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Alright, in my last entry I gave you a little history/trivia about the Clue franchise, as well as a listing of all the Clue games I have yet to track down. In this continuation I shall talk about my love of the game and give a mini-review of all the ones I own.
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I fell in love with the game the moment my family introduced me to it. My family had the original game as well as the first in the Clue Jr. spinoffs series. I loved the game so much that my parents bought me another Clue spinoff game: The Great Museum Caper. Great game, though COMPLETELY different from the Clue I was used to. I'll go more in depth in this later. I watched the Clue movie that came out in 1985, and loved the idea of multiple endings to tie in the concept of the changing game outcome. I also had two or three out of the 18 childrens books published between '92 and '97. The older I got the more I loved the series - and murder/mystery games (such as Crack the Case). While in college, I received Clue FX and then I discovered the Sega Genesis game. That's when the obsession truly took hold. I started COLLECTING Clue games! I'm currently up to 14 games, and that's only about 1/3 of them! If you don't count the same game being released for multiple consoles (I have both the Sega Genesis and GBA versions), or the unlicenced variants (which I'll discuss later), there are currently 36 versions of Clue... and I only have 14. Yes, including the original game, and also excluding all the updates to said original game, there have been 35 incarnations of Clue since it's release in 1949.
My family used to own the original, the classic, Clue. However, throughout many a basement flooding, that beloved game has been destroyed. The closest I still have is the Bookshelf Clue. It is the classic game, however the box is in the shape of a book so that you can keep it on a bookshelf, and instead of the normal pawns, this version of Clue actually has little miniature figures of the characters - very cool. I had spotted another variant of this bookshelf game in Target a few years back in which the box was actually a crafted wooden book. Very classy, but I had no money at the time and haven't found it since. I cannot recall if my mother or Remy was the one to purchase this version for me, but it was from Barnes&Noble and was a Christmas gift a few years back. Going chronologically, the first spin-off was actually a VCR interactive game. Clue VCR Mystery Game was published in 1985 and my parents actually owned a copy! Well either that or the game's sequel Clue VCR II: Murder in Disguise which was released in '87. Either way, it was destroyed in flooding much like the original board game. T_T I never even got to play it because by the time I was old enough to appreciate it the tape was already fuzzy with mold. TT_TT
Anyway, moving back to games that I actually DO have still... The next one up, chronologically speaking, is Clue Jr.: Case of the Missing Pet. This was the Clue Jr. I mentioned playing as a kid earlier. Released in '89, the premise is that an animal was stolen from the pet store and hidden in one of the local businesses. The playable characters were the normal six suspects, only as children. You had to figure out the same basic stuff as original Clue: who did it and where, except instead of the non-child-friendly search for a murder weapon, the third component was figuring out what animal was taken from the pet store. Although the game is technically the only "surviving" Clue game of the family's, my sister and mother relinquished the game to me once my passion for the franchise blossomed. ^_^
As mentioned, the first game I got was Clue: The Great Museum Caper, which was released in '91. This one was probably the most different from the actual Clue game. In this game one player plays an art thief and the rest of the players must track down and stop the thief before he clears out the museum. It was so unique, I loved it! My one cousin did too, he ALWAYS wanted to play whenever he was visiting. ^_^
The next game chronologically is actually the last one I came to own. Anyway, it's Clue Jr. The Case of the Hidden Toys, released in '98. Another of the children-aimed Clues, this time the kid-versions of the normal suspects are trying to find a missing toy, where it's hidden, and which pet hid it. In this game the kids have different first names than in the "Case of the Missing Pet" game, there are only four playable characters - Green, Plum, Peacock, and Scarlet, and the clues are presented differently. In the first "Junior" game, the clues were in each local store floor, and a special magnifying glass allowed you to read the clue. Well, apparently reading is too over-rated for the '98 kids, because now everything is in picture form. Also, pictures are placed on the bottom of stands that are randomly placed on characters, furniture, and animals. Kids just look at the stand bottoms to get their clue. Kinda lame, but helps bring kids into the Clue series a LOT younger. Oooo, yeah!... I found out while searching for a link to the '98 release that there was actually a "Case of the Hidden Toys" also released in '95. Basically same exact game, but the '95 version has Mustard, Scarlet, Plum, and Green, and the board is different because the toys could be hidden anywhere throughout the neighborhood, as opposed to just inside the house.
We now skip ahead a few years to 2002. Clue Card Game. This is a different card game from the one released in '92 (mentioned in the previous post). This time the user has to deduct who killed Dr. Black, their escape vehicle, and their destination. I was first introduced to this game while visiting Remy. This was the first time I found out Clue was more than just a board game. I later learned about the video/computer games - and also discovered the mold-covered VHS game.
The next Clue game release that I own was one of the games that I received in college and therefore jumpstarted my obsessive urge to own EVERY version of Clue. In 2004 Hasbro released Clue FX which is another departure from the original rules. Players actually play as one of the four new characters - Lord Grey, Lady Lavender, Miss Peach and Prince Azure. This time, instead of playing one of the suspects, the four playable characters are completely innocent guests who help Inspector Brown figure out the killer. Another change is that Mr. Boddy isn't the victim this time; his attorney Mr. Miles Meadow-Brook is. The usual suspects are still there, as well as the addition of Mr. Meadow-Brook's now widow and Mr. Boddy's gardener Rusty. The actual movements are also different. The game announces in a random selection who moves, you can move to any connecting room, sound effects tells you when the suspects move, and when you're ready to make your accusation you have to figure out where Inspector Brown moved to. All in all, it's still an entertaining game - even if it tends to take longer than the usual Clue game - mainly because it takes so friggen long to find Brown!!!
My last children's version of the game was given to me by Remy. I think it was a birthday gift, to sort of go along with the latest "crime". Released in '03, Clue Junior: The Case of the Missing Cake REALLY kiddies-up the Clue franchise. The first one has an animal theft, the second (well, third if you count the one I know nothing about - see previous post) is a toy burglar, and now the latest one has someone swiping a piece of cake before dinner. The game play is virtually the same as the "Case of the Hidden Toys" game in which the clues are pictures pasted on the bottom of stands that are randomly placed on characters and furniture. The player must figure out which character ate the cake, what they had to drink with the cake, and at what time they ate it. Still a cute game regardless. It does sort of tie into actual Clue a little better than the rest of the Jrs however. The crime is committed in what appears to be the Tudor Mansion. Also it returns all 6 characters in their adult renderings - but in a very kiddy-cartoony way. Whatever, there really isn't a Clue game I don't like, so I just eat this one up too ^_^.
Pretty much the only Clue games I remember seeing advertisements for were the ones released in 2005. One of those was Clue DVD. This edition of the game has different rules based around DVD interaction. Instead of a murder, Dr. Black has had an item stolen and, in addition to guessing the criminal, room and stolen object, the time of day when the crime took place must also be discovered. In each turn players guess three of these four unknowns; and from time to time Inspector Brown and the butler, Ashe, show up via the DVD with helpful information. I have yet to actually COMPLETE a game. I think I've only tried playing with Remy, and the first few times his DVD player goofed up during the middle of our games. I think I gave up after that, and I don't really have much of a "gaming" family to actually play while at home. But now that I remember that I haven't finished it, perhaps I'll con my fam into joining me in a game. ^_^
I discovered Clue Suspects (2007) at Barnes&Noble on the discount pile for like $4 or something! Total win! Almost as good as the Clue Jr. at the thrift store... Anyway, this is an actual SOLO Clue game. Good old Mr. Boddy has been killed, and your job is to figure out what room everyone was in so you know who was alone with the poor sap when he was killed. This game comes with cards, each one a different game, and these cards give you a small assortment of clues - such as "Miss Scarlet was in the kitchen with a man", and "Prof. Plum was in the room above Mrs. Meadow-Brook". Using these small number of clues you must deduce - mostly through process of elimination - who was where. If you watched the above links to clips from the VHS games than the gameplay is fairly similar. The normal cast of characters are available, along with the introduction of "the butler", as well as Mrs. Meadow-Brook, Rusty, Prince Azure, and Lady Lavender - totalling now at 11 suspects. This game is SUPER simple since I've been doing these types of puzzles since I was about 10, but it is still enjoyable.
Another '07 Clue game - that I also bought at Barnes&Noble - is Clue Express. As the name suggests, it's designed to be a fast variant of the game - capable of play in about twenty minutes. In this game you use dice to make your suggestion, but you still mark things off on a detective pad, and other players still prove you wrong with cards. This time you're trying to figure out who was the brains, who was the brawn, and who was the get-away driver. It was indeed fun and an interesting twist. Also, due to it being compact, it's a great Clue game to take on the go.
The final spin-off in the series came out last year. This is Clue Discover the Secrets - another gift from Remy. Hasbro actually created this addition to REPLACE the original Clue! That's right! Almost 60 years and it gets replaced! TT_TT The game is still ridiculously fun however. It's been completely updated for the new era, including new weapons - keeping the poison that was introduced during the Limited Gift and 50th Anniversary editions, as well as introducing an axe, dumbbell, and trophy, and replacing the revolver with a pistol with a silencer, and the lead pipe with a baseball bat. The pawns are completely redone. Instead of "making a suggestion" players now "start rumors". Players now don't start with an "advantage" by having more cards than other players; if there are cards left over after an even split those cards are put in a pile in the center for all players to look at. The character backstories are completely redone, and each character is also given different "powers" - such as "once per game you may look at a clue being given to another player". Another character "change" is the victim isn't Mr. Boddy, or Dr. Black, or even Mr. Meadow-Brooke, he is just some unnamed millionaire and he has "gone missing" and just "suspected" of being killed. *shrugs* The biggest change, and the best spin in my opinion, is the introduction of Intrigue cards. There are two types. One set gives you different advantages that you can play throughout the game - such as allowing you to not show a player the card that would disprove his/her "rumor". The second set is the most interesting: clock cards. There are eight. Basically, there is a time limit on finding the killer in this game. The first seven cards do nothing, but if some unfortunate player pulls the last clock card it means that too much time has passed and the killer has just killed you! Once drawn, the eight card is shuffled back in the deck and the next player to pull it also "dies". Your cards become general information for everyone, but it is possible that all players pull the eighth clock card, die, and the murderer gets away with it. Interesting twist, and when we all played at Remy's 25th birthday party we did end up losing at least 1/2 the players ^_^.
And now for the one licenced variant that I own. I'm not a fan of the books, and I only "enjoy" the movies, but it was a Clue game, and it turned out to be a greatly enjoyable twist. The Hasbro-approved Harry Potter Clue takes place at Hogwarts. A student has gone missing and players have to determine what spell was used, who cast it, and where the student was attacked. There are three added twists in this game to make it truly Harry Potter. The first is the idea of Hogwarts' moving staircases. There is a die that has each of the four house crests, as well as the Dark Mark on each side. When the die is rolled you then turn a dial on the board that shifts the "staircases" - opening and closing doors to rooms and changing where secret passage ways lead. Another twist is the idea of House Points. You lose House Points whenever the Dark Mark shows up, and so - much like in Discover the Secrets - the game could win. Cards are introduced as the third twist in the game, and they directly effect the House Points componant. There are two sets; Dark cards are used when the Dark Mark appears and takes away House Points. The second set are the Help cards which can be played to protect your House Points when a Dark card is played. So it's Clue, but advanced with just enough of that Harry Potter flavor. Enjoyable, but - much like Clue FX - it tends to take longer than traditional Clue due to the new features and the difficulty navigating the board.
