Easter Break: Digi-painting & CoD.

I thought I'd do a quick write up of what I've done during the Easter break as I've put some good, quality time into practising digital painting and I think I'm beginning to make progress. I also managed to jump back onto the Xbox One, where I played Call of Duty: Ghosts and... I actually... enjoyed it but more on than later, first the important stuff!

Drawing & Digital Painting

Whenever I have a spare hour I normally just like to grab a pencil and some paper and do some Bridgman studies, below are a couple of sheets that I've done during this holiday. I find something really enjoyable about doing these sort of studies and its a much better way to spend an hour instead of staring at the TV.

During this break I wanted to spend some time just playing with Photoshop as a painting program and that is exactly what I've done. I messed about with the brushes and tried to get a rhythm going while working, and most importantly done it all in colour. To help with all this I watched plenty of Feng Zhu videos.

I thought I'd keep the reference image next to them so you can see what I have been working with. I done all these without any line drawing and jumping straight in with colour, I really threw myself out of my comfort zone. The time limit on these are around 2 hours, but as I improved I wanted to spend more time on them.

I still think my choice of colours can be bolder and I'd also say my values could be pushed in certain areas, as I still feel my painting lack a certain punch.

When I completed the top 2 images of this set I could notice an improvement over the first few I done and because of this I was enthused to do more, so I did!

I still know that these image are far from perfect but if I can keep us this sort of pace and enthusiasm I'm sure I'll reach my ideal skill level. My next step is to begin looking into the old master's, hopefully these will be more beneficial to me than simple photographs.

Xbox One: Updated Impressions

Being back home I managed to play some Xbox One, where I was greeted with huge updated for everything I tried to play. Considering I completed Dead Rising 3 I didn't play that this time but I did play everything else, including Call of Duty *gasps*. The one thing I have missed is the controller, I had completely forgot how nice it feels, anyway, onto the games!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

I got really into ACIV at Christmas so I was really looking forward to picking it back up again. The whole pirate thing had worn off a little this time around, and the story wasn't really doing much for me either but i was still having fun exploring and swashbuckling. 

Towards the final hours of the game you're given some actual assassinations to do, which felt fantastic, and Ubi try and wrap up the story in some meaningful way which I think was all a bit too late. Kenway (The protagonist) could have been propelled to the levels of Ezio in sense of story arc and the entire pirate-assassination theme could have been overall merged better, as it stands now you're 95% pirate. Despite some small hiccups ACIV is a well made and fun pirate game, I definitely recommend it!

Call of Duty: Ghosts

The Call of Duty franchise has now become so big it has started to collapse in on it self, where playing it will cause groans and the internet will grab pitchforks if you even mention it but I played Ghosts and enjoyed it. I wanted to blow crap up and not think for a few hours, while the ridiculous story plays out in front of me like a Michael Bay movie.

Infinity Ward tried to make the story reach the highs of Call of Duty 4, but sadly they never hit it, as the story's gripping sections came off more funny than emotional. It is also sad that the core gameplay hasn't changed much since I last played a CoD game but the different explosive set pieces made me want to ride the rollercoaster to the end. As I don't have Gold I couldn't try out the multi-player so it's very difficult to recommend Ghosts off the campaign alone but I imagine it's solid, like the campaign, if not feeling very similar to previous entries. 

Forza 5

None of the problems I had when I first played Forza 5 have been fixed unfortunately, the AI still bounces from hilarious to infuriating, the menu flow is ropey and the storefront still seems completely missing. There was however a free new track that Turn 10 have released, which has been slotted nicely into the original single player.

Taken in-game, using the Photomode

As I've played more it is becoming increasingly clear that eventually the game will lead to a grind to be able to compete in every race type due to the pitiful amount of money you are rewarded. Even with the external Forza Rewards system that gives you heaps of cash for basically nothing I probably won't be able to afford all the top tier cars I need. I will play the game for as long as I can, because I am still enjoying the racing, but if a grind becomes clear I'll probably stop, which is a shame.

I'm still waiting for a couple more games to come out on the One to make it feel like a true, next gen console, as it's stuck in that awkward bridging-between-generations stage at the moment. Hopefully this E3 will reveal some killer first-party titles.

Xbox One: First Impressions.

I very thankfully received an Xbox One for Christmas and with a gift voucher I got for leaving work I managed to buy a couple of games to go with it too, so I'm sure you can guess how I've spent my holiday. I also thought my first impressions would make a great blog post,  I'll go over the console and the few games I've got.

