GameFAN issue 7, Mk2, is out. In fact it’s been out for a while. It also features a review, by me, of Xenoblade Chronicles. Read on for the gossip.
Showing posts with label cover art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cover art. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
GameFAN #7
GameFAN issue 7, Mk2, is out. In fact it’s been out for a while. It also features a review, by me, of Xenoblade Chronicles. Read on for the gossip.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
GameFAN issue #06
It’s taken a while – in fact page 66 even jokes that it took 6 months to arrive – but GameFAN issue 6 is finally with us. That’s a lot of sixes, isn’t it readers? Clearly the BEAST has willed it to be..
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The first thing that strikes you is the stunning, hand-drawn cover art, which is rarity these days. I collect games mags as much if not more than I collect games these days, and very few magazines do anything other than recycle CG assets handed out by PR people. Very few actually commission artists to create the covers. EDGE almost never does it. GamesTM hasn’t done so for... I can’t even recall when last. EGM when I subscribed didn’t even bother with decent CG (their Halo cover looked like an exploded Ribena box). Leaving only France’s IG, Retro Gamer and GameFAN doing anything of merit. And to be fair, most of the time Retro Gamer’s content is so old that they’re forced to produce their own content for covers.
The man behind GameFAN’s artwork (and a lot of imagery at its predecessor Play) is Rob Duenas. He also does the majority of page layouts, and I think it’s fair to say that his work is the aesthetic soul of the magazine. Having spoken with Rob via email on occasion he proclaims his goals: “The biggest treat for me has been growing the retro coverage and drawing the covers. It’s hard work but worth it to bring back original drawn covers to magazines... Lord knows it’s a rarity, most art is just concept stuff from companies or box art.”
A commendable attitude, I’m sure everyone will agree. In fact this issue he takes us through the creation process for the cover, in connection with his regular podcast Sketchcraft, which details all manner of artistry. As he explained: “The Sketchcraft spread I put together on how I made the covers is also a free podcast I make complete with follow along PDF showing 50+ more of my steps. The cast is like audio commentary, just another GF special. Recording Bloodrayne cast this weekend, but the 3DS is up now.”If you have any interest in GameFAN, magazine design, comics, or creative art in general, it’s well worth checking out the podcasts and associated files. There are two sites:
sketchcraft.com
http://sketchrob.podomatic.com/
Also, I should add I’m not affiliated with the website despite my internet name. My using of Sketcz is 70% the nickname Tim Rogers gave me on InsertCredit, 20% East European spelling convention, and 10% Sega’s phenomenal Mega Drive game Comix Zone.
Highlights this issue include a 3 page interview with NG:DEV.TEAM, creators of Last Hope and the to-be-released GunLord, which is coming out on NeoGeo MVS and Sega’s Dreamcast. Gotta love these teams who keep rockin’ it on old hardware. The group says GunLord will be comparable to Turrican, and as a European and Trenz fan to this I’m going to say: hells yeah!There’s also a ton of 3DS coverage, though being happy with my current handhelds I only skimmed this.
There’s also three pages on Dragon’s Crown, which is excellent. The in-game screens are so exquisite it’s difficult to image them as actual games, as opposed to only static artwork. But that’s Vanillaware for you – taking 2D to new levels. The write up itself is also good, done by new man and Managing Editor James Bacon. It starts with a rundown of Vanillaware history, which is essential for newcomers, and reminds me of the fact that Play before it always used to give the developer the time they deserved in the spotlight, granting front covers to not only Odin Sphere but also Muramasa. Outside of Japan I don’t think any other magazine even entertained such an idea. Those were good times.
Lengthy five page review of the new 2D Bloodrayne by developers WayForward, who are making a name for themselves as one of the few (the only?) Western developer still capable of doing 2D. In fact they’re kinda like a Western version of Vanillaware. And all I can say is thank your deity of choice both companies exist, because gaming would be a lot less interesting without their two-dimensional output.
Three page review of El Shaddai. Well timed too despite the time it took to produce this issue, since the same morning I got my copy of GameFAN I got my copy of GamesTM, and both featured El Shaddai. Both magazines praise it, in fact everyone online also seems to, but I’m still slightly nervous after playing that demo...
