tackle how technology can distort and corrupt reality.

P.T. has its own distortive qualities and can even be considered a major turning point in Kojima’s work undoubtedly influenced by del Toro’s own directorial sense. Some critics have said the demo’s endlessly looping hallway, which players must keep walking through to solve P.T.‘s many puzzles, “practically hypnotizes you into a state of vulnerability.” That sense of vulnerability also comes in part from the hostile ghost that follows closely behind you throughout the experience as well as the disorienting nature of the puzzles that work on a sort of dream logic that’s never explained within the actual game. (There are no tutorials or in-game prompts to be found in P.T.)

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Kojima told The Japan Times in 2014 that with P.T. he wanted to explore “a more genuine, thoughtful and permeating type of fear” than the violence and gore usually found in AAA survival horror games.

“There are horror action games with zombies and grotesque things and so forth. The real fear isn’t from those things. It’s from standing in an empty place, where just to step forward or to turn around is scary,” Kojima said, explaining that the demo is scary because “there’s no information.”

“Nowadays, when people don’t know something, they Google it. They ask on Twitter or Facebook and they get the answer right away. We live in an age of information. When that suddenly disappears, that’s the scariest thing,” Kojima explained. “That’s why there was no information about who made P.T. There was no purpose or background and no explanation about the story, and that’s frightening. I did this on purpose. That’s why I hid my name and title and just let them play.”

While Kojima has said many times since the release of P.T. that the demo wasn’t actually related to Silent Hills in terms of gameplay or story, it’s impossible not to wonder how the success of the interactive teaser would have influenced Kojima and del Toro’s final product, and how Ito’s own work would have added to the experience.

After all, Ito was a perfect fit for the “social madness” Kojima and del Toro were going for with Silent Hills. In his seminal horror manga books Gyo and Uzumaki in particular, Ito deals with extreme levels of social anxiety and the unbridled chaos that follows.

In Gyo, Japan is plagued by undead fish who crawl out of the sea using spider-like metal legs powered by a “death stench.” Images of bloated victims assimilated into the killer fish army pervade the pages of the book as do images of mass hysteria.

If Gyo is Ito’s own take on the zombie genre, Uzumaki is something far more experimental and disturbing. In Uzumaki, a small Japanese town finds itself under attack by a supernatural curse involving spirals. The book is infused with a heightened sense of paranoia, as characters try to navigate the horrific dream logic that’s not unlike the one found in P.T.

Interestingly enough, Ito was inspired to create Uzumaki in part due to his desire to understand spirals as symbols, as well as an interest in depicting spirals in an unexpected way that would scare Japanese audiences, an approach that sounds like Kojima’s own distortion of gameplay mechanics players normally take for granted.

“The ‘spiral pattern’ is not normally associated with horror fiction. Usually spiral patterns mark character’s cheeks in Japanese comedy cartoons, representing an effect of warmth. However, I thought it could be used in horror if I drew it a different way,” Ito said in an interview with 78 magazine in 2006. “Spirals are one of the popular Japanese patterns from long ago, but I don’t know what the symbol represents. I think spirals might be symbolic of infinity.”

While Ito’s work is full of the violence and gore that Kojima wanted to move away from with P.T., it’s clear that the two creators share similar sensibilities when it comes to finding more primal ways of scaring their audiences. Like Kojima and his use of the suburban hallway, Ito often uses images of things that aren’t traditionally considered scary — like spirals — in order to terrify. Another example is hair.

“Historically, long black hair has been symbolic of Japanese women, and most women value this image. The long hair of a woman is common in Japanese horror because it conveys an enveloping feeling of movement. I think it conjures up fear in people unconsciously,” Ito told 78. It’s in this space between what we know to be scary and what people don’t even know they’re scared of yet that both Ito and Kojima excel. With Kojima now running his own Kojima Productions indie studio where he can decide what he wants to work on and with whom he wants to work with next, his collaboration with Ito might finally come into fruition on their own terms. And their past work certainly points to a match made in hell. If Kojima and Ito do decide to collaborate on a new horror game, one would have to wonder how del Toro might fit into the project. After Silent Hills was canceled and a previous video game project called Insane also fell through, del Toro vowed to never work on a game again during an interview with Playboy (via IGN). That said, del Toro did allow Kojima to use his likeness for a major supporting character in Death Stranding, so perhaps there’s hope the Silent Hills trio could be reunited one day. Until then, our hopes of seeing something akin to what was planned for Silent Hills rest with Kojima and Ito. Perhaps Kojima could even teach Ito a thing or two about video games along the way: “I don’t know anything about games. I don’t play them. I am afraid if I get into them I’ll miss deadlines. I have never played Silent Hill,” Ito revealed at the Toronto Comics Art Festival while ruminating on his relationship with Kojima. “I have known Hideo Kojima for 20 years. He is a nice older brother type.”

