The Little Bike That Could.

 A few days ago I made a mid-length journey to a job interview and stayed over with a friend. It took a fair whack of time and was a little more interesting than the usual tedium of my life. So I decided to see if I could get a piece of writing out of it. The following is my first attempt at something approaching a stream of consciousness, the thoughts and feelings are all pretty real and based upon how I felt in the moment, as such they may not be absolutely factually accurate, but they are true to me.  Without further ado:

Old Game First Impressions: Goldeneye 64 (Single Player)

Goldeneye is a game fondly remembered by a generation of players for its frantic 4 way split screen multiplayer, replete with strategic ghosting (being a screenwatching little turd) and the rush to choose, or embargo on, Oddjob for being the ultimate in cheap. For this reason I'm going to cover the multiplayer component separately to the much less nostalgia-hyped single player campaign. Well that, and the fact I don't have multiple controllers yet so can't test it out. 

Gaze into the face of fear!

Coming to Goldeneye from a modern perspective, one thing is immediately obvious: it looks like shite. The character models are pretty basic, bearing about as much resemblance to actual humans as the stick figures in an exercise book margin do. Added to this are dodgy animations, though the pointless sidewards roll being rocked by most of the disposable flunkies  is a sight to behold. To round out the visuals, are the hallmarks of this era of 3D games: muddy textures and a draw distance that, though familiar to myopics such as myself, can make it difficult to deal with enemies that are lost in the very fog used to "hide" the draw distance issues, for  particular reference see the Severnaya surface missions.

The most amazing thing about the truly horrifying graphics (again, this is by modern standards) is that after 10 minutes I'd stopped caring. After another 20 it was only in the really open areas, (Severnaya I'm looking at you... again), that I was even noticing, and that was only because of the draw distance/fog allowing guys to shoot me before I could see them. The only crime that Goldeneye 64 really commits graphically is being a product of its time. Whilst, in my opinion, 16 bit sprite graphics are fairly timeless, and cel shaded 3D (Wind Waker, Jet Set Radio, Borderlands...ish) holds up long after contemporary "realistic" 3D looks dated, early the polygonal graphics of the Playstation and N64 generation have aged the worst of any mainstream graphical style. The ambitions of the designers very much outstripped the capabilities of the hardware, leading to the aforementioned low quality textures, iffy models and persistent fog over every outdoor area. Still, the graphics aren't so bad as to hinder enjoyment, and there is genuine fun to be had, not as a nostalgia trip (I didn't have an N64 growing up, and never played singleplayer at friend's houses) but as a real solid gaming experience.

Mmmm, muddy.

Speaking of the gameplay, one thing that immediately shocked me was how well suited to the console controls this game was. Until I played Halo 3 on XBox 360, I had never come across a first person shooter that really worked well on a controller. Timesplitters 2 on PS2 was fun for instance, but I never got on with the controls, same with Metroid Prime on the Gamecube. In the case of the latter, I really tried hard to get enjoy it out of respect for the series but never could get past the limitation of the controls. Well, after playing Goldeneye, its clear that I should have been looking backwards to the N64 for an FPS experience that worked properly on a console. Rare seem to have truly looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the input method and have tailored the game to it rather than attempting to cram a PC-like shooter experience onto a pad. This is best achieved through the implementation of a reasonably high amount of autoaim, overcoming the issue of the difficulty of fine aim with a controller, especially the N64 controller, as opposed to a mouse. Manual aim is possible, and needed for certain set pieces such as shooting locks, but it only serves to highlight how right Rare were in making the decision of marginalising manual aim as a game mechanic. Seeing as shooting is a big part of any first person shooter, getting this key mechanic right goes a great distance toward creating a spectacular feeling game experience.

Sadly, its not all great. Interior levels may overcome the fog issue (that's your drinking game kids!) but they can have a tendency toward being labyrinthine and this leads to walking around in circles looking for the illusive door, key, or item that will allow you to progress. Objectives too can be rather obtuse, but this is often as rewarding as it is confusing, as you have to think about what you are doing and make a decision on what the game is asking. An example that stands out is an objective to sever a bunker's communication links. If you merely interact with the communications array, then you will activate it and fail the objective, something that is counter-intuitive both to modern by-the-numbers shooter objectives and even to interaction based objectives in the game up to that point. However, if you think about it, the instructions were clear, "sever" the link; not activate or play with it. Instead, what you do is fill the communications unit full of lead. Still, it was annoying to fail the objective the first time around. In spite of these minor gripes, the gameplay is solid with the good really outweighing the niggling details.

The sound design deserves special mention, particularly the music, which is pretty good for what seem to be 90 second loops (which would not be surprising given the storage limitations of the N64 Carts). The music works well in generating an appropriate atmosphere and manages to be unobtrusive without being boring and repetitive without being annoying, both difficult tricks of pull off. 

