Windows 8 and 8.1. Should One Recommend It and Why?

So, is Windows 8 and 8.1 an

operating system worth
recommending?

The Short answer? Yes!

Why Recommend It?

"Why would they?" one would wonder. But I wonder, why not? Let's start there, the reasons why one shouldn't recommend Windows 8.

DOOM 2014 - QuakeCon Reveals New Classic Mechanics.

DOOM 2014 (previously named DOOM 4 and of late simply known as DOOM alone) is finally here...

Well not exactly, it's some corners away at least. Nonetheless sooner than we had hoped, since Doom 4 seemed for a long time a dead project that was sluggishly finding its way to late 2015 if that. When the teaser came out, I was excited to say the least but didn't heed much to expectations with regards to seeing it any time soon.

The teaser surely took me by surprise, news on development on the new Doom were till now elusive and covered in a haze of mystery and smoke. With the project scrapped and rebooted at least once that we know of, and id software making statements of the likes "we will reveal information on the game when we have something to reveal..." all hope of getting it any time soon seemed futile. Of course we also had the occasional "it is going to be great" comments and the tease of what it "might" include or be like. But all we could do is push back release dates in our minds and make empty speculations of what it might be like or when it would arrive.

Until now.

Doom is indeed closer than we think, and from the sounds of it, is shaping up into a great experience created around fun and plenty fan service unless I am mistaken. Fingers crossed, but the horizons look good with the latest reveals and sooner that we had hoped.

Fanboys! And the Michael Bay Hate Wagon

Fanboys will be Fanboys...

What's with this Michael Bay hate wagon? It's years already. Is it going to ever stop?

First off, I am not a Michael Bay fan boy. I am neither trying to stick up for him, excuse him, or whatever else one may think of. I am simply tired of seeing his films (and him along with them) being attacked for no other reason other than fandom rage. And let's face it, that is exactly the only thing it is.

Before Transformers, there wasn't really much hate to go around. But then a Transformer film is made and every geek, nerd or anyone else that either greatly or mildly enjoyed Transformers as a child found a chance to complain about and hate like no tomorrow on the film and the creative party as well. "He is ruining childhood memories".

Didn't that phrase get old already with George Lucas?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 - Splinter, Shredder, and Ninja "Blings"

Saw the 3rd trailer to this TMNT "reboot" (it is a reboot isn't it? I'm guessing so) some days ago when it came out... and I couldn't be more hyped to see this than I already am. You should be too, and I'm going to help you find out why.

Being only a trailer there is usually not much to go on due to either the small amount of content that is shown or purposefully edited plot ambiguity, but in this case there is much that can be said indeed.

First of all, you need to be some form of TMNT fan in one way or another to appreciate some details, some more than others I guess (like Ralphs depiction in all posters, always facing in an opposite direction to the rest of them even when all that is shown is simply their hands and weapons).

(Check out the trailer bellow to get in touch with the points I am making if you have not already seen it)

Video Games: A Form of Art and Entertainment for the Future

Video Games are a form of Art

Well as the title itself says, Video Games are a form of Art.

"Games" is a title given and used far too lightly nowadays with some still clinging on to the impression that it means "child's' play" and other outdated notions that should have been left in the past by now.

We Gamers are not children with no responsibilities, neither people that have nothing else to do in their lives, neither individuals with no interests other than having fun and playing. Some cling to these notions and try to force gamers to believe that video games are for children and not for grown ups. Naturally they are prompting gamers to grow "out" of them eventually. Such beliefs couldn't be more wrong and couldn't be based on falser assumptions if they tried.

Believe it or not, there are indeed many people that still think like this. An arrogant and pretentious mindset knows no limits after all. Such people try to force their belief systems on others, judging harshly with some pretty ridiculous notions that can even lead to discrimination and cause more harm than good. Instead of understanding that they are of a different mindset and that each person has a right to chose which ideals and qualities they will warm up to in this world, these people that do not agree to gaming in the form it truly is find it fitting to try and make others that do not agree with them change by force and discrimination. Such childish behaviour.