The post How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jNP9Ht

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[recentanimenews]

Discover the Location Where Evangelion 3.0+1.0's Newest Visual Is Based

  The newest visual for upcoming anime film Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time may have been overshadowed by the announcement of a delay to its Japanese release, but that didn't stop keen-eyed fans from trying to work out where director Hideaki Anno took inspiration from.

  Newly released poster:

  Japanese Twitter user Miki was one of the first people to find the location in which the poster is based off, Anno's hometown of Ube, Yamaguchi, in one of Japan's most western-most regions. The location is just past Ube-Shinkawa station on the Ube Line and likely taken from the next train crossing, or maybe they snuck on the tracks? 

  Here's an image from Google Maps (sans Shinji):

  Here's where the location is (red circle) on an overhead map showing how far the bridge is from where the train crossing is:

  You can explore Anno's hometown via Google Maps as well:

  I think it'll be safe to assume that people will try and recreate the poster when people are allowed to leave their homes, but be warned, that's an active train line from JR West. They do not take kindly to people walking over the tracks, with fines up to 200,000 yen (US$1,860) and up to 2 years in prison.

  Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time was scheduled to be released on June 27, but has been delayed indefinitely until cinemas in Japan re-open and they can find a new date for the film.

  Source: Miki on Twiter via Ultimatemegax

  ---- 

Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[floatingcatacombs]

Top 10 Sexiest Mechas

12 Days of Aniblogging, Day 4

Mecha is one of the most intimidating genres for anime newcomers. The plots seem overly complex, the episode counts too long, and the giant robot war settings difficult to relate to. I think that all of these are valid concerns, but that mecha often gets a bad rap when most people don’t even want to try it. What both newcomers scared of the genre and hardcore mecha fans often fail to recognize, though, is that on top of the messages of the series, mechas always represent bodies. They are giant robotic representations of their pilots, the visions of their creators, collective psyches, and/or the work’s central themes. The degree of anthropomorphism, the level of abstraction with which the pilot controls the mecha, the colors and shape and size…all of these bodily elements directly tie back to the mecha’s role in the story. Of course, if mechas are bodies, then they are also vulnerable to sexualization. So let’s take all of that into consideration and chart the top 10 sexiest mechs! I’ll be keeping it capped at one entry per series, and will talk about all media, not just anime and manga.

 10. EQUUS from Concrete Revolutio

Starting off the list we’ve got a pretty weird pick, but I wanted to make sure that I shouted out this show. Concrete Revolutio is a kaiju and superhero-deconstructing delight, but when it comes to mechas it really plays things by ear and aims for the coolest setpieces possible. The protagonist’s mecha is essentially a Transformer that unfolds from a car into a centaur mecha. While the car body middle leaves a little to be desired, overall the design is a very good synthesis of Car and Horse. It’s certainly a better implementation of the centaur mecha design than say, Overwatch’s Orsia, who has a very visually muddled walking pattern because her legs are far too tiny and packed closely to each other. I’m especially a fan of the wheel joints on the knees and hooves on EQUUS, as well as the unicorn horn. Much as a centaur is an identity crisis between man and beast, Jiro is constantly in self-conflict over whether he can be a heroic protector of all superhumans or if he’s just a monster in disguise.

 9. Metal Gear Zeke from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Metal Gear Solid is one of the most iconic mecha series out there, so picking one specific Metal Gear over all the others proved challenging. The classic boxy REX, the smooth aquatic RAY, the upright Sahelanthropus, the arachnid EXCELSUS…there’s lots of good ones to pick from! It was a tough battle, but ultimately I had to go with ZEKE, the first named Metal Gear chronologically. Designwise, the railgun and Z-shaped legs are a nice touch, but it’s the story arc around ZEKE that interests me the most. A lesbian-sourced war crime machine, ZEKE was created by MSF, the nationless nation of soldiers run by Big Boss. It ended up being hijacked by terrorists from within and nearly caused a globally eradicating nuclear exchange, which is as good of a metaphor as they get for why deterrence is a fucked ideology. Accidents happen, stockpiles become more and more sunk costs, and sometimes anime girl triple agents infiltrate your military base and steal your cool robot.

