I haven’t had time to mess with Guardian Spirits of much lately, regrettably, and on top of that some shit happened at work that lead to my sprites’ original copies at work getting lost. (Naturally, I made backups, though I’m considering redrawing some of em anyway.) In the meantime when not working on well, working, I’ve been browsing some tips on animation and spriting. Right now, I’m focusing on shooter-stage graphics and hopefully being able to set up a demo of one of those segments by the fall.

And as always, I’m being tempted by the urge to nuke it all and refocus it as something less transparently, shall we say, ‘inspired?’ I like the main character, at the least, but something smaller-scale would probably be more reasonable for the time being. (Space police springs to mind right away, or maybe even something fantasy based. Or heck- what about a Revolver Knight game?)

I’ll post some of the doodles I had whenever I get around to scanning ’em of “sheriff” Miriya.

(Another, and more than likely lawsuit-inspiring game idea I had would involve a cyberspace world where a pair of special agents, Norton and McAffee hunt down viruses. Whee!)

Well, about Transformer games. The toys are fair game. I’ve had my hands on the console version of the movie game a couple days now, and ultimately I gotta say the DS version impresses me more. It’s not the worst game I’ve played, but the controls are a lot looser than the portable, especially in regards to picking up objects (while simultaneously making said task mandatory far more often.) See, there’s a large issue with the physics of the game wherein the slightest brush against a house or car is roughly equivalent to driving straight into it at top speed. Until you get the feel for the sweet spots, there are a lot of instances of accidentally booting debris away you meant to pick up in order to defeat a stubborn mini-boss.

That said, even though a lot of it ends up being accidental, the game does render mass destruction satisfyingly. Fighting Barricade at the power plant for example takes place at first within rows and rows of explosive chemical tanks. Inevitably they chain-react and blast the holy hell out of pretty much the entire battlefield, leading to frustrating glitch two. Sometimes, massive explosions pull you inward rather than backward. Hilarious. Still, it ain’t all bad if you’re a fan since some of the game-only character designs like the wannabe Constructicons are pretty cool. It’s rather like the DS game’s prettier, but airheaded sister.

It’s really rather annoying, I was expecting the DS version to be a toned down sample of the console, but the omission of the original character and vehicle scanning takes away a slightly more meaningful collect-em-all aspect than collecting doodads to unlock old comic posters and dated movie trailers. Curiously, the DS also featured a seemingly more robust selection of in-game voice acting. Instead of police chatter and the shouts of “IT’S A DECEPTICON! GET HIM!” as your enemies reveal themselves, there’s a general white noise of panicking bystanders.
So yeah. As Soundwave would say: DS SUPERIOR. CONSOLE INFERIOR. But who am I kidding, I still love both.

It seems there’s been a handful of defective Transformers carts out there, mostly the Autobot side version where the top screen flickers during play. Ha-ha!

On that note, I’m rather pissed with the local Targets. There’s a “G1” style Starscream skin for the custom character (Makes him look like ugly jet-monkey movie Starscream in gaudy, 1980’s-chic colors) available at Target stores with DS Download Stations exclusively. However of the three ‘local’ (to use the term loosely) shops, two of the three didn’t know what a Download Station was and the one that did said they hadn’t had anyone in to update the thing in ages. Here’s hoping it can eventually be purchased with the tokens earned in Battle for the AllSpark (I’ve cleared the game and hunted down most if not all of the challenge missions at this point, and still only have 75% or so completion.) If it remains a Target thing only, however, it’s a bit of a finger to those of us with underequipped stores as well as the entire nation of Canada. Whee!

Survey says yes to Transformers: DS. (Decepticon edition anyway.) It’s kind of like a portable GTA, except you turn into a robot and stuff.