My Favorite Book Series: The Witcher (Part2)

Many of the characters thought the novels help Geralt see the little good that is still in the world. Like Dandelion the bard. A man who Geralt encountered and helped after he was discovered having an affair with a married woman. Dandelion is more of a comedic relief throughout the story, yet he does provide Geralt with interesting dilemmas and philosophies. The stories are connected by the one single story that Geralt is facing the dilemma to either continue to find Yennefer or respect her decision to go their separate paths even though they are connected on a supernatural level. The rest of The Witcher series, as well as the first book, is something that closely resembles a kind of fairy tale type fantasy, except Geralt is not interested in becoming any kind of hero, yet he ends up doing so, but rather only seems to want to change for his true love. It has romance in it but the bulk of the series focuses mostly on defeating the looming evil that is The Wild Hunt, a supernatural general who wants to conquer the Continent and bring forth a great darkness. The Witcher was adapted into a video game series. Even though the author HATES the games, he says that the story of them, that take place between the novels, live up to the original story. Both the Book series and Videogame series are good, but the books are far better. Either way I do recommend them both, especially the books.

My Favorite Book Series: The Witcher (Part1)

The Witcher is one of my favorite book series. A Witcher is a man who hunts monsters and creatures for a certain price, and have no emotion when killing anything. The main character in the series is Geralt of Rivia, who is of course a Witcher, the Witcher. The story is set in the lands of a place called The Continent, which was not long ago in a war between elves and dwarves and the humans. The first novel Introducing The Witcher: The Last Wish, is a collection of short stories that were published in the 80’s. In each short story Geralt remembers a contract or job from his past as he searches for his love, the Sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg. In the stories Geralt is conveyed as what most think of him, a cold heartless monster hunter. However, as the stories progress, he is shown something of a hero to some and a menace to others. Geralt is a Witcher, through the trials he faced to become a Witcher, he became sterile and devoid of nearly all emotion. Geralt’s adventures still somehow make him see new things about the world and change him as a person.

My Favorite Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist

One of my favorite Anime is Fullmetal Alchemist. It is one of the most well written shows I have ever watched. The reason I love it so much is because it has some of the best character development I have ever watched. The show is about a boy and his brother who perform a spell to bring their mother back that goes horribly wrong. In a series of events, Edward loses an arm and a leg and his brother Al loses his entire body. Edward saves Al by putting Al’s soul into a suit of armor. The show revolves around the brothers trying to get back what they lost or at the least, make sure no one would suffer the same fate. The brothers use various forms of transmutation to combat the mysterious forces that chase them so they will not find the secrets around the recipe for a philosopher’s stone. The things that chase them are based after the seven deadly sins. Throughout the show, Edward grows in his understanding of the world as he realizes that the nation he fights for is the ones who hold the secrets behind the Philosopher’s stone. When Edward and Al learn how a Philosopher’s stone is made they conclude that no innocent life or soul is worth it to make one. The show touches mostly moral dilemmas by introducing characters that come from all around the world inside the story. Because of this, I love the Show and highly recommend it.

Awesome Anime: The Slayers

The Slayers is an old Anime show that I found on Hulu recently. It is about a female wizard who raids bandit camps and through a series of events meets a knight that is somewhat dimwitted and uncaring when there are no women around. The duo travel around mythical lands to reach a city to sell the current loot that the wizard stole. When at a pawn shop, the merchant picks up a cursed knife to examine the value of it and goes berserk, attacking the duo. It is soon that the owner of the items contacts the wizard to make a deal for the stolen property. When he says that the wizard can name the price of any of the items, she makes her price at a ridiculous amount. Through more processing of the information, the wizard figures out that the one of the items could be worth even more and decides to keep the stolen goods. Through this a series of comical events, the duo become entangled in a battle of wits between good and evil. They meet other characters and creatures through their travels. The show blends together fantasy and comedy very well. I love watching this show so far and recommend it.