8. Char’s Zaku II from Mobile Suit Gundam

Confession time: I haven’t actually seen any Gundam. I’m more of a Macross gal myself. But I felt like not having any Gundam on this list would be like ignoring Star Wars on a space opera list. Anyways, Char seems like one of the most awful bastard characters of any series ever, so I’m happy to use a spot on this listicle for his mecha. The Zaku II is infamous for being “three times as fast” as its generic counterparts despite its only difference being its red paint, but c’mon – that’s Char’s absolute moral purity buffing his ship. You deserve that stat buff if you’ve Never Betrayed Anyone In Your Entire Life, Ever.

7. Deus Ex Machina from Promare

--Promare spoilers ahead--

Promare ends, as all Trigger works should, with a whole lot of Act 3 Bullshit. Plot twist after plot twist until all of the themes dangled at in the first half no longer matter, with nonstop fighting getting more ridiculous by the second. At our protagonist’s darkest moment, their problems get handwaved away and they are handed a deus ex machina of a mecha literally known as….Deus Ex Machina. A fusion of Lio’s jet black triangle armor and Galo’s knightly firefighter mecha, the design of this mecha represents their connection and understanding of each other. Yes, of course they’re gay. Why else would it be glistening in rainbow colors?

6. Terminus typeR909 from Eureka Seven

Another mecha anime I’ve hardly seen.. but one that I definitely want to get around to! Eureka Seven just seems like a genuinely delightful time, and I’m a sucker for romance-based mecha shows as well. Anyways, the piloted mechas in Eureka Seven are named after Roland drum machines, with the typeR909 is named after the classic TR-909. They’re nicely proportioned and there’s something sweet about the cutesy magenta robot of the fleet being piloted by a 30-year old man. I guess I’m just a sucker for the gentle undoing of gendered associations and music gear.

5. Eva Unit-01 from Nylon Genesect Evangelical

All of the Eva units are quite tall and bestial and wonderful, but it’s Eva-01 in particular that really stands out due to its conspicuous tendency to disobey its pilot and go berserk, fully unhinging its jaw. NGE takes the “mechs as bodies” thing pretty damn seriously, but throws in the delightful wrench of “what if it’s not your body that’s being represented?”

4. VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross

Macross was the first popular mecha series to utilize transforming robots. What makes Valkyries so sexy is that they’re not just limited to Spaceship and Gundam forms – they have an intermediary form. In GERWALK mode, the cockpit remains exposed having not folded into the mecha headpiece yet, and the wings are still popped out. However, the Valkyire has sprouted its arms and legs already, making it capable of landing, walking on the ground, and wielding a gun pod as a rifle.  It’s kind of adorable! Stuffed to the brim with weapons and tech, Valkyries are the perfect blend of stylized and realistic robots. The Itano Circus will live on forever in our hearts as the go-to tactic when you have plenty of talent on your animation team and your mechas are armed with way too many missiles.

3. Jehuty from Zone of the Enders

While the VF-1 mecha is sexy because of its utility and folding form, the Orbital Frames of Zone of the Enders are sexy because…they’re designed with a sexual angle. They’re famous for their literal cock pits, but combined with their broad shoulders, slim hourglass waists, and pronounced thighs, they exude a strong androgynous energy. Jehuty is one of the most recognizable frames simply by virtue of being the playable mecha, but definitely one of the hornier ones too. Case in point: at the end of Zone of the Enders 2, it receives an upgrade after absorbing its sister frame to become Naked Jehuty, a stripped-down but ridiculously powerful mecha with gold sections emulating bare skin. Yoji Shinkawa’s brain is simply too big.

