Photoshop simple tutorial in progress

I think is important to keep true to my word don´t you think?

I have started to make a very simple photoshop tutorial on how I work, like I did a few months ago about my drawing steps is time I did the same for photoshop steps... I think it might be done sometime by next week because at the same time:

...I will continue to update you guys through here; I want to keep reviews on movies and games coming has well but my schedule is already quite tight so please understand if I take to long to post anything...

Thank you for your patience guys, I really appreciate.
Stay tuned!

Inside Out Movie Review

I´ve known about this movie for a long time... and I don´t mean since the trailers started to come out, I mean since the first leaks happened, an old friend of mine showed to us all in class the leaks of the character´s design rendered in 3D... the article already talked about the characters being emotions and stuff and it did looked quite interesting at the time making me believe that Pixar was actually trying something new and interesting.

Yep... this one

But the more the trailers and commercials were released the more I saw the problems with the movie, to be fair the commercials didn´t spoil the entire story for me but it did gave me an impression of what kind of story it was... but even then I was still being very open minded and interested in checking out the movie.

I can´t call the movie "original" unlike some other reviewers have because, in all honesty, this isn´t the first time a story about some people inside this character has been done and is nothing really new... in fact the concept of Inside Out is pretty much like that of Osmosis Jones except by the fact that is all about "emotions" instead of sickness and it never leaves the brain; don´t get me wrong however, this aren´t problems I have with the movie because has a creator myself I know how hard it can be to be original when you are telling a story, and a story about characters inside this character is fairly unconventional in general... besides this may be the first time people experience this kind of story.

But what about the movie itself? Well... is average... I know the argument to this is gonna be "Oh you are over thinking it! IS A KIDS FILM!!" Indeed you are right, it is just a kids film... HOWEVER I have to say this isn´t a point you can use when you compare this to other kids films out there that do a much better job at creating character and making conflicts. The story fallows the emotions of Riley, an 11 year old girl who moved to San Francisco with her family because of her dad´s job... of course she is feeling weird because she is having a hard time adapting to her new house, environment, etc... part of the focus of the story is her emotions, Joy is like the main character and she is just trying to keep Riley happy and optimistic until in the first day at school Sadness manages to create a "core-memory" by making her cry in the middle of the class (really? crying in your first day at school?) Joy says "nope" because she doesn't like sadness and tries to stop the memory only to have shit hit the fan and leaving anger, disgust and fear in the "command center".

A´right I am not gonna go into detail has to how the universe works in the brains of Inside Out, but lets just say that it´s really... meh... like not that interesting to watch, this islands that pop up in the head are uninteresting, like is just full of stereotypes that like makes up the personality of Riley... whatever, I really though this could have been done in a different way, can´t think of any right now but I am sure there is plenty of people out there who has better ideas for this out there... I can honestly say however that I thought it was kinda cool having the emotions work out how to make Riley safe.

I don´t wanna go much deep into the story for spoiler´s sake but let´s just say that I feel like the

movie would have worked much better if more time would have been given to Riley, her family and her "fish out of water" story instead of trademark Pixar story structure of: 2 characters that don´t like each other very much are separated from their group and must find their way back... (ok not every Pixar story has this structure, but many do) I would have appreciated more if the characters of anger, disgust and fear weren't so generic too because I can get that they are emotions and being very singly is kinda what they have to do but there is little character arc to witness if there is no character to work with!

The story of Riley herself is not new either, but I find her story more fascinating than... well what I said before. I am gonna stop here because I hate to bring up spoilers in this movie considering is still relatively new at the point of this post; should you watch it? well yeah I guess so... I know I´ve been kinda negative towards Inside Out but I acknowledge there is good things in this movie and yes it is indeed a kids film, witch is why I can´t get angry at the movie for being kinda fun.

So check it out and see it for yourself!

Star Wars Battlefront Impressions

Ever since the reveal that DICE was working on a new Battlefront game I knew this meant "Oh boy... is gonna be Battlefield with star wars skins" and I was kinda right after watching the E3 demo...

Now I want to state I love Star Wars... just like any fan out there, this franchise means a lot to me and has influence my life immeasurably; I know Battlefront was asked by plenty of people for a long time... I played Battlefront has well back in the day and I though it was pretty good, it really was like playing the battles in the universe of star wars.

