Daniel Orta
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Posts by Daniel Orta
photobloggin’ it.
Nov 29th
So I’m keeping sort of a photoblog in conjunction with my regular blog. I’m using Posterous for it, which is a pretty bitchin’ blogging site designed to be posted through email. Ch-ch-check it out.
Has anyone seen my tripod?
GTA Retrospective Review
Nov 2nd
This is a little piece i just felt writing, just for the hell of it. I thought about GTA IV some, and seeing a friend just recently play through the multimillion dollar game made me think a bit about the whole experience of the game. I wrote it a long time ago, and I just found the whole review on my Google Documents account. So uh, here it goes.
Up to the launch of Grand Theft Auto 4, there was practically an embargo of information on the game, so much so that there was speculation on internet forums to how the HUD would actually look like. Rockstar kept pulling down early gameplay videos from youtube and other sites hours to the launch of the hotly anticipated game.
So much of the game was kept under wraps it felt as if this was actually a super-secret government project (might as well have been one, really). So when video game reviewers had to review the game, it was short, quick and rather dirty, and to have them base the review upon any first impressions of the game were… well nonexistent. As such, I’m basing this whole review upon playing it, listening to other people’s reviews and concerns of the game, and as such, shaping it to be a review after the fact.
When the first fully 3D GTA game came out, GTA3, it was almost a proof of concept to where can games go and what the genre can do. Think about it. There wasn’t much to do, save for the main storyline and the car racing (well, it was car racing, ambulance, taxi, and cop missions, but really, when you think about it, the three are just racing but with different style to each one) but it was a proof of concept, and a fun one at that.
It also was a prime tech example of the Renderware engine, an obscure engine at the time, became one of the prime engines during the previous console generation. Everything from Tony Hawk to Spongebob Squarepants games were built upon this game engine. GTA3 led upon this platform, which made the programming upon the once difficult PS2 to be a breeze for developers.
Games like this wasn’t so open as we knew it, and games to follow have followed along to that standard the original had set. The following Grand Theft Auto games brought along different ideas to the game, including the simplistic mogul concept from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and the gang control element from San Andreas. Each simply improved upon the sandbox formula and brought upon new flavorings to the genre.
So where does this put GTA IV, then? Simple: right back at GTA3. The return to Liberty City as a setting is also one of a stylistic flavoring, for the developers to return to the original sandbox they had created and rebuild it. No, it was much more than that- it flattened the sandbox and built something new. What had been an algham of various New York city elements actually felt like a fluid city with its respective neighborhoods and people.
What was at the time the de-facto standard for third person shooters (lock on and shoot and pray that you’re actually hitting the guy that’s shooting you) the game replaces it with a rather ridiculous cover system. (Mind you, i could not find a word for the aiming system in my vocabulary at the time- I instead turned to a friend playing the game at the moment, to which he responded “ridiculous” as he used said targeting to pop a headshot with relative ease.) This game is no longer simply a better version than its counterparts- by doing away with the standards it had set out to do, the game simply raised the bar for other games in the genre within this new generation of games to follow suit.
GTA4 also attempts to push yet another new engine, Rockstar’s own RAGE engine, which is yet to be known if this engine will be licensed along the Unreal Tournament 3 engine and other next gen properties. However, its animation engine, known as Euphoria, had its first major debut at E3 2006. With videos showing crudely sculpted characters dynamically reacting to one another instead of using pre-scripted animations, it proved to be a major stepping stone for next generation games, and was to be released with a new Indiana Jones game (which with much of Lucasart’s non-Star Wars games, seems to have disappeared). With a high profile game such as GTA4, the Euphoria engine may recieve much more licenses in the future as GTA4 serves as a posterboy to the technologies in the game.
However, as much as the game attempts to be it’s own GTA3 for the next generation, it’s own realism can be its downfall. GTA games were always campy in nature. It was ultra-violent, yes, but there was a level of surrealism and coy jokes layered upon the best selling series. Really now, is any regular person going to break into a Area 51-esque place to steal a jet pack? Is a drug dealer really going to rise to the top in a Scarface-esque fashion? Hell no. But the GTA series showed it, and gamers, while recognizing its parodying nature, enjoyed it. GTA:SA was worth simply having Peter Fonda as a hippie talking about erethral goats he rides (it’s in the pot farm mission).