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I just LOOOOVE this game! I love the skill I have at winning it! I love how it changes each time. I love the strategy (and some luck) needed to win. I love pulling "a little poker" into it by reading the other player's tell-tale to know who has what. I love the different variants of the game. I just LOOOOOOOOOVE Clue! I'm obsessed about it, and so concludes my "Get a Clue" obsession post. ^_^
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Get a Clue - Part 1
With the advent of a certain Miss Scarlet not only commenting on my posts, but starting up a blog of her own (which reviews mystery novels), I decided it's about time to work on yet another obsession of mine: CLUE GAMES!!!!! ^_^ (or Cluedo as it's called in it's originated England).
The thing is, however, that I started this blog entry THURSDAY (10/22) and it seemed a bit longer than anticipated, so I decided to break it into two posts. THIS post will talk about what took me so long to actually make the post, as well as a little Clue trivia and a listing of the games I DON'T have in the series. The next post (to be done either tomorrow or Sunday, depending on my free time) will talk about my love of the series, why I'm obsessed, and a listing of the games I DO have, along with a mini review of each game.
OK, so what kept me so long? Well, first of all I had multiple distractions - TV shows to watch, neighbors visiting for an hour, family poking their heads in my room to talk to me while I wrote, Instant Messaging with a friend of mine about his love life, and finally the actual research into the series. Oh, and then I had to work late, took a 10-year-old to see "Where the Wild Things Are" (great movie) for her birthday, and then had the birthday party itself... so it's been a bit of a crazy weekend and not the most opportune time to do such a long blog. AAAAANYWAY...
I knew I had a LOT of different Clue games (14 to be exact), but I didn't know how many there were total, so I checked out the Wiki page. You can go ahead and just read the Wiki, but I'll give you the trivia highlights here... your choice. ^_^
First of all, Clue is only known as such in North America. That is because the original name (Cluedo) was based on the British game Ludo. Since North America knew Ludo's variant Parcheesi better, using the Ludo reference would be lost on North Americans, and so it was just dropped to Clue. Another curious change was that, until recently (2002), the Green character was changed from Reverend Green to simply Mr. Green. It's not really explained why the change took place. Perhaps it was deemed less likely for Americans and Canadians to believe a Reverend could be a valid suspect for a murder. *shrug*
Anyway, the game was created by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk and part-time clown from Birmingham, England. Although it was patented in 1947, World War II prevented production of the game until 1949. The game was more-or-less unchanged until the first "spin-off" game - which was a VCR interactive movie - in 1985. That's 36 years before the game errupted into - according to the Wiki page - 24 game spin-offs, 8 licenced theme variants, a video-game version for systems from Commodore 64 to GBA to iTouch (and everything in between), a computer game, an online game, an arcade game, a series for the CDi, a MMORPG mini-game, a film, a series of British game shows, a comedic off-Broadway musical where the audience actually picked the play's conclusion by selecting 3 over-sized cards - just like the game, a similar non-musical British play, an 18-book children series based on the actual Clue games and another children book series based on Clue Jr. - which involved such things as toy theft, as well as at least 5 unlicenced variants. Let's re-calculate. So, besides the original Clue game that came out in 1949, there are 48 encarnations of Clue since 1985! Out of which, I only own 14! If I'm going to own as many incarnations as I can I better get a move on! >_<
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Clue games I do not yet own, in chronilogical release order:
Super Clue Challenge ('86): An advanced rules variation to the original Clue which included the new characters Mr. Slate-Gray, Captain Brown, and Miss Peach, as well as three more weapons - the blunderbuss, poison and axe.
Clue Master Detective ('88): Sort of a suplimental game to the original Clue, this one added rooms and weapons, as well as the four new characters that were introduced in the VHS games - Madam Rose, Sgt. Grey, M. Brunette and Miss Peach.
Clue Card Game ('92): Players attempt to match cards featuring the locations, weapons, and characters from the original game with a central pile of cards.
Clue Little Detective ('92): I actually never heard of this game, and there is no info on Wikipedia, so I have no clue... (excuse the pun)
Junior Clue ('93): Apparently flipping the words in the title creates a new game... This time the "kid's version" of Clue is more like that of the original game, except the characters are trying to find the ghost of their ancestor and remember which room they spotted the ghost.
Clue Super Sleuth ('95): Another advanced version of the original Clue. A wee bit too complicated to sum up here, but the basics is that there is no board, just random tiles to be placed on the table, and there are also three non-playable characters introduced - Inspector Grey, Hogarth the Butler, and the Black Dog.
Clue Limited Gift Edition ('97): This edition isn't all that exciting, except that it came in a deluxe format with the option to play with an extra murder weapon, a Poison Chalice.
Clue 50th Anniversary ('99): Very much like the above Limited Gift Edition, the only major componants of this game is the deluxe format and the Bottle of Poison. Vertually the same thing as the LGE (but I'll try to get both regardless... cuz it IS a collection... >_<)
Clue Passport to Murder (2000): First Clue of the new Millennium! This wasn't much more than an update of Super Clue Challenge with the setting changed to an Orient Express style train in Istanbul station. There is very little change to the mechanics of the game (except you can only play the six original characters), with mainly cosmetic changes and updates to the characters.
Clue Jr. Pirate Treasure Hunt (2000): The Clue Jr. detectives (Green, Scarlet, Plum, & Peacock) must find out which legendary pirate hid what valuables in the treasure chest! Be your piratey self for this kid's take.
Clue Mysteries ('05): This is another change of rules, and this time the game play is based heavily on another board game called "Mysteries of Old Peking". Basically, much like with the original Clue Jr. (the one with the missing pet), this version of Clue has the clues hidden and you need to use the red glasses to read the clues properly. I actually remember seeing this version advertised. There aren't too many versions of Clue that I actually remember TV commercials for... Clue DVD was the other one I remember, perhaps because they were released in the same year....
Clue Secrets & Spies ('09): Oh yea, that's right, Hasbro released ANOTHER Clue game just this year! Haven't gotten it yet, tho... In this incarnation it's up to you to stop Agent Black - Clue's most notorious spy. The player must complete missions and attend secret meetings in order to stay a step ahead of the other players and receive the title of "ultimate spy". Sounds to me that this is drastically different from the age-old Clue game, but we'll have to wait until I play to see how much I like it. I mean, I fell in love with The Great Museum Caper and that also has nothing to do with most Clue games. In fact, Secrets & Spies is starting to sound like some much-awaited sequel to TGMC.
Clue Jr. Case of the Missing Prizes ('09): Well, I'm PRESUMING it was just released this year since my search for it only provided links to seller sites, that and The Art of Murder doesn't have it posted on the site. Anyway, it appears that this Clue Jr. spin-off consists of figuring out which prize was stolen and where it was hidden - or something along those lines. I don't really know much more about this game.
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And now for the Clue Variants that I must get!
Licenced:
Alfred Hitchcock Edition ('99): Set on the sound stage where multiple Hitchcock films are being shot. Played like normal Clue.
The Simpsons Clue (2000): Based off of the Fox TV series, it's played like normal Clue, except all of the traditional characters are replaced by Simpsons characters. There are actually two main versions of this game in which the Simpsons characters that are used for the Clue cast are different depending on the version. I may have to hunt down both. The North American Cast - Mr. Burns as Mr. Boddy, Homer as Mr. Green, Bart as Prof. Plum, Lisa as Miss Scarlet, Marge as Mrs. Peacock, Krusty as Col. Mustard, and Mr. Smithers as Mrs. White, contrary to early promotional material which had Maggie as Mrs. White (however, we all already know it was Maggie, with the Gun, in the Car Seat). The British (Euro?) version (the Cluedo version), as mentioned, switches up the cast a bit - Homer as Prof. Plum, Bart as Col. Mustard, Fat Tony as Mr. Green, Lisa as Mrs. Peacock, Edna Krabappel as Miss Scarlet, and Marge as Mrs. White. In both versions, the weapons are a plutonium rod, necklace, saxophone, poisoned doughnut, slingshot and the extend-o-glove.
Clue Dungeons & Dragons ('01): THE. MOST. EPIC! HOW DO I NOT ALREADY HAVE THIS ONE!?!?!?! It was produced by Hasbro shortly after their purchase of D&D owners Wizards of the Coast. The characters are D&D character types (such as Monk, Rogue, Wizard, etc.). The rooms depicted on the board are fantasy-themed (Dungeon, Dragon's Lair, Lost Crypt, etc.), and weapons also taken from the popular RPG (Mace of Disruption, Flaming Axe, etc.). Game play is identical to standard Clue unless you use the optional Wandering Monsters deck. Using this deck, players must battle monsters when landing on special spaces on the board. The players must battle monsters via dice rolls and are rewarded with magic items that confer special powers.
Clue The Haunted Mansion ('02): Based on the Haunted Mansion attraction from the Disney theme parks (relying heavily on the Walt Disney World version of the attraction as far as design.) One of the six guests in the house (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto) was scared by one of the six ghosts (The Traveller, The Skeleton, The Prisoner, Emily the Bleeding Bride, The Opera Singer, and the Mariner) in one of the nine rooms (Foyer, Portrait Gallery, Library, Conservatory, Seance Room, Ballroom, Attic, Graveyard, and Crypt.) The detail on the board draws from the scenes depicted in the Haunted Mansion attraction and contains Hidden Mickeys.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Clue ('02): Themed after the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! TV series. Like the episodes, the gang has to figure out whodunit. It features Fred as Mr. Green, Shaggy as Prof. Plum, Scooby as Col. Mustard, Velma as Mrs. Peacock, Daphne as Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. White as their host. This edition takes place in a run-down version of the mansion where the Study has been replaced by the Kitchen and the original Kitchen has been turned into a cemetery after its walls started crumbling.
Clue - The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror ('07): Another Disney Theme Park Edition, like the above Haunted Mansion game. It features The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction from the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park as the board game. Rather than a murder, the players are trying to discover who disappeared, where, and with which prop. The details, of the characters, props, and rooms draw from the scenes depicted in the Tower of Terror attraction. This version also contains Hidden Mickeys much like the Haunted Mansion version.
Clue - 24 ('09): Another new Clue game from this year! This one is themed after the 24 TV series. The game itself features Audrey Raines, Bill Buchanan, Chloe O'Brian, Mike Doyle, Nadia Yassir, and Tony Almeida. Players must find out which of the six characters is about to launch one of nine attacks (weapons) from within one of the rooms inside CTU.
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Now the unlicenced:
Kill Doctor Lucky ('96): An inversion and perhaps a parody of the series written by James Ernest for Cheapass Games. This one is sort of a reverse version of Clue. Instead of trying to solve the murder, in Kill Doctor Lucky players compete to COMMIT the murder.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Mystery at Hogwarts Game (2000): This variant of Clue is unlicenced, but Hasbro released a licenced variant (which I have) in 2008. Very much like it's future licenced variant, players try to find out which student cast which forbidden spell in which room in Hogwarts School. The suspects are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
Mystery Museum: The Biblical Artifacts Detective Game (2000): A version of Clue with Evangelical Christian elements to it. In the game, six people of different professions visit a Bible-history museum and steal one of the artifacts. It must be determined who is the thief, which artifact they stole, and where they hid it. Throughout the game, players learn about the Bible.
