Great work!
You have great skills in flash and I suggest you continue making animations in it.
Good Job
Reviews for "StarCraft: Alliance"
Great Job
The only problem I have is that the Protoss Zealot had a scarab, which was, basically, a heavy artillery bullet for the Reavers.
Aside from that, I love these things. I miss StarCraft. I wish they would release another RTS version of it. Your movies help me relive the games and do a pretty good job complementing the story.
Your artwork is decent but the 3D part of it is amazing. Oh yeah, I recognized the music in the begining but I don't remember the band's name. If you read this, please refresh my memory. I know it was on Lucas Arts' Full Throttle, I guess I could look it up...
Keep up the good work.
LogFish responds:
The Gone Jackals - Legacy
Of course I read it!
Not really leveling this at you in particular, but about the scarab thing - you've gotta think a little outside the square. I'm sure Blizzard didn't include every little thing they thought of in StarCraft, so things will exist out of what happened there. Is it THAT mental to think the toss'd have developed a scarab-ish propelled bomb thing, which has a 'bazooka role' in combat? Glad you're enjoying the series, sorry for my wee rant there but you know, gotta release it on someone :)
Where is Fenix?! Dead? Noooooo!
Hmm, that rating seemed less harsh in my head.
First, I love StarCraft and it pains me that the novels and all spin-off ventures are weak efforts when compared to the game itself. New StarCraft works make me foam at the mouth, but I'm usually disappointed as always, explaining why I'm so harsh with the score.
Ignoring my fanaticism completely, there are some basic artistic issues with the flash series. First of all I am confused by the mech and ship design: I seem to recall the first episode being rendered with a 3D program, so why aren't there any models in this one? The shots of the Battlecruisers and Carriers were all from the front or side like most flashes (although there was a third dimension on some that flew past the camera). Why can't you rotate them a bit, or have a proper dogfight between Wraiths and Scouts? Spaceships are what Swift 3D was built for, so crack it open and lets see some awesome fight scenes.
The first fight was also like other flash fights in that it was slow, jerky, from confusing angles, easy to lose track of, and all drama disappeared when what should have been an impressive move jumping onto a Zealot looked awkward. The Zealot fight was just as tiresome: This Hydralisks were particularly menacing, they just kind of tweened toward the Zealot and mysterious died as he tweened through the air.
Flash ability aside, the drama lacked. The flash opened up into a weird looking sequence with the Ghost and Zealot, so from the beginning you didn't capture my interest. Following that was a huge chunk of exposition, you even admit it was exposition, because you stuck a button in the corner to skip it. You should never have an option like that, story adds drama, which heightens the tension in the fight scenes, so if you are aiming for an all out fight, which it seems that you are, have a more inventive way to insert exposition, rather then stopping the animation for a few minutes to have some expressionless Protoss explain the story.
Onto the universe itself. After the characters leave the first planet they talk to a general standing next to some turrets talking crap at his subordinates. The general doesn't move and besides the people in the background it didn't seem like a base at all. Have him doing something, and establish the scene more thoroughly than showing a really badly drawn stream (sorry, but that stream was so bad). During the battle itself I didn't get any sense of the stakes, what were the Protoss trying to achieve, where did those Battlecruisers come from, and why was the creature suddenly infested?
Now I get to rant about StarCraft! Why were the Marines New Zealanders? Where's the redneck grunt that we all fell in love with? That Ghost wasn't awesome enough! Marines aren't pilots, they're soldiers! What happened to the Dominion, the Directorate, is Kerrigan still around? Where the hell are Jim Raynor and Zeratul, I can forgive you for leaving Fenix out seeing he's dead, but not Jimmy! Basically, what I'm saying is the world it too small and you're leaving out elements that made StarCraft cool. The robot was a swing and a miss, we'll have to wait and see how this Zerg T-rex will turn out.
I look forward to the next one. Hopefully you can glean some advice from my nonsensical ramblings and make the flash as great as StarCraft should be.
P.S. Get a better script, the admiral apologises for his "timeliness"? Is he apologising for turning up at the right moment. There are other mistakes like that, but I can't find more since there is no chapter select screen.
LogFish responds:
Well I'll just complain about a couple of points, the rest of them are fair enough, alright :) I appreciate your big effort to give a useful review rather than saying 'this is crap' and giving it a 0 without anything constructive. From bottom up -
Theres a scene selection in the top right - perhaps your monitor is too dark to see them, they're fairly dark to keep them out of the way.
I'm from New Zealand, they're all my voice, and the New Zealand thing was firstly due to logistical problems and my previous bad history with internet voiceactors. Now though, it's just because I want it like that. I never tried to build this series 'off the sc plotline' and write it as such, with all the heros etc. - it's kinda separate. So why is it so unbeleiveable to think there could be marines with different accents somewhere else? Think of it as ... stargate atlantis to stargate sg-1 or something. The robot was part of the overarcing plot, perhaps you missed that.
problems with space battle, stream, etc. - fair enough
the episode opens into a direct continuation of the previous episode. It sounds like you watched ep1, I hope you noticed there was an episode2 between then and now!
I was keeping the filesize under 5meg so I didn't have needless 3d wank shots all over the place in my battlescenes.
Well that'll do - thanks for the big review - I probably come off a bit abrasive but I do appreciate your criticism - I doubt you'll be happy with the rest of the series, but ah well.
youre awesome
in my opinion you make your movies pretty fast
anyway that will less my hunger for more
the space fight was excellent cause i like those fast fights
Nice
I really enjoyed watching this. Of course, I watched episode one and two first. I read a few of their comments and you really spend the time to read and listen to them. Great to see that, cause it improved your movies overall. Anyway, keep the good work up!
LL
LogFish responds:
Yea, reviews are great - they're what separates NG from the other smaller backend copycat portal systems! If people take the time to review properly, I try and reply - a curtosy(sp) thing really!