The Xbox One
The time I've spent with the Xbox so far I have enjoyed and any of the negative feelings I had after the E3 revealing are gone. The console is larger than I thought it would be but it appears well made nonetheless. The controller feels pretty much like the Xbox 360 controller, with some minor tweaks. The triggers are now wider and follow the curve of the controller, meaning your finger can rest easier across them and the thumb-sticks are slightly smaller with a bit more resistance to them. Everything else is more or less the same but I will say it feels of a higher quality than the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller does have a few hidden treats though with the mandatory motion sensor and both triggers now also have their own rumble.

Motion controls are something that I have never cared about, I don't want to wave much about when gaming. I can handle the "shake the controller to perform an action kind" as long as it's not overused but Kinect is way out of my league, so the thing is just sitting on top of my TV, glaring at me with the 3 red lights like some sort of Doctor Who villain. It's great that when Kinect sees me I sign in and scanning QR codes is much better than entering 25 digits but I just can't sit there and shout at my TV so I do feel the thing is a bit wasted on me.

Yup, this is pretty much what mine looks like [1]

There's no surprises when it comes to the UI, following Microsoft's trend lately everything is squares. It is easy to navigate with a controller and most of the things you need are only every a few button presses away, I still haven't figured out how to change the background though... I'm not even sure you can.

A great new feature is how the guide button functions now, it works the same as Alt+Tabbing on a PC, while in a game or an app you'll be tabbed back to the Home screen where you can do whatever you need then you can resume where you left off and it does all this really smoothly. There's other stuff as well, like the video recording (DVR) where you can record the last 60 seconds of game play and then upload it. I'd love to write about this but uploading the clips appear to behind the Gold paywall so all I've done is record the footage. The recordings are not HD but they look fine.

Forza 5
I came into Forza 5 expecting to be a bit disappointed after reading all the negative press it has received but I'm glad to say that the core Forza experience is still there, though I can certainly see why the game wasn't as well-reviewed as Forza 4. You buy cars, tune them up, paint them, then race and it's all still deeply engrossing. The cars once again look better than ever and this is all helped by a new, more natural lighting system that even helps some of the tracks look good, the game is no longer plagued by overly-clinical lighting. Some of the race track flaws are more noticeable than others, like the paper crowd or cardboard trees, but when you're moving at 140 mph it is hard to spot to them.

One of my Forza traditions: The Toyota Trueno!

Forza also makes great use of the rumble triggers. The left trigger (The brake) allows you to monitor if your brakes are locking and the right trigger (The acceleration) lets you feel the traction of your wheels, which is all fantastic for cornering. It's another subtle feature that really adds to the game and I hope more games incorporate the rumble triggers properly.

The usual polish of Forza games begin to disappear when you look a bit further unfortunately. The car selection is much smaller than normal, certain series favourite tracks are missing and I find the menus to be clunky. Then there's the Drivatars, an idea great on paper but in its current state is just a pain in the arse. Every race now begins with a pile up that you must force your way through, it's quite funny at first but once you begin to get into the top-tier cars it just becomes frustrating. The soundtrack has been replaced with repetitive orchestral music and the once great Storefront is gone... or just hidden behind the menus.

It is a shame then that core gameplay is spoiled by things that could have been ironed out with a few more months development time, but I guess Microsoft wanted this out for the launch of the console, the next one should be back on track!

Dead Rising 3
In todays gaming market killing zombies is a bit of a cliche but when the first Dead Rising came out it was still a fresh idea after the countless games of killing Nazis. It's a good job then that Dead Rising 3 doesn't feel like other zombie games and is still holding on to the uniqueness of the first.

The formula of the game hasn't changed much, this time you're in a respectable-sized city named Los Perididos, you build silly weapons and chop down hordes and hordes of zombies while moving from one activity to another. The next-gen can really be seen with the amount of zombies on screen at any time, it is something to experience and in such large numbers can be a threat, so it's a good thing there's hundreds of weird and wonderful weapons to build and many vehicles to drive. After a few hours the zombie killing can become a bit repetitive but the huge amount of ways to kill them meant I never felt bored.