Clue of Cthulhu (2000): Probably the only unlicenced version I actually want to actively track down - even though I haven't done anything with the Cthulhu Mythos. Anyway, this version of Clue, as suggested, uses elements from the Cthulhu Mythos and was offered at Gen Con 2000.
PikaClue (2001): A version of Clue using elements from the Pokémon universe. Rooms are replaced with towns and cities, weapons are replaced with forms of energy and suspects are replaced with Pokémon creatures. This variant was offered at Gen Con 2001 and was inspired by the Clue of Cthulhu variant.
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Well, there you have it, after a full weekend, I finally finished Part 1! YAY! Anyway, I'm now off to bed and I'll attempt Part 2 (which is going to be how my love for the franchise started as well as the list of the Clue incarnations I do have) sometime tomorrow - but most likely Tuesday -_-
**UPDATE 10/28/09: Went to the mall today and saw that Boscovs has another Clue variant - Clue The Office! Sweeeeet! Apparently it was released August of this year. It seems that Good old Michael is forcing his staff to play a real-life game of Clue - very a la Murder Mystery party games. The hit? Poor, HR rep Toby. Our cast? Pam, Jim, Angela, Stanley, Andy, and Dwight. Game play is like the newest edition of Clue - Clue Discover the Secrets. See above post for more info on that gameplay.
The thing is, however, that I started this blog entry THURSDAY (10/22) and it seemed a bit longer than anticipated, so I decided to break it into two posts. THIS post will talk about what took me so long to actually make the post, as well as a little Clue trivia and a listing of the games I DON'T have in the series. The next post (to be done either tomorrow or Sunday, depending on my free time) will talk about my love of the series, why I'm obsessed, and a listing of the games I DO have, along with a mini review of each game.
OK, so what kept me so long? Well, first of all I had multiple distractions - TV shows to watch, neighbors visiting for an hour, family poking their heads in my room to talk to me while I wrote, Instant Messaging with a friend of mine about his love life, and finally the actual research into the series. Oh, and then I had to work late, took a 10-year-old to see "Where the Wild Things Are" (great movie) for her birthday, and then had the birthday party itself... so it's been a bit of a crazy weekend and not the most opportune time to do such a long blog. AAAAANYWAY...
I knew I had a LOT of different Clue games (14 to be exact), but I didn't know how many there were total, so I checked out the Wiki page. You can go ahead and just read the Wiki, but I'll give you the trivia highlights here... your choice. ^_^
First of all, Clue is only known as such in North America. That is because the original name (Cluedo) was based on the British game Ludo. Since North America knew Ludo's variant Parcheesi better, using the Ludo reference would be lost on North Americans, and so it was just dropped to Clue. Another curious change was that, until recently (2002), the Green character was changed from Reverend Green to simply Mr. Green. It's not really explained why the change took place. Perhaps it was deemed less likely for Americans and Canadians to believe a Reverend could be a valid suspect for a murder. *shrug*
Anyway, the game was created by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk and part-time clown from Birmingham, England. Although it was patented in 1947, World War II prevented production of the game until 1949. The game was more-or-less unchanged until the first "spin-off" game - which was a VCR interactive movie - in 1985. That's 36 years before the game errupted into - according to the Wiki page - 24 game spin-offs, 8 licenced theme variants, a video-game version for systems from Commodore 64 to GBA to iTouch (and everything in between), a computer game, an online game, an arcade game, a series for the CDi, a MMORPG mini-game, a film, a series of British game shows, a comedic off-Broadway musical where the audience actually picked the play's conclusion by selecting 3 over-sized cards - just like the game, a similar non-musical British play, an 18-book children series based on the actual Clue games and another children book series based on Clue Jr. - which involved such things as toy theft, as well as at least 5 unlicenced variants. Let's re-calculate. So, besides the original Clue game that came out in 1949, there are 48 encarnations of Clue since 1985! Out of which, I only own 14! If I'm going to own as many incarnations as I can I better get a move on! >_<
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Clue games I do not yet own, in chronilogical release order:
Super Clue Challenge ('86): An advanced rules variation to the original Clue which included the new characters Mr. Slate-Gray, Captain Brown, and Miss Peach, as well as three more weapons - the blunderbuss, poison and axe.
Clue Master Detective ('88): Sort of a suplimental game to the original Clue, this one added rooms and weapons, as well as the four new characters that were introduced in the VHS games - Madam Rose, Sgt. Grey, M. Brunette and Miss Peach.
Clue Card Game ('92): Players attempt to match cards featuring the locations, weapons, and characters from the original game with a central pile of cards.
Clue Little Detective ('92): I actually never heard of this game, and there is no info on Wikipedia, so I have no clue... (excuse the pun)
Junior Clue ('93): Apparently flipping the words in the title creates a new game... This time the "kid's version" of Clue is more like that of the original game, except the characters are trying to find the ghost of their ancestor and remember which room they spotted the ghost.
Clue Super Sleuth ('95): Another advanced version of the original Clue. A wee bit too complicated to sum up here, but the basics is that there is no board, just random tiles to be placed on the table, and there are also three non-playable characters introduced - Inspector Grey, Hogarth the Butler, and the Black Dog.
Clue Limited Gift Edition ('97): This edition isn't all that exciting, except that it came in a deluxe format with the option to play with an extra murder weapon, a Poison Chalice.
Clue 50th Anniversary ('99): Very much like the above Limited Gift Edition, the only major componants of this game is the deluxe format and the Bottle of Poison. Vertually the same thing as the LGE (but I'll try to get both regardless... cuz it IS a collection... >_<)
Clue Passport to Murder (2000): First Clue of the new Millennium! This wasn't much more than an update of Super Clue Challenge with the setting changed to an Orient Express style train in Istanbul station. There is very little change to the mechanics of the game (except you can only play the six original characters), with mainly cosmetic changes and updates to the characters.
Clue Jr. Pirate Treasure Hunt (2000): The Clue Jr. detectives (Green, Scarlet, Plum, & Peacock) must find out which legendary pirate hid what valuables in the treasure chest! Be your piratey self for this kid's take.
Clue Mysteries ('05): This is another change of rules, and this time the game play is based heavily on another board game called "Mysteries of Old Peking". Basically, much like with the original Clue Jr. (the one with the missing pet), this version of Clue has the clues hidden and you need to use the red glasses to read the clues properly. I actually remember seeing this version advertised. There aren't too many versions of Clue that I actually remember TV commercials for... Clue DVD was the other one I remember, perhaps because they were released in the same year....
Clue Secrets & Spies ('09): Oh yea, that's right, Hasbro released ANOTHER Clue game just this year! Haven't gotten it yet, tho... In this incarnation it's up to you to stop Agent Black - Clue's most notorious spy. The player must complete missions and attend secret meetings in order to stay a step ahead of the other players and receive the title of "ultimate spy". Sounds to me that this is drastically different from the age-old Clue game, but we'll have to wait until I play to see how much I like it. I mean, I fell in love with The Great Museum Caper and that also has nothing to do with most Clue games. In fact, Secrets & Spies is starting to sound like some much-awaited sequel to TGMC.
Clue Jr. Case of the Missing Prizes ('09): Well, I'm PRESUMING it was just released this year since my search for it only provided links to seller sites, that and The Art of Murder doesn't have it posted on the site. Anyway, it appears that this Clue Jr. spin-off consists of figuring out which prize was stolen and where it was hidden - or something along those lines. I don't really know much more about this game.
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And now for the Clue Variants that I must get!
Licenced:
Alfred Hitchcock Edition ('99): Set on the sound stage where multiple Hitchcock films are being shot. Played like normal Clue.
The Simpsons Clue (2000): Based off of the Fox TV series, it's played like normal Clue, except all of the traditional characters are replaced by Simpsons characters. There are actually two main versions of this game in which the Simpsons characters that are used for the Clue cast are different depending on the version. I may have to hunt down both. The North American Cast - Mr. Burns as Mr. Boddy, Homer as Mr. Green, Bart as Prof. Plum, Lisa as Miss Scarlet, Marge as Mrs. Peacock, Krusty as Col. Mustard, and Mr. Smithers as Mrs. White, contrary to early promotional material which had Maggie as Mrs. White (however, we all already know it was Maggie, with the Gun, in the Car Seat). The British (Euro?) version (the Cluedo version), as mentioned, switches up the cast a bit - Homer as Prof. Plum, Bart as Col. Mustard, Fat Tony as Mr. Green, Lisa as Mrs. Peacock, Edna Krabappel as Miss Scarlet, and Marge as Mrs. White. In both versions, the weapons are a plutonium rod, necklace, saxophone, poisoned doughnut, slingshot and the extend-o-glove.
Clue Dungeons & Dragons ('01): THE. MOST. EPIC! HOW DO I NOT ALREADY HAVE THIS ONE!?!?!?! It was produced by Hasbro shortly after their purchase of D&D owners Wizards of the Coast. The characters are D&D character types (such as Monk, Rogue, Wizard, etc.). The rooms depicted on the board are fantasy-themed (Dungeon, Dragon's Lair, Lost Crypt, etc.), and weapons also taken from the popular RPG (Mace of Disruption, Flaming Axe, etc.). Game play is identical to standard Clue unless you use the optional Wandering Monsters deck. Using this deck, players must battle monsters when landing on special spaces on the board. The players must battle monsters via dice rolls and are rewarded with magic items that confer special powers.
Clue The Haunted Mansion ('02): Based on the Haunted Mansion attraction from the Disney theme parks (relying heavily on the Walt Disney World version of the attraction as far as design.) One of the six guests in the house (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto) was scared by one of the six ghosts (The Traveller, The Skeleton, The Prisoner, Emily the Bleeding Bride, The Opera Singer, and the Mariner) in one of the nine rooms (Foyer, Portrait Gallery, Library, Conservatory, Seance Room, Ballroom, Attic, Graveyard, and Crypt.) The detail on the board draws from the scenes depicted in the Haunted Mansion attraction and contains Hidden Mickeys.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Clue ('02): Themed after the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! TV series. Like the episodes, the gang has to figure out whodunit. It features Fred as Mr. Green, Shaggy as Prof. Plum, Scooby as Col. Mustard, Velma as Mrs. Peacock, Daphne as Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. White as their host. This edition takes place in a run-down version of the mansion where the Study has been replaced by the Kitchen and the original Kitchen has been turned into a cemetery after its walls started crumbling.
Clue - The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror ('07): Another Disney Theme Park Edition, like the above Haunted Mansion game. It features The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction from the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park as the board game. Rather than a murder, the players are trying to discover who disappeared, where, and with which prop. The details, of the characters, props, and rooms draw from the scenes depicted in the Tower of Terror attraction. This version also contains Hidden Mickeys much like the Haunted Mansion version.
Clue - 24 ('09): Another new Clue game from this year! This one is themed after the 24 TV series. The game itself features Audrey Raines, Bill Buchanan, Chloe O'Brian, Mike Doyle, Nadia Yassir, and Tony Almeida. Players must find out which of the six characters is about to launch one of nine attacks (weapons) from within one of the rooms inside CTU.