Gamers and what are the defenders of this entire form of entertainment will have you know it is no less a child's game than half if not all the activities in our lives that we all partake in for entertainment. Like going to the cinemas, or playing cards, playing pool, bowling, and so much more. Pretty hypocritical to rule out what one does not understand or like as being childish when all these activities are of the same form.

It is 2014 and the time for such misinformed notions to come to an end is overdue.

To put it simply, Video Gaming is 1st and above all a form of Art and 2nd a form of Entertainment. The two intertwine and become ultimately one.

It's time everyone started to respect it as such, and further respect gaming as much as any and all other forms of entertainment and art out there. The same way films, books, paintings, music and other forms are here to express the inner worlds of creators so that they can be shared with hundreds of others, thousands or even millions, games are here with the same purpose and were established with this idea and need in mind. They simply just take things up a notch by comparison, making the experiences interactive and thus being the only difference with the other forms. At this point it is pointless to argue over the differences and further define each form to a specific target market alone (like that of children) as each form is and should be unique in its own way and is more than capable of being directed to any target market out there and of any age.

Art and entertainment takes any form it needs or requires itself to take, it is free of any boundaries and templates, and that is why it is both an artistic expression as well as entertaining.

>>Scionia Update: Site Update and Completion

Glad to announce that the Archives Menu for the site of Scionia, along with other changes, have been completed into what should be the final and completed layout for scioniacomic.com.

The Archive Menu serves as a lore index, as within it will be logged all the details of the story as they are revealed along with some extra back-stories that cannot be completely explained within the comic itself without ruining the immersion. Updates to the Archive Menu will occur as the story is revealed and they are divided into categories to make navigation simpler and easier.

Serving as the insight and collection of lore to Scionia aimed at both fans and newcomers, the Archives will also in the future include spoilers which will be of course pointed out as such to ensure the experience is not ruined for anyone.

New changes to the site itself include the complete chapter navigation for all 16 chapters, to be filled in time with the story itself, new loaders to make the site as real-time as possible and ensure that long loading times do not become a problem, and lastly new artwork released including the Crusader and teaser character artworks.

Chapter 2 is well into its production now.

Content delays are common and to be expected as the project remains unfunded and on a minimum budget, making it understandably a hard task to keep up with and thus creating larger delays than intended for obvious reasons.

Having that said, I'm looking forward and trying my best to keep on working on this project as it is also an enjoyable ride and a personal milestone of my own that is with time accomplished. Here is to hoping the journey is as fun and in the end as rewarding to all as it is to me and to future endeavours being accomplished along with hopes of different working conditions to allow for more time to be spent on Scionia.

Thank you all for the support.

Graphics in Video Games, Will Always Be Important!

-"Someone that believes graphics are important should go and watch an anime or something, they are not real gamers"

-"I don't care about the graphics if the gameplay sucks"

-"Graphics are not important, it's the gameplay that counts"

-"Wish they would cut back on paying so much attention to graphics and make better gameplay"

-"Who cares about the lack in graphics? It has great gameplay."

Those few quotes, among many others, are some of the common phrases the "real" gamers of our time use to the extent that now people even write articles to defend such a notion... Being, that graphics are not important.

Funny story, I was going over this whole concept again not more than one day ago, and today I wake up to read a related article including opinions and comments enforcing the idea that graphics are indeed not important and further more, stating that they actually are not important "any more" in the industry in general and not just for their liking. I wonder at such perspectives from such gamers and turn to question what wonderful book or insight of facts gave away this notion for articles and comments of the like to exist?

>> Scionia Update: Archives Menu

Nothing to be seen yet within the site itself at the moment, just glad to announce that the graphics for the Archives Menu are designed and they are now being implemented into the site for the next update.