 2. Bohrok Pahrak

Look, I can’t just not include any Bionicle on this list. They’re some of the most formative lil’ robots to me. But which one is the sexiest? That’s not really something I’ve had to consider before. While some of the titan sets such as Roodaka and Axonn have a certain sexual angle to them, it feels contrived, carrying the same kind of creepiness as horny OC designs. The Great Spirit Robot might be the super robot of the series, but its design is rather barebones and reminds me too much of The Iron Giant. So I ultimately settled on the Bohrok, the hivemind villains from 2002’s story. While most Bionicle are a combination of biological and robotic, the Bohrok are strictly mechanical – and piloted by the masklike Krana, making them mechas! You really shouldn’t fuck the Bohrok, but there’s just something so perfect about their design. They’ve got it all – not only transformability and an orb design, but transformability into an orb design. Their hunched-over stature reminds me of GERWALK Valkyries – it’s cute and functional! As for why Pahrak in particular, well, the shields it wields are vibrators. Just ignore the fact that they’re powerful enough to seismically level mountains, and you’ll be set.

1. The Entirety of Heaven Will Be Mine

You can tell that Aevee Bee and Mia Schwartz did their homework for Heaven Will Be Mine. They understand better than anyone else that a mecha is a representation of the pilot’s psyche and body, and that damage to the mecha is indistinguishable from that to the pilot. This is reinforced by the mechas being referred to as Ship-Selves – they are literally an extension of oneself more than anything else. By looking at a ship-self, you can almost immediately infer what kind of person the pilot is, what her position in bed is, and what her fetishes are. The layer of abstraction between pilot and mecha ranges from wafer-thin to nonexistent depending on the character. The side effect of this is that since HWBM is about a bunch of gay girls in space having sloppy ideologically charged hookups, the mechas have to be designed just as sexually as everything else. And by god did they deliver on that front. Some of the ship-selves, such as Mare Crisium and String of Pearls, take clear direct inspiration from Zone of the Enders frames. The Krun Macula takes some inspiration from Char’s Zaku II in terms of color and shape, but its face chimes give it a uniquely divine and powerful feeling with no mecha parallel. This perfectly mirrors Pluto’s powerlevel advantage over all of the other pilots, and her humanoid-but-not-quite ship-self perfectly represents her faction’s goals. On the other hand, the assimilationist Memorial Foundation believes in ending the space program and grounding all ship-selves to prevent the splintering of humanity. Their mission manifests literally in that each member of the faction wears some form of bondage gear to represent their shackles to the Earth, and even their Ship-Self has a spreader bar. Heaven Will Be Mine is ridiculously horny, and it has the vision, design, storytelling, music, and everything else to back it up. Truly, the best of all worlds. And if anyone who worked on the game is reading this post.,.thanks.

#12 days of anime #12daysofanime #mecha #hwbm #mgs #bionicle #macross

[rinabrunoblog]

Left Alive Review

It’s been a while since we heard the last of Front Mission games, Square Enix’ second best franchise during PlayStation 1 and 2 years. Nine years ago Front Mission Evolved was published and met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, mostly because of giving up the original turn-based strategy format in favor of the third-person shooter. This game successfully alienated the old fans without winning new ones, and it inevitably failed. After nine years of hiatus, another Front Mission themed game was published by Square Enix, called Left Alive, which is a perfect description of the franchise itself. The question is, did Square Enix learn any lesson from the example of Front Mission Evolved?

The short answer for that question would be “no”, but in this job, short answers don’t suffice. So let’s move on onto some detailed analysis of what Square Enix did wrong in this game. First of all, Left Alive deviates even further from the original turn-based strategy formula established in Front Mission games. It is still a third person shooter which focuses on individual humans instead of game’s trademark Wanzer mechs. This premise doesn’t sound good at all, but the effect is a bit dampened by a stellar cast which worked on the game, including former Armored Core series producer Nabeshima Toshifumi as director, and art directors Shinkawa Youji (Metal Gear Solid series) and Yanase Takayuki (Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Break Blade, Xenoblade X).

Unfortunately, that hope was short-lived, because Left Alive is still an undercooked mess of a game. This game lets you lead three individuals: one is a rookie pilot of Wanzer, one is a police officer and one is an escaped convict. All three of them are caught in the middle of a sudden invasion of a border city Novo Slava. The enemy forces effortlessly took over the entire city and began to clean it up from all living, military or civilian. Your goal is to survive the ordeal and escape the occupied city. As you can guess this game is survival oriented, and players have very limited resources they need to salvage, manage and combine in order to build makeshift equipment and weapons. Enemies heavily outnumber and outgun our heroes, so Leeroy Jenkins tactics don’t work for sure.

