Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A song made for The Wallflower

I was watching a video on Youtube of how the manga-ka of Cherry Flavored Marshmallow War draws. The song she put in the video, Skeleton Song by Kate Nash, reminded me of The Wallflower (aka Perfect Girl Evolution and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge). Nice, huh? I think I might make an anime music video out of it.

Lyrics:
Skeleton song
Skeleton you are my friend
But you are made of bone
And you have got no flesh and blood
Running through you to help protect the bone

Skeleton we have been friends for years
And you have seen me through some trials
And tribulations and some tears
But everybody thinks I’m weird
And I should have known
That it wouldn’t be long
Until you, you’ve got me standing in an awkward position
With unwanted attention and a need for explanation
And it’s not that I’m letting go of you
But I don’t know what to do
Skeleton we are so close
But you have got no body
So why do you insist on wearing clothes
Skeleton when we were young
It was easy
Even though the other kids
They would tease me
But I was only seven I had you
But now I’m twenty-two
And now it’s different, when I take you out
And you, you’ve got me standing in an awkward position
With unwanted attention and a need for explanation
And it’s not that I’m letting go of you
But I don’t know what to do
‘Cause sometimes at night,
I dream of the most terrible things
I take a hammer and I creep out of bed
And I raise it high
And I smash your head
Fibular and tubular
And ribs and cages, too
In fact, while I’m here
I'll smash the whole of you

Smaaaaaaaaaaash !
But Skeleton, you are my friend
And I could never bring your life to an end
Yes Skeleton you are, you are my friend
And I will be there for you until the end
And even though, when I take you out
You’ve got me, you’ve got me standing in an awkward position
With unwanted attention and a need for explanation
I could, I could never let you go
And that is all I know
And that is all I know
And that is all I, that is all I know
And that is all I know, know

Monday, June 2, 2008

Silkroad Online and the hype about MMORPGs


More Silkroad Online artwork here.

Game launcher.

I'm not much of a gamer, myself, seeing as I own no game system, and I used to own a very slow computer that I fear would die if I tried installing a 3D graphics card or other such accessories. However, all that is over and done with and I now have a nice new computer all to myself and tried my hand at those free online MMORPGs (that's Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game for all you non-gamers out there). The ones I tried out were the fairly new Fiesta, Secret of the Solstice, Silkroad and a classic, Maplestory (and I'm sorry, World of Warcraft is currently not in my budget).

The one I enjoyed the most by far was Silkroad Online, a game based on the real silk road linked from Europe to China. When I first picked it up, I was blown away by the graphics. All the character designs and concepts are solid and the armor/clothing is all intricate and aesthetically pleasing. Not only is the art amazing, but the animation of the different animals is spot on and the clouds actually move! It has a huge playing ground since it's supposed to encompass two countries. Also, it has tons of different skills you can constantly level up on and loads of new ones to add to your intelligence as you gain skill points, so you never get bored with fighting even if you've stayed at level 40 for weeks on end.

Now, the cool thing about Silkroad is that it actually has some historical, nonfictional value to it, unlike the other games I've mentioned. It ties together the situation of travelers and merchants on the silk road into an enjoyable game. The downside is that in order to make the game more enjoyable, it's not completely accurate nor should anyone base their history dissertations off of this game. For starters, most of the names are Korean, not Chinese (that can probably be attributed to the fact that Joymax, the company producing Silkroad is Korean) on the China end of the game. Yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention, when creating your character, not only do you get to decide the odds and ends of your character (hair style, height, bustiness), you also get to choose the race of your character.

They only logically have two options: European and Chinese. If you pick European, there are six classes/skills you get to choose from: Rogue, Warrior, Wizard, Warlock, Bard, and Cleric. But not only are there a variety of classes/skills, but you don't have to commit to just one, in fact many users choose around three (one melee, one caster, and one buffer). If you pick Chinese, on the other hand, you get the choice of Archer, Spearman, and Swordsman.

Overall, I give it 4.5/5, recommended for high quality art and animation fanatics such as myself.


This is one of the monsters close up :)