The best superhero EVER: Baby Groot

BABY GROOT IS IMPORTANT. I have been waiting for this for so long, ever since I read the comics and ever since I saw the last movie. Groot is possibly the best character in the Guardians of the Galaxy series: one, Vin Diesel had a tough job last movie because he only had three or four words throughout the film and had to put emotion into the same line throughout the movie, “I am Groot.” Second, Groot provides the best of the comedic moments. His character may only have three words, but somehow Groot is perfectly capable of conveying emotion. His character does not develop much in the first film until he saves the Guardians and says “We are Groot.” Meaning that they are a family and can get through anything together and do the impossible. Which is why I think BABY EFFIN GROOT in the next movie will bring even more to the story. Because his character develops not just from the emotion in his dialogue, but from his actions, both comedic and serious. How he would risk his life and body to save the others and anybody who needs help. Which is also why Groot and BABY GROOT are the best superheroes in comic book history.

Another point, you can be happy, but you will never be Baby Groot with a an atomic death bomb button happy. Thank you.

Howl's Moving Castle

Recently I’ve watched Howl’s Moving Castle. The film was surprisingly good. The story was something like a fairy tale. The film is about Sophie, a young hat maker. When walking to her sister’s one day, she finds trouble. But she is saved by a mysterious man, who later turns out to be Howl himself. Later at night she is visited by the creature’s, who were chasing Howl, master and is cursed and turn into an old lady. After deciding to live with the curse, Sophie sets out to find a new life. Which she does, after an encounter with a cursed scarecrow, in Howl’s moving castle. The film has a kind of reverse roll as in beauty and the beast, but rather focuses on beauty as Howl slowly falls in love with Sophie despite her flaws, as well does Sophie herself. Sophie also finds somewhat of a family she has always wanted with Howl’s assistant and Calcifer, the demon flame that fuels the castle. The story is very delightful and moving. It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. This is a Film I highly recommend seeing as it is a great story with fantastic characters and visuals.

Uncharted Part 4

In the recent years, story in video games has somewhat come back as part of a regular thing in games. After the release of the Playstation 4, Xbox tried to milk its audience for literally every dime they had. It was not until when the fans went crazy over it that Playstation gained more audience for not trying to directly screw over its audience. And with the next gen. consoles came remastered games. Given the recent attention to NaughtyDog’s The Last Of Us remastered, NaughtyDog received a chance to revive the Uncharted series for a little bit. The Last Of Us brought a lot of attention to the PS3 with its exceptional storytelling and characters. Even though this was a new way to tell a story in their games, NaughtyDog decided to go with some light-hearted drama. In Uncharted 4, Nathan helps his previously thought to be dead brother escape his debt of half the legendary pirate treasure to a drug lord. The game featured some Christian themes like the recurring reference to saint Dismas, the good thief who was on one of the crosses next to Jesus. The storytelling of the series evolved from this game as Nathan’s character evolves from his childish ways and grows up, as well as a lot more characters that helped the story develop the world. Many of the scenes and in game dialogue involving his brother, wife, and sully his kind of adoptive father were more deep and meaningful than in recent games. Rather than solely focusing on the treasure itself, the story as well took its time with developing Nathan’s struggling relationship with his wife and his inner dilemma, going to find the thrill of adventure or sacrificing it for Elena by committing to a nine to five job that is safe. It is a Shame the series evolved the story just to end it.

Uncharted part 3

At the height of the console wars, Video game company NaughtyDog announced Uncharted 3. It was regrettably short-lived after it luckily made amazing sales. Many who played it could tell you its story was brand new to the series. Halfway through it the game took a drastic turn by showing the origins of Nathan Drake. The secret battle the he had been entangled with surrounding his Ancestor’s, Sir Francis Drake, ring, and the grand treasure beyond mortal wealth. It was the story where, even though he is still a bit childish, Nathan Drake had grew as a person by turning his back away from legendary treasures and legends, including the grand thrill of adventure. The game ended up winning the game of the year award which helped the sales of the Playstation 3 and the games for a moment. It is my opinion that it was all because of Microsoft wanting Xbox to be the top console that they partnered with mountain dew and popularized mass marketing everywhere that drove down interest in gamers who cared more about hype and fun commercials that gave up on Playstation and went to Xbox because they had the “best” game selection, but was rather just a larger selection. Ever since then, Playstation and Xbox have been at a kind of war against each other ever since.

