Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[PSN is Down?!]

Going Under FUCK!

That's why I always purchase a fall-back game that doesn't need network play.

Not everybody can be the next Egoraptor, and this is proof. It comes close in spirit, though. A cleaner microphone and doing multiple takes for the voice-overs would improve the sound quality a great deal. The animation and artistry is shoddy. The wall graffiti doesn't look right; next time, use the free transform tool to shape the wall exactly according to the perspective so that the graffiti distorts accordingly. This is one of those cartoons where perspective work would really lift up the visual quality.

And perhaps it is with a sense of irony that the transition sound effect is the "1-Up" fanfare from Super Mario Bros., a Nintendo product. You don't notice it at first, but there is that sense of company disloyalty that stems from frequent maintenance fiascoes. Then again, everyone will laugh along with the Tourettes sufferer who endures them. Look for the little things, people.

Xaude responds:

You make nice points there man. Thanks for the tips.

[Dead Space 2: Exploring]

Bizarre

Somehow, I think it's better if this DOESN'T get animated. It's awful. Very, very awful. It sent chills down my spine.

On the other hand, it's a perfect sound clip.

I don't know... it's something that will probably get animated anyway, provided you're not lazy or you can garner support from others to assist.

[Hi, Mom]

Happy Fucking Mother's Day....

This is a cartoon where writing plays a larger part than the artistry or the depth of perversion, in the case of Newgrounds' classic emphasis on the extreme. "Hi, Mom!" takes us on a ride down a deluded, cantankerous trip that builds up as it goes.

It's all about a mother who, either by senility or just killjoy nature, manages to get on her son's nerves. She tries to drive off the neighborhood kids from her lawn, believes her dead husband is alive and well in a chair in the bedroom, and can just creep out the audience purely from the wrinkles.

Being that this cartoon was a school assignment, it could not rely on profanity or graphic content. Yet, in the absence of the hardcore stuff, it manages to succeed. The artistry is crude, however, barely passing in the eyes of most of the portal snobs. The sound quality also suffers, being that this is intended for YouTube release and the usual road for that is that one version looks and sounds better than its counterpart.

If anybody has ever gone through a mother who drove them up the wall and through the ceiling, make it a priority to introduce them to this forgotten gem. Why "Hi, Mom!" never got the Front Page DURING Mother's Day may never be known.

[Pico&Darnells Enlistment]

Pico's Mom is a Real MILF!

This is the quintessential Newgrounds Flash: dirty language, sexual content, violence, absurdity, satire, and Sardonic Samurai. Sardonic Samurai is the quintessential Flash author: a dirty bastard with a dirtier sense of humor. Hope he gets over his mono soon!

But anyway, we're all the fuckin' screen lookers because they're both glued to it. "Pico & Darnell's Enlistment" features classic characters and even a hilarious representation of their parents, combined with Tankmen and wartime horror. Just to be sure, this isn't anything new, beyond maybe a depiction of Pico and Darnell's parents. At least we know where they get their good looks. But if you're looking for a Flash in good taste, watch something else. If you want to sit back, turn your brain off, and laugh, Sardonic Samurai might just be able to accommodate you. While you're at it, send a few thoughts and prayers so he can get over his affliction. Remember: we're all screen lookers some time or another.

[Drugs, drugs, drugs!]

Surgeon General's Warning: This Stuff Will Kill Ya

I remember those public service announcements but never really needed a reminder that drugs were awful. But some ads had to have been convincing. This could have been that ad. It showed heightened expectations that fell once reality is shown.

"Drugs, Drugs, Drugs!" is an excellent homage to anti-drug movements because it's a public service announcement in itself, tailored for the Newgrounds crowd. It's a low-size Flash packed with laughs, but with one caveat: the window is raised during the commercial but is lowered during the next scene, as some reviewers have pointed out. We don't think of it at first, but it's there, and never explained.

The Encore is worth the price of admission alone, however. Someone will likely release a cover through the Audio Portal of that song.

BillyNapalm responds:

Good eyes - I never noticed the window thing until now. I'm glad you still liked it!

[Osama Bin Laden At Sea]

Shameless Self-Promotion

Junkyard Animations is going to capitalize on the news of Osama bin Laden's death with the shirt that nobody will ever wear in public. I cannot help but half-smile to this.

JunkYardAnimations responds:

hey, it's at least worth a try.. if i make a million I promise i'll give you a thousand!!!

[Yotam plays Portal 2]

Warning: Racist Overtones

LazyMuffin is one of those entertainers on Newgrounds that never fails to stay topical and disjointed at the same time. I know plenty of guys on cable news television that are like that, which is why "Yotam Plays Portal 2" is another nail in this kid's coffin: he's going to end up being a ridiculous cable news commentator, a talking head who, by design, manages to keep this crowd's interest and spirits.

Like many game tributes and parodies (e.g. Halomen), this short cartoon captures an aspect of the original game but leaves out anything that might spoil one's experience in playing the actual game. That has led to some of the truly memorable tributes, because you don't have to worry about the parody ruining the experience of the game. It also takes something and drives it to its foregone conclusion while also introducing something completely different that, as it turns out, is the real message or theme... and it's one that practically any player can identify with: compulsions drawn from playing a game too much.

But a lot of people will be spooked by the overtones displayed here. I had figured that, since Yotam lives in Israel, he would be a bit more sensitive to its citizens. Though they are goofy and absurd, it might irk a few of us.

Still, players can identify with the central theme, which coalesces in various ways like looting everything from a dungeon, going back and forth between there and a village pawnbroker to ensure every last scrap of usable gear gets liquidated before hitting the next dungeon (if anyone ever played the "Avernum" games, they'd know what this is about). Then you start to do useless or anticlimactic buffoonery, trying to see if it can ever be done, just for the satisfaction of messing around. I recall figuring out the deadliness of falling from great heights in Hexen, and for a while refused to stop jumping off the cliff over and over again on multiplayer mode. My brothers and I would do it in unison, just to see if we could see each other fall during our descent.

