Art Style Orbient Review

Suda 51 of Grasshopper Manafature, makers of Killer7 and No More Heroes, calls himself a punk game maker. One thing that lead to the punk rock revolution in the 70's was people being tired of long winded Progressive Rock bands, such as Pink Floyd and their super long songs. The Ramones debut album was shorter then some Pink Floyd songs. Punk rock brought rock back to the basics. In the sense of Punk style games, Orbient is a lot more punk then No More Heroes.
Orbient is apart of the Art Style WiiWare titles, which are the spiritual sequels (some times actual sequels or remakes) of the Gameboy Advance Bit Generation games. The Bit Generation games were solely released in Japan and were simple little games. Orbient is a remake of the Bit Generation game Orbital.
Orbient is a two button game. That's it. Just 'A' and 'B'. No use of the control stick, no wagging the Wii Mote, no directional pad (except in the menus). In the game you control a little sphere/planet and your goal is to grow bigger and get the target sun in your orbit. You use the 'A' button to pull you closer to objects and 'B' button to push you away. Sounds simple doesn't it? But it gets a little more complicated. Your little sphere never stops moving and soon you must orbit around a larger sun and set your path. The game is very much a game of timing. Some suns/planets stay stationary, others move. Then there's asteroids and black holes. Smack into a celestial body bigger then yours and you're going to loose a life (usually start off with 5). So it's kind of like Asteroids meets Katamari. Once your planet/sphere gets bigger you can then get smaller planets to orbit you. It can get pretty neat when you become one of the larger bodies in the stage and you have 14 things orbiting you. At the end of the level you're judged by time and how many objects are in orbit around you. The levels can be tough, but in a good way. I never found myself so frustrated that I couldn't play anymore. Chances are you will die several times in a level.

The music of the game ranges from simple little tunes to haunting. The music is fitting, sometimes there's a sense of wonder and awe to it, other times it's menacing, like something off of Alien. The real problem is the sound effects. The music is about half the volume the sound effects are. When you crash into a different body you'll hear it. On top of that, when a single planet is oribiting your sphere there's a little 8 bit-ish jingle added, when you get three bodies around you the other music stops and you're stuck with a repeating every 2 second bit high pitched melody that gets tired fast. Sometimes found myself looking for a 4th just to get the song to change. Once you get a 4th the music shifts to a peaceful tune that gets a little more complex the more things orbit you, I think it caps at 12.
Graphic wise, don't expect anything too pretty. Like I said, you control a sphere. The backgrounds are kind of nice, would have been even nicer to see Hubble Space Telescope backgrounds, or better 3D effects on some of the background stages. In one stage there's a giant rotating moon that looks like it's a sphere with only 30 polygons and a stretched texture. But overall, the graphics works.

I'm adding this game to the list of great puzzle games mentioned in my Doctor Mario Online RX review. At 600 Wii Points (6 bucks) it's a great deal.

Grade: B

A Strange Week in Releases..

Sorry, but this isn't an art post, just a far fetched theory, not crazy or deep enough for it to be a conspiracy.

This week there's something very odd happening. A movie is being released on DVD on Friday. This wouldn't be odd if it was a Friday the 13th movie, or if there was a special holiday that had some tie in with the movie. But the movie in question is Kung Fu Panda. Kung Fu Panda comes out on Friday November 7th, 2008 on DVD. But why not Tuesday?
On Tuesday Dreamworks Animation released Shrek the Halls on DVD, a made for TV X-mas Special. Then why not just push the movie to next Tuesday, the 11th? I'm sure It would sell better then Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
But there's something else a foot. You see on Friday, November 7th Dreamworks Animation releases Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Let's review.
Tuesday 4th: Shrek the Halls on DVD (Dreamworks Animation)
Friday 7th: Kung Fu Panada on DVD (Dreamworks Animation)
Friday 7th: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa in theatres (Dreamworks Animation)

So why would Dreamworks (or Paramount, the parent company) release a Dreamworks Animation in theatres and on DVD on the same day? Are they sabotaging one of their own movies to do bad? I think so. But hear me out. Madagascar 2 opens on Friday, and the next week (the 14th) Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie opens up. Could Dreamworks/Paramount by sabotaging Madagascar this week so it does better next week against Bond? Perhaps..