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Now the unlicenced:
Kill Doctor Lucky ('96): An inversion and perhaps a parody of the series written by James Ernest for Cheapass Games. This one is sort of a reverse version of Clue. Instead of trying to solve the murder, in Kill Doctor Lucky players compete to COMMIT the murder.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Mystery at Hogwarts Game (2000): This variant of Clue is unlicenced, but Hasbro released a licenced variant (which I have) in 2008. Very much like it's future licenced variant, players try to find out which student cast which forbidden spell in which room in Hogwarts School. The suspects are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
Mystery Museum: The Biblical Artifacts Detective Game (2000): A version of Clue with Evangelical Christian elements to it. In the game, six people of different professions visit a Bible-history museum and steal one of the artifacts. It must be determined who is the thief, which artifact they stole, and where they hid it. Throughout the game, players learn about the Bible.
Clue of Cthulhu (2000): Probably the only unlicenced version I actually want to actively track down - even though I haven't done anything with the Cthulhu Mythos. Anyway, this version of Clue, as suggested, uses elements from the Cthulhu Mythos and was offered at Gen Con 2000.
PikaClue (2001): A version of Clue using elements from the Pokémon universe. Rooms are replaced with towns and cities, weapons are replaced with forms of energy and suspects are replaced with Pokémon creatures. This variant was offered at Gen Con 2001 and was inspired by the Clue of Cthulhu variant.
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Well, there you have it, after a full weekend, I finally finished Part 1! YAY! Anyway, I'm now off to bed and I'll attempt Part 2 (which is going to be how my love for the franchise started as well as the list of the Clue incarnations I do have) sometime tomorrow - but most likely Tuesday -_-
**UPDATE 10/28/09: Went to the mall today and saw that Boscovs has another Clue variant - Clue The Office! Sweeeeet! Apparently it was released August of this year. It seems that Good old Michael is forcing his staff to play a real-life game of Clue - very a la Murder Mystery party games. The hit? Poor, HR rep Toby. Our cast? Pam, Jim, Angela, Stanley, Andy, and Dwight. Game play is like the newest edition of Clue - Clue Discover the Secrets. See above post for more info on that gameplay.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Web Comics Galore!
Well, I'm currently trying to keep my mind off of the AMV contest - since it's not due until, oh, geez, like MAY! Plus, I really can't do much more with it right now... so DISTRACTION TIME!
Usually I'd fall to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to distract me, but I'm currently in the Water Temple... Annoying as HELL! And the Water Dungeon earlier in the game was the most annoying of THOSE dungeons... I've decided the Japanese must hate water for some reason. Maybe they recent it for keeping them so tightly confined....
ANYWAY! I'm avoiding Ocarina of Time because I REALLY don't want to do the water temple. T_T So then I decided to start up FarmVille on Facebook again. Man, they've changed it a lot, but still, it can't keep you occupied for long periods of time. So I dove back into Webcomic making.
I started off with just the one webcomic (I mentioned this in a below post, but I'll get more in depth about it in a moment), and then I got talked into helping Peter make one - granted, it wasn't too had to "pull my arm" (more on this in a moment as well), and now I have an idea for a THIRD webcomic! Comic overload!!!
Ok, so some info on the first one. I've referenced a few times before that I am a reader of the Game Destroyers comic. In fact, I'm a character in the comic! I'm Scout! ^_^ I'm also impressed that a few of the "original" GDs got killed off, and all of the "honorary GDs" got killed off, but my character - an "honorary" somehow survived and got bumped up to "official." Go me! ^_^ ANYWAY... Back in May, I think, the author was heavily bombarded with stuff for college and went on hiatus. He wanted to keep up readership, so he offered to post any guest comics submitted. It got me thinking and after a little while I actually came up with an idea. I was able to quickly script out 7 non-consecutive strips for the comic. Unfortunately, I can't really draw too well. If I had a base drawing to sketch from I can do really well, however. *shrug* Well, my inability to draw ended up having the author come back from hiatus before I even started sketching my webcomic idea. I still wanted to create the comic after I scripted it, however. So then I went on a search for style ideas. I was thinking of maybe using typical 8-bit styling. I was also thinking something along the same styling of A Modest Destiny. Yet another thought was along the lines of Order of the Stick. I even thought of something like this... Eventually I got sent to Zombie Grammar, which in turn sent me to StripGenerator.com. I checked out a few other strip generators, but eventually settled on StripGenerator's illustrations.
The next trouble I ran into was that StripGenerator doesn't exactly generate the comic the way I'd like it. For one, I can't customise the characters as much as I'd like. And the second, slightly more major issue, is that I wanted the comic strip to be a 6-panel, and I can only do 3 panels on StripGenerator. I then settled on using InkScape to do my comic, based on StripGenerator. I took screenshots of everything in StripGenerator I liked/would need, and then redrew them all in InkScape. Unfortunately, InkScape isn't as user-friendly as Adobe Illustrator, and so I've been running in to a lot of problems with drawing. And so, until I can find an easier way to piece together my comics, this will be a long-winded process in which every comic may take a week or two (depending on free time) to create. >_<
Anyway, that is the end of my own personal webcomicness (which is currently what IS keeping me distracted from AMV making...). The next stage of the webcomic obsessing is due to Peter. One day about a month ago, I guess, I was driving him and Celia to the mall or somewhere and my sister pointed out a very nice church on-route. It has a pseudo-gothic exterior with a gorgeous stone wrap-around porch. She said that she'd love to get married either there, or in a cathedral (she wants a gothic wedding). I was going to add in that someplace with a hedge maze would work really nicely as well. However, I misspoke and said hedge mage instead of hedge maze (I blame the rhyme). Well, those two had a FIELD DAY with my flub-up. "Hedge mage? What the hell is that?" Celia laughed. "That's got to be the crappiest Final Fantasy job," Peter added in. "What can he do? Grow plants? Some spellcaster!" They laughed some more before Peter finally said, "Ya know, I actually love that idea! Hedge Mage! I think I'm going to make a webcomic about it!" He then proceeded to talk to me about the progress of Hedge Mage whenever we saw each other. Well, about a week back he got all excited. Apparently the author of his favorite webcomic (<-- I'll reference this again, so feel free to check out the link) was doing some real-time online chatting the night before. Peter informed the author of his idea of Hedge Mage and the author was in hysterics. According to Peter, he loved the idea so much that he offered to illustrate it for him. Cool beans. Peter than introduced me to the author's comic, Concession (again, I'll reference this again in a little bit). I like the styling, I even don't mind that it's a Furry comic. Peter said that they may decide to go with the 8-bit styling however. I said that it would be funny to put poor Hedge Mage in to the normal Final Fantasy setting, but there are TONS of FF 8-bit comics already on the web. So now Peter is rethinking the character design. Anyway, now back to my part in all of this. The same day Peter informed me that Immelmann would be willing to illustrate, he, Celia, and I were just randomly talking and we kept pointing out "hey, that's funny! That should be in Hedge Mage!" So, Peter finally asked me if I wanted to co-write the comic. YAY, Collaboration! ^_^ Later that night I came up with the descriptions of a 6-character cast, but by the time I was done he and Celia were already well into their game of Final Fantasy XI, and he STILL hasn't taken a look at the descriptions. Prolly best tho, because it seems that one of our character ideas was already used on South Park. Whoops... To be fair, the episode IS 10 years old (couldn't remember it being on SP), and secondly, MY SHP was going to be a sexual deviant, not a man dressed in costume reciting all the SH violations. *shrug* Back to the drawing board - so to speak. Anyway, I'm sure Hedge Mage will take a LOOOOOONG time (Peter is VERY slow at starting anything), but we'll see. ^_^
OK, so now for the last Webcomic idea. This is based off of Concession (Told ya I'd reference it again!). Basically, according to the "About" page, Immelmann started his webcomic while working at a movie theater. Apparently he was having a hard time dealing with the customers'/co-workers' stupidity, and decided to "vent" via webcomic. And even tho the comic evolved past that, and has its "disturbing" situations (depending on how "innocent" you are ^_~), I love the idea of venting about work via webcomic. I even have a few doozies from work that would make for an interesting webcomic of its own. My problem, however, is that I'm not nearly as violent or sexually deviant as Immelmann seems to be, so I'm not entirely sure how to twist my work annoyances into something funny. Anyone want to collab?
Well, there you have it. Three webcomic ideas, would any of you read any of them? Either way I'll keep you posted on their progress(es).
OK, off to work on my pirate/ninja webcomic. Byes! ^_^
Usually I'd fall to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to distract me, but I'm currently in the Water Temple... Annoying as HELL! And the Water Dungeon earlier in the game was the most annoying of THOSE dungeons... I've decided the Japanese must hate water for some reason. Maybe they recent it for keeping them so tightly confined....
ANYWAY! I'm avoiding Ocarina of Time because I REALLY don't want to do the water temple. T_T So then I decided to start up FarmVille on Facebook again. Man, they've changed it a lot, but still, it can't keep you occupied for long periods of time. So I dove back into Webcomic making.
I started off with just the one webcomic (I mentioned this in a below post, but I'll get more in depth about it in a moment), and then I got talked into helping Peter make one - granted, it wasn't too had to "pull my arm" (more on this in a moment as well), and now I have an idea for a THIRD webcomic! Comic overload!!!
Ok, so some info on the first one. I've referenced a few times before that I am a reader of the Game Destroyers comic. In fact, I'm a character in the comic! I'm Scout! ^_^ I'm also impressed that a few of the "original" GDs got killed off, and all of the "honorary GDs" got killed off, but my character - an "honorary" somehow survived and got bumped up to "official." Go me! ^_^ ANYWAY... Back in May, I think, the author was heavily bombarded with stuff for college and went on hiatus. He wanted to keep up readership, so he offered to post any guest comics submitted. It got me thinking and after a little while I actually came up with an idea. I was able to quickly script out 7 non-consecutive strips for the comic. Unfortunately, I can't really draw too well. If I had a base drawing to sketch from I can do really well, however. *shrug* Well, my inability to draw ended up having the author come back from hiatus before I even started sketching my webcomic idea. I still wanted to create the comic after I scripted it, however. So then I went on a search for style ideas. I was thinking of maybe using typical 8-bit styling. I was also thinking something along the same styling of A Modest Destiny. Yet another thought was along the lines of Order of the Stick. I even thought of something like this... Eventually I got sent to Zombie Grammar, which in turn sent me to StripGenerator.com. I checked out a few other strip generators, but eventually settled on StripGenerator's illustrations.
