Skyway update 25th April 2011 EXTRA!

 We've been doing a lot of stuff in UDK over the past few weeks, working out some of the different gameplay      elements such as moving water cubes, putting in a skybox, checkpoints etc. It's all very important stuff but unfortunately there's not much to show of it, but here's a screenshot of the skybox in engine. It looks really close as there are no distance markers and the sun is slightly too big:

 But anyway here's some more interesting stuff. I finished rigging and weight painting Oscar. It's not perfect but it needs to be out of the way so it'll do for now. Here he is posed:

 We've also been working on prop assets to decorate the pier and it's surroundings. Here are some potted bushes:

 A lovely welsh daffodil:

 A life ring (not finished):

 and a pair of beach umbrellas:

 Not much else for Skyway really, any other stuff is on our indiedb and/or facebook page so check them out :)
 In other news I've started trying to model Simon and Lewis from the Yogscast as I'm thinking about animating a few short segments from the Yogpod in 3D as they attract a lot of attention on Youtube and could be good promotion for EB. Also it's all good practice for modelling, facial rigging, character design and other stuff.
 So here's Simon's head so far:

 The new Doctor Who started on Saturday and was great. I'm not sure if everyone picked up on the Easter Island joke but I thought it was very funny. Really like Matt Smith's Doctor.

Bye

16 Bit Lanny

 I've been doing some more work for Lanny. This time he wanted three 16-bit style pictures of himself in Mario, Sonic and Link outfits. I'm not sure what he wants them for, possibly the music Grad Show, but here they are (font is aansa): 

 I'm glad I copied the 8-bit Mario last year to give me a very basic idea of pixel art as drawing with a small amount of pixels is a lot harder than I would have thought. I found you have to really think carefully about what goes into each pixel to make it readable at such a small size and with so few pixels to actually use. Noses are particularly hard it seems. But yeah I think they're ok.  

 In other news I got the new Mortal Kombat which is amazing. I'm not very good at fighting games but I thought the demo for MK was great so bought it. I've played through the story now. It's weirdly done and very very cheesy, like the films, but I think it suits the game and its 90s roots.
 The final boss fight against Shao Kahn is a piece of shit and instead of being a culmination of the rest of the game, where the player uses all the skills they have learnt to beat them, you basically have to cheat and run away. If you fought real people in MK the same way you have to fight Shao Kahn everyone would hate you... I tend to be a lot more critical of things when they're really difficult and take me an hour to beat!
 But the game is great so buy it if you're thinking about it. I've mainly been playing as Sindel. Hurry up and get PSN working Sony!

 That's all. Skyway update coming tomorrow or later probably. Check out and like the Facebook page (link on the right hand side here). Also click the Enormous Blogodile like button at the top of the blog, if you want :)
bye

Lost Planet 2 (!!!WARNING!!! VERY BORING POST !!!WARNING!!!)

 I treated myself to some post-dissertation game buying. Three games on Monday (3 for 2 pre-owned deal in Game) and another one on Friday.
 So I bought:
 Dark Void, which is fucking laughable, going on what I've played so far. Even the guy who served me said it was shit but it was basically free and I seemed to remember Yahtzee saying it had some redeeming features in his ZP review of it. But yeah, it's shit in just about every way, although as usual this can be fairly entertaining in itself.

 I also got White Knight Chronicles. It's an RPG and I usually don't really bother committing to them, as I know how long they take and I don't like turn based combat, but it's by Level 5 who are amazing so I got it.
 It's pretty cool and the environments and monsters are cool although the combat is slow, the story is the same as every RPG and the lip-syncing is terrible.
 You get to create your own support character. I called mine Roy and made him look like a retard. He is completely out of place next to the clean cut anime characters and just stands around staring at things during cutscenes. I'll try and get a picture of him. I got a picture of him. Here is a picture of him (taken on my phone):

 The final game of the first three was Lost Planet 2. I'd played a bit of the demo before as well as the original game on Xbox 360, which I really enjoyed. It is a fucking odd game. I knew from the demo that it was online co-op orientated but I was also expecting an actual single-player campaign to carry on the story.
 There is a campaign option at the main menu but you set it up as you would an online game, replacing other players with AI bots, but in the actual game your team-mates are given mock online ID names like sharkboy123 or whatever. This is weird. Also you can't pause the game. For my second attempt at the game I HAD TO USE GOOGLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PLAY ACTUAL SINGLE PLAYER!!!
 Anyway, there are cutscenes and a kind of overall story but the player character is literally no one. From what I have played you play as 'a snow pirate'. There are a lot of snow pirates. There are two snow pirate character models. They look almost exactly the same... So there is no characterisation in a partially narrative driven game which is very very odd.
 Otherwise it looks great and the gameplay is pretty much the same as the first game, which is good news. The giant monsters are awesome as well.

 Finally on Friday I bought the original Lost Planet on PS3 which I have been mostly playing since. I fucking love the kind of Japanese retro arcadey style action, also seen in Vanquish and MGS3(?)(ish).
 The story is also pretty cool in that it isn't completely generic, the player character is called Wayne as opposed to Jack McGunfist for example. The characters are good and some are a lot deeper than in many games, which is why the lack of characters in LP2 is so odd. I found Basil was surprisingly well characterised, especially for a smaller role.
 Definitely check out Lost Planet (I got it for £8) and, if you like the gameplay, Lost Planet 2. If you like RPGs give WKC a go and, wait for it ... Dark (A)Void... lolololol. Oh dears.

 I think 2011 is going to be a good year for games. Lots of great titles lined up including L.A. Noire and Mortal Kombat (both of which I have pre-ordered). I'm sorry to say that you're not going to enjoy Battlefield 3 as much as CoD regardless of what you might think after seeing the trailers. You heard it here first. That's not to say it's going to be bad.

 April Skyway update coming very soon as well as something else I'm working on that will hopefully turn out to be quite interesting. But then I would say that.
Bye.