There were no memoral moments like that in GTA4. Sure, Brucie’s subtle gay innuendo was funny enough, but the game just took itself way too seriously for anyone of the series to truly enjoy it. The constant bleak reminders of Niko’s tragic past and events garnered very little concern- in fact, it almost brought on yawns among many gamers. Lighten it up, Rockstar. We know you can do better. The characters, while having some small comedic moments, end up giving the player little or nothing to connect with. GTA4’s characters either disappear or are killed in a quick and dirty manner (more so than any other game. How many characters that gave you missions ultimately died in the game? There were quite a bit…) so any connection a player attempts is short lived and rather unfulfilling. Consider Tommy Vercetti, CJ, and all the other characters in the series- they were outlandish, sure, but it melded with the already campy nature of the GTA series.
The weapons were realistic, but it really isn’t a GTA game until you can light some people on fire (with a flamethrower, of course) in some ridiculous rampage that requires the Army to intervene. Here? Homeland Security. Realism has it’s place in games, but GTA isn’t one of them. GTA is (or should i say, was) a campy series in nature. Yes, graphics have improved, we see new game engines powering it, but why should the rather comedic nature of the series change? It was always ridiculous, it was always over the top, but it was fun. Yeah, there are rampages, yeah, there’s those over the top missions (especially the final one) but… it doesn’t have the grandiose and Hollywood style bravado that the previous incarnations did.
This version may be simplistic, but hell, the way i see it, this is a start. Is it the grade A game of the year that we’ve all been expecting? No way in hell. But this new standard it sets makes every other game in the sandbox genre a run for its money, at least in its revolutionary game engines and tight-controls. Everything else the GTA games are known for- solid characters, campy nature- all but missing. A solid B would do in this case, but a grade-A/game of the year award winning game? No dice, Rockstar.
the new camera rocks
Oct 17th
Raptr.
Sep 21st
I’m on Raptr, a social gaming site designed to carry people over from one online ID to another. I’ve fallen in love with it, and it’s reaaally sweet to play with it. Try it out!
I’m on the site now, under the usual username.
btw i’m sick.
lj friend made me do this, i swear.
Sep 19th
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.
(ps, i look like crap.)
Artist’s Block
Aug 31st
Writer’s block is common for many artists- i know of plenty of webcomic artists that struggled to get work done only to feel that their art or their current output is less than satisfactory. To simply call it writer’s block is rather unfair- I rather like to refer to it as artist’s block. Any artist can get it, whenether it may be something so simple as not being able to draw a simple sketch or a musician unable to get the concepts in their head played back upon their musical instrument of choice. As of late, I find that my artist block affects me in cycles.
I basically dabble in multiple fields, including writing, filmmaking, minor photography, and website design. When one of the fields feels stifling to me, the other flourishes. As of late, I can’t seem to get any work in my website design field done AT All, but I feel much more inspired in the case of writing- I’m getting scripts done with much more fluidity than before. I’ve gone back and looked at older scripts that I had done on old Word macro templates and pulling out the funny parts that I had written back in middle school/beginning of high school and seeing what I can do with all of it. There’s some small funny bits i found, but most of it was simply sophomoric humor that would barely fit in say, the Disaster or Date Movies. (I wonder if I could ever combine them all and sell it as a bad parody movie. Somehow, those always make money.)