So in all, I got a kick out of this. It's a simple, simple cartoon that should have been named better, but I suppose that's all part of the joke to divert our attention from the true subject until it hits. It's just a shame that LazyMuffin couldn't be bothered to take a piano piece from the Audio Portal to suit the ending.

LazyMuffin responds:

I'm going to be a talking head? COOL.

I think being from Israel actually makes me desensitized. I just used a jew train to describe an awful smell, I don't think it's that bad. The swastika is just a funny shape.

I don't consider this a parody, I just reference Portal 2 cause the idea came from the white gel situation. Then I just added the idea of gaming OCD and gave another example. I agree that the name is there to trick you, but I really didn't know what else to name it, if I had named it "Gaming OCD" it would have given away the punchline.

The music is royalty free ):
It's hard sometimes to find something perfect on the audio-portal, especially if it's not a trance.

[The Devil's Bones 1]

Devil's Bones: a Natural One Without a Dialog Fix!

Webcomics are rarely presented in shockwave flash format. The only real notable exception is the "Broken Saints" graphic novel, which was rendered via photoshop rasters as opposed to vectors. It also featured panning frames and sound, unlike the debut episode of "The Devil's Bones". This one confirms my long-nagging suspicion that crisp comic-styled images can be rendered in Flash, so if you still feel suspicious about its potential as an animation tool, it still has plenty of merits as a drawing tool.

The chief problem I have with rating a flash webcomic is that they are closely related to slide shows. Just click to advance through the images. A moron can put one of these together. It doesn't sound too impressive from a technical perspective, in other words.

The other problem is that there are few examples to compare this comic to. I have read a few episodes of flash webcomics but those were animated. "The Devil's Bones" lacks that quality (again, slide show) and, as a digital presentation, suffers the same drawbacks as others in the format.

Traditional comic book stories are usually spread across 24 pages worth of content (6 sheets, folded and double-sided), often dividing those pages up into panels of various makes, shapes and sizes. This format has regimented and disciplined comic authors into creating concise stories. The plots are well-defined, with a presented conflict that is often resolved with some loose ends that get tied up in the next edition of the story.

Now, the following criticisms of "The Devil's Bones" apply to many webcomics in general. The fact that you're not shelling bones to convert pulp into another edition of a comic means you don't bother to use specific number of pages--you use as many pages as you like. This has editorial problems in that authors tend to meander; they just don't know when to quit or really consider the composition of each page. I have seen webcomics with such an overload of dialogue (often the biggest and most common problem) that I wondered why I was reading so much at once, especially if I haven't been reading on a daily basis.

In "The Devil's Bones", the plot is never truly satisfied because the protagonists' motivations are nonexistent... or merely undefined. Little is understood about this world, except there is a nameless gorgon-like being who wanders the desert and sports a style of dress that ends up explained in one of the reviews below mine... but not the comic. Nobody's names are mentioned, actually. God forbid anything is ever explained in the comic itself. Even the most bombastic laser movie remembers to prescribe motivations for its characters, considering the number of explosions they have to endure.

The dialogue sounds smart but it really needs to ditch most if not all of the profanity. When you write comics, you write dialogue. The tricky but comic-saving technique is to adopt colloquialisms for each character, so A: you can tell characters apart, and B: they don't sound like extensions of the writers' ego. The author is likely a big fan of swearing. Good for him. But if everybody swears practically every line, that really botches the characterization. It homogenizes the dialogue. The other issue is that it gets sparse during moments of calm--when exposition is in order--and overflowing in the event of heavy action, like a fight scene. Shut your damn mouth and smack that pig! Geez.

Another consistency problem arises when we realize that neither scene has anything in common with one another. Nothing. I already have a minor dandruff problem as it is, I don't feel like scratching my head anymore than necessary!

The criticism of there being no sound is pointless; this is a comic book in digital form. The artwork for characters is solid, although distance shots and backgrounds look too simple. Hyptosis can do better than this.

In all, "The Devil's Bones" has a very shaky first episode. Things better clear things up and quick, but despite its issues, the first episode has enough weirdness to merit waiting for the second one.

[RPG Quest The Movie EP04]

Lame, with Rating Issue

Repeated uses of the F word warrants a Mature Rating ("R" Rating). One F word for a PG-13 movie (T).

it's not meant to be very good. I get that. It could have been done better in that regard... or better in general. Take your pick. By this movie's execution, I know well that no RPG Quest webcomic actually exists.

dullsworth responds:

I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. So you didn't need a friend like me. Now you come and say "Don Corleone, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me "Godfather." You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money.

[Bringing you bullsh-]

The First Two Suck, But...!

The first one, which is just lip sync practice, borrows an infamous "shop of horrors" scene from the third Simpsons Halloween special. I still call frozen yoghurt "frogurt" because of that episode. The lip sync cartoon doesn't do it for me... and neither does the second showcase, which uses scant blur effects. The third one is my personal favorite of this showcase. It demonstrates better technical savvy than the first two, satirizes tutorials (I got a kick out of the whole thing), and it features the best "Take Two!" moment I have seen in some time. It manages to crack me up. Some of the voice-over work reminds me of that "Pancakes" cartoon... ("these pancakes are tiny....").

It's a shame that Scott-Falco doesn't update his catalog at this site more often. Having to go between two sites to check one guy's profile tends to be a pain. Thank goodness he's decided to port his material over, and he has improved a little over time. All this from what is otherwise a "bullshit submission." At least it isn't spam.