The next trouble I ran into was that StripGenerator doesn't exactly generate the comic the way I'd like it. For one, I can't customise the characters as much as I'd like. And the second, slightly more major issue, is that I wanted the comic strip to be a 6-panel, and I can only do 3 panels on StripGenerator. I then settled on using InkScape to do my comic, based on StripGenerator. I took screenshots of everything in StripGenerator I liked/would need, and then redrew them all in InkScape. Unfortunately, InkScape isn't as user-friendly as Adobe Illustrator, and so I've been running in to a lot of problems with drawing. And so, until I can find an easier way to piece together my comics, this will be a long-winded process in which every comic may take a week or two (depending on free time) to create. >_<
Anyway, that is the end of my own personal webcomicness (which is currently what IS keeping me distracted from AMV making...). The next stage of the webcomic obsessing is due to Peter. One day about a month ago, I guess, I was driving him and Celia to the mall or somewhere and my sister pointed out a very nice church on-route. It has a pseudo-gothic exterior with a gorgeous stone wrap-around porch. She said that she'd love to get married either there, or in a cathedral (she wants a gothic wedding). I was going to add in that someplace with a hedge maze would work really nicely as well. However, I misspoke and said hedge mage instead of hedge maze (I blame the rhyme). Well, those two had a FIELD DAY with my flub-up. "Hedge mage? What the hell is that?" Celia laughed. "That's got to be the crappiest Final Fantasy job," Peter added in. "What can he do? Grow plants? Some spellcaster!" They laughed some more before Peter finally said, "Ya know, I actually love that idea! Hedge Mage! I think I'm going to make a webcomic about it!" He then proceeded to talk to me about the progress of Hedge Mage whenever we saw each other. Well, about a week back he got all excited. Apparently the author of his favorite webcomic (<-- I'll reference this again, so feel free to check out the link) was doing some real-time online chatting the night before. Peter informed the author of his idea of Hedge Mage and the author was in hysterics. According to Peter, he loved the idea so much that he offered to illustrate it for him. Cool beans. Peter than introduced me to the author's comic, Concession (again, I'll reference this again in a little bit). I like the styling, I even don't mind that it's a Furry comic. Peter said that they may decide to go with the 8-bit styling however. I said that it would be funny to put poor Hedge Mage in to the normal Final Fantasy setting, but there are TONS of FF 8-bit comics already on the web. So now Peter is rethinking the character design. Anyway, now back to my part in all of this. The same day Peter informed me that Immelmann would be willing to illustrate, he, Celia, and I were just randomly talking and we kept pointing out "hey, that's funny! That should be in Hedge Mage!" So, Peter finally asked me if I wanted to co-write the comic. YAY, Collaboration! ^_^ Later that night I came up with the descriptions of a 6-character cast, but by the time I was done he and Celia were already well into their game of Final Fantasy XI, and he STILL hasn't taken a look at the descriptions. Prolly best tho, because it seems that one of our character ideas was already used on South Park. Whoops... To be fair, the episode IS 10 years old (couldn't remember it being on SP), and secondly, MY SHP was going to be a sexual deviant, not a man dressed in costume reciting all the SH violations. *shrug* Back to the drawing board - so to speak. Anyway, I'm sure Hedge Mage will take a LOOOOOONG time (Peter is VERY slow at starting anything), but we'll see. ^_^
OK, so now for the last Webcomic idea. This is based off of Concession (Told ya I'd reference it again!). Basically, according to the "About" page, Immelmann started his webcomic while working at a movie theater. Apparently he was having a hard time dealing with the customers'/co-workers' stupidity, and decided to "vent" via webcomic. And even tho the comic evolved past that, and has its "disturbing" situations (depending on how "innocent" you are ^_~), I love the idea of venting about work via webcomic. I even have a few doozies from work that would make for an interesting webcomic of its own. My problem, however, is that I'm not nearly as violent or sexually deviant as Immelmann seems to be, so I'm not entirely sure how to twist my work annoyances into something funny. Anyone want to collab?
Well, there you have it. Three webcomic ideas, would any of you read any of them? Either way I'll keep you posted on their progress(es).
OK, off to work on my pirate/ninja webcomic. Byes! ^_^
Friday, October 16, 2009
What the Fridge!?
Ok, so as mentioned in an earlier post (*cough* yesterday *cough*), Mina and I are trying to come up with a name for the collaborative production company we are creating for our AMV making. I had suggested that we use an inside joke, but alas, we don't really have too many that can be summed up in a short enough phrase to be a studio name. The closest I came was based on a quote of hers from about a year back. You can see our family's American Flag from my bedroom window, and once when Mina was visiting I happened to have my blinds drawn and she could only see the silhouette of the flag flapping in the wind. She called out, "Oh my god, it's a stalker! Oh wait, it's your flag." I found it hilarious. Anyway, I had suggested Stalker Flag or Flag Stalker as possible production names. Not the greatest, but better than others I came up with.
Well, I think we had a breakthrough today. A new girl started working today and our boss was showing her around. There wasn't really anything for Mina or I to really do, so we just wandered looking for busy work so our boss wouldn't yell at us. One of the things I decided to do busy-work-wise was to check to see if we needed back-ups of any of our food products. After a brief moment I turned around and rejoined Mina out front. She commented on how quickly I checked on the back-ups and I responded with "Yeah, the fridge door is slightly open. Sal must be showing her the fridge layout." Mina then laughed and replied "so that's what they're calling it these days." We laughed and quietly joked about being "in the fridge" for the next few minutes. Finally, I turned to Mina and said, "That should be our production name! In The Fridge Productions!" And she actually agreed with me! So there you have it. I think we officially named our AMV studio "In The Fridge Productions" ^_^
I went home and quickly googled "In The Fridge Productions" in an attempt to see if any other AMVers had taken the name yet. Strangely enough, I actually got 3 hits! On professional production companies no less! Granted, none of them were specifically "In The Fridge" productions, but still. Check them out! On the plus side, no one with "fridge" in their studio name showed up on AMV.Org... So I think we're still good on the name ^_^
Anyway, my next task after verifying the production name was to start working on the logo bump. I started with some simple refrigerator clip art, but then I remembered that a lot of AMV studios actually use anime clips as their bump. So I hopped on to YouTube and searched "Anime Fridge" and stumbled upon something awesome. Cowboy Bebop had an episode where they were invaded by something from their moldy fridge and there were a few AMVs about this episode put to "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Livin in the Fridge". I had forgotten Weird Al did the song Livin in the Fridge. I was originally going to use a royalty-free song off of KillerTracks, but Weird Al typically has no problem with his fans using his songs for fan-vids, so perhaps I'll grab a copy of the song from Remy and use that for our production logo bump....
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Mina to navigate her way through the invasion of her sister and 2 friends coming home from college, get to her computer, and answer my questions about using cowboy bebop and/or Weird Al... Update posted soonish I'm sure. ^_^
Well, I think we had a breakthrough today. A new girl started working today and our boss was showing her around. There wasn't really anything for Mina or I to really do, so we just wandered looking for busy work so our boss wouldn't yell at us. One of the things I decided to do busy-work-wise was to check to see if we needed back-ups of any of our food products. After a brief moment I turned around and rejoined Mina out front. She commented on how quickly I checked on the back-ups and I responded with "Yeah, the fridge door is slightly open. Sal must be showing her the fridge layout." Mina then laughed and replied "so that's what they're calling it these days." We laughed and quietly joked about being "in the fridge" for the next few minutes. Finally, I turned to Mina and said, "That should be our production name! In The Fridge Productions!" And she actually agreed with me! So there you have it. I think we officially named our AMV studio "In The Fridge Productions" ^_^
I went home and quickly googled "In The Fridge Productions" in an attempt to see if any other AMVers had taken the name yet. Strangely enough, I actually got 3 hits! On professional production companies no less! Granted, none of them were specifically "In The Fridge" productions, but still. Check them out! On the plus side, no one with "fridge" in their studio name showed up on AMV.Org... So I think we're still good on the name ^_^
Anyway, my next task after verifying the production name was to start working on the logo bump. I started with some simple refrigerator clip art, but then I remembered that a lot of AMV studios actually use anime clips as their bump. So I hopped on to YouTube and searched "Anime Fridge" and stumbled upon something awesome. Cowboy Bebop had an episode where they were invaded by something from their moldy fridge and there were a few AMVs about this episode put to "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Livin in the Fridge". I had forgotten Weird Al did the song Livin in the Fridge. I was originally going to use a royalty-free song off of KillerTracks, but Weird Al typically has no problem with his fans using his songs for fan-vids, so perhaps I'll grab a copy of the song from Remy and use that for our production logo bump....
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Mina to navigate her way through the invasion of her sister and 2 friends coming home from college, get to her computer, and answer my questions about using cowboy bebop and/or Weird Al... Update posted soonish I'm sure. ^_^
Thursday, October 15, 2009
AMVs = Fun+Craziness+epic time consumer!
OK, first AnimeNEXT-themed post (Already!? Yeah, I know... >_<) As do just about all anime conventions, AnimeNEXT has an AMV (anime music video) contest (as well as a non-competition screening). So naturally I MUST submit something to the contest! I’m still on the high of doing so well on my movie trailer (see below post) – even if only one person voted (Thanx Remy since I’m sure it was you! LOVES!) and one person commented. ANYWAY, the high off of that, plus still feeling pretty good about my Helsing AMV “Bloodsucker Alucard” that I edited in time for last year’s Halloween (I think…). I also felt like I did well for my two Game Destroyers (webcomic, see below post) promotional videos: the teaser, and the music video. I’m on an editing high right now and I think I could pull off a really kick ass winning video. But what to do!?
Well, Mina had previously expressed wanting to learn how to make an AMV (or something of the sort), plus she can actually get footage – as opposed to my method of downloading a crapload of AMVs off of AnimeMusicVideos.org, slicing the AMVs apart, and then re-assembling them as my own work… ANYWAY, Mina can get the footage, and the music, and she wanted to learn how to make an AMV, and she introduced me to AnimeNEXT in the first place, AND SOOOOO I decided to have her help. We’re gonna collaborate on an AMV to submit. If Remy or Celia want to join in on the efforts they can, but it’s mostly us two girls (me and Mina).
I’m super excited about this effort – maybe obsessively so *blush*
It’s a good thing we work together, because any chance I get I harass her about something new about this AMV that doesn’t even need to be STARTED until April… First, it was wondering on the musical choice. We decided on upbeat because it’s more fun that way, and it would appeal to the male viewership a lot easier. Next, Mina commented that she loved “Bloodsucker Alucard”, and that it was a shame I couldn’t submit it to the contest because of the watermark logos and opening credits I have in the video (stupid contest rules!). She said she loved that the video not only had a song that fit really well with the feel of the anime, but that it was a song she was unfamiliar with. She informed me that one of the main reasons she watches AMVs is to get introduced to new songs. Based off of that, and both of our love of the song I used in the end credits of “Bloodsucker Alucard”, we decided on staying with the vampire theme and use the song “Deception” by the Cruxshadows. We then talked about WHICH vampires to use and decided on D from Vampire Hunter D. It doesn’t hurt that Mina has both of the Vampire Hunter D movies.
OK, so we have a song and an anime to use, we’re on a great start. Now I needed to research my competition. I went back to AMV.org and downloaded all of the videos that claimed to have submitted to the 2009 AnimeNEXT AMV screenings. There were 27 hits, and only 5 I couldn’t download for one reason or another. Most weren’t uploaded as .wmvs, and so I had to convert them. Thank you NCH Prism Converter (see below post)! Problem being, that apparently what I had downloaded was a free trial, so now I had to decide on whether or not to buy the program. Eh, it was on sale (until the 15th – that’s today, folks) for like $30, and I already used it an insane amount of times, so *shrug* why not. Purchased! Wait! I get an additional 10% off if I purchased something else within the next 4 hours!? Well, might as well get the full version of the FlashLynx download program (see below post). That was only $14 with the added discount. Sweet. Purchased! Then I debated to do the hat trick and just purchase the Debut Video Capture software (see below post), but I decided to wait until I actually put my latest paycheck into the bank…
AAAAANYWAY (I segway a lot, don’t I?), I downloaded and converted all of those AMVs, and then went through AnimeNEXT’s list of competitors/winners. I have a winner and/or runner up for every category at least. That’s when I started getting nervous. Most of them were REALLY good. At least two of the emotional ones made me tear up. Thank god Mina and I decided to NOT do sentimental >_< $800 on a copy of Adobe Premiere, so I’m stuck editing with friggen Windows Movie Maker! Yeah, I can do some mean edits with that crappy program, so just imagine how good I'd be with a professional one, but still… It will be tough to be any sort of competition with friggen WMM! Worst part about the program is that you can only move 7 frames at a time! I can’t cut something down frame-by-frame, and that hurts a lot of stuff – especially dubbing. It’s also hard in WMM to re-edit the timing of the video (like I MAJORLY had to do for “Bloodsucker Alucard”). It’s definitely gonna be a hard-ass battle to get up to par with these videos! Strange thing though, the ones I thought were AMAZING didn’t even place in the competitions, and most of the winners I was like “eh” when I watched… so who knows how the audience is gonna feel that day. *shrug* Great, 8 months of stressing about this damn AMV! >_<>
Well, Mina had previously expressed wanting to learn how to make an AMV (or something of the sort), plus she can actually get footage – as opposed to my method of downloading a crapload of AMVs off of AnimeMusicVideos.org, slicing the AMVs apart, and then re-assembling them as my own work… ANYWAY, Mina can get the footage, and the music, and she wanted to learn how to make an AMV, and she introduced me to AnimeNEXT in the first place, AND SOOOOO I decided to have her help. We’re gonna collaborate on an AMV to submit. If Remy or Celia want to join in on the efforts they can, but it’s mostly us two girls (me and Mina).