The idea of a survival game set in the modern sci-fi setting delivered some really good games, like the aforementioned Metal Gear Solid series, but Left Alive seemingly failed to execute this initial idea very well. The stealth parts are ridiculous, with enemies that randomly switch from Helen Keller to Sauron in terms of vision and hearing sensitivity, which renders the enemy proximity warnings absolutely useless. The absolute overwhelming status of your enemies exclude any head-on approach toward them and makes your character rely on sneak, stealth and being overall knavish. The enemy AI is confusing at best and frustrating at worst. Sometimes enemies won’t move even if they are aware of the player’s presence and usually stay at their posts until the alarm goes down, which makes all traps mostly unfeasible. The worst offender of them all is that you don’t even have stealth takedown, which would give you certain leverage against overpowering enemies.

There are some sequences in which you have to defend an area against waves of enemies, and in doing so you have plenty of resources and time to prepare. These moments can be quite entertaining, contrasting all that frustrating stealth ‘n’ sneak. Although it’s not the main attraction of the game (if there is any attraction) the player can also pilot Wanzer mechs at certain points.  Unfortunately, the controls are awkward, the movement doesn’t feel right, the combat lacks any form of feedback, and the combination of camera and cramped city streets makes your mech take most of the screen.

Left Alive is stacked to the rafters with bugs and issues as well: save system is awkwardly timed, there are various sound related bugs, NPCs can go a little bit crazy while finding the path, sound design is completely off and quality of voice acting is on par with amateur porn. The story needs a lot of refinements to, being unnecessarily convoluted and focused on conspiracies and twists. Characters are also poorly defined, feeling shallow and without any satisfying resolution, while the antagonist is a Saturday morning cartoon material.

We would lie if we said Left Alive is a good game. It looks really good thanks to the talented people in charge of design and visual aspect, but everything else is just too contrived, confusing and plain bad to enjoy. If you lower your expectation enough, though, you might be rewarded with a quantum of satisfactory content.

Left Alive Review syndicated from https://lucystrickland.wordpress.com/

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The 50 most anticipated video games of 2018

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The 50 most anticipated video games of 2018

In relation to video games, this previous yr goes to be a tough act to observe. However 2018 is skipping onto the stage with a flourish of promising titles.

Huge sequels like The Final of Us Half 2 and Pink Useless Redemption 2 are prone to seem. Extremely artistic oddities like The place the Water Tastes Like Wine and Wattam are shifting up for launch. Multiplayer video games like Anthem, Crackdown three and Sea of Thieves need to change the way in which we play collectively.

This listing was put collectively by the entire Polygon workforce and is, after all, subjective. Tell us, in feedback, which video games you’re most trying ahead to in 2018.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Set in a lush, alien world, BioWare’s open-world monster shooter embraces loot drops, as gamers search to improve exosuits and weapons. With the sport focused for launch within the fall, there’ll be a heavy emphasis on in-game occasions and shared-world, squad-based challenges.

Nintendo Swap, PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Koei Tecmo’s fight sport is predicated on the second season of the anime sequence, wherein human-eating giants assault fortified cities. Based on the sport’s builders, this sequel to the 2016 authentic will function extra story and extra choices for gamers who like their enemies to be tremendous robust. It’s set to reach in March.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Created by Hazelight Studios, led by the person behind the excellent Brothers: A Story of Two Sons, this two-player co-op sport is about two males attempting to interrupt out of jail. It’s set within the early 1970s and makes use of a wide range of gameplay set-ups, reminiscent of capturing, driving, crawling and fixing different bodily issues. It’s out on March 23.

PC

The unique BattleTech’s creator, Jordan Weisman, is heading up the workforce behind this newest tackle mech fight. It’s a turn-based technique sport, which attracted greater than $2.7 million on Kickstarter. Gamers assemble a workforce of mechs, and prepare up sufficient pilots to create a cohesive combating power.

PlayStation four

Introduced at Paris Video games Week, this beautiful sport comes from the makers of Entwined. It’s a few teenage artist who explores his gloomy hometown, utilizing a magic quill to create residing artwork in an effort to defeat a gang of bullies.