Uncharted Part 2

One could say the console wars almost destroyed the storytelling aspect of videogames. When Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were released, each of the companies had begun to make games like normal. However, after Uncharted the game changed. Which was why its second game was nearly buried down at the bottom of the newly created category, Exclusives. Xbox realized that if they shoved out enough exclusives into the market they would overshadow Playstation itself. What seemed most popular at the time was first person shooters. As first person cluttered the market, Xbox realized that the more violent the games got and the better the graphics, the more money they made. It was around the time that Uncharted 2 came out that games like Grand Theft Auto were popular and big guns, explosions, sex, and outright violence of any kind could sell literally anything if the graphics were good. But despite this Uncharted 2 was still one of the big games of 2009 that got the most attention, simply for its amazing announcement months previous that highlighted an amazing cinematic that was action packed. It was although the story which was talked about and theorized the most. Although it was talked about, after some time it did fall under the radar after Xbox released more Halo games.

Uncharted Part 1

Back in 2007, the video game market was flooded with first-person shooters and in the middle of a war of the consoles. The Indie game market had been starting to become a new thing and new innovative ways to play video games. But in that year the video game world was introduced to something that had been done before, but in a new way. That game was Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. The Playstation 3 was about a year old but was still blowing the gaming world by storm with high quality graphics and bigger and more open games. In the midst of the console war, Uncharted introduced the storytelling back into the mainstream videogame market, with its great voice acting, third person shooting, somewhat in-depth characters and storytelling. Halo had been briefly overshadowed along with the Xbox itself as gamers flocked to it. The story was, at the time, nothing like anything that was there since tomb raider or Spyro. Acting back then, even in 2007, was somewhat of a quickly done thing that were done by voice actors new to the scene. But, Uncharted blew away the crowds with its Indian Jones like characters and Tomb Raider like feel and storytelling. The thrill and feel of adventure drew in the crowds and continued to deliver with the story itself. NaughtyDog had always been great storytellers, which was why any of their games are often remembered solely for their story. At any time the game is mentioned the first thing any true gamer will tell you, is that the story is thrilling and great.

Marvel Movies Part 2

Recently the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was set free into the internet. For all the Marvel movies to date, Guardians of the Galaxy was, so far, the only one to give more than what it promised. Perter Quill, a narcissistic showoff rebel showed the most character growth throughout the Marvel movie universe. He set forth to double cross his business partner and after wanting to sell the item he stole for all it was worth, he decided to rescue it from the hands of those that would use it for evil. Any of the other characters grew in the same way, wanting to take the higher road rather than getting all the wealth they could want. The movie perfectly balance the comedy and seriousness of the story. But what was the best part about the film was Groot. With only using the same three word throughout the movie, I am Groot, he still managed to convey his feelings perfectly. The recent trailer seems to be doing the same as it did last time. It does not show the action-packed battles or the lots of flashy effects, but rather it shows the characters in their main dysfunctional habitat. The only thing that seems to be the focus is all the comedy that ensues. Hopefully Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 will be able to convince the other future Marvel movies to use more character development, intelligent dialogue and story instead of lots of special effects and CGI. And also one final thought: Baby Groot is the cutest thing right now or will ever be.

Marvel Movies Part 1

Doctor Strange may have not been as good as it was all hyped up to be, but it still managed to be a good film. The only thing that was missing from it was Strange’s character developing past his egotistical ways. Instead, he simply just decided out of nowhere that he was not going be the person he was anymore. For the sake of dazzling special effects, Strange’s time helping others as he developed his powers was cut right from the script. Lately the marvel movies, and most films, have been doing the same thing. If there is a fight scene, it gets the most attention. Studios have been doing this to get movies to sell more. Studios would rather make fast pace and big budget action films so they can make the most money at the box office. But even though these movies are mostly cut for great content to make the best attention grabbing movie there is, they do still seem to retain half or most of what makes movies great. Good story, great characters, and their development through the story. But even though there are some movies that do not live up to the hype, there is however a movie that was exactly what it promised and more. A movie that is scheduled for a sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy.