I had been using the popular Final Draft program for my mac for quite a while, and I had found it to be rather buggy and well… antiqudated. C’mon, a decent program on the mac has to at least use the mac’s own native spellcheck program, right? Nope! Final Draft uses it’s own spellcheck program, and that has proved to be inadiquate for my needs (the program doesn’t even bring up its own spellcheck, persistently frustrating me), . I made the recent move to Celtx, an open source pre-production suite, and that has made the difference between night and day. While it doesn’t have the technical complexicty that Final Draft holds, the program does do a good job of tying in the script to other parts of the pre-production process. It’s rather simple to tie a character sheet together with whatever props I may need to use, what parts of the script is being shot on a certain day, and other aspects of the post production. Best thing, it’s fucking free (fucking just adds the fact that a program of this level should have some sort of price attatched to it, and being free just sweetens the deal for me). I can’t complain with that now, can i? There is a download serivce available to make the program availalbe to multiple people, but if it had some sort of syncing system in place (with wikipedia-esque editing service) i would be golden.
But anyways, back to the original topic. I feel that some of the parts of my artistic enviroment feels restrained at times, while in other times, other parts of my artsy fartsy brain seems to flourish with great gusto. My techy part and my writer parts seems to have been much more proactive, while trying to do any sort of graphic design work or anything along those lines (website design) seems to have gone dead. I’ve tried FORCING myself to get work in those fields done, but they end up looking subpar and crappy. Thankfully, I need more scripts done, so i’m not feeling that far behind, I’m just afraid i’m going to have to play catchup to hit my own personal deadlines.
Well, back to work. Maybe.
shit i haven’t written anything in here in a while
Aug 22nd
I will soon. I’m in the midst of coding, writing, and preproduction.
Xam’d
Aug 7th
At the onset of E3, Sony announced a video store similar to the Xbox Marketplace, but for the PS3. I was sort of worried that they would be pulling the “me too!” mentality that comes with the video game market, but I am impressed by their ability to integrate it into the overall Playstation system seemed flawless and almost… right on the money. The minimalist design of the cross media bar is perfect for the multimedia function of the PS3. My only complaint so far is the rather obtuse way the store handles charges. First, you have to buy money to put into your online “wallet”. From there, you’re able to buy stuff off of the store. Lovely. Really lovely. Hey, the iTunes store is perfect in its integration that there is no step between putting in your information and actually buying the media- it’s one click shopping. What stops Sony from implementing this mindset? It doesn’t hurt their sales at all, and would probably help them in the long run. Hey, this game’s cheap, click and download. Another thing they can at least take down from the iTunes mentality is the season pass. Buy a season pass, and get the latest episodes as soon as they’re available on the store.
Xam’d is an anime from the animation studio BONES, and as such, has a hiugh artistic quality when it comes to the animation. The character design is similar to that of Eureka 7, with many characters sharing simiilar styles and looks to those in the E7 series. A slight steampunk look is given to many of the characters, with the setting being similar to modern day japan. The whole series is about 26 episodes, and within the first two episodes, I was hooked. There’s an entire subplot of tension between the different countries in the show (only described as the North and South), and even an entirely separate religion within the show.
Unfortunately, this had to come with a caveat. The entire series can only be rented, not bought. And at three dollars per episode (this is just the regular resolution, not the HD- HD can be rented for one dollar more) this is a serious money sink, and yes, the series is great, but not as great as to have such a ridiculous cost of about 78 dollars at the offset. I like the show, but no, please god no, don’t make me pay this fricking much for a show, dammit.
It is available on the bit-torrent, if you want to check it out. That’s where I’m going from now on.
EARTHQUAKE
Jul 31st
The earthquake that hit only yesterday was a strange reminder of what is to come in the southern california area- my geography teacher spent every other class speaking on the “Big One” that is to come. His voice kept nagging me constantly after the earthquake, as did his jokes nobody laughed at.
The earthquake struck as i was playing Army of One on the PS3 (a pretty fun game, not without its flaws). I had just… uh had some flatulence only seconds before, so the start of the earthquake felt as if it was another gaseous outtake. But as soon as it kept going, and parts of the house started to shake, I jumped up, running out of my room (in my bathrobe, no less) to meet my sister, who was rather scared of the earthquake, running over and diving under the table and ordering me under with her. She stayed there after the earthquake ended, prompting me to attempt to coax her out from under the table (her reasoning- “THERE MIGHT BE AFTERSHOCKS!”). My sibling later became even more distressed as the phone lines were jammed, her distressed cries wore on for hours until my mother was able to calm her down over the phone.