Things can get weirder... trust me [2]

The game itself looks really nice, the characters and zombies look good even when the camera gets in close, considering the amount of zombies and that each of them can be dismembered too I'd say this quite an achievement. Los Perididos holds its own too, having great variation in all 4 sections and no distracting frame rate dips, there is however noticeable zombie and texture loading when you speed into a new area. The pop-ins could be due to the entire city being loading screen free, you only get a loading screen when you go to start a story mission, this makes exploring the world a real pleasure!

Capcom have reworked the story modes a bit too. The original Dead Rising experience where you had to manage your time and your inventory with high precision has been renamed to Hardcore, which can be played straight from the start. The basic Story mode is easier and the time management has been removed, allowing a more relaxed experience. I think this is a great idea as the management heavy style of the older games was a turn-off for some people.

Dead Rising is a great first-party launch title. The story and characters start off a little slow but both develop nicely towards the end and the overall game is stupid fun that doesn't take itself seriously. I'm not sure how far the silliness can take the series but for now it's just enough to make it stand out from the rest.

Torch + Gems = Lightsaber??? [3]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Brotherhood was the last Assassin's Creed game I played, once the series became annual the fatigue quickly set in for me, but after hearing how great the new one is I thought I would jump back in and I haven't been disappointed!

This time around you control Edward Kenway, the grandfather of AC III's protagonist and a pirate. If Heath Ledger was in Pirates of the Caribbean then this is how it would have turned out. The story follows Kenway as he goes from a low-life pirate to an assassin-pirate mash-up with his own ship and crew, I haven't completed the story yet but so far I've met a good cast of likable characters and the plot appears to be moving at a steady pace. There's so much content in the game that the first third of the story is really just showing it all, so it can feel a bit like your hand is held for the first few hours.

[4]

Ubisoft have nailed the pirate aspects of the game. Everything you'd want from a pirate game is in here, smokey ship battles, buried treasure, muskets, boarding ships while swinging on ropes. You even get your own customisable ship and if this wasn't enough, a pirate cove to upgrade too! All this leaves little room for being an assassin though, it seems the days of Assassin's Creed II are long gone, where everything you was doing would be leading up to these big assassinations. So far I've killed a few minor characters and plenty of nameless NPCs but these all feel a bit shallow.

There is so much stuff to do apart from the main story it almost over shadows it and it all takes place on a massive map. You can explore the world in your ship then get out and explore some more on foot and it all looks wonderful, with every inch of your screen filled with little details. I do need to bring some attention to the sea in the game because it looks very natural, which is something I find most games struggle with, even how the waves interact with the ships are great to look at.

Assassin's Creed is moving away from the things that made the first few games great, but I don't mind that much, there are some fresh ideas in here that are stopping the games from becoming stale and I get to be a damn pirate-assassin! Not many games could pull that off.

Shanking Simulator 2013 [5]

That so far about sums up my Xbox One experience. Considering how far the 360 evolved over its life time I can only expect good things for the future of the Xbox One, I just hope Microsoft can deliver on the platform exclusives.

References & Notes
The Forza screenshot was taken in game, by me, using the games camera function
[1]http://www.gamerheadlines.com/5-exclusive-xbox-one-releases/
[2][3]http://www.edge-online.com/gallery/six-new-dead-rising-3-screenshots-emerge/
[4]http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-pc-nvidia-enhancements-revealed
[5]http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/scr.phtml?cat=f&platform=ps3&link=assassinscreed4blackflag&pic=assassinscreed4blackflag8

Dota 2.

Aside from posting our work on these blogs we can also use them to discuss what we're playing, reading or watching, what is influencing us really and I've decided to write about Dota 2, a game I've been playing for about 6 months now. If it hasn't been made obvious yet, it will also become clear that I am a bit of a Valve fan-boy, but who can blame me, have you seen the Steam sales?! If someone asked me what Dota was at the start of the year I'd have just shrugged, if asked now I'd reply "Probably one of the best competitive games out on the market."

[1]

The Game

Dota 2 is the sequel to a very popular Warcraft 3 mod called DotA (Defense of the Ancients) and in traditional Valve fashion they hired the creators of the mod to create their own game. The game is completely free to play and is at the moment played on just the one map, but I will look into both of these in more detail later.

The objective of the game is simple, 2 teams of 5 must battle it out to destroy the opposing team's Ancient, or for the uninitiated, the big glowie building sitting in each base. You however can not just assault this building right from the start, you first must take down the enemies tiered defences. At the start of each match you pick a Hero from the ever-growing pool of 105, each with their own set of unique spells and during each game you can buy items to add another layer of choice and strategy.