Tokyo Godfathers: the perfect Christmas movie

Tokyo Godfathers is an exceptionally made animated film. The film is based around three homeless people living Tokyo, who find a baby abandoned in a dumpster. The trio then set out to find the child’s parents after much reluctance from Uncle Bag, who wants to keep the baby and raise her. The trio set out on somewhat of a comical misadventure. The movie revolves around a kind of surrogate family theme. The trio act like a dysfunctional family that does not need to be related to each other. As they search for the baby’s family, each of them end up going through a kind of spiritual journey where they learn to accept what has befallen them in their pasts. The nativity scene is a recurring theme in the movie as the child is referred to as a miracle by the trio because of how lucky she was to be found, the song sung by a church quire at the beginning of the film that plays mostly around the baby, the “angle” that appears when one of the trio is left beaten severally and left in an ally but reveals herself to be a drag queen. The ending of the movie made the film perfect as it did not show the big resolve to the trio, because the directors knew that their audience would be smart enough to figure it out. Although, not showing the outcome of the trio’s story, but rather ending it with the hinting to the resolve was a far better way to end it so as to keep the audience thinking not just about the resolve, but also about the whole film.

Video Games: The Interactive Dramas (part 2)

Cage brought a new genre of game that focused not entirely on game play, but rather the story itself. Cage claims the point of Interactive Dramas is to put the player in situations that had actual consequences depending on the decisions the player makes with no idea if the story would have a happy or somber end. In Both his Interactive Dramas, Cage say he took into the littlest decisions the player made into the ultimate end of both games. The performance of Elen Page and William Defoe also added to the immersion of the story itself and made it even more spectacualr. In Heavy Rain there are fourth eight variations in total, sixty eight in Beyond: Two Souls. In his new game, Detroit: Become Human (Set to release in 2017), Cage went more in depth with the Butterfly effect of the Interactive Drama. In the demo for Detroit, the player takes control of an android detective, who searches for defective androids, and as the player walks into the apartment they have the decision to immediately walk over to the android holding a little girl hostage or search the apartment. If the player decides to just walk to the android the player can miss very important information about the android and situation, leading to the girl’s death. However, with enough information the girl can be saved, as shown in the extensive butterfly system shown in the trailer for it. Cage puts the players in a positon questioning whether or not they have made the wrong decision and what they could do to resolve it if they even could. The interactive Drama Cage developed was designed to put players in the situation of not being able to restart at a checkpoint when a character died. Whatever consequence developed from the player’s decision, HAD to be played out.

Video Games: The Interactive Dramas (part 1)

In Heavy Rain, Video game designer and writer David Cage brings players a somewhat new experience to video game players. Cage revolutionized the genre of interactive drama story in games. Somewhat like his first attempt with Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy, Cage lets the player take control of not one but four different characters, who are connected to the disappearance of one of the character’s child. As the players control the characters as they search for the mysterious Origami Killer, every action has its consequence. If the player is not careful, the current character can die. One may think “Well, that happens in any normal game.” With the exception that Cage profoundly hates Game Overs. If the player makes a mistake, it is permanent till the end outcome of the game, a character died, only three make it and so on if another died. In addition, the player could do everything right till the end chapter of the game and ultimately fail and change the ending to a completely different spectrum. David Cage introduced the concept of Heavy Rain as an “interactive Drama” in the sense it was like a movie, but with more interaction. Putting the character in the hands of the player. Putting all the consequences on the player. Like in Cage’s Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls was the same type of game but from only one character’s perspective. The point of Beyond was to make it like an interactive drama that put the player in the shoes of an extortionary woman, who you watch grow up and decide ultimately either devastating or happy decisions.

Why I quit video games and went into film production(part 2)

My so call friends had made half a game that was one long sex joke, then proceeded to tell me that the story was pointless. They had decided to make a game they wanted so that they could convince me to go along with their idea. It was to start their own company and have me as the character designer, since it was the only thing I was decent at, according to them. That even though my art style, which was just oddly shaped doodles, terrible. It was with great “reluctance” that I put in my resignation from the game company they ended up naming something so vulgar, I found it surprising that they were even accepted for a small business lone. I spent the better half of 2016 waiting to be accepted into a school with a credited game development program. I ended up sulking till last summer when I realized I had stopped writing story scripts for video games. I realized I had waited long enough to get into a video game program. I loved writing screenplays and stories. When I was trying to find what I wanted to do I was watching movies, I found I wanted to make movies (which is the short story). After I had looked at Huntington, I had given it lots of thought deciding between film production and animation. I had ended up choosing film production. If I could say anything about video games, do not buy them only based from the graphics or gameplay. Consider the story. Because many developers use the game to tell their story and put themselves out there, like what I wanted to do with the game I was told was being made. Some developers count on the game to send a message that could help others or make something fun. But because the games do not stand up to the quality of games made by big budget companies.