Our family has already prepared something of an earthquake kit, but i think in the coming months, we’re going to be working on it a bit more. A rather popular comment going around the southern california was that this was one of the bigger earthquakes in quite some time, so the younger generation that hadn’t been able to go through larger earthquakes got a taste of what is to come. The big one is coming, yes, but it would be a good idea to be prepared for when that time comes.
Personally, I’d take earthquakes over tornadoes. I was freaked out of earthquakes ever since Wizard of Oz, and those terrible homemade footage of the tornadoes has been a mainstay of FOX TV specials has only affirmed my fear of the natural disaster.
Man, all this talk of natural disasters gives me the nagging urge to play SimCity 2000, build a city, and destroy it. With UFOs.
My E3/Joystiq Experience
Jul 22nd
The past week of mine has been rather… adventurous, to say in the least. I probably had some of the strangest things happen to me the past week than the last three months combined. No, Tuesday and Thursday has been some of the greatest fun I’ve had around LA, and just recently have I been able to actually… recuperate my sleeping habits thanks to it.
With the coming of E3 to my home city of LA, there were multiple meetups for Los Angelinos to enjoy- even though E3 was press only, there were many events open for the general gaming public to enjoy. Capcom had a party to allow the public to play Street Fighter 4, for example. I wasn’t very open to most of them- I doubted I would be able to go to Kotaku’s party, for it was held at a bar (I’m only 20). I was simply looking through them all when one caught my eye- the Playstation.Blog meetup, appealing to me as I was a fan of the blog.
The Playstation Blog meetup was on tuesday, held at the King Taco a couple of blocks away from the main LA Convention center, and found half of the whole place taken up by fans of the Playstation community. They were easy to spot, as most of them had PSPs on them and were… well, nerds. Free food was offered there, so much of it that when regular people off the street noticed all the nerds were getting free food, they would pretend they were with us (the King Taco people caught on quickly and began asking people what the party was for).
Here’s a picture of everyone who came, exempt maybe four or five people that left early:
(finding me in this picture isn’t hard AT ALL)
Free shirts celebrating the Playstation blog’s 1st year of existence were given out, and I was able to meet Jeff Rubenstein, the guy in charge of the official playstation blog. He had a kickin belt buckle that had the Triangle, Square, Circle and X of the playstation controller on it. He held a PSP tournament for a limited edition PS3 with Metal Gear Solid 4- unfortunately, I had no PSP, so I couldn’t play in it. I simply just talked to people and watched the tournament, and that was fun enough for me. I find that I am nervous when meeting people, but when finally getting the courage to do so pushes me to say the first words, the nervousness melts away, and it was fun talking to other video gamers that were as knowledgeable as I was in the industry.
Talking to people there, I met with two of the writers for one of the sub-blogs for the Joystiq community, PS3 Fanboy, Andrew Yoon and Jem Alexander, as they walked in late thanks to a previous appointment. They were engaging to talk to as the PSP tournament wore on, and as the party wrapped up, both had a tired look on their faces, a look i recognized after walking around a convention all day. I offered them and some other bloggers rides, which was met with many thanks. After giving them a ride, they mentioned I should go to the Joystiq meetup party, and I would get some good schwag from the party for my kind ride. I hadn’t thought about going, but the idea of free stuff… well really, would you have passed up the free schwag?
The Joystiq Party was held at Mahalo.com headquarters in Santa Monica- and that was FUN. Rock Band 2 was there, as well as multiple people from the Playstation blog meetup that recognized me there. Meeting the joystiq crew was well… fun. Each and every one of them were incredibly fun to talk to and very kind. I’m used to the very uptight and anti-social webcomics crowd, so to talk to these people about video game topics was engaging. I was supposed to play a game of Rock Band 2 with some of the people from the Playstation Blog meetup (Jeff Rubenstein included) to perform System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” only to be replaced at the last minute by someone else. They failed their performance, and I would like to believe it was due to the lack of… well my awesome self.