Interesting approach to the Journey review – very arty.Having read the reviews, I want to address an issue I noticed on a forum, regarding a lot of the positive coverage the mag gives. Although the lowest review score this issue was 6.5, and it mostly has high scores for its games, the impression I get is that they’re covering the games they like, as opposed to everything possible. A snapshot of staff favourites almost. Which makes sense considering they run less pages, plus I have to be very interested in a game before I read through a review in another mag giving it a low score (like DS shovelware you’ll see being reviewed – I just skip those).
The challenge for GameFAN seems to be growing its audience and recognition, since what I gather from people I know in the US, it’s not always easy to find stores stocking it. Did you know this was out?
Moving on from modern coverage, this issue also marks the creation of a dedicated retro section, 16 pages long. I haven’t read everything but it’s looking good (I’d also not come across the Macross game before, so reckon I might have to give it a try now). The two-page spread listing top Capcom and Saturn games apparently was going to be some kind of special comic, but it didn’t make it in time. A nice trip down memory lane nonetheless. The Saturn coverage is especially poignant for me because it was a great system, with a selection of truly astounding hardcore titles, and yet it never won the console war. I actually received Keio Flying Squadron 2 in the post recently, and must get around to playing it. Yes, I think if I fell through time I’d like to relive the Saturn era, and use my foreknowledge to guarantee its success.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Guardian Legend across the world
After discovering an interesting topic on HG101’s forums, I bring you a selection of awesome Guardian Legend boxart trivia. Plus, semi-erotic imagery from various artists – there aren’t any nipples, but consider this entry and every single hyperlink in it, totally Not Safe For Work. Unless you work in the erotica industry, in which case far out, man, rock on..
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I’d actually been thinking about the Guardian Legend artwork for some time now, since I’m fascinated by the changes made to cover art as games are released in Japan, America and Europe. Mainly I don’t get it. I lack the business acumen to understand how changing something which looks beautiful, into something which looks shit, will somehow equal more money (a case in point being Ico’s US cover – Jesus Christ!). Unless I’m trapped in some kind of warped reality where human beings prefer to consume garbage than quality – but I prefer to think this isn’t the case.
The implication of having three separate covers for each region is that on a fundamental level, the culture, views and cognitive functions of people in these areas must be different. Right? I mean, this thing almost warrants an anthropological study in order to understand. Is our ability to comprehend artwork (and I specifically mean the paintings which adorn media packaging) really so intrinsically linked to where we live? Guardian Legend’s three variations aren’t actually as bad as other NES examples, and as beach1 said on the forums, in their own way they’re each kind of cool – as I’ll demonstrate.
But even so, I still have to ask: when the executives at Broderbund USA walked into that morning office meeting, and were discussing their intent to publish Legend of Goardic by Compile in the US, under the title of Guardian Legend, did they have the Japanese artwork to look at? Did someone in that meeting look at the cover at the top of this blog entry and say: “Look guys, this, whatever the fuck it is, looks like shit. We’re gonna have to change it.”
I mean, really? In 1989 were US executives really so narrow minded? Was there genuinely the perception that people would ignore the game, unless it had the cover which eventually graced the US version? Sci-fi was a well established genre at the time, moreover it has a slight HR Geiger style which I would have assumed the public was aware of, what with the release of the Alien films. As a former art student and someone who appreciates hand-painted artistry, I am wholly unable to comprehend the mental framework of someone who would look at the Japanese original and say: “This is not good enough.” Because, I would argue, it is flawless.
The American cover we ended up with isn’t awful, it’s not great but it’s not Mega Man bad, where I swear the executive got his 7-year-old son to draw the cover. Dire51 on the forum revealed some info on the US cover, including its inspiration: “Thanks to an unrelated thread on my board, I think I've finally uncovered the inspiration for the (frankly disappointing) U.S. The Guardian Legend boxart. Here, you be the judge. Taken from the 1985 film, Creature. I have no idea who the box art designer for Broderbund was, but the two pieces of art look so similar that it can't be a coincidence. I used the word ‘inspiration’ because it doesn't appear to be a direct lift from the Creature poster, unlike the cover of Contra, for example, where the artist directly lifted Schwarzenegger's body from Predator's poster and placed Bill's head on it. Someone posted the Creature poster on my board in a thread about horror films, and when I saw it, I was immediately reminded of TGL’s boxart. When I compared the two, the resemblance was too similar to be a coincidence. Since Creature predated TGL by a couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised if the American artist used Creature's poster as his "inspiration," much like other game artists used other movie posters for "inspiration;" the example I gave about Contra being the first one that came to mind.”