Anyway, a happy Guy Fawks Day to you, I'm going to go watch V For Vendetta.

Live Action Short: 16 Ghost II

A month has passed and no update. That's pretty bad on my behalf. I've been gathering footage for my latest Nine Inch Nails Ghost Film Festival entry and have been having misadventures in dating while trying to deal with less UV Radiation.
It's best to click on the video and go to Youtube and watch it there. While on the youtube page select the "Watch In High Quality" text right below the video.
Watch it, rate it 5 stars, fav it and share it with your friends!

6th Annual CATO Film Fest and Reviews

Another year has passe and the Centre of Arts and Technology students have plenty of films to display. Unfortunately, the marketing department and marketing students didn't get the word out well and not many people knew about the film festival until it was too late. Needless to say I rate films on the A+ to F system. Thankfully I didn't have to give any films an F rating. Now on to the reviews. Sadly It's been 2 weeks since the event and some of the films have become foggy, I'll update this post once I've seen them again. How unprofessional of me.

In The Twilight of an Idol - The film opened up with an interview documentary short from Ivan Sampson about his father. It was a long film and did bring the emotional level of the room down. The film had an almost end, but kept going, which brought down the grade of the film. B
Beautiful Bugler - A silent film with accompany sound preformed on stage. Story wasn't anything new, but was still fun to watch. A
A Journey to Silence - A silent film with one of the oldest stories in the book, does get points for variety of locations, but the ending could be seen a mile away. B
Last Man Standing - A 3D piece that felt like a scene more then a short, tried to be cool, but rendering techniques made it look very dull. I was disappointed in all the 3D pieces for their rendering. C
Detail de Peintres - An interesting idea and story, it had two painters in Paris trying to paint the landscape and fighting over the best spot. As I said before, rendering techniques could have made this film even better, for example there could have been animated textures when they got in the paint fight. A
Pooch'd - Winner of the Best Animated Story and People's Choice (by 2 votes), Pooch'd is the story of two dogs fighting over the perfect hydrant. This movie wasn't even rendered and makes me wonder how much better it would be in proper colour, proper lighting and fur effects turned on. A+
A Light Obstical - Winner of Best Animated Film the film is about a young guy trying to cross the street. There were moments of greatness along with confusing spots, but did manage to be entertaining. Better sound, rendering and a better choice of camera location in a scene could make this film an A+. B

Drive Thru Disaster - Best silent film for last I guess. The film featured a man trying to get his drive thru food order right. A
Loose Stools - A gross out comedy about a guy who has a bad lunch and sure enough ends up with the runs. I'll have to admit, I found it entertaining. A-
Inches from Failing - (forgot what this one is about, but I have a C+ rating written down..)
Rendezvous - Oh god... they used "Hide And Seek" by Imogen Heap. *shudder*. Story was good. B+
Times Like These - (forgot what this one is about, but I have a B rating down)
Knock on Ginger - A quick short about domestic abuse, well shot and disturbing. A
One Way Out - 3 tales that deal with poverty, disturbing and well shot. A
Cozen - Chosen as the Best Live Action Film, Cozen is about the cut throat real estate business and how they'll do anything to capture the sale. B
12th and Hyde - Winner for Best Actor in a Live Action Film. I reviewed this film before and gave it a C.

There was a friendly bet running at the film festival. If an animation film won the people's choice award, James Hamilton the third would have to shave his head and Alexander Dmytryszyn would have to wear a dress for a day. If a live action film won, then Franciso Argudin would have to shave his head and Sean Ridgway would have to wear the dress. Below, James Hamilton getting his head shaved.