I’m super excited about this effort – maybe obsessively so *blush*
It’s a good thing we work together, because any chance I get I harass her about something new about this AMV that doesn’t even need to be STARTED until April… First, it was wondering on the musical choice. We decided on upbeat because it’s more fun that way, and it would appeal to the male viewership a lot easier. Next, Mina commented that she loved “Bloodsucker Alucard”, and that it was a shame I couldn’t submit it to the contest because of the watermark logos and opening credits I have in the video (stupid contest rules!). She said she loved that the video not only had a song that fit really well with the feel of the anime, but that it was a song she was unfamiliar with. She informed me that one of the main reasons she watches AMVs is to get introduced to new songs. Based off of that, and both of our love of the song I used in the end credits of “Bloodsucker Alucard”, we decided on staying with the vampire theme and use the song “Deception” by the Cruxshadows. We then talked about WHICH vampires to use and decided on D from Vampire Hunter D. It doesn’t hurt that Mina has both of the Vampire Hunter D movies.
OK, so we have a song and an anime to use, we’re on a great start. Now I needed to research my competition. I went back to AMV.org and downloaded all of the videos that claimed to have submitted to the 2009 AnimeNEXT AMV screenings. There were 27 hits, and only 5 I couldn’t download for one reason or another. Most weren’t uploaded as .wmvs, and so I had to convert them. Thank you NCH Prism Converter (see below post)! Problem being, that apparently what I had downloaded was a free trial, so now I had to decide on whether or not to buy the program. Eh, it was on sale (until the 15th – that’s today, folks) for like $30, and I already used it an insane amount of times, so *shrug* why not. Purchased! Wait! I get an additional 10% off if I purchased something else within the next 4 hours!? Well, might as well get the full version of the FlashLynx download program (see below post). That was only $14 with the added discount. Sweet. Purchased! Then I debated to do the hat trick and just purchase the Debut Video Capture software (see below post), but I decided to wait until I actually put my latest paycheck into the bank…
AAAAANYWAY (I segway a lot, don’t I?), I downloaded and converted all of those AMVs, and then went through AnimeNEXT’s list of competitors/winners. I have a winner and/or runner up for every category at least. That’s when I started getting nervous. Most of them were REALLY good. At least two of the emotional ones made me tear up. Thank god Mina and I decided to NOT do sentimental >_< $800 on a copy of Adobe Premiere, so I’m stuck editing with friggen Windows Movie Maker! Yeah, I can do some mean edits with that crappy program, so just imagine how good I'd be with a professional one, but still… It will be tough to be any sort of competition with friggen WMM! Worst part about the program is that you can only move 7 frames at a time! I can’t cut something down frame-by-frame, and that hurts a lot of stuff – especially dubbing. It’s also hard in WMM to re-edit the timing of the video (like I MAJORLY had to do for “Bloodsucker Alucard”). It’s definitely gonna be a hard-ass battle to get up to par with these videos! Strange thing though, the ones I thought were AMAZING didn’t even place in the competitions, and most of the winners I was like “eh” when I watched… so who knows how the audience is gonna feel that day. *shrug* Great, 8 months of stressing about this damn AMV! >_<>
WHAAAA!? I'm going to a Con!? No ways!
My friend Mina is fairly big on anime, and therefore anime conventions. I have been quite envious of her because I have wanted to go to a Con for a long time. And while she manages to not only go, but also makes really good costumes to cosplay in, I, on the other hand, must stay home and wait for the time in which I have money.
In college, one of my professors had each of us write up a "hundred things to do before I die" list (now known as a "bucket list" - things to do before you "kick the bucket"). Mina found the list and offered to help me cross some of the things off. First was going to the amusement park Knoebels in Pennsylvania. One of our mutual friends was getting married, and since the whole lot of us are far from the "strip club" type, we had the bachelorette party at the park. Very fun indeed. Anyway, Mina noticed that another one of the items on my list was to go to a con. And so it was her sole mission for the past 6 months or so to find us one. And she succeeded.
There is a con in the PA/NJ/NY tri-state area. It rotates the state that houses it or something, but whatever – not important. The important thing is that it’s called AnimeNEXT and if we register before the end of the year we can go the entire weekend for just $35! Best part is that we can all commute to and from the con, so no added dough needed for hotel rooms. We could even BRING food and save a little more cash! I could pull off $35! Mina for the win!
I even have Remy agreeing to come with. He’s asking some of his Otaku friends if they’d like to join, and I have Celia and Peter deciding on my end. If we get a large enough crowd we may get even MORE knocked off with a group discount. Plus that means more people to split gas, so we each pay less! Win again! TOTAL WINAGE!
ANYWAY, the only problem is that the convention isn’t until JUNE of next year! They don't even have any information up about the 2010 con except for the location and weekend! I have to wait 8 months (roughly) for this convention! GAAAH! I can’t wait that long!!!! I’m totally obsessing over it already! Eight months of obsessing!? At least this blog will fill up quickly. >_<
In college, one of my professors had each of us write up a "hundred things to do before I die" list (now known as a "bucket list" - things to do before you "kick the bucket"). Mina found the list and offered to help me cross some of the things off. First was going to the amusement park Knoebels in Pennsylvania. One of our mutual friends was getting married, and since the whole lot of us are far from the "strip club" type, we had the bachelorette party at the park. Very fun indeed. Anyway, Mina noticed that another one of the items on my list was to go to a con. And so it was her sole mission for the past 6 months or so to find us one. And she succeeded.
There is a con in the PA/NJ/NY tri-state area. It rotates the state that houses it or something, but whatever – not important. The important thing is that it’s called AnimeNEXT and if we register before the end of the year we can go the entire weekend for just $35! Best part is that we can all commute to and from the con, so no added dough needed for hotel rooms. We could even BRING food and save a little more cash! I could pull off $35! Mina for the win!
I even have Remy agreeing to come with. He’s asking some of his Otaku friends if they’d like to join, and I have Celia and Peter deciding on my end. If we get a large enough crowd we may get even MORE knocked off with a group discount. Plus that means more people to split gas, so we each pay less! Win again! TOTAL WINAGE!
ANYWAY, the only problem is that the convention isn’t until JUNE of next year! They don't even have any information up about the 2010 con except for the location and weekend! I have to wait 8 months (roughly) for this convention! GAAAH! I can’t wait that long!!!! I’m totally obsessing over it already! Eight months of obsessing!? At least this blog will fill up quickly. >_<
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Movie Trailer Epicness!
OK... So, I wanted to put some videos that I had on my computer onto my cell phone. Unfortunately, simply converting them into .mov files still kept them too large of a file. Therefore I went online in search of a converter. I found the NCH Prism Video Converter. (Great program, but apparently the free download is only a trial T_T) Anyway, the converter download came with the option of downloading free versions of other video programs... such as:
Debut Video Capture Software
FlashLynx Online Video Downloader
Pixillion Image Converter Software
PhotoPad Image Editor
Photostage Slideshow Software
OK, well, now that I have these new toys, I have to play with them ^_^
Ever since I discovered the movie trailer for "9" last month (see earlier posts), I had thought "God, this and Advent Children would work AWESOMELY together!" Well, I went on good old YouTube and searched... but I'm epiclly horrible at searching for stuff - research papers in college were HORRIBLE! - and so, I didn't turn up anything. Well, with my new desire to play with my new programs I instantly knew what to do. I wanted to re-edit the "9" movie trailer using footage from the Final Fantasy VII movie "Advent Children".
I started off by using FlashLynx to download the official trailer off of YouTube. I then used Debut's computer screen capture to gather up Advent Children footage. Popped in my DVD and hit record... and soon after I realized the the free version of Debut only allows about 30 seconds of capturing! Crap... most of the fight scenes I wanted to capture were about 3 minutes at least... Worst part was that Debut beeps when it starts recording, but it doesn't beep when it stops recording; it beeps when it is done processing the capture. So it records for about 30 seconds, but you don't hear the second beep until about 40 or 50 seconds after you start recording. So I had to then re-watch everything I captured and rewind the movie so that the stop and start overlapped. That way I could re-edit the entire fight scenes together if I wanted. Anyway, this was a rediculously slow process that left me counting out seconds so that I didn't need to rewind and re-watch as much. I also had difficulties with Debut crashing on me about a 1/2 dozen times >_<
The next day (again, starting at about 5pm because of work...) I started working on the edit and nearly cried when I realized that the frame-rate I captured everything in wasn't compatible with Window's Movie Maker. Thankfully, Good Old NCH Prism could not only convert file types, but also frame-rates! YAY! FYI - frame rate is how many single frames make up a second of film. Normal frame-rate for TV is 30 frames per second (FPS), or - more accurately - 29.97FPS. Film is 25FPS I believe (hadn't had to think of anything besides TV Frame-rate for so long I can't recall!) *clears throat* Um... AAAANYWAY... so I converted the frame-rates and was good to go for the edit. Next problem, however, was when I stupiditly decided to re-organize all of my files by creating a folder to store all of the screen captures. Well, if I were using a professional editing system I could just relink everything and we'd be set. But, nope, not with WMM. I told it where to find the files after I switched them, and they still didn't function properly. And so I had to start all over! TT_TT Thankfully, I didn't do too much, but what I had was timed perfectly, so it was still annoying.
What I ended up doing was literally cutting out any "9" movie footage. I left the audio (obviously) and the on-screen graphics from the trailer. I just replaced the "9" footage with "Advent Children" footage. It was a long and slow process (finished at about 1am), but I am very happy with the end result. I watched it at least a dozen times before heading in to work at 11am the next day (October 8th). I then talked about it every time I wasn't with a customer. I was sort of going through minor withdrawals too; the entire time I was at work I just wanted to be home so I could watch the finished product again! I had posted the 2-minute video in about four different places online and I was antsy to see if anyone responded. Would people like it? I was therefore a little irritated when, for the 2nd day in a row, I had to stay almost an extra 20 minutes to help cover the next shift! Anyway, I rushed home to see if anyone commented on my videos... nothing... but I watched it a few dozen more times myself. (BTW, STILL no one has written a comment about whether or not they liked the end product T_T).
