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• Fun Fact: Secrets of the DSi

  Though I've had my new Nintendo DSi for almost two days now, I've only had a few hours of playtime so far. Overall I am very impressed with the upgrades and the new features. A few minor features in particular have caught my attention that I don't think I've seen mentioned elsewhere. For your benefit, here's what I've noticed so far, including why I brought the DSi on my lunch break instead of my iPod: The interior plastic (the stylus slot and SD card tray) are the complimentary color of the system's exterior. That means they're white on the black DSi and orange on the blue one. It would not be an unsafe assumption that a violet DSi would have yellow features, green would have red, and so on. The SD card slot cover is not a hinged door like on most digital cameras but a slide-out tray of flexible plastic. You will likely worry about breaking it the first time it opens, just remember to slide out, not flip down. The DSi supports high capacity SD cards out of the box, which means no storage problems for a long time. You still can't load games off of it like the recent Wii update, but maybe someday... Read More... Posted Apr 07 2009, 07:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, fun fact, dsi, art style, nintendo dsi

• A Few Thoughts on Wii Graphics

  Slick Right next to whether a game “sucks” or not, graphics is probably one of the most contentious topics in gaming and a typical source of pot shots aimed at the Wii. I recently wrote about my own feelings concerning the importance of graphics where visual quality is concerned, ultimately concluding that “it's the art, stupid!”. I might be biased. Today I figured I'd explore the topic a little further in regards to my favorite current generation system, the Wii. Yes, yes, we know the Wii lacks the raw graphic power of those other systems, let's move on shall we? Read More... Posted Mar 23 2009, 07:30 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: no more heroes, wii, madworld, amber ahlborn, graphics, art style, art design

• A Few Thoughts on Graphics

  If you feel that graphics are important, then obviously you must be a shallow gamer who only plays HD iterations of big budget shooter X. If you say they don't matter then surely you're a casual gamer loser or retro gamer snob. This false dichotomy seems to represent the default positions on where people fall when presented with the question: Do graphics matter? But what do graphics really matter? As a graphic artist, you'd think I'd consider them pretty important, and you'd be right. However, I feel that the wrong question is being asked here. Of course graphics matter, and asking if they matter more than game play is little more than a distraction. A far better question in my opinion is: What purpose do graphics serve? Read More... Posted Mar 16 2009, 11:30 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: amber ahlborn, graphics, art style, art design

• The Commander's Out Of The Bag, And I Couldn't Be More Excited

  I'm going to skip past the whole aspect of the cryptic viral campaign hyping Gaijin Games' first-ever release and its subsequent press leak last week and cut straight to why I'm super-excited for it. If, for some reason, you're still enjoying the CommanderVideo viral stuff and would rather stay in the dark (assuming they bother keeping that going at this point, the viral site even posted the revealed game's logo), stop reading here, because the rest of this post will discuss the few details about said project. Read More... Posted Jan 12 2009, 04:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wiiware, rez, bitgenerations, art style, bit.trip, gaijin games, cho-aniki, viral, BIT.TRIP BEAT

• Trailer Review: Edge

  Take a gander at this trailer for Edge, the new iPhone/iPod Touch game released today by mobile phone game developer mobigame and feel the waves of nostalgia for a game you've never even played. In its presentation, Edge is equal parts Marble Madness, Q*Bert, and Tron, but it clearly has potential to be ever so much more. Read More... Posted Jan 05 2009, 03:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: marble madness, trailer review, derrick sanskrit, everyday shooter, edge, ipod, iphone, eden, pixeljunk, tron, echochrome, cubello, orbient, art style

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 5

  In this day and the foreseeable future video games will continue to push the envelope of photo realism and, no doubt, continue to send the occasional victim down into the Uncanny Valley by accident. Of course, as technology and associated animation techniques advance, the game industry's ability to fool us will get better. I say, more power to them, but... Read More... Posted Nov 21 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 3

  So close and yet so far... (scene from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within animated movie) There are over 50 muscles in the human face. Those muscles that control expression make the face an incredibly mobile part of human anatomy, capable of both extreme and subtle displays of emotion. The skin that lies over those muscles is highly elastic. It stretches and creases, wrinkles, bulges, and puckers. While catching every last subtle motion of the face isn't impossible, it's certainly a herculean task to ask of an animator, much more likely to end in failure than success. Even Squaresoft, who spent nearly enough time, money, and talent to bankrupt itself on an incredibly ambitious movie failed to perfectly cast the illusion of true human expression. Video game budgets are much tighter on all resources, thus, when photorealism is the goal, the end result typically ends up squarely in the Uncanny Valley the moment the camera focuses on a face. Read More... Posted Nov 19 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 2

  Welcome back, dear readers, to my Uncanny Valley Special. For part two we're actually going to take a side trip out of the Valley and look at a related artist's dilemma: that of familiarity. Part of the reason we are repulsed by characters that are a fraction off of being truly human is our familiarity with what healthy humans should look like. This familiarity also extends to nonhuman animals and some critters can give an artist trouble if she or he isn't familiar with the anatomy. The hilarious results can be painful to look at. Read More... Posted Nov 18 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Style Over Substance: Why I'm In Love With WiiWare's "Art Style"

  There was a communal quandry of "huh...what?" last month when Nintendo quietly unveiled the Art Style brand of WiiWare titles with Art Style: Orbient. Some immediately recognized the game as a hi-def update of the late Gameboy Advance genre-breaker Orbital (previously loved by me here) and asserted that Art Style is a WiiWare rebranding of the bitGenerations series. This theory was reinforced when it was confirmed that skip Ltd. would be developing the Art Style games (they developed six of the seven bitGenerations titles) and that two more Art Style titles would hit WiiWare by the end of October. Let's take a quick step back here. For those unfamiliar, bitGenerations was an experimental series of Gameboy Advance games released only in Japan that favored style over substance. With smaller iconic packaging, minimal graphics and sound, and simple controls, these games almost all hid impressively deep gameplay. Much like Sony's PixelJunk series (developed by Q Games, who uncoincidentally developed DigiDrive, the seventh bitGenerations title). The games were never released outside of Japan due to the release of the Nintendo DS and unlikelihood that anyone would buy intentionally simplistic games with no corporate mascots attached, regardless of their low price point and critical acclaim. Two years later, digital distribution has finally taken off as a means of selling "experimental" games. XBox Live Arcade's Braid and Playstation Networks aforementioned PixelJunk series would arguably have no success whatsoever in retail stores, but at the low price of a download direct to your console they are finding the gamers they so very much derserve, and now the Wii has a series of inexpensive, unique, and beautifully stylish downloadbale games to call its own. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 10:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, derrick sanskrit, wii, wiiware, bitgenerations, skip, orbital, dialhex, cubello, orbient, rotohex, coloris, art style