When EA acquired the rights for the franchise to develop games, many immediately reacted negatively due to EA´s controversial business practices... I was willing to give them a chance and for the most part I though they were going to make a game like Battlefront with DICE but I thought they would name it something else instead; of course they called it Battlefront because of the fan reaction to it and the outcry, so in terms of business stand point is a good move I didn´t though of.

But why am I talking about Battlefront you ask? Well maybe because I WANT to be exited about this game, I see potential for it to revitalize the star wars games once again into something modern and great... but instead I see missed opportunities and a quick cash grab because of the new movie coming out latter this year, Let me break down what is missing from the game:

-No Space Battles: Now what is there that we see always in star wars? Space battles right...? well we are not going to dogfight in space, only on local planets... BIG missed opportunity right there: there is no need in my opinion to remove a feture that was included in Battlefront II and that worked so well there.

Is like Taking away the open world in a GTA game if you ask me, they could have made it into the game but either they just didn´t wanted to or the time restriction forced to team to cut it out completely... this takes away much of my wins for this game. It doesn't matter how many gimmicks and elements they incorporate for ground battles... space battle should have been a must.

-No Clone Wars: Battlefront I and II included clone wars battles... regardless of how you feel about the prequels, the clone wars are a part of the star wars mythos, they happen so when you take away ANOTHER feature that was included from the originals you are basically making the game feel like much less.

This would have included more planets and maps to extend the universe, was this done because of peoples poor reaction to the prequels? because clones vs droids is boring? did people complaint about clone wars in the original Battlefronts? because of time constraints? Truth to be told, it sounds like developers though they were adding by subtracting here, but the fact that this is excluded is very fishy to me.

-4 Planets Only: That is the extent of the planets you will be able to battle on in Battlefront, with only 14 maps... assimilate this well, this means that there is going to be much less than what was available in the originals.

This is quite sad considering that this is nearly 2 generations after the first entry and it kills much of the new factor... we will be seeing the same planets many times, the same fauna and flora  in various maps, it will become boring quickly.

-No Campaign Mode: For me this is the ultimate loss; granted they have reveled a "mission" mode witch can be played single or co-op both online and local split-screen and that alone is a good addition and I am grateful that there is at least something for us single player fans.

But here is my problem, the original had a mode called "conquest mode" and indeed this wasn´t a story driven mode witch is not something that EA had to do necessarily but It could have at the very least a campaign driven by cannon events in the star wars timeline, that alone would have been a great feature with objectives to complete and making you feel like the soldier you are playing has is a war hero for the rebellion... or the empire.

I am not trying to say "STAY AWAY FROM BATTLEFRONT!" but I do think we should trend carefully with it, I do plan to pick it up because the stuff that is in here looks very good indeed. I guess in overall all I can say is, the game looks great but what isn´t here available makes me wander what could have been.

Take care guys, and may the force be with you...

Fallout 4 Impressions + E3 Demo

Fallout 4 is real!

Yeah I am sure that many of you are already aware of the existence of this game. In case you don´t know, or you are new to this blog I made a list of 5 games you should try/play and I listed Fallout 3 among them stating that is my favorite game ever. With Fallout 4 coming out later on november I just had to talk about this game!

For this topic I am going to break down what we know is going to be in the game and give my thoughts about each element, so let´s begin:

-Visuals: How about starting with that one thing that seems like the most controversial aspect of the game? Yep the thing that gets people talking, the visuals of the game, the graphics... to this I have to say I don´t get it. At first I legitimately though this was trolling by some haters and stuff, but no! some people actually feel like this... now I admit is not the most visually attractive game I´ve ever seen... but my god! it look gorgeous!

Fallout 3 and New Vegas do look dated at this point in time, the textures are garnished and the lightning is very simplistic with zero volumetric addition (I am talking about the vanilla version of the games with zero mods), but Fallout 4 clearly looks like a next gen game, it seems on par with many other titles that aren´t even open world.

-Combat: Fallout 4´s combat is another big change in the series (I still believe there will be the need the circle around the enemy though), we have V.A.T.S. back and it seems to function very similar to FO3 and NV although it doesn't seem to fully stop time... it goes into this slow motion while you pick the parts to shoot.