I shamelessly sent my video EVERYWHERE. I posted on Facebook for people to check it out. I sent IMs to a few friends asking them to watch the video. I actually sent it to another friend via Facebook for her to watch. I ambushed my sister to have her watch (she gave me a verbal "dude, that rocks"), and harassed her into showing Peter the video (who also gave a verbal thumbs up).
After watching the video about 30 times on YouTube, I finally noticed that one of the "related videos" was another "9" trailer using Advent Children! And it was posted in May! How did I miss this when I first searched!? Oh yea, I suck at searching... >_< So, now I was wondering how good my video was in comparison. I started to go insane comparing the two. I asked my sister for her opinion. I asked the two friends I was harassing on AIM to give their opinions. And I updated my status on Facebook asking the community for THEIR opinions... Quick side note: Parts of Kirakirakingyo's video that I really loved: Cloud floating in empty space, Kadaj diving after Jenova, and Vincent jumping from the beast. Also loved Cloud's dub for "something terrible". I then debated if I should go back and re-edit mine to use these parts of Kirakira's, but I think I'm gonna leave mine be. Anyway, end of side note.
So after watching Kirakira's I noticed someone ELSE had posted that they had made a trailer as well... Exia0929 seemed to have remixed the trailer audio as well... I really liked about 46 seconds in - the clip where Cloud dislodges his one sword by using a second one as sort of a parallel-bar. I think that worked beautifully and I again wondered if I should re-edit my video to put that clip in... And then I noticed ANOTHER TRAILER! How bad do I suck at searching!? Anyway, THIS one was EPIC! If you didn't click the link yet, well, thank you for still reading... but be sure to check it out! AngelDemon101 just used the trailer song "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria, remixed the song to cut out all the lyrics (it was well done), and just did an epic job at showcasing the different characters in the FFVII movies Advent Children and Crisis Core.
Well, after searching YouTube for a short time I started to wonder about the quality of my video. It isn't as grand as AngelDemon's, but it was proclaimed better than Kirakira's by everyone whom I asked. I guess I'm still proud of my work. I like the subtleness that is the Advent Children clips that correspond to the 9 footage. Perhaps I'll find a way to make a video in which both trailers are side-by-side... we'll see if I can figure out how to do that. In the mean time, I went back to what I originally set out to do - convert videos to carry with me on my phone. And guess what video made the cut ^_^ The audio sucks on my cell, but now I can show just about everyone I meet! ^_^
SOOOOOO Obsessed over this! Well... you might as well be obsessed too. Without further ado... my Advent Children "9" trailer! COMMENT!
Debut Video Capture Software
FlashLynx Online Video Downloader
Pixillion Image Converter Software
PhotoPad Image Editor
Photostage Slideshow Software
OK, well, now that I have these new toys, I have to play with them ^_^
Ever since I discovered the movie trailer for "9" last month (see earlier posts), I had thought "God, this and Advent Children would work AWESOMELY together!" Well, I went on good old YouTube and searched... but I'm epiclly horrible at searching for stuff - research papers in college were HORRIBLE! - and so, I didn't turn up anything. Well, with my new desire to play with my new programs I instantly knew what to do. I wanted to re-edit the "9" movie trailer using footage from the Final Fantasy VII movie "Advent Children".
I started off by using FlashLynx to download the official trailer off of YouTube. I then used Debut's computer screen capture to gather up Advent Children footage. Popped in my DVD and hit record... and soon after I realized the the free version of Debut only allows about 30 seconds of capturing! Crap... most of the fight scenes I wanted to capture were about 3 minutes at least... Worst part was that Debut beeps when it starts recording, but it doesn't beep when it stops recording; it beeps when it is done processing the capture. So it records for about 30 seconds, but you don't hear the second beep until about 40 or 50 seconds after you start recording. So I had to then re-watch everything I captured and rewind the movie so that the stop and start overlapped. That way I could re-edit the entire fight scenes together if I wanted. Anyway, this was a rediculously slow process that left me counting out seconds so that I didn't need to rewind and re-watch as much. I also had difficulties with Debut crashing on me about a 1/2 dozen times >_<
The next day (again, starting at about 5pm because of work...) I started working on the edit and nearly cried when I realized that the frame-rate I captured everything in wasn't compatible with Window's Movie Maker. Thankfully, Good Old NCH Prism could not only convert file types, but also frame-rates! YAY! FYI - frame rate is how many single frames make up a second of film. Normal frame-rate for TV is 30 frames per second (FPS), or - more accurately - 29.97FPS. Film is 25FPS I believe (hadn't had to think of anything besides TV Frame-rate for so long I can't recall!) *clears throat* Um... AAAANYWAY... so I converted the frame-rates and was good to go for the edit. Next problem, however, was when I stupiditly decided to re-organize all of my files by creating a folder to store all of the screen captures. Well, if I were using a professional editing system I could just relink everything and we'd be set. But, nope, not with WMM. I told it where to find the files after I switched them, and they still didn't function properly. And so I had to start all over! TT_TT Thankfully, I didn't do too much, but what I had was timed perfectly, so it was still annoying.
What I ended up doing was literally cutting out any "9" movie footage. I left the audio (obviously) and the on-screen graphics from the trailer. I just replaced the "9" footage with "Advent Children" footage. It was a long and slow process (finished at about 1am), but I am very happy with the end result. I watched it at least a dozen times before heading in to work at 11am the next day (October 8th). I then talked about it every time I wasn't with a customer. I was sort of going through minor withdrawals too; the entire time I was at work I just wanted to be home so I could watch the finished product again! I had posted the 2-minute video in about four different places online and I was antsy to see if anyone responded. Would people like it? I was therefore a little irritated when, for the 2nd day in a row, I had to stay almost an extra 20 minutes to help cover the next shift! Anyway, I rushed home to see if anyone commented on my videos... nothing... but I watched it a few dozen more times myself. (BTW, STILL no one has written a comment about whether or not they liked the end product T_T).
I shamelessly sent my video EVERYWHERE. I posted on Facebook for people to check it out. I sent IMs to a few friends asking them to watch the video. I actually sent it to another friend via Facebook for her to watch. I ambushed my sister to have her watch (she gave me a verbal "dude, that rocks"), and harassed her into showing Peter the video (who also gave a verbal thumbs up).
After watching the video about 30 times on YouTube, I finally noticed that one of the "related videos" was another "9" trailer using Advent Children! And it was posted in May! How did I miss this when I first searched!? Oh yea, I suck at searching... >_< So, now I was wondering how good my video was in comparison. I started to go insane comparing the two. I asked my sister for her opinion. I asked the two friends I was harassing on AIM to give their opinions. And I updated my status on Facebook asking the community for THEIR opinions... Quick side note: Parts of Kirakirakingyo's video that I really loved: Cloud floating in empty space, Kadaj diving after Jenova, and Vincent jumping from the beast. Also loved Cloud's dub for "something terrible". I then debated if I should go back and re-edit mine to use these parts of Kirakira's, but I think I'm gonna leave mine be. Anyway, end of side note.
So after watching Kirakira's I noticed someone ELSE had posted that they had made a trailer as well... Exia0929 seemed to have remixed the trailer audio as well... I really liked about 46 seconds in - the clip where Cloud dislodges his one sword by using a second one as sort of a parallel-bar. I think that worked beautifully and I again wondered if I should re-edit my video to put that clip in... And then I noticed ANOTHER TRAILER! How bad do I suck at searching!? Anyway, THIS one was EPIC! If you didn't click the link yet, well, thank you for still reading... but be sure to check it out! AngelDemon101 just used the trailer song "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria, remixed the song to cut out all the lyrics (it was well done), and just did an epic job at showcasing the different characters in the FFVII movies Advent Children and Crisis Core.
Well, after searching YouTube for a short time I started to wonder about the quality of my video. It isn't as grand as AngelDemon's, but it was proclaimed better than Kirakira's by everyone whom I asked. I guess I'm still proud of my work. I like the subtleness that is the Advent Children clips that correspond to the 9 footage. Perhaps I'll find a way to make a video in which both trailers are side-by-side... we'll see if I can figure out how to do that. In the mean time, I went back to what I originally set out to do - convert videos to carry with me on my phone. And guess what video made the cut ^_^ The audio sucks on my cell, but now I can show just about everyone I meet! ^_^
SOOOOOO Obsessed over this! Well... you might as well be obsessed too. Without further ado... my Advent Children "9" trailer! COMMENT!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
TV... oh how many hours have been wasted watching you!
TV's Fall line-up actually looks pretty good. Which is usually a bad sign for me.
Whenever I like new shows they always tend to get cancelled... Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, My Own Worst Enemy (although I do like Christian Slater's new show The Forgotten), The Black Donnellys, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which ironically was replaced BY The Black Donnelly's), DayBreak (the Taye Diggs ABC show before he was put on Private Practice), Eli Stone, Trust Me, Traveler, Dark Angel... you get the idea.
*side note... I'm not really sure if it's getting picked up for a 2nd season, so I don't know if I should put Mental here with the cancellations, or over in the "good luck" categories below...
Basically, any show that I liked and required any semblance of intelligence to watch it... it gets cancelled within the first 2 years... And if they don't get cancelled, something happens that makes me not really care about the show anymore, such as Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Smallville, and Heroes - sure I still WATCH them, but I could easily do so on the internet, whatevers.
However, if I jump on the bandwagon after a show established itself, it seems fine. My current “established” shows are: The Office, NCIS, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, Two & a Half Men, Hells Kitchen, Mythbusters, Big Brother , and the age-old The Simpsons (which I phase in and out of throughout its 20-years).
So, in hopes to at least remember the titles in the future if my curse continues to thrive… I would like to wish good luck to my shows entering their junior and sophomore seasons: The Big Bang Theory (OMG hilarious!), Castle (Such great chemistry, Nathan Fillion is brilliant), Fringe (intense and humorous – LOVE IT), and Dollhouse (Dark Angel meets My Own Worst Enemy meets Joss Whedon’s genius). Here’s hoping you don’t stop at 2 years (or 3 with BBT)…
And now for the newbies this season - here's hoping they get at least ONE season under their belt: Accidentally on Purpose (great comedic timing, Jenna Elfman still has it if you ask me), The Forgotten, Hank (poor Kelsey Grammer is still trying to recreate the success of Frasier...), The Middle (not terribly funny, but it is amusing), and Flash Forward (AWESOME pilot! Here's hoping it's the "New Heroes"...).
I'd also like to comment about the show Merlin even though it was only a summer-season show and is no longer on. It was awesome and I'm hoping it got enough buzz to come back, and not just over the summer. Same goes for the quirkey office show Better Off Ted. Those summer seasons are way too short. For instance, I also watch My Boys and it feels like there is only like 9 shows every “season”… if they are going to do that, couldn’t TBS have like 2 or 3 “seasons” each year, like how America’s Next Top Model and Survivor have multiple “cycles” per year?
Well, anyway, there we have it, the list of the shows that I love right now. Quick recap? Sure!