The Ancients

So that's over 100 Heroes, each of them can synergize with other Heroes, each of them counter different Heroes with the chance to change what items you buy and what skills you build. This makes each game unique, no matter who you chose to play.

One Map to Rule Them All

Like I said earlier Dota 2 is played on mainly one map. There are other maps released on occasion, like currently there's a new game mode and a new map out for the Christmas holidays, but the core game is one map and one map only.

The Dota 2 map, without the team structures [2]

Whenever I tell people the game is played on one map, they always reply with "How do you not get bored?", I always answer by mentioning Counter-Strike and despite being around for almost a decade all people want to do is play de_dust. I feel games don't need 15 maps with another 20 coming in DLC, a hand full of maps that have been thoroughly designed with tactical depth will last much longer and this is exactly what the Dota 2 map has.

The map seems simple at first and the basics can be learned quickly, but hidden all over are paths hidden in the trees, because of player vision too there are even more, smaller, hiding spots that can be used to get out of a sticky situation. This is just a small example of the depth of this map, because once you begin to factor in the effects items and spells can have, the entire thing becomes like a complex chess board.

Free to Play, not Pay to Win
I've never been a big fan of Free to play games, the majority of them are either lacking in polish, feel way too grindy or are simply pay to win. However Dota 2 doesn't contain any of these negatives, as soon as you download the game you're on the same playing-field as everyone else. There's no must-have stat to grind away, no rubbish starting weapons to try and replace and there's certainly no limited-hero pool.

Dota 2 makes its' money from cosmetic items and that's it. If you like a hero enough you can buy items to make it stand out from the rest, or you can buy a fancy courier or maybe just a different HUD skin. None of this is required though, you could play for a year and never need to throw money at the game. The free to play model has been on the up lately in general, with games like Path of Exile also offering a high quality experience with no need to put money in it.

Left: The standard Warlock   Right: Warlock with a cosmetic set

The World has Weight... mostly
The visuals are, for me anyway, one of the biggest highlights in Dota 2. Everything in the game carries a weight, from the simple trees in the forest to each hero, everything feels like it has purpose and it is all textured in a vibrant, painterly style.

Each hero have had some serious design time dedicated to them, each with a unique look and silhouette and when considering how many heroes there are this is quite an achievement! A number of heroes have had multiple redesigns too, while some are currently waiting, but each of them have great personalities and are animated beautifully. When you throw all this into combat with all the spell effects, the game can be quite a sight to behold.

Things can get pretty chaotic during teamfights

The only thing that I can't get on with is the lore. I know in a game like this the lore isn't as important as in say Mass Effect or Skyrim, so I should be happy that Valve have taken the time to try and explain the world and the heroes, but the number of heroes that have just popped out the ground is a bit much. Some of them have stories intertwined with other heroes, which for me adds believability to the world, yet a good number of them have the "mysterious unknown power" thing attached to them and this reduces the credibility.

For Balance
Not wanting this post to become overly biased I thought I'd write down some of things that I think are wrong or just bad, after all, without this I'd be saying Dota 2 is near perfect, when it obviously isn't. The very nature of the game is "snowbally", meaning if one team make enough mistakes the enemy team can push the advantage hard, leaving the other team in a corner for 20 minutes just losing with no hope of coming back, which isn't fun. Add this on top of the inevitable losing streaks and your morale for the game can drop pretty hard.

Being an internet based game the community can have bad members, but I guess this just comes with the hobby. The servers can be a bit wonky at times and while the menus are functional they feel a bit sluggish in places, the option for more player statistics would be great too. Lastly, some of the cosmetic items don't match up to the quality of others, but this is because most of the sets are made by the community. A lot of the things mentioned in this paragraph could all be addressed through patches, which Valve push out at a decent rate.

A festive version of the standard Dota 2 map

I could quite easily double the size of this post discussing things in Dota 2, but I won't, I feel I have covered all the necessary points in what makes this game great and the influences it can pass on. In my future work I hope I can replicate some of the design choices made by Valve, especially in character design, as Dota 2 is a real showcase for fantastic character design work. As for playing the game itself, I'm slowly approaching my 400th game and I can't wait to see what the another 400 have in store for me!

References & Notes

[1]http://www.dvlzgame.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DotA-21.jpg
[2]http://www.devilesk.com/dota2/images/dota_minimap.jpg
All other images were taken by me, in-game