Home windows PC, Xbox One

Initially scheduled for launch in 2016, this oft-delayed open world sport is all about mayhem and destruction in metropolis environments. If you happen to like to interrupt skyscrapers, that is in all probability for you, particularly in multiplayer environments the place destruction is extra free-flowing than within the marketing campaign.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

A sequel to Ubisoft’s open-world auto-racer from 2014, this isn’t nearly racing vehicles. Just about something with an engine is on supply, together with airplanes, grime bikes, boats and excessive efficiency sports activities vehicles on closed tracks. The open-world avenue racing of the unique can also be included.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

On this third-person platform hack-n-slash, gamers tackle the function of Fury, an “unpredictable and enigmatic” member of the 4 Horsemen. Fury wields a magical bladed whip, whereas she explores colourful, post-apocalyptic environments, fixing development puzzles alongside the way in which.

PlayStation four

This choose-you-own-narrative sport is a stacked matrix of potential outcomes, based mostly on a world wherein androids serve humanity. Created by David Cage (developer of Heavy Rain and Past: Two Souls), it is a story that tries to place the participant within the function of storyteller.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Arriving on Jan. 26, Dragon Ball FighterZ is a 2.5D fighter from Arc System Works. It duties gamers with forming a workforce of fighters, based mostly on characters from the Dragon Ball anime sequence, and controlling one in every of them in flip. Combo sequences yield particular upgrades, reminiscent of well being regeneration.

PlayStation four

From the makers of LittleBigPlanet, this beautiful world stars somewhat imp who travels by impressionist landscapes, fixing puzzles through merchandise assortment, bodily skills and possession of different characters. The sport’s marketing campaign is designed to encourage sharing of player-created sport worlds, whereas the actual meat appears to lie in these creation instruments.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Developer Iron Galaxy is greatest recognized for combating video games like Killer Intuition and Divekick. However Extinction is all about battling 150-foot ogres as they stomp and destroy numerous places, together with cities and forests. The participant should additionally save quaking people from the incoming menace, so there’s loads of exploration and route-finding. It’s out on March 31.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

The most recent set up in Ubisoft’s open world fight sequence takes place in rural Montana, the place a demagogue is controlling the native inhabitants. Gamers device up with weapons, devices and automobiles to take down enemy outposts utilizing stealth, smarts and brute violence. It’s out on March 27.

Nintendo Swap, PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Developed by Swedish outfit Zoink, Fe is a symbolic private fantasy that brings to thoughts highly effective video games like Journey and Shadow of the Colossus. It stars a fox-like creature who seeks to guard the forest by enlisting animal allies by audible calls.

PC, PlayStation four

Two mates discover surreal islands, manipulating time to unravel puzzles. Every island is plagued by giant-sized variations of on a regular basis objects: online game consoles, walkie-talkies, recycling bins, soda bottles, Jenga blocks and extra. It’s being developed by The Voxel Brokers.

PlayStation four

On this rebirth of a much-favored PlayStation franchise, huge brawler Kratos has developed right into a doting dad. This doesn’t imply he goes all gentle on the giants and monsters he fights. It simply means his child comes alongside for the trip. Developed with sturdy action-RPG overtones by Sony’s Santa Monica studio, it’s scheduled to reach within the subsequent few months.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Frontier Developments’ dinosaur park administration sim lets gamers run their very own Jurassic Park, bio-engineering new dinosaur breeds whereas constructing points of interest, containment amenities and analysis labs. It’ll seemingly launch in the summertime, across the time the film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, hits theaters.

PlayStation four, Xbox One

Celebrating its umpteenth look in ‘video games to look at this yr’ tales, Tetsuya Nomura’s journey options characters from Disney and Pixar in a grand and colourful journey involving leaping, capturing, casting magic and combating towards enemies, huge and small.

Nintendo Swap

On this first new Kirby sport for Swap, our rotund hero is joined by as much as three teammates in a sideways-view platform sport. In trailers launched by Nintendo, Kirby is seen combining skills to create assaults with all the occasion, whereas utilizing teamwork to unravel puzzles.

Home windows PC, PlayStation four

The primary launch from new outfit Foam Sword Video games carries excessive expectations. It’s being created by workforce members with a historical past at Media Molecule, and the sport’s vivid artwork model reveals these roots. It’s a puzzle journey set in a childhood world harking back to The Goonies.