-How I Met Your Mother
-Accidentally on Purpose
-Two & a Half Men
-The Big Bang Theory
-Castle
-Heroes
-NCIS (trying to give the Los Angeles spin off a chance, but the magic just isn’t there)
-Hell's Kitchen
-The Forgotten
-Hank
-The Middle
-Criminal Minds
-CSI (mainly the NY version, although I used to be a fan of the original)
-Mythbusters
-FlashForward
-Grey’s Anatomy
-Fringe
-The Office
-Dollhouse
-Smallville
-Desperate Housewives
-The Simpsons
-Merlin (summer show)
-My Boys (summer show)
-Big Brother (summer show)
-I Survived a Japanese Game Show (summer show)
-Wipeout (summer show)
-Better Off Ted (summer show)
Oops… tis TV watchin’ time! Byes…
Whenever I like new shows they always tend to get cancelled... Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, My Own Worst Enemy (although I do like Christian Slater's new show The Forgotten), The Black Donnellys, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which ironically was replaced BY The Black Donnelly's), DayBreak (the Taye Diggs ABC show before he was put on Private Practice), Eli Stone, Trust Me, Traveler, Dark Angel... you get the idea.
*side note... I'm not really sure if it's getting picked up for a 2nd season, so I don't know if I should put Mental here with the cancellations, or over in the "good luck" categories below...
Basically, any show that I liked and required any semblance of intelligence to watch it... it gets cancelled within the first 2 years... And if they don't get cancelled, something happens that makes me not really care about the show anymore, such as Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Smallville, and Heroes - sure I still WATCH them, but I could easily do so on the internet, whatevers.
However, if I jump on the bandwagon after a show established itself, it seems fine. My current “established” shows are: The Office, NCIS, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, Two & a Half Men, Hells Kitchen, Mythbusters, Big Brother , and the age-old The Simpsons (which I phase in and out of throughout its 20-years).
So, in hopes to at least remember the titles in the future if my curse continues to thrive… I would like to wish good luck to my shows entering their junior and sophomore seasons: The Big Bang Theory (OMG hilarious!), Castle (Such great chemistry, Nathan Fillion is brilliant), Fringe (intense and humorous – LOVE IT), and Dollhouse (Dark Angel meets My Own Worst Enemy meets Joss Whedon’s genius). Here’s hoping you don’t stop at 2 years (or 3 with BBT)…
And now for the newbies this season - here's hoping they get at least ONE season under their belt: Accidentally on Purpose (great comedic timing, Jenna Elfman still has it if you ask me), The Forgotten, Hank (poor Kelsey Grammer is still trying to recreate the success of Frasier...), The Middle (not terribly funny, but it is amusing), and Flash Forward (AWESOME pilot! Here's hoping it's the "New Heroes"...).
I'd also like to comment about the show Merlin even though it was only a summer-season show and is no longer on. It was awesome and I'm hoping it got enough buzz to come back, and not just over the summer. Same goes for the quirkey office show Better Off Ted. Those summer seasons are way too short. For instance, I also watch My Boys and it feels like there is only like 9 shows every “season”… if they are going to do that, couldn’t TBS have like 2 or 3 “seasons” each year, like how America’s Next Top Model and Survivor have multiple “cycles” per year?
Well, anyway, there we have it, the list of the shows that I love right now. Quick recap? Sure!
-How I Met Your Mother
-Accidentally on Purpose
-Two & a Half Men
-The Big Bang Theory
-Castle
-Heroes
-NCIS (trying to give the Los Angeles spin off a chance, but the magic just isn’t there)
-Hell's Kitchen
-The Forgotten
-Hank
-The Middle
-Criminal Minds
-CSI (mainly the NY version, although I used to be a fan of the original)
-Mythbusters
-FlashForward
-Grey’s Anatomy
-Fringe
-The Office
-Dollhouse
-Smallville
-Desperate Housewives
-The Simpsons
-Merlin (summer show)
-My Boys (summer show)
-Big Brother (summer show)
-I Survived a Japanese Game Show (summer show)
-Wipeout (summer show)
-Better Off Ted (summer show)
Oops… tis TV watchin’ time! Byes…
General Obsessive List... moving on...
Truth be told, I haven't really be obsessive lately - I KNOW! RIGHT!? - anyway, I just haven't really in the mood to do just about anything... so I'm actually working on a lot of little things...
1) I am attempting to put together a webcomic, but I'm not very good at drawing, so everything is on the computer. I didn't have the money for Photoshop and/or Illustrator, so I downloaded a free vector-drawing program (kind of like a free Adobe Illustrator). The program is called InkScape and even though it helps me accomplish what I need, it's not terribly user friendly. And since I had spent a semester of college doing computer graphic design through Illustrator, I'm frustrated at the shortcomings of InkScape. I know, you get what you pay for and yada-yada, but it's still annoying to think out "ok, I just do this, this, and this" but then not be able to do ANY of that because the layout of InkScape doesn't allow it... so then I have the fun of trying to figure out how to do it in InkScape and get the same results. Quite annoying... Regardless, once I start working on sketching something out I tend to not stop until a)something else (like hunger) stops me, or b) I get too frustrated with the program.
2) I read multiple webcomics - one of which gave me the inspiration to start my own. So when I need to kill time I tend to catch up on them. I'm all caught up with the one that inspired me, Game Destroyers. It has a forum attached with a small community involved. I tend to take the 3 minutes or so to read the comic - which is updated daily, but WHEN each day is the trick... - and then head over to the forum, but since the author went on a hiatus back in May the forum has kind-of died... TT_TT. The second one I mainly read is Order of the Stick. But again, I'm all caught up and the author of THAT one doesn't seem to update at even the remotest of schedules. It's usually a 2-second look to see IF he updated, and then another 3 minutes or so to read the comic. It saddens me that he updates so infrequently since it's my favorite comic that I read. The third one I spend a lot of time on is 8-Bit Theater. I started reading this one after watching the Flash animations a fan did to help promote the comic. However, I lost track of the comic and only picked it up again earlier this year. So now I still have like 5 years worth of comics to catch up on (just finished 2004 - booya!) so this is the one I just sit and read (usually in month intervals). Other comics that I read, but only on rare occasions are: Sluggy Freelance (one of Remy's favorites aside from Game Destroyers), DM of the Rings (Dungeons & Dragons meets Lord of the Rings - literally, it's screenshots of the movies and scripted like a D&D campaign...), Lackadaisy (honestly, I've never read it, but it was recommended reading and the illustration is nice), A Modest Destiny (a great comic that I'm all caught up on and the author seemed to have abandoned... so I'm just waiting out it's return...), Zombie Grammar (introduced to me by one of my friends, very amusing - and instructional - and also showed me the site I base my comic characters off of).
3) I play an online game called Ikariam, however it is a VERY slow-paced strategy game, and so I just do this, that, and the other thing (which usually takes all of like 5 minutes to do) and I'm basically done for the day... If you want to play with I'm on Theta with the name Lycorinea (kinda a Greekified version of LycoRogue... right?)
4) Remy's one friend Jake recently got Diablo II (well the whole battlepack), and so he got back into the game and tried to drag me along. I actually really like both Diablo and Diablo II, but I'm not much for those games. I like RPGs that require puzzle solving along with them. Plus I never know which equipment to keep and to sell and how to build my character... I'm kind of like Jack Skellington: It confuses me, but I love it... ^_^ Remy and I used to play Fiesta, but we haven't done that in a few months now. I kind of want to jump back on again...
5) I was going to write about my Fall Line-up obsessions, but it got too long, so that will be the next post...
6) My biggest obsession right now, especially after watching "The Hero of Time" (see last post), is playing Ocarina of Time again. I'm maybe 1/2 way through the game (only like a 1/3 if I try to finish all the side quests....). I'm a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan (duh), and so I play quite often (actually was almost late for work yesterday because of it...). However, it's just not as much fun on the computer as it is with the actual controller in your hand, so *shrug* Perhaps I'll con someone into getting me an N64 emulator controller for x-mas....
Well, there you have it, the little obsessions that fill the void that is the non-work/non-sleep portions of my day ^_^
1) I am attempting to put together a webcomic, but I'm not very good at drawing, so everything is on the computer. I didn't have the money for Photoshop and/or Illustrator, so I downloaded a free vector-drawing program (kind of like a free Adobe Illustrator). The program is called InkScape and even though it helps me accomplish what I need, it's not terribly user friendly. And since I had spent a semester of college doing computer graphic design through Illustrator, I'm frustrated at the shortcomings of InkScape. I know, you get what you pay for and yada-yada, but it's still annoying to think out "ok, I just do this, this, and this" but then not be able to do ANY of that because the layout of InkScape doesn't allow it... so then I have the fun of trying to figure out how to do it in InkScape and get the same results. Quite annoying... Regardless, once I start working on sketching something out I tend to not stop until a)something else (like hunger) stops me, or b) I get too frustrated with the program.
2) I read multiple webcomics - one of which gave me the inspiration to start my own. So when I need to kill time I tend to catch up on them. I'm all caught up with the one that inspired me, Game Destroyers. It has a forum attached with a small community involved. I tend to take the 3 minutes or so to read the comic - which is updated daily, but WHEN each day is the trick... - and then head over to the forum, but since the author went on a hiatus back in May the forum has kind-of died... TT_TT. The second one I mainly read is Order of the Stick. But again, I'm all caught up and the author of THAT one doesn't seem to update at even the remotest of schedules. It's usually a 2-second look to see IF he updated, and then another 3 minutes or so to read the comic. It saddens me that he updates so infrequently since it's my favorite comic that I read. The third one I spend a lot of time on is 8-Bit Theater. I started reading this one after watching the Flash animations a fan did to help promote the comic. However, I lost track of the comic and only picked it up again earlier this year. So now I still have like 5 years worth of comics to catch up on (just finished 2004 - booya!) so this is the one I just sit and read (usually in month intervals). Other comics that I read, but only on rare occasions are: Sluggy Freelance (one of Remy's favorites aside from Game Destroyers), DM of the Rings (Dungeons & Dragons meets Lord of the Rings - literally, it's screenshots of the movies and scripted like a D&D campaign...), Lackadaisy (honestly, I've never read it, but it was recommended reading and the illustration is nice), A Modest Destiny (a great comic that I'm all caught up on and the author seemed to have abandoned... so I'm just waiting out it's return...), Zombie Grammar (introduced to me by one of my friends, very amusing - and instructional - and also showed me the site I base my comic characters off of).
3) I play an online game called Ikariam, however it is a VERY slow-paced strategy game, and so I just do this, that, and the other thing (which usually takes all of like 5 minutes to do) and I'm basically done for the day... If you want to play with I'm on Theta with the name Lycorinea (kinda a Greekified version of LycoRogue... right?)
4) Remy's one friend Jake recently got Diablo II (well the whole battlepack), and so he got back into the game and tried to drag me along. I actually really like both Diablo and Diablo II, but I'm not much for those games. I like RPGs that require puzzle solving along with them. Plus I never know which equipment to keep and to sell and how to build my character... I'm kind of like Jack Skellington: It confuses me, but I love it... ^_^ Remy and I used to play Fiesta, but we haven't done that in a few months now. I kind of want to jump back on again...
5) I was going to write about my Fall Line-up obsessions, but it got too long, so that will be the next post...
6) My biggest obsession right now, especially after watching "The Hero of Time" (see last post), is playing Ocarina of Time again. I'm maybe 1/2 way through the game (only like a 1/3 if I try to finish all the side quests....). I'm a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan (duh), and so I play quite often (actually was almost late for work yesterday because of it...). However, it's just not as much fun on the computer as it is with the actual controller in your hand, so *shrug* Perhaps I'll con someone into getting me an N64 emulator controller for x-mas....
Well, there you have it, the little obsessions that fill the void that is the non-work/non-sleep portions of my day ^_^
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