Saints Row: The Third

I don't want to make this a habit, this blog isn't for game reviews, however I felt the need to do this post for this particular game. I admit that I played Saints Row 2 before I even bothered to check out the first game. The reason is simple, I've been a fan of GTA since GTA3 (did play earlier GTA top view games but they are meh) and my favorite so far is San Andreas. So when GTA4 came into picture I had to buy either a 360 or a PS3 (back then they were absurdly expensive) and Microsoft made a "smart" move by getting exclusive content earlier (one whole year earlier than the PS3 version) so that along with Mass Effect (back then BioWARE was doing games only on the 360 and the PC) sealed the deal. I can't say that GTA4 was disappointing, more like it was a new kind of game, focused on characters and story telling. Giving you less freedom to play but at the same time accomplishing what few games can, (and movies) an engaging story. Soon after GTA4 was released Volition decided to advertise Saints Row 2 comparing it to the masterpiece GTA4 had become. That's usually suicide but when they actually were advertising "would you rather have fun than just play an interactive movie" I took interest and ended up buying it (after I read you could create your own character in literally any gender) Then I played through it and while the graphics weren't even close to those in GTA4 the game was way more fun than GTA San Andreas. Add to the mix full co-op through the campaign (multiplayer was added too but it sucked) and you have an incredible game that quickly became one of my favorite games of all time. There were some bugs and DLC was too expensive considering the content and what was requested in the forums. So we were all waiting for the third game to fulfill those wishes.

So Saints Row: The Third had to do a lot of things, improve the graphics, gameplay, overcome the limitations caused by their game engine (reason why they couldn't fulfill our requests for SR2) and stay over the top. I'd say they did just that but with this new engine new limitations were brought.

POSITIVE:

I'm going to start with some of the positives in this game, there are many more than I'm willing to type here. First of all the graphics, not hyper realistic like GTA4 and that's a great thing, I like the semi cartoony look SR3 has, it's perfect.

Animations are excellent. People give a lot of praise to Uncharted 3's facial animations (their mocaps are excellent thanks to the actors that play the characters) and that's undeserved. They were done a lot better in Uncharted 2, in fact a lot of things were better in uncharted 2 but this isn't the time for that. The facial expressions in Saints Row 3 are so good, that sometimes they didn't even use dialog to make a joke or have a character to character interaction. For example the way Pierce looks at the MC after saying "The last time a big naked dude said he could help me, it did not end well" and the MC giving him a WTF look is just priceless. Or Shaundi losing her temper with Josh.

Voice Acting. Once again it was incredible, kudos to Sasha Grey too, I liked Viola and I was pretty sure I wouldn't like her. Hulk Hogan as Angel was also good but he has acting experience, or should I say more acting experience than Sasha, yet Sasha did better, Hogan felt like he was reading most of the time. Daniel Dae Kim once again as Gat is perfect, would love to see him play the actual character in a real movie or voice him again if they do an animated one. Eliza Dushku for whatever reason(s) did not play Shaundi this time, that doesn't mean that Danielle didn't do a great job, she was awesome. Pretty much everyone did great, didn't like MC Fem voice 2 much but that's relative I guess.

Story, well... The Saints are at the top and a lot of shit happens, then some weird shit happens, then some weirder shit happens and it ends. I liked the story but I'll write more about it in the negative section though.

The fanservice, well we finally get what we asked and asled for. ZOMBIES!!! In Saints Row 2 you had the game within the game called Zombie Uprising, in that you got to play as a pre selected character on a specific map and had to survive wave after wave of zombies. It was fun and could be co-oped but we wanted to take it to the streets and use our own character. We asked for a cheat code to make pedestrians zombies or at least zombie like. don't know the reason but they didn't comply then, we got it now. In Saints Row: The Third they introduce a zombie outbreak during the story, that section of the map gets "isolated" by STAG in an effort to contain it.

From that point on that section of the map will always have zombies, so you and a friend can go there and play around just killing zombies. You might get crew alerts (random phone calls from members of your crew and other people that tell you about a survival type of mini game) around that area. If you get the Luchadores one you have to be quick or the zombies will kill them before you do and you lose your chance at beating the survival (at least during the first wave) especially if you bought some gang related upgrades. Volition included a cheat code (remember cheat codes disable achievements and trophies so I don't recommend activating them on your main save file) called BRAINS that turns pedestrians into zombies. Personally I think it's a nice touch that adds a certain low level of replay value. Why low? well unlike getting the alert to help your crew against the zombies there's nothing you can do but kill, kill, kill. Especially after you've finished the game when you're pretty much untouchable with all the upgrades. Some creative people might use it to make some movies, especially on the gorgeous looking PC version.

Professor Genki is perhaps the greatest addition to Saints Row. I didn't think too much of it by watching the trailers. even though I preordered the game to get the Genki stuff I didn't get into it until I played through the mission. It is awesome and the voice actors doing the narration are awesome, you'll have some laughs especially if you come from Saints Row 2. Not only is it fun to play but talk about a cash cow.

