THE SIMPSONS NEWS

EDIT: (Okay, I’m keep the original post up but we are no longer accepting suggestions.  Thank you all who participated. Hopefully some of your suggestions will be used when the show airs.)

Well, we haven’t really gotten much of a response from the whole helping us out thing from my last post. Although Josh Lama sent us a really good one. Thanks Josh! We’re still accepting help. Also, I added a link to a Simpsons Show Archive, in that post, so that it’s easier to find the Show numbers and Titles.

In other news, we found out Monday of last week that the show is not going digital yet. It seems the budget for that never got approved so we’re going to need to wait until it does. The process is going to be much slower than everyone thought. We’ve been doing the show the “traditional way” for so long, that changing the entire way we do things, is going to take a lot of effort and growing pains. Thing is, if we go digital, the Korean studio we work with, will also need to do so, which means that we’re going to need to convert two animation studios to a new way of doing things, not just one.

That being said, there are some interesting changes to the show. First, we are now working in a wide screen format. We are using the paper we used in the movie, and though we are not using the same fielding we did in the movie, we are using much wider framing. Second, the show is now four acts long instead of three. The shows are not longer or shorter, this just means that the commercial breaks will break up an episode into four parts instead of three. I think, for us so far, it’s the trickiest thing to rap our heads around.

This week we got to see a crew screening of the colored version of show 17 (which was the last show we worked on before hiatus). It turned out nice. We all had a good time watching it. I’m very happy with it. I’m not sure when it’s airing.

Little by little, I’m getting used to being back at work again. It’s nice to be joking around with friends and generally making fun of things and each other. I still miss being with my kids though.

VIDEO GAMES
So my favorite video game was slightly modified and came out for the Gameboy DS.

I finally managed to find and buy a copy of Civilizations Revolutions (CivRev) last week. I guess the game was either, under ordered or, it was really popular because I couldn’t find a copy anywhere. I managed to get the last copy they had at the store I finally found it in. Like I’ve said in previous post on the this blog, Civilizations (Civ) is my favorite game. The fact that it’s now on the DS is amazing to me because of how involved a game of Civ is.

Once I got the game, I had to wait a while before I was able to sit down and play it because I never had the time. Two days or so after I got it, I had an afternoon free, so I played it. I beat it on Chieftain (the easy difficulty setting) in three hours. I then had enough time, a day later, to play the game on Warlord (the normal difficulty setting) and beat it in about four. Awesome! Not having played the other CivRevs (there is also one for the Xbox 360 and on PS3), I can’t compare the way it plays with them, but from what I’ve read, they play pretty much the same. Of course, the graphics on the DS game are more reminiscent of Civ II than the other versions (but since when has Civ been about the graphics?) It’s definitely a streamlined version of the game. So streamlined that it makes me think that it would translate into a board game pretty easily. I might use some of what this game does, to see if I can’t “fix” my Civ board game (the one I wrote about in a previous post).

Things I like:

• How quick it plays. You can beat a game in a few hours, instead of a few days.
• The different powers of the leaders you choose to play as. You can find the leader that suits your play style best.
• How second nature the controls are. This is, by far, one of the most impressive things to me.
• It feels like Civ. They could have easily messed this part up.
• The fighting is pretty cool, considering. The little animation of the battles you get as really fun to watch.
• The “Great people” are cool. If you’re culture is doing well, you produce “Great people” (like Einstein, Aristotle…etc.) who give your nation a benefit. It’s very neat.
• St. Thomas Becket is one of the “Great people” your culture can produce. Anytime a Saint shows up in a game and has a positive role, is super cool.
• Roads, farming and irrigation have been streamlined to upgrades and something you can buy real quick. As opposed to having to micromanage your Settlers to, irrigate, farm and build roads little by little.
• I can now play Civ anywhere.
• It plays a lot like a boardgame since it’s now far more streamlined.
• You can play against other people online. Although, having played other games online, I’m not sure how fun it would be to have someone leave a game after playing you for a while, just because you’re winning; as has been my experience in other games.

Things I don’t like:

• Spies are really weak. Almost useless. You can’t bribe other units with them. Best thing you can do is steal “Great people” away from your opponent’s cities. They should at least let you be able to view an opponent’s city info.
• Settlers are only there to settle cities. So if you build extra settlers and find out there isn’t any more room to settle more cities, they just sit there doing nothing. They should at least have a secondary function.
• Fighting a city is a crap shoot as to who you will be fighting when you attack it for the first time. Some units develop a special ability that helps you see into the city, but you can’t count on your units developing it.
• Roads, farming and irrigation have been streamlined to upgrades and something you can buy real quick. I kinda miss the micromanaging of these things.
• No world map option. It wouldn’t have been difficult to do either. It’s difficult to get a good idea of the map without it. You’re zoomed in all the time and can’t zoom out.

Still, I love the game. I highly recommend it if you have a DS, an Xbox360 or a PS3.


MY WEEK

I’m posting this right before I leave to go to Comic Con. Yes, it’s that time of the year again where all the geeks go and gather at the San Diego Convention Center and geek out. I worked late on Monday and Tuesday to make up the eight hours I’m going to be missing by going to the Con today. I’ll let you know how it goes for me next week.

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