The core combat of the game seems very reminiscent to traditional shooters: aiming down sights, hit marks, accurate sniping, etc... this makes me very exited, If it can keep the core RPG elements and mix it well with their shooting mechanics, it´s gonna be great.

-Dialoge mechanics: In previous Fallout games, the dialogue was just this zoom to the face of the npc you were talking with and that´s it, judging by the E3 Demo, it seems reminiscent to Bioware games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect with dynamic camera angles and the addition of the protagonist voice into the mix.

I like the mechanic at a distance, how ever I see this has a double-edge sword; It can work phenomenally on one side but it can blow back in the likely case that it doesn't work correctly, I mean I can picture some very funny glitches happening (something that is common in open world games). Speaking of witch...

-Open world: The setting for Fallout 4 is Boston, Massachusetts in the east coast of the US... funny considering Fallout 3 took place in the east coast has well. The world of fallout 4 looks indeed big has it should... I have heard some concerns of the game not being has big has previous installments, but after watching the E3 demo, does concerns can rest easy now.

Todd Howard (The game director) had said that the game is still all about player freedom, and many bethesda game are about that precisely so I think there is no need to worry on that frontier.

-Weapons: Now this one is a bit of a mystery... they did say during the demo that the game itself will have a big variety of weapons to play with along with customizable and modifyable ones, I believe is all via experimentation by what we got and if it´s like that, then it´s gonna remind me a lot to Dead Space 3 (witch is not a bad thing).

Maybe I am thinking way deep into it but is because it kinda past by to fast, maybe that was it... I still love the idea and it´ll be great to toy around with each part.

-Crafting: Weapon crafting is one thing, but base camp crafting is a whole different matter... and it looks awesome! Knowing me though, I probably won't play much around with it, not to say I won´t try it...

It seems very similar to something we see in sims games, but now with fallout... much like with weapon customization, you use parts from the world to craft the desired item: it looks like a great way to give use to the junk you find in the world.

-Customization: Not only can you make whatever house you want, but you can also dress like you want, this is nothing new in and off itself, but the fact that you can add individual clothing parts to each body part is a big deal (just like Skyrim did).

I pictured this idea before the game was even reveled, but it seems much different than what I imagined... apparently its pieces of armor on one side and clothing on another... they did talk about this a little bit but nothing was shown so this is all speculation.

-Closing thoughts: Few... I think I´ve covered the most important things, I left out the pip-boy games, the power armor mechanics and other stuff but I think what I´ve talked about is more than enough to be exited about the game!

I am very happy that Fallout 4 is coming out very soon and if it works well it could be a contender for game of the year along with the witcher 3!

Thank you for reading guys!

See you in Boston!

(PS: Yes I´ve been very busy this past few days... but is gonna be worth it guys I promise)

Jurassic World Movie Review

Jurassic World is the 4th film in the Jurassic Park franchise and it was pretty good... although a little rough around the edges.

Unlike the believe of some people, this movie is not a remake or a reboot but a sequel... is unclear of how much time has passed since the original movie but my guess is at least 15 or 20 years after, the park has been opened to the public and it shows the dinosaurs very similar to a big zoo (kinda reminded me to the big parks in the US like sea world more or less), but because to the increasing lack of interest from the public the managers decide to play Dr. Frankenstain with their dinosaurs by creating hybrids and "surprise" all hell breaks loose; although why would they open up a park after the events of the previous films? I don't know.

I felt like the movie was trying to bring over a message just like the original of what happens when humanity plays god and screws with nature, the problem with that is that the first movie already did it but I am not complaining because I know there are plenty of people to whom this is the first time they have seen a jurassic park movie so maybe this is the first time they hear this message... one can be a little forgiving has it's hard to really have a concept like this brought along a second time, hans this is a new way to do it really.

There are plenty of things to like about this movie, I particularly love that in this case we see managers of the park struggling to contain a monster while trying to maintain the park running, the main characters are a little more fleshed out that in other jurassic park movies (lost world and jurassic park 3) where we see more intelligent character setup and development. I don't want to spoil anything since by the point of this post the movie is relatively new but it's still a fun survival flick. On the negative, I couldn't buy the child actors, the kid was meh and the teenager was another spoiled prick I could not stand at all.

