Score: 10

"Holy shit. SCENE SELECT?!?! [732]"

submission: Edgar N' Locke SE01

date: August 12, 2008

Very nice feature! No wonder they call it... "special." #;-}>

Helloween public server announcement of sorts, eh? Well, you guys are always pushing Helloween on me, so I might as well have a look... er... listen see here.

It IS an interesting name, Shadow. Not enough BROOTALITY (i.e. death grunts FTL), eh? hahaha.

:::listens to Helloween sample::: Ehhhhhhh... they're no Maiden. Celes sure gets blown away by just about ANYthing, doesn't she. O_O

NEEDS MOAR TERRA. But here's Gogo instead.

It's not clear why the random Imperial soldier thinks E 'n' L are so irritating. O_o

Whoa. Random villagers who are anti-metal for stupid reasons, eh? FUN!

Nice sampling of old 16-bit FF music, BTW. BATTLE TIEMS. Monsters love teh metal. Too bad they don't love conversationings.

Hey, wait... they don't recognise ya because your sprite ain't Bahamut from FFVI, but... they were talking at the start of the story like they're already been talking with you, and you'd threatened series cancellation on them. So... how did they not already know what you looked like? PLOT HOLE. (unless it's explained away via e-mail/phone conversationings, but then... eh.. that's weak)

Score: 9

"FABULOUS FIVE... [731]"

submission: Edgar N' Locke 05

date: August 12, 2008

(OR WILL IT BE... it has quite a good ep 4 to live up to... so far the best of the series, IMO)

Wintersun again? Weren't both of the songs in ep 4 from them? Like I said, they're okay... but TOO MUCH.

YAY, JUDAS PRIEST. Whoa, dude... pronounce Nostradamus more insanely, will you? #;-}>

Metallica... ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If the last few albums sucked so much, there's only one way to go from there (up... even if only slightly up).

OMG, NEW CANNIBAL CORPSE. That's Shadow's band, eh? LOL!

Okay, while the music wasn't the best, and there weren't enough "neat guest stars" in this episode, I like the range of metal bands discussed, and there were some funny bits towards the end (you really coulda skewered those last two bands a bit more, even... heh). GOOD JOB LIVING UP TO THE STANDARD OF #4 AFTER ALL, huzzah!

Score: 9

""ROFLS" my ass. ROFFLES, DAMN YOU. [730]"

submission: Edgar N' Locke 04

date: August 12, 2008

Hey, Edgar and Locke are having a chat in front of a background image of Narshe. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT. Seriously, that's a nice change of pace from the usual grass/rocks/cliff/sky background you usually use for these.

That was all righty. Not my cup of coffee (NOTE: not tea) exactly, but 'sokay.

OMG, IT'S CELES. .................... Uh... That was.... um... a weird "whoa" she let out when she listened to the ipod there at the end, man... to say the least. #;-}>

Score: 8

"MOAR ED-LO FTW... [729]"

submission: Edgar N' Locke 03

date: August 12, 2008

Nu-metal isn't new, either. And thus the stupidity of naming any genre or period of art/music "new" or "modern" or "post-modern" is illustrated, since SOMEday the term will be OUT OF DATE TO THE EXTREME.

So unless that's the entire point, of course.

Ewwww... Gau's taste is teh suck (making this episode suffer because there's nothing to listen to and enjoy like in most eps ;_;)... I like Gogo's music better than Gau's, I think.

Ahahahah. Crawling. Yeah. Even I, out of touch with the youths... know of THAT one, at least, thanks to its pop-culture value to humanity in making fun of teh depressed kids of the 2000s. Ayup.

GO, EDGAR, GO! CHAINSAW'D.

Score: 8

"BULLET FOR VINCENT VALENTINE... [728]"

submission: Edgar N' Locke 02

date: August 12, 2008

That's what the subtitle made me think of, at least.

Edgar 'n' Locke are gonna have some fun at Gogo's (and Trivium's) expense, eh? Sounds like fun.

:::listens to various FFVI characters riff on various metal and faux-metal topics/bands/so forth:::

Uh... the first music clip was definitely better than the second clip... so even if they were similar, they were different enough for that to be the case. Also, the second clip sounded like video game music more than metal. And certainly more than emo. #;-}>

Not that I'm an emo expert, alas (or is that thankfully? hell if I know).

Score: 7

"BACK TO BAHAMUT... [727.3]"

submission: Bahamut's Favourite PMs

date: August 12, 2008

And yes, if you were wondering... the above number means this is the THIRD time I am making review #727, thanks to two reviews deleted each previous time I got to 727 reviews. On the plus side, today I SHALL BE EXCEEDING 727, so this will also be the FINAL review #727 I have to make.

To the flash itself:

Afro_Stud left you a wwwwww-ful PM at the start of the PM system, eh? How.... uh... original. o_o

Your other PMs... um... kinda pale by comparison to that, though. I agree with you about the first person listed in a collab should be the "main" account responsible (if there is one... and if not, then the submitter/uploader), though. At least your flash here had a MESSAGE for us to learn.

:::brain explodes while reading your final PM from Drunksonic:::

No more.. please... no more. ;_;

Score: 10

"I just got Bioshock a month or so ago... [727.2]"

submission: Bioshock Silent Movie

date: July 24, 2008

... back in early June, and while I haven't finished it yet (I blame HL2 and TF2 and Portal!), I've been enjoying it a great deal. I was a big System Shock 2 fan, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. You seem to have been inspired more by the plasmid insanity and the setting (love the endless water leak in the background, spot on!) of the game than the plot/characters, though maybe those two bastards and their awesome moustaches will show up later on in a part I haven't gotten to yet. I'll stay tuned!