NEGATIVE:

First of all the story is too short, they made it "longer" by forcing you to play activities. Boss fights are a joke and every villain outside of Killbane lacks interest. Sure Loren holds your interest as he is supposed to be the main villain but he dies so fast it's absurd (funny death though)

Shaundi is another negative in this game, even more so than a certain Saint's death. The voice actress did an amazing job, but just the same it wasn't Dushku playing Shaundi, so not only her appearance changed a lot but her voice too. I wouldn't be too harsh on that if they kept the essence of the character but they butchered her personality. Now don't get me wrong, the Shaundi in Saints Row 3 is a good character, just not the Shaundi we met in SR2. I would rather have them call her a new name, say she was Gat's new love interest as she's a lot more trigger happy now and it would be OK with the story as it is. Sure you might want to know more about how the two of them met and how she ended up being a lieutenant but that's what car chit chat during missions is for.

Forced ending, yes you supposedly have two endings to choose. At first I thought cool, whatever you play first is canon. Wrong. OK so whatever your second option is becomes canon. Wrong again. If you decide to take your revenge, the statue blows up, then you get to pick the ending in which you save the statue. After you saved it and everyone in it you're returned to a city where the statue was blown up. I read about a "glitch" that if you play the same ending twice (has to be done in co-op the second time to have the option available again) the game count it as the true ending, will have to try that.

SPOILER
Gat's death is probably the lamest part of the game, even though it's not the worst.

Not cutscene nor mission replayability. Seriously What The HELL? SR1 had it, SR2 had it better why remove that feature? It doesn't even have a New Game + option which would be enough. They made a fuss about being able to track your game progress on the website yet the game forces you to have a new game (to play with different paths) which completely destroys your accomplishments on the website. If you have to I recommend doing it after you've unlocked everything you can unlock on your first run, finish all the side missions and activities, basically get as close to 100% as possible. then start a new game to get the alternates and once you get all achievements/trophies you go back to your near (hopefully it's not near but 100%, co-op helps too) and do an activity, win it and save. That should bring back your stats.

No more clothing layers. You're forced to wear the tops and bottoms the way they are shown at the store or the Initiation Station if you don't have the game yet. So basically mix and match tops and bottoms and change their colors, that's it.

Zombie pedestrian cheat doesn't work in co-op. Now seriously What The Fuck? So what's the point?

Season pass. I hate it and I know SR3 didn't invent this crap but whomever did deserves death. They did the same thing for Uncharted 3. They can shove that one too, I'm not buying season crap. One thing is what BioWare did with Mass Effect, adding a code for their online store that came with new games. If you bought one used and the code was invalid you had to buy access to it and it wasn't cheap. $15 no less. So yea I approve of that and a totally different is asking you to buy stuff that should have been in the game but not only did they "exclude" it they also want you to wait for it to be released. Sorry Volition but I don't give a crap about outfits that have a one way to be worn version. Want my money? give me some of the stuff you removed from Saints Row 2 or good clothing packs.

There are a few more negatives as they are positives but that's it for now. Overall the game is a lot of fun, even better in co-op. the best missions are in the first Act though. Totally recommend a buy.

Update

Well it's been a while since I've posted anything on my blog. First of all I want to apologize to those of you who are waiting for me to finish your commissions. I've lost my computer and the moment I bought a new one my monitor, which lasted 12 years, died too. So I had to use another monitor that I have (this one is an LCD with 7 years of age) but this one is too bright for accurate drawings. I've messed with the settings but still it doesn't look like it should. I also have constant back pains that are annoying the hell out of me.

I've been doing some drawings at work to keep myself practicing, here's a set of those.


I've also been playing a lot of uncharted 2. This has to be the best game I've played in a long while. The mechanics are awesome and the multiplayer is a blast when you aren't paired up with a bunch of asses.

Zairyo's Scrapbook Volume 1

It is finally done. After countless designs, sketches and full illustrations I finally managed to put together my first Artbook. The book has 42 pages of art with over 100 illustrations which contains full color images and sketches. Some illustrations feature artistic nudity. The type of characters in this book range anything from Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Mystery. From Cybernetics to Magical girls to Demon hunters, everything of my interest is showcased here.

There are different ways you can get it. If you want a Digital version you can buy it through lulu.com by clicking here:







If you prefer to buy it directly from me and you have a deviantart account you can send me a note there. You can read more details about it on my journal entry.

There's also a hard copy version available at IndyPlanet.com
You can buy it here:



P R E V I E W




























If you sign up to Indyplanet.com or Ka-blam.com let them know that Zairyo sent you. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the book.