Work on Chapter 2 continues with hopes (somewhat unlikely) it is complete for uploading along side the Archives Menu and The Crusader Artwork. Completion for the upload to the Timelapse video for the Crusader is also on its way along with a small side-project video still in it's "scripting phase" with purpose of including an all around and general look at digital painting in the form of a tutorial.

As seen in the official Facebook Page for Scionia and my personal DeviantArt for now, this is the final version of a new character to be introduced in the coming chapters. The Crusader.

Getting ready for possibly one of the last overhauls including changes and additions (Chapter Idle Menus, Navigation Buttons, Chapter/Art Loader Priorities and of course the Archives) for the completed experience to the site for the WebComic as well as better efficiency and loading times for medium and slower connections. The foundation from which everything should be then ready to allow for focus being put into the Chapters and the Artworks themselves alone for each update.

Stay tuned.

X REBIRTH - 1st Impressions Game Review

X-Universe fans have been patiently waiting a long time now for the release to the next chapter of Egosofts' sandbox space simulator. X-Rebirth has been in development for 7 years, and it is now finally here.

The most obvious questions are: Does it deliver? Is it worthy of the X-Universe franchise? And does the new addition cater to the fans as well?

At most, it does. Although a little early on its release, with having an array of bugs experienced in the game from many users, X Rebirth should not disappoint neither the fans of the franchise nor the newcomers. It caters to both depth and functionality, keeps true to the franchise in almost every way, and adds changes that make it easier to pick up as well as easier to enjoy in the long run without ditching that depth of the past. Egosoft have gone into delivering these elements for their new X title in one of the most well-balanced and complete approaches that a single player sandbox space simulator has ever seen till now. (minus the bugs)

From Crysis to Crysis 3

Trilogy/Quadroligy Review and Comparisson

Just finished Crysis 3 a small while back and have been meaning to get to a review for it...
So we're doing that now. Talking about, reviewing and comparing all the titles in the Crysis trilogy. Four titles actually for those that include Warhead as a separate title rather than an expansion-ish stand alone addition. Crysis has been after all as a franchise giving us top end experiences and pushing technology along with first person shooter standards for almost 6 years now (end of 2007 - 2013) and deserves it's own thorough look. And as we do it here, we get as thorough as it gets before it becomes a quantum theory molecular level kind of thorough.

Crysis has not gone unnoticed one bit in the gaming industry. Either by haters, or fans, and from both ends of the gaming spectrum including PC's and Consoles, at least one of the Crysis titles has been subject for a lot of back and forth debating for most gamers if not all gamers of our time.

I being no different and having now completed the trilogy, am ready to dig deep inside the Crysis titles and meet the heart that beats beneath it all face to face.

Back Again - Another Summer Vacation Gone...

Here we are once more, back from summer vacation, batteries re-stocked, energy refilled and ready to take on the rest of 2013 head on.

Hope 2013's summer vacation was an eventful and relaxing one for all. Hopefully the remainder of the year will be as eventful if not more.

With return from the holidays I took the liberty of taking some snips from work in progress as a sneak peek for Scionia, Chapter 2: Ellania, showcasing my new steps in venturing to create new characters, re-visiting the look and style of the City of Light, designing the bikes of the future and bringing the new and perhaps slightly updated look to the comic.

Apart from work being done on the chapter itself and the continuation of the adventure as seen in the sneak peeks, development for the new Archives Menu is also in progress for it's addition to the site soon enough.

On other news non-relevant to Scionia, my blog The Digital Creative Front now has it's own facebook page which will also archive previous articles and posts from the blog. In the meantime, after noticing a realtively hard to follow more-than-few articls in here, I will be also eventually editing older articles for easier and more pleasant reading (such changes will include titles for starters).

Click here for the DCF facebook page itself.

Here's to wishing everyone a great Autumn-Winter and a very productive closing 2013.

>>Scionia Update: Chapter One Complete!

First Milestone Complete!!!

