Score: 4

"Okay"

submission: The Atlas Station

date: April 12, 2008

Again the excellent photographs seem under-utilised; there are no real puzzles. It was still amusing.

Also, as I said on my review of the Roslin station, you should really have stayed away from making references to what are still currently just theories regarding the Lost show, Abrams and Lindelof have said that the smoke monster is not made of nanites.
Maybe they'll turn out to be lying, but your game(s) would stand better if you just focused on a character who has is trying to escape Dharma or the Others. Leave answers regarding the show up to the show, and just try to create a little world of your own within the Lost setting to tell your story.

My recommendation therefore is to focus on your own story within Lost, and to make a more involved game out of it. Try to add some puzzles and more stuff involving the scenes; even if puzzles amount to finding items and bringing them to relevant objects, it's something to do!

Score: 6

"Hmm, not bad"

submission: The Roslin Station

date: April 4, 2008

It showed promise. I think however that you could do a lot more with the images you've acquired, make some actual puzzles or something.

Also, with a show like Lost, you need to make the setting more self-contained, any references to the show, or to theories regarding the show (e.g. - nanotechnology) could be invalidated at any time. In fact I believe the Abrams or Lindelof refuted nanotechnology in one of their podcasts.

Entertaining though.

Score: 4

"Could have been a lot better"

submission: Saw IV - Trapped

date: January 27, 2008

This game is all graphics, and even then it's hard to see what's really going on. For a trial and error game it's not very good as you can't pick up items that don't do anything meaning you have to keep hitting quit and trying again, which completely destroys the pace.

This game would have been a lot better if you had a situation more like the film; a longer time-limit (more gameplay = good) and maybe a series of circumstances with options on what to do which have some further purpose. In the film each puzzle is really a clue to the whole, which I found to be a really good aspect. Such a game would have been a lot more interesting and fun.

Score: 4

"It was alright"

submission: Freezepop's JEM!

date: January 23, 2008

I don't find this to be anything special in particular, it's a little amusing and well-done for a first effort, interesting idea but seems very numa-numa-esque.

I do however feel that it is completely undeserving the overly harsh and highly negative comments it has received, there is a lot worse stuff on the portal than this, which at least shows a fair amount of effort.

Score: 7

"Hmmm"

submission: Pico And The Butchery-p1

date: May 2, 2007

A lot of what I think has been said already, especially about the odd look of some characters, but then I know a bit of what it's like doing that in clay so I sympathise =)
Now, you've obviously put a lot of work into these and I admire that, but there are a few things which need to be worked on:

Camera effects! I'm thinking you've gone a bit over-the-top on some of these, most of the time seemed to be taken up with lots of 'crash zooming' (I think that's the right term) shots which on the whole made it very hard to watch because 99.9% of the time I couldn't really see anything, a lot of the rest of the time was spent focusing on Pico's funny-looking mouth. I'd personally go for some slow panning shots of some of the places, so you can see the detail for yourselves from the character's perspective, maybe slowly looking over an item then quickly moving to another, making sure the pauses to view things is slow enough that the viewer can see what's going on, mimicing the movement of the character's eyes.
As it is I had to kick style points down for this as it was, as I say, hard to watch at many of the best parts.

Horror is most easily conveyed by letting us see what the character is horrified ABOUT, a lot of camera tricks just detract from that. The other main trick then is what you DON'T show, e.g you know something is going to happen, then cut to AFTER it's happened, maybe with some evidence of the act. For example someone being pushed into a wood-chipper. Yes it might be fun to show what happened to them, or seem more horrifying. But what works better is showing them being pushed (with the outcome obvious) then cutting to a shot of the horrified onlooker being sprayed with blood along with some good sound-effect. The viewer imagines for themselves what happened, SHOWING them it would spoil it as it takes away the imagination, which is what gives real horror.
These are two methods that the Saw (which you very appropriately chose) used to clever effect (Later films I was unsure of, IMO they showed too much). For example in the first film (if you've not seen it don't read on!) you see the doctor starting to cut off his foot, and then you see him throwing down the hacksaw and dragging himself across the room, but you NEVER see the foot actually coming off, or even just severed; you don't need to, the horror of knowing what he's done is already there, and you're thinking for yourself how horrible it would be to cut off your own foot, and how determined he must be to have done it.