PlayStation four

Set 5 years after the unique, this post-apocalyptic fight journey is performed by Ellie, a personality who was initially a sidekick. With anticipation for this title so excessive, developer Naughty Canine hasn’t revealed a lot concerning the sport, however we are able to anticipate it to be handsome and intensely violent.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC

Former Steel Gear character designer Yoji Shinkawa is concerned on this Sq. Enix shooter. Judging from the restricted gameplay we’ve seen in trailers, Konami’s sequence is a particular affect. With the sport set within the Entrance Mission universe, there’s a touch of stealth motion as gamers attempt to take down big mechs.

Home windows PC

This single-player and cooperative multiplayer card sport is a digital launch based mostly on the profitable Lord of the Rings: The Card Sport. It’s going for the market dominated by the likes of Hearthstone, though card-packs aren’t random, as a substitute being based mostly on recognized mixtures.

Home windows PC

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, introduced at MechCon a yr in the past, would be the first MechWarrior sport with a single-player marketing campaign in additional than 15 years. It’s being developed by Piranha Video games, greatest recognized for MechWarrior On-line. Gamers take management of big mechs in first-person capturing matches, with four-player co-op supported.

Nintendo Swap, PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Capcom’s newest addition to the long-running sequence is a side-scrolling motion platformer within the vein of the earlier Mega Man video games, however with 3D visuals. Engaged on the title are producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya and director Koji Oda, each veterans of Capcom and the Mega Man sequence.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

This survival spinoff of Steel Gear Stable 5: Floor Zeroes is the primary Steel Gear sport to be launched for the reason that fraught divorce between Konami and Hideo Kojima. It takes place in an alternate actuality, the place members of Large Boss’ Militaires Sans Frontières have been transported off-world through wormhole. The planet on which the troopers now discover themselves is infested with crystalline zombie-like creatures.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Beginning in a grim wasteland model of Moscow, inhabited by mutants, this sharp-looking shooter picks up the place Metro: Final Gentle ended. Gamers will ultimately depart Moscow and discover new areas providing unfamiliar settings. Pleasant faces from earlier entries within the sequence additionally reappear.

PC

An indie sport from Meowza Video games, this Animal Crossing-like journey is bursting with cuteness. Gamers inhabit a land of cats, as they go about managing a market stall: exploring, crafting and gathering assets.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

We had a hands-on session with Capcom’s sport earlier this yr, in addition to an extended play session, and got here away deeply impressed. Monster Hunter: World follows the sequence’ tracking-and-hunting system, however with helpful additions to weapons and crafting in addition to seamless maps. It’s out on consoles on Jan. 26, with the PC model coming later.

PlayStation four

An up to date and expanded fight system may make this story-based RPG interesting to gamers who discovered the unique heavy going. However the core worth of Studio Ghibli-like animation and tone continues to be there. Developed by Stage-5, this sport is the story of a boy king who groups up with allies to reclaim his throne.

PlayStation four, Xbox One

Rockstar’s Western-themed motion sport will seemingly be one of many yr’s highest grossing hits. It’s a prequel to the 2010 launch. Gamers tackle the function of an outlaw as he ranges round an open world, elevating hell on horseback.

PC

Created by Lucas Pope, maker of Papers, Please, this startlingly monochrome thriller sport is ready aboard an deserted 19th century ship. The participant takes on the function of an insurance coverage adjuster who explores the vessel to seek out out the destiny of its crew.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

This technique world-building sport spans the historical past of steam locomotives in america, starting across the 1830s and lasting for one more 100 years, till the approaching of diesel engines. It’s out on Jan. 26.

Home windows PC, Xbox One

Uncommon’s squad-based journey takes place on the excessive seas, the place gamers cooperate as pirates: steering, capturing, pillaging and looting. It’s an formidable undertaking, to make certain, however we’ve had enjoyable taking part in the sport at any time when it’s been on present. It’s out on March 20.

Unconfirmed title

The title of this sport has but to be confirmed, although teasers and leaks make a convincing case that Lara Croft’s subsequent journey makes use of the phrase “shadow” in its title. Introduced late within the yr, this sport is promised to be launched comparatively quickly. Sq. Enix says it needs a shorter ready interval between first introduction and arrival. The final Tomb Raider sport was launched two years after it was first introduced. A brand new Tomb Raider film can also be popping out in 2018.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

After years of teasing, writer Bandai Namco introduced the long-awaited sequel in its weapons-based combating sport sequence just a few weeks in the past. It’ll be launched in time for the sequence’ 20th anniversary. The primary Soulcalibur got here to arcades in 1998, so it’s becoming that this sport can pay homage to the unique, when it comes to fight design and characters.