How can you make money with commissioned work

Well as most of you know I work on commissions most of my free time, some people appreciate the low prices and give out bonus payment which is extremely gratifying after you've spent a lot of time trying to get that commission to look just right. Others want to get commissioned work but they don't have the money to spend on that "luxury" Granted it can be seen as just that, a luxury but it also can be an investment. I watch a lot of artists on Deviantart and I've noticed that some have been hired by the same person, which usually has an original character. Now here's the important part, since it's your character you're the owner of that intellectual property therefore you are free to do as you please but keep in mind that you should always ask the artist for his/her blessing before you go off selling the art.

Let's use my character Sam Irons as an example. Let's say I don't have a lot of money on me (so true) but know that $10 is something I can afford on art, even if it is black and white only. I would then browse deviantart for artists that charge that much (which believe it or not there are plenty good ones) I would go with my favorite first and keep the others on watch for when I get another $10. OK so I have selected my artist, the character belongs to me and I have a plan on how to make a profit off my commission. Basically I have different products in mind and there are sites like Zazzle, Lulu and Cafepress that sell them for you. So you get the dimensions of the largest product you need and request the artist to do it that way or at least something close. Now you got your first commission of that character done, It looks great on a shirt but you know a Black and white drawing doesn't always make a good all around product, however your aim is to get enough art so you can make an artbook of your character. So you take the picture and save it somewhere on your computer where you'll keep adding commissions, name it so that you can easily identify it and make sure you have all the artist's info so you can give credit where credit is due.

OK let's skip ahead and say I have around 40 illustrations of my character by different artists. I need a cover for the book and a back cover image too and they have to be colored. I've already spent $40 on the illustrations alone now I need to spend more. Let's say you've already sold some of the products you've made and have gotten some of the money back, nice feeling huh. OK so you're willing to spend $60 more for both images, that means you could either go for a simple design for the back cover and use all $60 on high quality stuff for the cover or divide it in $40 for the front and $20 for the back. The front cover is what might sell your book. Since this is my hypothesis I would go with 2 artists for the cover and do something simple myself for the back. So I'm spending the whole $60 on the cover what should I do? well I have an artist in mind that has great drawing skills and charges $30 but no inks. That could be troublesome so I just add him to the list and keep looking. I find another one that does everything, pencils inks and colors for $60 but it's not as great as the first one so again I add him/her to the list and keep looking. I ran into some guy that does great colors for $30 so I sent him/her a note about the inks, if it matters or not. It happens that he/she paints over the lineart as if it was a painting so technically the lineart is lost. It's a gamble but looking at the artists galley I know it will turn out great so I hire my first choice for the art and then get the painter spending the $60 I had. The end result is great but I feel like I should showcase the lineart anyway so I used it for the back cover. I start then making sure all the pages are done correctly and that every artist has been credited. Now it's time to sell my book. Lulu and Comixpress are the best choices so use the one that suits you best and remember you can also add the digital download option. Selling your products at conventions (if you're lucky enough to live somewhere where they have them) is also a great thing.

Hope this gives you an idea of what you can do in the future with your commissioned work. One more thing, when you contact ther artists that did the illustrations let them know about the book, chances are they'll be the first ones to buy them as it counts as published material and it's great for the resume.

Trading Cards Slide Show

Just a Rock You slide show featuring some of the trading cards I've done.

The MOC Challenge

Superhawke's Chapter



Since before the MOC Challenge started back in June or something, Dangerman asked me to do the art for his chapter. Following his page layouts these are the sketches that I came up with. I'll be doing the inking but the colors will be applied by someone else (don't know who)

Since this is a blog let me rant a little about what happened to my work on page 2. Originally I did the page you see here which is pretty close (the closest of all 4 pages) to Dangerman's layout. His layout pages were meant to be a guide as he did not defined anything in particular leaving me the option to play around with the camera but keeping in mind the script he had already set for them. So after the basic layout was done I felt that the first last two panels (the one with the eye and the other with the enemy) could be merged into one and at the same time give a little intro to the first panel of page 3. So the changes were made on that part of the page, the second panel was moved to the upper side and the first panel was changed as well. Camera view on the first panel was near the fallen's head and you could see both heroes from there to set the distance between them. Unfortunately I made a terrible mistake when saving. I was working with multiple programs, SAI was the one I was using for drawing and Open Canvas for some retouching and saving. For some reason the save on SAI got corrupted and it wouldn't open on OC, normally it wouldn't be so bad but I had closed SAI so I lost over 40 mins of work. I still miss the way that page looked but I couldn't bring myself to do it again so it stays like what you see now. Hope that it is good enough.

Rant over.

For Reference

Mike "nickleboy" Brooks once shared this little insight at how comic production is divided and of course paid, to avoid getting ripped off. More often than not I forget where the hell did I save that image so now to make things easier (unless this post gets deleted over time) I have it here on my blog.

While looking for the image I found what seems to be a skin color guide based on ethnicity. I can't remember where I got it (more than likely an image board) so thanks to whomever did it and sorry I couldn't give the right credit.