like the other guy said...
...the three- diemensional modeling was performed very well and the animation was performed very well and, yeah it was a ver good animation and, great job, i'm jealous of you!
Reviews for "StarCraft: Alliance"
LogFish responds:
Thanks - anyone can do it, you've just got to be willing to put the time in and work on things that aren't so hot!
Not so great
First off, it's too action based. They talk only to give us a little time to rest between the fights. If you actualy spend time on writing the plot, why the hell do you dwarf it compared to the action? Hell, you added "Skip the Plit" buttons to this movie.
Second, the action isn't that great. You should put much more effort into animating the fights, frame by frame. Your fights are nearly as good as fights in a comics, meaning that you barely make use of the fact that your characters can move. You pretty much just show one frame per action, rather than giving each actiion a few seconds of animation.
Third, the novelty is wearing off. The first flash was really great, because it was so original. The second was a bit more boring. I barely finished watching the third. The original flash had novelty going for it. It was cool seeing the Marines from Starcraft talking about Starcraft stuff. Now it's just boring. The fact that they escaped from crap only to fall into shit just as the movie ended was surprising. Now it's the first thing I expect to see.
In other words, you've jumped the shark.
LogFish responds:
I know the first was novel - however I always planned to tell a story, not just have one episode, so I'm going to finish it whether it's boring or not, because not doing so is pretty arse. Thanks for the tip on the fighting scenes though - and I won't have the option to skip plot in the next one. That was to fascilitate poeple who don't give a crap, but ... stuff them heh.
Marines
Very well put together I like it!
Marines and most of the terran force are drugged up as to not have feelings, I'm wondering why in your animation they can joke and have built up certain relationships with each other?
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.
ptffh
next time... get a better voice actor... that voice acting was terrible. Marines sounded like an american doing a shitty australian acent. And the battle cruisers; wtf!!
But the animation was pretty cool.
Get a better voice actor
LogFish responds:
You sure know your accents! Glad you liked it apart from that