Book Review: The Art of Mass Effect
Reordering my books I found and re-read The Art of Mass Effect, released on 2007 just after the first videogame in the Mass Effect universe.
Along its pages we'll mostly find colour illustrations, a few pencil sketches and some CGIs and actual game screenshots. There are some "multi step" drawings (from pencil to final results) but not too many. The main themes are scenarios, ships/vehicles and characters.
Being an art book not much else can be said. If you love the Mass Effect universe and lore this is a great source of inspiration. The first game, despite its defects, was a great experience for me and even now I think is the best one regarding story (the series went more into action although the visuals got really amazing), and this book evocates those experiences.
Fans of the game and people seeking really cool sci-fi drawings will find here what they seek.
Tags: Books Videogames
September 2016 Status Update
This past months I've been publishing almost only comic and book reviews, but I am actually doing more things related with miniatures and RPGs. First of all, I've been playing videogames more frequently; Steam sales and offers plus some awaited releases made me spend most spare time either reading or playing. Now that I've finished some games, I'm slowing the pace as I want to do more things, but my currently installed games say a lot about what I'll focus on. As can be seen in the following picture, I bought from an offer the Warmachine Tactics videogame, I was curious and I always welcome turn-based strategy games... but I haven't yet tried it so can't say how good or bad it is.
I still have some games pending finishing, including some really long ones like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 and Grim Dawn, but no need to hurry. I'm focusing one or two non-GW games at a time only, and sometimes I throw into the mix an arcade or console game. Lately Games Workshop is doing a great job on PC regarding licenses, and I've deleted from my PC classics like Space Marine or Dawn of War II, both of which I've finished multiple times, to not overflow, but I really like having so many options to play digitally. I've also preordered the incoming Space Hulk: Deathwing and will do the same with Dawn of War III as soon as it is possible. Exciting times ahead!
Regarding miniatures, I've assembled every pending miniature I had and base primed a lot, but didn't painted much until recently. Now I am painting, mostly:
- Imperial Knight: Only remains a few details and the base decoration (dead chaos space marine bits) and the decals
- Rogue Trader era Space Marine: I found this miniature ordering an old box. While it is hard to highlight it with my crappy skils and the mini's lack of detail, I'm working on it
- Nagash: A while after it came out, I bought the new awesome Nagash figure plus some undead warriors to decorate the base, but it was waiting (not even fully assembled) for me to decide to paint it. I started last week by priming it and right now I'm paiting the spirits, but my goal is to focus on fully painting it before starting with another mini. And without taking months to do it.
I might also retake painting Necrons, as they are quite easy and fast to do, but not until the lord of the undead is done. And about other miniatures than Games Workshop's, I finished painting two small lead witches as a small gift for my girlfriend, one green and one violet. Nothing impressive but was good for a change.
And that's mostly all, I keep reading but right now still going through a lot of pending comics before retaking Horus Heresy novels.
Counts Grand Theft Auto V as an RPG?
After more than 1.5 years of wait, we PC games finally have the pleasure of being able to play GTA V in all its glory. I had already pumped some 20-something hours, maybe 30, in the XBox 360 version but now I aim for, if not a 100% completion, at least doing every mission and at least attempt every challenge. And oh boy, playing it for a second time feels just as great as if was new (I'm just more proficient with the controls, know a few tricks and remember how to complete most missions).
While I'm playing it, slowly, enjoying the story, trying to catch all the small details, the almost alive city, the animals, the pedestrians with their impressive artificial intelligence, the random chases, robberies, accidents or traffic jams... The world feels so alive that I can't but wonder if actually GTA can be played as an RPG, because it really feels like an RPG.
I'm the kind of videogame player that tries to maximize Final Fantasy character levels (except in those like FF VIII where enemies level along with you), the one that pumped dozens and dozens of hours on Fallout 3, finished all DLCs and got the explorer achievement (IIRC, exploring 100 different points of interest from the map). When I finished Elder Scrolls Oblivion, my character was so powerful I did all the main story arc almost in a speedrun. But the amount of things you can do in this GTA entry... is so amazing.