The sound effects in the game are, unfortunately, a little weaker, whilst the western-esque ricochet noises are a nice touch, the guns themselves can "feel" a little  anemic thanks to sounding just a little light. Not quite as bad as the Aliens pulse rifle (oh yeah, I went there) but still, sound is a big part in giving an in game gun a feeling of impact, and in Goldeneye's case this seems to be lacking. 

So, overall impressions (based upon about 4-5 hours of play for reference) are really quite good. The game is slick, controls well, and is a tight, cohesive package. Of course it isn't perfect, but many of my gripes with it are indicative of games of the period, and as much as people love to moan on the internet, there have been advances in game design since 1997. Nevertheless, I will be playing Goldeneye to completion because it isn't just a milestone in FPS history, it's also a damn good game.

And Now for Something Completely Different.

I've been on a bit of a retro/old game kick recently, sadly I've had to make do with rereleased games on more modern platforms, the wonderland that is Good Old Games (seriously, check it out: GOG.com) and, well...*coughemulatorscough*. These are good, but save for GOG which does old PC games, they don't really scratch the itch, part of the enjoyment of these old games was to play them with the console and pad that they were designed for.

Idly searching through eBay however has only served to show me that I'm not the only one nursing a semi for the past, with values particularly on SNESseseseses and Mega Drives steadily creeping up as supply and demand come closer to a state of equilibrium. This price inflation has had a knock on effect on later consoles too as they move from being simply old to having a "classic" status. Whilst flops and oddities such as the Saturn, Dreamcast; and to a lesser extent the Gamecube, can be found cheap in spite of their relative rarity, but can face the equally annoying problem of the good games being hard to find and/or expensive because they themselves were made in even smaller numbers than their failed console.
[/History Graduate Overanalysis of the the limited data]

In spite of all this, today I made a find that restored my faith in being able to get a bargain on old school consoles. At a local car boot sale I picked up an N64 and Dreamcast with games and a load of DC accessories for £20. I was feeling pretty chuffed, I can tell you. I'll admit that they aren't the formats at the top of my list (SNES and Mega Drive hold that honour) but I have been looking to get them at some point, and in this bargainous form I couldn't say no.

Just to break up the wall o' text.

With that arduous stage setting out of the way, I can get to the point. I am intending to try my hand at a little product centred journalism, namely giving my first (or in some cases second but separated by over a decade) impressions of the retro/oldschool games I come across. These won't be reviews, there's no point in that: there are years worth of those all over the web written by more eloquent people than me. But I will play through for as long as I feel like I need to get a good feeling of the game (or longer if I like them :D) and write an appropriate piece based on my thoughts, good and bad. Hopefully it'll be fun.

Anyone that didn't TL;DR, thanks and later.

(Don't Paint) The Reaper

I must warn you, it's a long one ;)

As a proud man, incapable of ignoring a personal challenge, I found the gauntlet well and truly laid down when my Dad returned from a market with this amazing piece of tat.

Sporting genuine, fake plastic, gemstone accents, only the finest Chinese sweatshop paintjob, and molded from space age materials, including onlyjustametalium; this statuette would make the perfect addition to every misunderstood 15 year old's eldritch den.

A few more glory shots:

The challenge was simple. Since we both like this kind of thing when done well, I had to give this abomination some class or, failing that, at least make it a little less tacky.

First things that had to go were the "gems", so out came the Dremel (genericised trademarks ahoy) and a little later, out came the plastic.  

There we are, a million times better already.

There was a little issue with drilling a little too far through one of the reaper's eye sockets but that was solved through a little careful layering of pva glue. Next step, primer.

Halfords Grey Primer: The best a man can get.

 The next step was the first real trial for my airbrush and compressor combo. I would highly recommend these for anyone covering large areas, i.e. miniature armies or large models. Even if you aren't skilled enough for really artistic stuff (like I'm not right now) you can really get a a lot of stuff covered. I shudder to think how long this would've taken with a brush. It also has the advantage of leaving no brush strokes, and with the thinning needed, I found it less wasteful of paint overall than using a brush.

I thin my paints with methylated spirits, because it works well with all the acrylics I've tried it with, including water based ones, and also because its a hell of a lot cheaper than branded thinners. I also discovered that it has the useful effect of matting certain colours. For instance, I used Games Workshop Chaos Black thinned with meths for the cloak. Chaos Black is usually on the glossy end of what I'd consider a "satin" finish, but with the meths it really became matte, which I think really suits both the look of cloth and the sombre look I was trying to go for with the Reaper.