Why I quit video games and went into film production(part 1)

I used to want to make video games before I decide to go into movies. I had always inspired to make video games when I first played The Legend of Zelda. The reason I quit goes back to when I started an “Indie game company” with a few friends from my video game design class, which was a huge mistake. The whole reason I was invited into the “company” was because I was the only person in the class who was creative enough to come up with an almost decent story. After about a year till the end of my junior year in high school, our group finally decided on one of my suggestions. Then after another year and a half of reluctance and agony, building the game, I had HAND WRITTEN over 800 lines of program code. I was the only one without a computer with the capabilities to run the coding programs and the funds to buy one, so I HAD to write out every line of code and give it to the group at out weekly meetings. It was at after new years of 2015 that I found out the group had decided without me to make their own game using the sprites and characters I designed. For the past year and a half, every line of code I had written was thrown away and never used, almost every character design was scrapped and thrown aside, and every gameplay idea was not adequate to the “standard” of the game they wanted.

Why I love Video Games

One of my favorite video games was original The Legend of Zelda. It was the whole reason I wanted to make videogames. It was a game that literally gave you nothing but a wooden sword to begin with. You had to use your imagination as you played it. It did not have the fancy graphics of Skyrim, and because of that you had to fill in the gaps with your imagination. Every sword swing, enemy, and attack, you had to use imagination to fill in the gaps. When I first played the game, I found it closely resembling my life. Especially when I heard the original inspiration for the game. Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the game, based the game from his “adventures” as a kid, breaking into people’s backyards and playing make-believe. I had done the same things as a kid, although, I did take it a step further because I used to not only jump around people’s backyards, I would often break into their houses (this was before I knew it was a bad thing to do), sometimes I would rearrange furniture and I once tore out a neighbor’s garden gnomes and placed them around her house. The best part about the game was that it did not need a story. You were given this world and you made your own adventure through imagination, until you got to the end to find out you needed to save a princess all along. My favorite part of the game, which rarely any games(other than indie games sometimes) have today, is that once beaten the game thanks you for playing and putting the work you did into it.

Inde games

       Indie video games are something of their own. If compared to regular video games they are somewhat better. Indie games may not be the biggest, have the most amazing graphics, or have the best or biggest world to explore; however, they have the some of the best stories. The indie game market is greatly undervalued. When most people buy games, they tend to buy the sequel game that is just the same game with different guns and high resolution graphics. Most video games, made by big budget companies, count on the gameplay and graphics to sell the game, and think they can ignore any story whatsoever by casting A-List actors to voice the characters. However, indie video games have more of the heart and feeling put into the story, as well as the gameplay. For most indie games, the developers use the game to tell a story of themselves and to put a message out to the public. Yet, the genre is undervalued because the games have “terrible” graphics or does not have beautifully animated graphics and combat. Indie games are more often the best because they have a story that had work put into it rather than just a quick script that was written to sell the game just as fast.

Dofus- Book 1: Julith Review

Dofus was based off the acclaimed mmorpg of the same name. The film tells the origin story of Joris and his quest to retrieve the light Dofus, a crystal dragon egg containing the soul of a dragon, so he can take back the dark dofus. After finding out who he is Joris is given the task to find the Dofus and defeat his mother by his father. He is joined on his journey by Bakara, his father’s old friend, and Kahn, a legendary sports star who is mainly in the film for comic relief as he gets himself hurt or tries to act brave and wooing any woman he sees, especially Bakara. The animation of the entire film is superior to that of many animated films today. The animation is very smooth and never misses a beat, especially during the otherworldly and epic fight scenes scattered perfectly throughout. Most animated films will focus solely on the main characters. In Dofus the animators and artist focused on the one line and backroad characters just as much they did the main characters. The world itself was detailed to extraordinary lengths. The art style was unique in the sense that even though it was cartoonish it never took away from the more serious tone of the film yet helps emphasize the comedic elements of the film. The story is also creative to the world it is set in and wonderfully told. Dofus is one of the best animated films I’ve seen, possibly the best.

I just wish I could find a copy in region one and with English subtitles, because I can’t speak French, I could buy myself, as the movie is a French animated film and in French. I have literally gone insane trying to track one down that is not being sold at the “reasonable” price of fifty dollars. And that is the French only and region two DVD.