You can invest in stock options and alter the world to make them go up or down (e.g. invest in a car firm after destroying many cars to buy low, then destroy other firms so their price rises and sell your stocks), you can buy houses and fine-tune cars, buy clothes and each character has their own stats you can increase... you can even change the haircut or tatoos. World setting aside, it is quite similar to any Elder Scrolls game, and ages above the degree of customization you can do at most "action RPGs" like Diablo 3, which many times are quite linear and only the loot or the chosen skills actually "customizes" the character.
Here you can literally spend hours doing side-missions, travelling by cab or train, learning to fly planes, or even diving in search of UFO pieces. NPCs get scared if you follow them and might call the police or not. Steal a car and many things can happen, from them running to even taking out a gun and shooting you. So many variants in general that as I already said the world feels almost real. Hell, even the radio news reflect the latest events that have happened (of course all around you, but anyway adds a lot of inmersion).
So what makes an RPG so? Old school ones had lots of text, GTA has hours and hours of conversations, phone calls, sms and emails; RPGs have stats, GTA has them (even money and owned properties are separate for each character); Visual customization as said is present; Lore, NPCs and a credible world, more than present; Choices and side-missions, a lot of both. Free-roaming, more than any Final Fantasy title would dream about.
Yes, is not turn-based or pausable; No, you cannot fully customize the main characters but you can create online characters and there you have way more freedom... I am no expert in the subject, but I think many of the last years' so-called xxx-RPGs have way less right to use that acronym than other recent titles like Grand Theft Auto 5.
In the end, it's all about how you play, how you live the virtual setting created for your pleasure.
Note: Photos taken from Snapmatic uploaded trending photos, another clever idea from Rockstar: use the in-game phone to take photos (even selfies) and upload them so people mimic real-world Instagram.
Total War: Warhammer announced!
Wow, this is so great! In a smart move after launching all Warhammer End of Times books and miniatures but before announcing "the new" , Warhammer 9th edition, and of course with the incoming Mordheim and Warhammer Vermintide videogames, it looks like Warhammer world might change, but the franchise is far from dissapearing.
Empire and Dwarfs versus Orks, Undead and chaos (at least Tzeentch) can be seen at the video, including "mighty beasts". Also the company behind, The Creative Assembly, are really good making strategy games and have a long story (15 years), so we can exppect a top-notch title (unlike the latest avalanche of mobile-based not-so-good-and-money-grabber titles).
This really got me excited, it's been quite a few years since we last had a Warhammer Fantasy strategy title...
Anyway, here's the nicely looking video:
Tags: Videogames Warhammer Fantasy
The Elder Diary: #20150202
More than half a year later since last "diary update", but from now on I'll try to post more updates at least monthly (if I don't finish any painting/modelling project, that is).
The main update is the following photo of how's my progress with the Imperial Knight:
As you can see, excepting the base and decals, main body is finished. I also have already painted the shoulder pads and currently working on the arms. With some luck I'll have it ready for decals soon (and probably tackle one of my modelling projects, which without painting I don't even feel like showing here). It's been a huge amount of work, especially because the crappy Citadel gold paint mix has "separated" and before painting it needs heavy re-mixing and around 4-5 layers until it looks like real gold (and this painting over a silver layer, else needs even more layers!). I'll probably try Vallejo's equivalent of gold for the future, now I'm so near the end I don't want to change color and have more problems. I've also given highlights to blues, some silver parts and to the gold (using silver) and it definetly shines and looks way better. Combining with the washes, despite my poor painting things look way better :)
Apart from that, and due to the recent addition to the family of a young golden retriever dog, my sleep cycle and free time is quite chaotic now, so I'm focusing on either playing Diablo III or Hearthstone from the laptop near the dog, or reading books.
Whenever I can escape a bit to the "workshop room" I'm either painting or trying to finish assembling Deadzone miniatures, as I finally received wave 3 shipment and still have (quite a few) minis to assemble from the two earlier shipments. Definetly one of the best kickstarter projects I've backed regarding price/content ratio... lots of minis (5 factions + zombies), lots of scenery, lots of extras...
I also have pending buying some powerful white lights to improve the room's lighting for photos, currently is ok for painting but far from adequate for photos.
So, let's hope I come again soon with some cool photos!
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