Once the party ended, I ran into Christopher Grant, one of the head bloggers and the host of the Joystiq podcast. I offered to help clean up the place and to offer a ride to some of the bloggers, which was once again met with incredible enthusiasm. After cleaning up, I stuffed into my car five bloggers, three being Andrew and Jem (again) as well as Ludwig, another of the podcast hosts. (I leave out the names of the other bloggers for a purpose) We set out for the Joystiq crew’s hotel in Beverly Hills. On the way, someone in the car suggested food, and i drove to In-And-Out burger, packed to the brim with customers. Sitting in the car with some exhausted bloggers while lines for The Dark Knight snaked around the back of my car made me realize that I would have been home right now, on IRC and on my PS3 playing games, and to get out like this was… refreshing!
After getting the burgers, we drove down a major intersection, sitting in a second turn lane of a very busy street to hear someone heaving in the backseat.
Someone was throwing up in my car. I stopped the car in the street as to let the person continue to throw up into the street, and finally made the left turn into the turn lane onto a small grassy area. As soon as we stepped out, the sprinklers went off, spraying everyone with a fine mist. I rushed into the back of my car, trying to find something to help out the sick person with, only to find an empty brownie pan and random objects my sister had left in my car. I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole situation- it was probably after midnight, sitting in a car of people i didn’t know, getting soaked, and any other person would have been enraged at this point, but I loved it. I loved every second of it. The realization that NO one would believe this story.
After getting all the wet people back into my car, we drove to a swanky little hotel in beverly hills. Imagine this senario- a ’92 LeBaron pulling into this upscale hotel in beverly hills and getting valet parking in the process (again, yet another surreal part of the evening) at about 12:05 am. I went upstairs to the Joystiq HQ- a medium sized conference room with a long conference table, mini-refrigerator, and TV/DVD combo.
I simply sat there and watched as the Joystiq crew got down to work, checking emails and conversing. A second group of the crew walked in fresh from going to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, declaring that food to be heavenly and the chicken to be “actually be unicorn meat”. Their confused faces upon seeing me again after the party there were quickly answered by Ludwig, as they laughed at the story so far, and apologized profusely.
Justin McElroy (one of the regulars on the Joystiq podcast) walked in with a regal step and presented a porno he had bought from a “vampire hunter” outside of Roscoe’s. Everyone on the crew freaked out as he made the move to turn on the TV to present the film (he didn’t thankfully enough, but he did disappear for a bit to return with a new t-shirt on). The film was of… the colored variety and had a name involving time, but the full name escapes me, probably for the better.
Watching the Joystiq crew in action was incredibly interesting. These people all have a love of video games that’s simply indescribable as they spoke about their favorite games at the conference, or the horrible Konami press conference Ludwig had to sit through. At one point, a video circulating the many gaming blogs was shown (involving… um… garlic) and an impromptu mass showing of the video was done on 12 laptops all at the same time. The bloggers laughed like it was the first time they had seen the video, even acting out certain parts and crying out lines from it, which later received complaints from the hotel.
I left the Joystiq hotel about 12:45 am, with a pretty rancid smelling car and a very weary body, still trying to comprehend the night that had happened so far.
Thanks to all of this, I was mentioned in the Joystiq Podcast, referred to as “the Ethan Hawke character from Training Day” (listen starting around 62:00 for the mention). I also made an appearance on Mahalo’s Mahalo Daily show, talking about Tetris (you’ll find me in there, it’s not that hard).
My swag from the party was this:
a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4, a game I had planned on buying with my next paycheck, as well as a guitar that would work with Rock Band and Guitar Hero- a perfect addition to my current Rock Band pack.
Only yesterday, I had recieved this game as a thank you gift:
On the packing slip for Battlefield: Bad Company was a special comment, reading “BLEURGH!! Thank you for saving us twice! Love, Joystiq”
Thank you for a memorable time, Joystiq. I loved every second of it.