Pretty obvious, huh readers? The Creature entry at IMDB.Which leads us on to the European box art. Take a look.
Now to me, I see a strong connection to Capcom’s European Mega Man 2 boxart, with the same airbrushed shiny-metal styling. And also the Turrican box art from over the years. Take a look.
The two Western Guardian Legend covers are... alright. Although I prefer the Japanese boxart, I’d say the Euro and US art is about as good or as bad each other, for different reasons. The Euro box is a little too “safe” for my taste, but it still conveys the sci-fi theme in a reasonable way.
What I find especially interesting, it that it seems heavily inspired by the sci-fi art of Hajime Sorayama, especially his mostly hot hypersexualised Gynoid series (which is definitely NSFW if you're googling). Just take a look at these two pieces of Sorayama's Gynoid art, and tell me that whoever drew the Euro GL box wasn’t at least aware of him? (and as for Mega Man 2, if Sorayama didn't do it, then the guy who did totally ripped off his style!)
And that’s the man himself, from his website (NSFW). I checked, and while he has been commissioned to do stuff for Heavy Metal magazine, and other media, he doesn’t make mention of any videogames. Maybe he even did do the art for GL, but I can’t verify this.Which leads us on to the Japanese artwork, shown here again.
Now, I’d always thought this was by Oscar Chichoni, an Argentinian artist famed for his totally awesome sci-fi art, often but not always featuring attractive women. His official website (NSFW).
Sega often commissioned Boris Vallejo to do covers, and on one occasion Moebius, and these covers were always some of the best. So Compile commissioning Chichoni seemed well within the realm of possibility. Check out two examples of his artwork below, which bear a similar style to that of GL's JPN cover. I would post more, but several feature nipples, and as has been explained to me, in the US showing nipples is a major no-no, especially in order to keep this blog relatively clean. Still, Google his covers for Fierro or Heavy Metal magazine, and tell me that stuff isn’t seriously hot, in a slightly twisted way.
Anyway, as Wildcat on the forum pointed out, it was actually a famed Japanese artist who did the art for the Japanese cover: “Hopefully a thread resurrection is okay, as I wanted to point out that the Japanese box art was done by Naoyuki Kato, who works for Studio Nue (scroll down a bit on the link to see where I got this from). They've made Macross, Space Battleship Yamato, and The Vision of Escaflowne, among others, and also helped From Software with their Armored Core games and contributed to Platinum Games' Infinite Space, too. I like the Japanese box the most myself. While none of them quite sync up to Miria/Alyssa's design in the game, it's the most interesting to me.”
A google for Naoyuki Kato (use the kanji: 加藤直之) reveals a lot of his awesome art (and sketches of himself, above), with a strong emphasis on mechanical contraptions and a style fairly similar to Chichoni’s. At the very least, I’m sure you can see how I could have mistaken one for the other when previously uninformed on the matter. Some of Kato’s stuff is also pretty damn hot - Google his cover for the fiction novel Star Courier, if you want to see a naked sword-wielding chick in leather boots.
Looking over the three covers for Guardian Legend, they each have merit and, at least in the case of the Euro and Japanese versions, tried to instil a sense of genuine artistic quality. There is a large world of skilled artists out there, and their commission charges aren’t that prohibitive, so why is it we see so much CG rendered crap on our covers today? Do you, as gamers, really feel more inclined to part with money when seeing these CG covers, as opposed to the quality put out by skilled artists?Games are the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, we should be revelling in this with every game adorned by some fantastic painted artwork. Except most cover art today sucks, and appears put together by the 3D rendering dude who did the title screen, as opposed to traditional artists.
My request for Mass Effect 3 and any other sci-fi game: get Chichoni to do the cover, and tell him to make it sexy.
EDIT:
I didn't realise this, but Wildcat who made the original post about Naoyuki, also runs a blog which looks at cover art differences, and is also an anthropology student. Lots of references, plenty of insight, and all round totally awesome. Well worth a look:
LINK HERE
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