Anywho, some spelling/grammar errors on the text cards inbetwixt the action aside... a jolly good look back at what Bioshock's Rapture might have been like in the 1910s or 1920s rather than the 1950s as in the game. BEFORE THE MADNESS SET IN... or... is it... too late already? (gasp)

Love the ice plasmid, fire plasmid, and then the third "plasmid"... for some reason, when I was reading the title card with the "heroin and LSD" diagnosis on it, I totally anticipated that he was going to have AIDS as well, also. Well played, sir. WELL PLAYED.

Kitty-in-a-Big-Daddy FTFW, also. That is a perfect production company logo.

One question, though: what was up with the don't trust Irish rogues sign? Looks like Oscar Wilde or something. Was that a parody of one of the many many posters in the game? I'm still back around the dental offices area, so while I've seen a lot of the awesome art/posters/advertisements in Rapture, I'm sure I haven't seen even half of 'em yet, heh.

Score: 10

"Woke up extra early today... [727]"

submission: When I'm Running

date: July 8, 2008

Checklist:
Gettin' some quick saves towards my b/p retirement goals on some of the 4 under judgement movies before I make some coffee... check.
Saw a flash with an interesting title... okay, let's have a look... check.

... WAIT, the movie starts with an animation of a jogger? Well, this is a fitting time of hell (i.e. morning) for such a flash, at least... Is this movie going to be boring, I wonder? Wait... there's some interesting things going on in the background... as he runs down each block... and especially as he crosses the cross streets... WTF? Burning... car... And whoa, the running animation cycle is... kinda fascinating in and of itself.

BOOM. Cowboys From Hell kicks in and T-Rex is imaginarily (can you believe that's a real word, BTW? I was about to write "fake word FTW here!" but then googled it real quick just to make sure there wasn't a slightly different spelling to make it proper, and... boom. O_O) making you run faster.

That's some great stuff. It was so great and surreal that it (plus the time of morning and lack of coffee, likely, which often have a... magnifying effect on surreality) compelled me to review right away, when I normally just make a shortcut to the flash entry and dump it in a "to be reviewed" folder with like 400 other movies and games. So, congrats on that, too! #;-}>

Great music choice, great concept, great execution. What better three ways to make a flash on NG are there? Someone let me know. Kudos, sir! KUDOS!

Score: 8

"Just heard about your version of Albi... [726]"

submission: Albi, the racist dragon

date: June 16, 2008

While watching a new version just submitted today. So anywho, gave it a shot. Your animation and hand-drawing skillz (as opposed to relying upon textures) are actually better than the dude who did the new one... but there's two major problems with it:

A) most importantly, you used a subpar (IMO, at least) version of the live FOTC recordings of Albi. This one's much shorter, doesn't have a lot of the nuances and slower (better) timing/pacing of the more well-known live recording (or even of the HBO version). Also, the audience in this one... laughs way more obnoxiously. Of course, you didn't record it, but there's a better version of the audio you coulda used, so it was an error of selection, an editorial error, IMO.

B) why is the mob (which is well designed, good job!) sitting right outside the mouth of the cave doing nothing the entire time Albi and the Albanian boy are talking? That just seems weird... both the official FOTC HBO version of the animation and the other NG Albi show the mob chasing Albi off, but not sitting right outside the cave for the private conversation that makes up most of the storyline of the song. Which I think is a better choice.

Aside from that, I love a lot of things about your version. Making Albi red instead of the usual green was an interesting difference, and I loved Albi's reaction to his teardrop jellybeans (though this version of the song cheated us of the later line in the song about the one special rainbow jellybean tear.... which is what Bret and Jemaine eventually started making the song cause Albi to not be racist anymore... apparently this is an early draft of the song, which doesn't have the layer of detail their eventual development of the story would come to have... alas. ;_;).

That reaction shot was priceless, in fact. So overall, great job other than the choice of the song version and the mob intruding on all the privateness of Albi + the boy for the whole rest of the plot, and of course... thanks for adding more FOTC flash to NG! WE NEEDS MORE. Do the Robot song or the David Bowie song, if you ever make another. #;-}>

Score: 9

"Bret and Jemaine would be so proud.... [725]"

submission: Albi the Racist Dragon

date: June 16, 2008

.... if only they came to NG. (sniff)

Great idea for a flash, and while at first I was worried you'd just be directly copying the original animation from the FOTC show... when I heard the audio from one of their performance clips rather than the HBO show, and when I saw that you added your own little touches, like the thought bubbles above Albi and the Badly-Disfig'red Albanian Boy.... I was quite relieved and pleased. That was brilliant!

Also, the textures you put in for all the grass, trees, and Albi's scales... and dirt and stone, as well (but mostly the green things, which is fine by me as it happens to be my favourite colour EVAR)... were all quite good and lent the flash a distinct feel to it. Excellent job!

The only criticism I can levy against it, in fact... is that while the first dragon tear jellybean (the red one) was gorgeous... the second multi-coloured one looked kinda crappy by comparison. But that's okay.

The Albi song is in my top 3 FOTC songs along with the Humans are Dead and the Bowie Song, so... I'd love to see your take on other FOTC songs, especially those two... but really any of 'em. MORE FOTC FLASH ON NG, PLZ. FTW.