Coloring Dragons

ENKER�S MUSINGS � Life in Design

July 28, 2008
By Ben Warren

Those who know me will be able to tell you what I do, not because I have gone out of my way to tell them, but because a person’s profession affects every little moment of their life. For a Teacher everything is potentially a lesson to be taught to their charges, with resources and lesson plans all around them. For a Firefighter everything is either safe or unsafe when it comes to being a fire hazard, and you can physically see them looking around a venue when they enter for the first time to check and see if the emergency exits are clearly marked and unblocked. Myself, as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator, I see the world with a little more flare for inventiveness.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � The Torchwood Institute.

June 17, 2008
By Ben Warren

Series two of the adult orientated ‘Doctor Who’ spin-off show ‘Torchwood’ has now started on British screens, making the jump from Digital’s BBC3 to terrestrial channel BBC2 and filling the 9:00pm slot. It’s interesting to note that by the first episode it is clear that the production company behind the series has already dropped a lot of their original mandate for the show, opening up more links to the show it spawned from and even producing a child-friendly edited version that goes out earlier at night for each episode to try and capture some of the fan-base it was otherwise missing out on.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � Street Fighter IV

June 10, 2008
By Ben Warren

Search any media site at this moment in time and they will all be playing the same computer game trailer. Magazines world wide have dropped their cover stories in favour of splashing an image of two of the most recognisable game characters in the world fighting it out. Someone at Capcom must have heard someone whispering that ‘Smash Bros Brawl’ was going to be the biggest fighter on the shelves in years, and decided to bring out the daddy of all Beat-em-ups in order to prove just how wrong they are. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Street Fighter IV.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � Final Fantasy 4 Remake

June 3, 2008
By Ben Warren

In line with the current trend at SquareEnix, Final Fantasy 4 is about to get the DS treatment. Lately it seems that all they have been doing is living off of their past glory whilst manufacturing so-so titles to keep die-hard fans happy – which is fine by me, their previous work is far more fun to play than anything they’ve released lately. With all the fanfare that FF3 received when it was finally released for the western market, upgraded into 3D and with an expanded plot from the NES original, it seemed obvious that some of the other early titles would be given an upgraded release sooner or later (especially after games 1-6 have finished being released onto the GBA in their ‘Advanced’ incarnations). Even a long-time player like me would consider this a bit extreme, after all 1 and 2 just got re-released onto the PSP as well, but oddly I don’t mind in this case.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � Fifty Two

May 26, 2008
By Ben Warren

For many of you simply writing the numbers 52 down on a piece of paper will mean nothing, but to a few of us, those lucky enough to have read the outstanding achievement of DC Comics, it means something else altogether. For us 52 is not just a number, it’s a count down, it’s a number of different alternate worlds, and it’s a comic book series the likes of which hasn’t been seen on our shelves in a long time.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � The Last Airbender

May 19, 2008
By Ben Warren

Until quite recently I was seriously worried about a noticeable decline in the quality of children’s original cartoons. By original I of course mean cartoons based not on existing sources (such as the largely redundant ‘The Batman’ in the wake of the fantastic ‘Batman: The Animated Series’) but upon ideas and situations that have been created specifically for that show. It seemed to me that for every ‘Samurai Jack’ and ‘Megas XLR’ there were a hundred crude, badly written and animated shows littering the television screens around the world. An occasional gem however does shine through, and ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ manages to do just that.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � The Angel of Death

January 29, 2008
By Ben Warren

It’s rare in the modern world that any of the BIG names among comic book publishers manage to successfully introduce a new superhero to their cast of characters. What tends to happen is that one such character is created for a particular story-arc and plays a pivotal role within that plot, but then fizzles and dies out almost as soon as the event is over. Villains tend to stick around longer, recurring in the comics of other heroes and sometimes cropping up time and time again years later, but successfully launching a new hero into the mix is a lot more complicated.

They have to be original, have an angle and feel that none of the others already has, and above all they have to generate an immediate fan-base to keep their comic going. DC have always been particularly good at creating and re-inventing their characters, and one comic book hero that personifies this process perfectly would be the short-lived but wonderful character of Azrael.

THE A-Z OF GAMING: J is for James Pond II: Codename Robocod

TITLE: James Pond II
ALTERNATE TITLES: Robocod, Super James Pond
GENRE: Platform Adventure
DEVELOPER: Millennium Interactive

You only have to look at the extremely long list of systems that ‘James Pond II: Codename Robocod’ has been ported to in order to see the sheer playability and popularity of this classic game. Perhaps it is best remembered for the way in which he could infinitely stretch upwards from the waist in order to grab surfaces and shimmy along them, or maybe it is the huge array of baddies disguised as children’s toys? Regardless, what started as an off-the-cuff platformer about a fish with a pun-based name, evolved into a true masterpiece for its sequel title.

ENKER�S MUSINGS � Cheater!

January 17, 2008
By Ben Warren

If I were to say to you that you were to pick up a joypad, and input the following: up, down, left, right, hold A and press Start, then the chances are that immediately you will know what game is in the machine, what the console is, and what the cheat will do (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Megadrive, level select). Cheats have managed to become a part of everyday gaming life, in fact we look for them actively in most cases, though the camps are seriously divided as to the justification of their presence in modern gaming.

THE A-Z OF GAMING: I is for Ico

TITLE: Ico
ALTERNATE TITLES: None
GENRE: Platform Adventure
DEVELOPER: Team Ico

Whilst most games concern themselves with style over substance, and are quite content to sit back and let the graphics, or a few clever set pieces carry a game, the members of Team Ico were evidently driven to create a new breed of game. One devoid of the clutter that has become customary to see on a game screen, such as the generic life-bar, score total and data on what item you are using or have equipped at any time. Gone were all of these and in their place nothing but clear screen that enhanced the gaming experience. For the first time there was nothing between you and the adventure unfolding on the screen.