The first milestone for my comic, Scionia, is finally accomplished. Achievement Unlocked.

The completion of Chapter I: A Hero Born has arrived, as we are taken through an introduction to the where and when of it all, establish our main character Eleron, and even pitch him against one of his first foes, Sinjiro Kinjo. A match that finds Eleron unprepared and raises more questions than it solves answers.

And so we lead into Chapter II: Ellania, which has now moved on into the production phase and will be coming soon. As before, sneak peeks will be released on the work that will be done for this chapter, as the story begins to evolve and become all the more interesting. Personally, I can't wait to release the next chapters and let people in on it all, taking them through the adventure bit by bit.

As of yesterday the last pages to Chapter I have been added, a total of 7, being the largest update till now, and also featuring almost twice as many illustrations than all previous 13 pages did, summing up to a much harder task in all. An extra additional artwork has been added as well from the Chapter II title page art (nothing too special - the good stuff is still on it's way).

The Difficulties

They tell you that "If you want to do something right, do it yourself", and after trying a multitude of things in the past, you reach the point where this begins to hold more and more true inside you. Especially for those that have a vision, or a dream, or even an idea that they want to bring to life. Even more so for people that know how (with regards to technical aspects) and need only to find the missing pieces to it all to simply just do it.

That is the part they don't tell you. A lot of research is needed to cover aspects that no one can honestly come to know of unless they go out there and do it. And as hard or as slow as the process might be, it all ends up being an equally great part to the journey as everything else. The attitude is simply that, "Just Do It" (man, I should get paid for this, I'm finding great advertising material for Nike here.)

The difficulty is sometimes just that, not giving up. And there are perhaps many reasons that can rise to tempt you or to make you believe that giving up is an option. It seems that if anything can go wrong, it will. That is the second thing they usually don't tell you about doing something yourself, or pretty much doing anything that you truly want/love. The answer to it all however is just one: Giving up was never an option!

Indeed this was the case for me, giving up was never an option, and I was never tempted by the idea of giving up. That being said, everything that could go wrong did (probably everything, I don't want to test the gods with what challenges they may have, thus dealing me with an even harder hand for my next milestone). Delays due to the plain and simple fact of a small budget, or not making any profit at all from the work, something that everybody in such fields goes through when setting out for something new. Bills have to be paid, mouths fed, and of course other work will bring such personal projects behind.

The next line of difficulties are usually technical. This happens to everyone. Something simply won't work, will stop working, and at times not only bring you back in your time, but also (worst case scenario) bring your work back forcing you to do it again! That didn't happen to me on this project thankfully, but something like that needs only happen once for one to learn. After losing years of work (yeah, it was painful and I was young) you learn that no amount of backups is ever too much. You almost become hysterical with regards to this.

So the forces of life, seeing that you have taken so many precautions, seek to use technology against you in every other way possible. Ok, I am a computer geek as well, so my workplace is working the way it should most of the time (fingers crossed it stays that way), so I am pretty prepared right? Wrong. Something will always go wrong. And it did. The only thing that I couldn't control struck, driver problems with my Wacom! And absolutely no way to reverse them! I know right? And I mean NO way, many older drivers some also dating as far back as 2 years ago, system restores, I even formatted the whole PC with several OS options. It simply didn't fix.

That is much worst than any internet problem, or hardware problem, ect (not as bad as loosing work but close behind). I had to pretty much learn from scratch how to draw digitally, and in a matter of a small time as well. Not an easy task at all.

Life is even funnier though, I went through a hand injury as well, dislocated bone, on my very drawing hand itself ^_^

Cool, right? Not to mention that all the above strike together as well. Time management, fund management, learning to draw again, and an injury, all together just to help each other out. Oh, and all this on a piece of work that was hard on it's own as it was. Trying to establish the main character, create a fight scene, find new balances on how the colours and all the technical/artistic things of the comic come together, and drawing new and more daring comic illustrations (for me at least it was a new, especially for a comic), adding up to a hill that seemed so hard to climb.