 

This is now Death's "artistic" Facebook profile pic

With the lion's share of the basecoating done, I switched to a normal brush for the rest and immediately realised that I'd already got use the the speed and coverage offered by the airbrush. Sadly I got really into it, and didn't take as many photos going along as I should have. I used the standard, for GW at least, method of painting bone: "Bleached Bone" paint with a brown ink wash for shading. As for the Green Ranger Dragon-Shield looking thing around the neck, I hate the fact that its there but cutting it off and re sculpting the model was a little too involved for a £2 model. I looked to tone it down by leaving it dark and covering the molded detail in purple, I added a grey pinstripe around the edge to show that I hadn't just forgotten to paint it, but no more than that because I still resent it. 

Blurry photos and wonky eyes, looking good.

 As for the scythe, I basecoated the shaft in a flat brown, then went back over erratically with a mix of

a couple of browns and a magenta, the names of which I can't remember as I made up the mix by eye on the fly. I also added some faint dark lines to simulate a grain, but I'm not all that sold on it. Still, for my first painted wood effect, I'm reasonably happy. The blurry photo (macro-fail) above doesn't really show it off well though. On a similar note, I blackened the "eyes" on the reaper because I felt that it should go beyond being a skeleton, I wanted the "eyes" to have a depth. Sadly the pits of dark infinity that I wanted are a tad difficult to paint, Also irritatingly, the eye sculpts are wonky, likely because they were never meant to be visible, which makes the eyes look even worse.

From this stage, the rest was fairly simple: The scythe blade was layered different greys and metalic highlights, with black washes to dull it down between coats. I personally imagine a Grim Reaper's scythe to have an almost perfect blade or even be somewhat intangible a la Pratchett's Death. But we work with the hand we're dealt, so I tried, and I think succeeded, to give the blade a worn but not knackered look. In a similar vein, the shaft of the scythe was given numerous chestnut brown ink washes to both give a richer colour and to give it something of a gloss as any well used scythe will naturally gain a sheen as the friction of use polishes the handle.

Time for another big jump: it's the finished article

 The original paintjob had green grass, I felt that this didn't fit so instead made it dead, again, not perfect but it was my first go (a recurring theme) at painting dead grass, and I don't think it came out too bad. The pic also shows off the highlights on the robe, rocks and texture of the tombstone.

More finished pics:

 Overall, I think it looks better now, and that I've succeeded in the challenge. However, it definitely has its issues, I have no illusions of being a good painter, but the whole point of this is so that I can see my progression, as I have the intention to become a good painter. That said, given my skill level, I'm happy with how this turned out, especially as it forced me to be creative to paint texture effects that I've never had to before.

Having done this, I have seen a true Pratchett Death model on eBay, and as that is my favourite depiction of the Reaper archetype ever I will eventually be doing one and hope that I'll have progressed to the point that it'll blow this one into the weeds! Anyone that's stuck in this far, thanks, later.

'nids

Despite my current unemployment and poverty, I am somewhat blessed by having brothers heavily into Warhammer 40k. I'm far too impatient and hyper-competitive to actually learn to play, but I love the fluff; the design of the figures; and painting 'em up. Having more models around the house than the local GW means that I have a constant supply of them to paint. I recently had my first go at Tyranids, jumping in at the deep end with the Trygon.

The paint scheme is essentially a roughly misremembered version of the Hive Fleet Leviathan colours; the internet was off for a week and I couldn't be bothered riding to GW to see what it should have been. To be honest, I like this scheme more, I think that the bone colour suits the carapace plates more.

For reference, these are the Leviathan colours, straight from Games Workshop themselves. 

Next time I'm going to have had the idea to do this blogging business before I'm finished and take some mid project pictures. For now, I'm just going to bulk this post out with more pics of it finished. 

Here it is in more natural lighting, I can't believe I'm saying this but the pics don't do it justice (look forward to a post about me learning to take photos properly).

 The pic below really shows off the only thing I'm not happy about: the base. I didn't have any basing materials beyond grass, and since I don't own the fig, I had to get it done!

 I had a lot of fun with this: lots of layering of different colours using washes and drybrushing to get the organic but weathered look, it also made a break from the Imperial Guard armour I usually gravitate towards doing. I may change my mind after I've done another 2000 points worth, but right now I enjoy it.  

Later people.

In The Beginning

The whole purpose of this blog is to be a repository of the things that I do (clever title eh?). Through various combinations of being cheap, poor or having an insatiable desire to do things, I seem to end up being embroiled in various projects. Painting models; various aspects of motorcycle maintenance and modification; crap carpentry; this has just been my past week. In the vain hope of keeping my morale up when things make the inevitable drop into stagnation and project hell, and so that I can spread the fruits of my vast and varied ignorance I'll be attempting to keep this updated with tales of my projects. There may even be pictures if I can get into the habit of actually taking them mid task. So that's what to expect, plus a good deal of ranting and raving about all sorts of irrelevant minutiae.