PlayStation four

Insomniac’s first foray right into a licensed sport is an open-world fight, stealth and parkour title, making use of Spider-Man’s particular skills. Comparisons have been made with Batman’s much-loved Arkham sequence, which makes liberal use of assorted set-piece occasions. The sport is being constructed on a modified model of Sundown Overdrive’s engine.

Home windows PC, Xbox One

4-player co-op was the primary thrust of Microsoft’s E3 presentation for State of Decay 2 this yr, as gamers labored collectively to outlive a zombie apocalypse. The primary State of Decay, additionally from Undead Labs, launched again in 2013 and was well-received.

PC, PlayStation four, Xbox One

Nightdive’s remake of the 1994 first-person sci-fi basic opens up some areas within the authentic in addition to tidying up dialog and filling plot holes. Constructed on Unreal Engine, the sport raised greater than $1.three million on Kickstarter.

PlayStation four

Tennis World Tour is being developed as a non secular successor to 2K Video games’ Prime Spin franchise by individuals who labored on that sequence at 2K Czech. It options licensed professionals like France’s Gaël Monfils and Switzerland’s Roger Federer.

Nintendo Swap

No Extra Heroes is returning as a Swap unique. Grasshopper Manufacture’s fight sport will as soon as once more star Travis Landing, the star of the earlier No Extra Heroes video games. The primary one launched again in 2007 on Nintendo Wii, whereas a sequel adopted in 2010.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

The most recent entry in Kalypso’s political administration simulation goes to be harder than its 2014 predecessor. As a dictator, it’s the participant’s job to maintain warring factions completely happy, lest they gang-up and throw a coup. Political speech-making additionally makes a return, providing alternatives for the type of fatuous, dishonest self-aggrandizement liked by tinpot authoritarians.

Home windows PC

Earlier this yr, Whole Struggle developer The Artistic Meeting introduced plans to create a derivative sequence of its historic technique video games, targeted on pivotal moments in historical past relatively than entire historic eras. This primary entry is all concerning the Viking assaults on Britain.

PlayStation four, Xbox One

Distinctive watercolor visuals are coming again with a brand new story on this Japanese RPG sequence. It takes place in a struggle, vaguely harking back to early 20th century conflicts, on the continent of Europa. It includes a new class of soldier, the grenadier. The sport is sticking to its roots of a turn-based, strategy-style battle system.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Dontnod’s Vampyr is a third-person motion role-playing sport set in 1918 London. Gamers tackle the function of a doctor known as Jonathan Reid who can also be a vampire. Reid goes in the hunt for victims, scoping out targets. However he has a conscience, so gamers can select fastidiously who they want to kill, and might even play the sport with out killing anybody.

Nintendo Swap, PC

A side-scroller with a fight system pushed by music, Wandersong stars a bard who defeats enemies and clear up puzzles utilizing his singing voice alone. We took a take a look at the sport earlier this yr, and got here away impressed with its Night time within the Woods vibe.

Home windows PC

Sam Barlow, the creator of Polygon’s 2015 sport of the yr, Her Story, is engaged on a re-imagining of 1983 Chilly Struggle thriller WarGames. Set within the fashionable world, the narrative selections sport stars a hacker known as Kelly who has the talents to ask tough questions on how protected we’re in a world dominated by pc networks.

PlayStation four, Home windows PC, Xbox One

Wattam, the following sport from Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi together with studio Funomena, is all about friendship. Gamers tackle the function of a city mayor who solves puzzles and befriends flowers, rocks, greens and bizarre stuff, creating an exploratory world of colour and motion.

Home windows PC

Created by former The Fullbright Firm developer Johnnemann Nordhagen, this sport attracts affect from novels reminiscent of Grapes of Wrath and On the Street, in addition to folks songs. It’s about exploring a dream-like different America, assembly characters alongside the way in which

Nintendo Swap

The final Yoshi sport launched by Nintendo was Yoshi’s Woolly World in Oct. 2015 for the Wii U. Introduced throughout E3, this new title provides a well-recognized world the place our previous, lovely pal runs by a sequence of ranges, interacting with gadgets alongside the way in which. Nevertheless, the participant’s view could be flipped, to see something hiding behind objects. Nintendo has but to announce a ultimate title for the sport.