And in the end... you climb it!

The Result

They also tell you that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. This is so true. After climbing that hill, you feel just that. With new hills to climb, new boundaries to pass, new heights and expectations to rise to, you do but one and only one thing in all... Evolve! And it is a great evolution as well. Everything you have learned truly becomes a part of you, you use it, you are faster more experienced more efficient, etc etc etc... In the end you can only but thank the gods that everything happened to you as it did. It made you so much stronger, and now you can do so much more.

The fact of the matter is that life always tests us on how much we want something, how much we are prepared to fight for it, how much we are willing to sacrifice, hence how much we deserve it. And it never gives us more than we can handle. Always enough to push as a little further. All who give in to these obstacles remain exactly where they are. This is not a bad thing of course. It is however for those that want to evolve, to keep moving forward, to reach higher, or to simply accomplish whatever it is they set out to accomplish. Big and small.

These obstacles will never stop happening. If they do, perhaps it is a sign that you should now evolve in something else as well ;) Life is all about growing after all.

Scionia was indeed just that for me. Growing. I am certain things wont get easier, new obstacles will come. But when you look at all you achieve after each obstacle, the result is always worth it. For in the end, the result is what remains, what stays by your side, what is always there, the obstacle simply came and left. And good riddance to it.

Coming Soon - Moving Forward

Chapter II: Ellania is now about to head into it's production phase, and with it new challenges of establishing new characters and new settings as well as other things. Even more, the challenge of finding the right mood for the entire story telling itself, conversations, and so on so forth. I have to admit, I am good at writing conversations in books, but comics are a different story all together, and finding the right formula that works is indeed a challenge in it's own.

New artwork is also on it's way, as is a new menu called Archives that will include the lore of Scionia (as stated in previous update). It will feature categories for characters, locations, timeline events, etc, and will evolve as the story progresses. As new characters are introduced in the story, so will they be added to the archives, whilst new background information on them will be also added as their story unfolds. This should serve as a great way for people to either get deeper into Scionia, or fill in the gaps on anything they might be questioning (provided it isn't a spoiler for future events to happen which will not be included in the archives for obvious reasons). I wish I had access to such lore myself when I was younger for the comics I loved. This perhaps was my initial taunt for adding the Archives menu itself.

The method of "always free online" will continue as the core idea to Scionia. I will be exploring ways in the future for publishing hard copies or merchandising for the comic as a means for more intimate collections to be accessible for those that might seek them. I will not however steer away from the idea of featuring the comic online and free in it's web-comic form.

Lastly, the chapter update intervals will also change for the future. No longer seeking to update on a weekly, or biweekly schedule, the chapters will be updated either in part intervals or as complete works. I do not sacrifice quality for shorter times, so nothing will be released until it is on the standards it should be. However this is not the main reason to my different approach. The truth behind it is that I was not completely satisfied with the way the story was broken up in Chapter I, and seek to keep a continuity in the tale that is fitting to the feeling I want to create. Thus, weekly updates of say 2 pages is now out of the question as it will break it up too much and make it frustrating to read as well. I prefer to come out with say 6 pages in 2-3 weeks or an entire chapter after 4 weeks, and get the feeling of the narration just the way it should be.

Stay Tuned!

That being said, I am looking forward to continuing down this exciting and fun journey, and personally like stated before can't wait to release new chapters and artworks for Scionia: Guardian Angel. It really is something to share the worlds in your head with others.

On a last and perhaps irrelevant note, for those that might seek a different format in reading the pages, I feel obliged to let you know that right-clicking on View All at the chapter menu and selecting open in new tab or window, loads the pages in an almost seamless top-down format where one can simply scroll down through the entire chapter.

Click here to view this reading format...

Until next time, keep strong, resist, fight! Darkness is only but a means, an obstacle, to new strength and more light.