All I can say about this picture is...
The colorer at Marvel either saw the original Star Wars movie on a lot of drugs, or he was massivly colorblind ;)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Island's not done with us...
Tom, in your post to tawm.net the other day, you say you saw a coincidental LOST sign in a completely different serializaiton that you enjoy. Well, me too!
I'd just like to point out that my sighting is not as creepy as it looks. It's from a manga about Japanese drifters racing their cars around Japan. Alas, all the cool car artwork is spoiled every twenty chapters by a chapter like this, where the drivers take a quick break, and generally spend their free time complaining that they're not racing.
Both drivers here drive awesome turbo'd RX-7 FD's. Not that you care. Or know what that is.
I'd just like to point out that my sighting is not as creepy as it looks. It's from a manga about Japanese drifters racing their cars around Japan. Alas, all the cool car artwork is spoiled every twenty chapters by a chapter like this, where the drivers take a quick break, and generally spend their free time complaining that they're not racing.
Both drivers here drive awesome turbo'd RX-7 FD's. Not that you care. Or know what that is.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Opening Pandora's box... there's a PS2 game inside
So now that more than 6 years have passed since the legendary game GT4 has come out, and every fan that had once worshipped its glorious light and realistic gameplay has now moved onto next-gen consol racing simulators (right now Forza III has the spotlight, but GT5 is due out in time for the Holiday season this year, so let's brace ourselves for that impact!), I believe it is time for me to start playing it.
At first glance, before any actual gameplay was performed, I was underimpressed. Compared to the only other game I have that is comparable (Forza 2, Xbox 360), GT4 had a hard-to-navigate menu screen. Races are jumbled up all over the screen in a pattern resembling the fallout pattern of a shotgun blast, with car dealerships mixed in between race leagues, country-specific and terrain-specific maps, and tuning shops. I can't complain about the graphics, because for a PS2, I know they are phenominally good. But you can't escape the fact that the shadows are much too dark, the cars are blurrily rendered, and it is impossible to tell whether the car in from of you has its brake lights on unless you have a properly large tv. Also, the accelerator and brake buttons (X and [], respectively) are pressure-sensitive, to properly simulate pedal-pressing. Granted, the true fans will buy the full-sized cockpit/wheel/shifter/pedals set and never worry about the microscopic precision required to press the accelerator button on a controller only 35% down as opposed to 40%. And because of what this game is about, that can make things rather difficult.
As opposed to other games, the GT series encourages the players to pass lisence tests, which show you just how bad of a driver you really are. Even just getting a clean start off a line, or navigating a low-speed corner are small challenges they give you in order to start your racing education. This game is all about technical racing: hitting apexes, memorizing blind turns, techniques for driving on low grip surfaces, weight shifting through braking, ect, that even before you get to the actual tuning of the cars, it will have driven anyone that came into the game half-assed away.
Honestly, I've only had the game for 3 days. I haven't tuned any of my cars yet (I only have 5 so far), so I'm going to avoid talking about that until I have tried it. But the amount of cars in this game is staggering: I belive in the version I bought there are 721 cars to purchase. Oh, and because GT couldn't buy rights to put their cars in this game, it has NO Porsches. Oh, or Lamborghinis. Or Ferraris. I seem to recall that in Forza 2, a game which only had ~400 cars, maybe 20-25% of them were of those three makes. Oh well; it makes it that much more staggering to consider just how many different kinds of cars there are in here. Well, as long as you don't mind that over 100 of them are Nissans. Or that out of those Nissans, half of them are Skylines.
I'm going to end this review short, seeing as I've barely played the game enough to constitute a 1-paragraph review, but I just need to mention 1 thing. 24-hour races. Races. That you play. for 24 hours at a time. I know this is an extreme thing that really does exist in the world of racing, but why would you put that in here?!? And not just one! There are three 24-hour races in the game. And one of them is set at the 'Ring. What can people possibly be thinking when they put this in a game? More on GT4 later
At first glance, before any actual gameplay was performed, I was underimpressed. Compared to the only other game I have that is comparable (Forza 2, Xbox 360), GT4 had a hard-to-navigate menu screen. Races are jumbled up all over the screen in a pattern resembling the fallout pattern of a shotgun blast, with car dealerships mixed in between race leagues, country-specific and terrain-specific maps, and tuning shops. I can't complain about the graphics, because for a PS2, I know they are phenominally good. But you can't escape the fact that the shadows are much too dark, the cars are blurrily rendered, and it is impossible to tell whether the car in from of you has its brake lights on unless you have a properly large tv. Also, the accelerator and brake buttons (X and [], respectively) are pressure-sensitive, to properly simulate pedal-pressing. Granted, the true fans will buy the full-sized cockpit/wheel/shifter/pedals set and never worry about the microscopic precision required to press the accelerator button on a controller only 35% down as opposed to 40%. And because of what this game is about, that can make things rather difficult.
As opposed to other games, the GT series encourages the players to pass lisence tests, which show you just how bad of a driver you really are. Even just getting a clean start off a line, or navigating a low-speed corner are small challenges they give you in order to start your racing education. This game is all about technical racing: hitting apexes, memorizing blind turns, techniques for driving on low grip surfaces, weight shifting through braking, ect, that even before you get to the actual tuning of the cars, it will have driven anyone that came into the game half-assed away.
Honestly, I've only had the game for 3 days. I haven't tuned any of my cars yet (I only have 5 so far), so I'm going to avoid talking about that until I have tried it. But the amount of cars in this game is staggering: I belive in the version I bought there are 721 cars to purchase. Oh, and because GT couldn't buy rights to put their cars in this game, it has NO Porsches. Oh, or Lamborghinis. Or Ferraris. I seem to recall that in Forza 2, a game which only had ~400 cars, maybe 20-25% of them were of those three makes. Oh well; it makes it that much more staggering to consider just how many different kinds of cars there are in here. Well, as long as you don't mind that over 100 of them are Nissans. Or that out of those Nissans, half of them are Skylines.
I'm going to end this review short, seeing as I've barely played the game enough to constitute a 1-paragraph review, but I just need to mention 1 thing. 24-hour races. Races. That you play. for 24 hours at a time. I know this is an extreme thing that really does exist in the world of racing, but why would you put that in here?!? And not just one! There are three 24-hour races in the game. And one of them is set at the 'Ring. What can people possibly be thinking when they put this in a game? More on GT4 later
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