Now... is it better than the original... well to me is not but I can see how someone who is new to the series can be marveled by the movie itself and some of it's concepts. To me personally it's the theme of the original movie in a new way that makes it feel fresh I can't buy into all of the concepts but I can be forgiving of it's flaws and accept what I see.

Mortal Kombat X Game Review + Big Update

Mortal Kombat is one of the most successful fighting franchises in gaming history, with more than 10 games made there is no doubt that MK is big. Mortal Kombat X was released on April 7th of 2015; but how much is it worth the full price?

Neatherrealm is one of the very few companies that does story mode in their fighting games, they did it for MK9, Injustice and now for MKX continuing their trend of story heavy fighting games... I respect this move where most fighting games just focus on getting out a core and well functional fighting experience NRS is committed to tell a story in their games. In terms of MKX's story has a whole is in the "it's a'right" category... There was obviously thought put into the story to make it has accessible to newcomers and to have people get more engrossed into the MK universe, while the story is enjoyable and good enough to have me want to watch it all the way to the end but there are some very missed opportunities here and things that make me think "ok after this mk might need another reboot".

The story takes place after the events of MK9 Shao Kahn is dead, and the earthrealm fighters won... this time the story decides to play "memento" with it's structure by telling the story going back and forth between present time and the past, this right here is already a problem because it creates some confusion by showing characters that we never see and confusing us even more by making them dead before but now being alive and that kind of stuff, while not immersion breaking it does feel warped. We are also introduced to this new squad made of characters that are decedents of past MK characters like Cassie Cage (daughter of Johnny and Sonya), Takeda (Son of Kenshi) and the likes... these characters, although they did showed plenty of character and motivation through the story, I found them to be the least interesting part of it and although it could have been worst I think that the problem is that these characters are just overshadowed by the villains (Mileena, Erron Black, D'vorah, etc...); let me just say right here, that the mk villains have always been much more interesting than the heroes.

There is also plenty of offline content (at least compared to other fighting games in the market), there is a classic tower mode that is basically an arcade where you play has your character of choosing and watch their ending in it... and is very well done generally but I think it would have served better if the ending you get was completely disconnected from the canon of the story, it would feel like the story you got from arcade was much more yours.

There is also Test your Might witch is the controller macher, Test your Luck where you fight opponents with random modifiers, fun for a while but not for prolonged playtroughs, Endurance where you see how many matches you can win in a row, Survivor where you face opponents with the same health bar that replenishes after each fight and that's without mentioning the Living Towers witch are basically mini-arcades that changes with time where one changes every hour, one changes every day and the premier tower witch changes every week... is an interesting way to have you revisit the game at least once a week basically.

There is of course online mode, where you challenge other players online and prove your worth world wide, although I am not very good in fighting games in general I do enjoy them and know enough about them to at least put up a fight. There are many modes to play for online mode witch is really impressive considering it's just a fighting game but this is just prove of how much NRS does care about this franchise and to always make it the best that it can be, it may not be all great but it's commendable to do such a thing.

The Krypt is another great inclusion, I remember the crypt in past MK games and it was a great addition, but for this game that took it up a notch... it turns this mode not it's own mini-game, completed with jump scares and all, is hard to explain exactly why this is good but with just saying that it's own explorable labyrinth has you unlock collectables. Of course the Fatalities are gory has the new graphical leap forward makes this game the most brutal mk game out there.

Mortal Kombat X is a great fighting game with a good story if somewhat misguided with addition of new characters that are overshadowed by the situation, but the rest that the game has to offer plenty of content for single player and two player, it's a fun game worth it's price.

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I am sorry for the long time I take between posts guys, but has some of you may already know, my web comic project takes primary priority in my book, that's not to say I don't wanna do reviews anymore is just that one thing is more of a priority than other.

I've wanted to do this review on MKX for a while but I was waiting for the release of Tanya before jumping in to the review (I could have waited for predator's release), finally one very big update: I have finally began to give color to the comic, I am currently 12 pages in, still plenty of color and details left that i'll have to get into very soon... I also plan to make a tutorial post about how I work on photoshop, I've been working on it for quite a while and I think I have most of the basics dominated!

Thank you again for toning in and stay active and on the look out for future updates guys!