Sound was mostly good, but I'd be more careful with music choice, some pieces might have appropriate lyrics, but don't sound at all right when used. Usually something without lyrics that is subtle (ie background music) is best, and a lot of the time no music at all is perfect if you can get some decent sounds to add in, like water dripping or something relevant to what's happening.

I seem to have gone on a bit, but I am looking forward to the conclusion (I've watched both parts so far) and hope some of this is of use to you. I still encourage you to experiment; take as many shots as you can, if you can get two cameras set up on each scene for example and take the pics together that is a cool way to get two different shots of one animation to use later, you can then try each one and decide which works best, or use both! Same with the music, I don't know what process you went through but the more music (and more varied music, sometimes something you don't expect might add a surreal effect that works well) you try lends to finding a better fit.

So, a good watch, I liked it, and hope that it delivers more of the same or even better! 4 for rating and a high 7, almost 8 for the review.

Score: 10

"Awesome game"

submission: Gateway II

date: April 11, 2007

Really brilliantly made game! Ending/story is a bit, meh. Atmosphere though is great!

I could however have done with a bigger pen on the first-phone, it had me stuck for far too long =P

Score: 5

"Heh"

submission: Mario Parody From Sean!!!

date: January 4, 2007

Okay, to be honest, I could have done without the animation itself, but for the responses it got it was worth it, heh, though in very poor taste =)

Score: 8

"Wow"

submission: Blockhead: The Game

date: December 8, 2006

I didn't think it was possible, but block-head....a game?!!!?!?!

This is a really excellent game, very inventive, very original, and extremely amusing.
However, I (like many others) think it's too difficult. I can't even get past the first level, even by using items and getting a 'perfect' interupt on him (when the colour around him turns green, he stops then does it anyway!)
I think that this needs difficult levels, the current difficulty would be fine for normal or probably hard, an easy would be nice with faster regenerating attention span and slower building anger, mb a more effective interupt button that interrupts him a second or two so you can actually give an instruction before he does something stupid anyway.

Ingenius game, but the difficulty and lack of difficulty options quickly overshadows the humour and originality. The first level at the very least should be easy enough that the controls can be learned in a 'live' environment, I /think/ I know how to play the game from the tutorials, but when I try what I've been told it barely works. And that's when the bug /doesn't/ happen.

Fix that nasty bug, and add difficulty modes and this will be an incredible game!

Score: 7

"Well..."

submission: 777 - Part 1

date: November 30, 2006

...it watched a lot like a video-game.
This would in fact make an awesome one, it looks very much like a game to me, so do the actions etc.

As I movie though it didn't make me feel involved, it was like as I say, watching someone play a video game, the same camera angle, enemy-appears, enemy is dispatched style of thing. No ducking, no real trouble for our main character, no good look at them, no idea of who/what they are.

I dunno, I guess you need to establish a character, do a few different camera views to break it up a bit, things like that.

Score: 5

"Blegh"

submission: The Digital Competition

date: October 17, 2006

This has already been posted! It's an okay-ish advert in terms of art/animation, but it was posted fairly recently already! If you're going to make an animation about a product fine, but we don't need to be force-fed advertising over and over in the spaces that are meant to be occupied by user animations!

Newgrounds is kept alive by the paid advertising that is hosted on it, not by what appears to me to be someone (or several someone's) trying to freeload the system by making an ad as a flash movie and posting it over and over. In fact, I'm fairly certain the first time (or at least the last time) this was posted it made front-page!