There’s an article on the Fangoria horror magazine’s site about a comic my homeboy Ramiro Roman Jr. is working on. It’s a project by writer/director Robert Parigi, which he describes as such…

It’s about a decadent high-school girl who finds a bizarre artifact in the exacavation for her new swimming pool. She uses the relic to enhance her sex-and-drug parties, triggering a plague of supernatural mutations.

This is the first info I’ve seen on it and I’m looking forward to feeling uncomfortable again. You can check out some of Ramiro’s solo comics at his site.

• Platforms: Xbox360 and PlayStation3
• Developer: Rockstar North
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Release: April 29th, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV is a game about living the American dream. You work hard to make money to get the things you want. You meet people and exchange favors for favors in pursuit of a better life for yourself and those you care for. Hard work will eventually payoff and you can fight your way to the top in this country. Eating your enemies along the way. The difference from the traditional interpretation of the American dream is that in GTA IV you’ve decided on a life of crime to make it all happen. Which is against the norm and deemed a bad thing in most cultures. I suppose it may be unfortunate that it makes such an unbelievably awesome experience.

This game is unbelievable to me not only because of the violence or deviancy — for if that were all there was to it then the series would’ve been long forgotten about. What’s unbelievable is the grand scale of it. And not only that but the level of polish that every element has. It’s really amazing! Earlier in the series there were a lot of obvious flaws to complain about, like the sucky control or the subpar graphics. It seems that having a solid foundation of gameplay, an incredibly talented team, great management, and a shitload of cash can result in a masterpiece like GTA IV. I almost didn’t think it was possible to have a big-budget game this good anymore after the disappointment of Halo 3 and the absolute tragedy that was Assassin’s Creed.

Continue Reading…

This is my first public Papervision demo. I’m experimenting with some techniques for the next Sokay game. This is also the debut of the main character for the game, designed by Ricky Enriquez. Check out the demo.

My Papervision Demo

This scene is composed of 4 planes — the cop, the sidewalk, the shop, and the city. I positioned them within the scene with code. The animation is handled with code as well. I’m using Tweener to move the cop left and right, as well as his jump animation. The camera is targeting the cop.

I’m going to keep playing with this. I want to push it further by adding some movement to the rest of the scene, perhaps tweaking the rotation of the buildings as the camera moves.

If you’re looking to start with Papervision, there are some excellent video tutorials at gotoandlearn.com that’ll help you get started.

Earlier I found this amazing 3d interactive site in a thread on Flashkit. Completely breathtaking. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to make a post about this one!

The Eco Zoo

This is the best executed 3d Flash site I’ve seen so far. Just check it out. Apparently this isn’t created with any open source 3d engine out there, it’s a custom engine by this guy.

3D on the web is sort of a gimmick right now, as Flash itself was seen as a gimmick in the past (i.e. your site wasn’t cool unless it had a Flash intro). All it really takes is some progressive individuals to define what’s possible with the advances of the medium — beyond spinning cubes and globes. Right now I see opportunities to tell stories in new and exciting ways. I’m hoping to take design elements from motion graphics and create interactive visual masterpieces. Couldn’t you imagine CartoonNetwork.com as a fully interactive playground? Kids would love that stuff. How come we aren’t seeing that yet??