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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 - For Sano

Well, WOTB: Commando 3 has been out on the PSN and XBLA for a couple of weeks now and I've been closely looking at the reviews and the comments from a few forums. And it's been getting a mixed bag of reviews. Our average review score is landing at around 65%. Our highest so far has been an 85% from 1up.com and the Lowest is a 40% from Giant Bomb.

It seems I've really ticked off a lot of people with the art style I chose, especially in my character designs. In one case it seems to have really grated on a reviewer's nerves so much that He couldn't even get past how atrocious my stuff was that it basically brought the score of the whole game down! Here are a few examples of people's comments on my art work:

"The logos, menu layouts and pause screens are well-done, but the character art kills the overall package. Sorry folks, this one just doesn't catch the eye. Environments are nothing special, attention to detail is sometimes lacking, and did we mention the character art?"
- Ryan Geddes review, ign.com

"yea... not to be excessively critical, but im in the art industry. and i gotta say, the character art in this game is really weak. it looks like something i'd pull out of my a55 back in college when the the deadline for an assignment was 1 day away and i didnt even start working on it yet."
- 'drtaco99', Gamefaqs poster

"I think the art/style is fugly and low-budget looking. It doesn't match the series, type of game or even anything else Capcom is known for. I really hope this is the last game to use it since I'd rather have NO art than BAD art. The explosions and environments are decent looking without that cartoony crap spoiling it.."
- 'CrossHanded', Gamefaqs poster

"for an indie developer, i'd be less harsh on the artwork. this is Capcom, though, and i'm sure they could have spent the $100 bills they light their $1000 cigars with to get one of their regular artists to put a portfolio together." -'xenodolf', Gamefaqs poster

While I've developed a fairly thick skin for criticism for my art and being able to decipher constructive criticism from even the worst critic, I don't think I expected to get such a negative reaction from a lot of fans.

I think it's safe to say that if a sequel for this game would be made (which I doubt), I definitely shouldn't be a part of it! It's quite a blow to the ego reading some of the postings. People will go out of their way to state how they didn't like the character designs, but otherwise they enjoyed the game. For awhile, I really felt like I brought the team down.

In any case, I know I gave it my best shot. I definitely did not want to make another 'realistic' looking game. I'm one of the few that's pretty much sick to my stomach seeing the same old boringly-designed-space-marine-versus-boringly-designed-space-aliens-FPS. The way I see it, if other people can have their boring mediocre designs drive their games, why can't I have my boring mediocre designs out there too!

The thing is, I didn't think people would hate my drawings this much! One poster took a line from Dane Cook and said the art made him want to punch babies (that ran as our office in-joke for quite some time)!

Anyway, don't worry I'm okay, I've gotten over just how bad of an artist I am. Case in point: I just watched Wall-e. And I am both amazed at how awesome the Pixar artists are, and depressed at far I have to go as an artist!

Anyway! In one of the forums I ran across this one poster named 'Sano'. Now this guy didn't like my art either, but there was one thing I did that he liked. Here's what he said in the posts from the Capcom-Unity Boards (I'm 'Biggedy' by the way, and 'CapKraig' is the Capcom-side producer of WOTB: Commando 3):



I had initially thought it'd be a funny reference if I made the Commando's prison outfits mirror another Capcom character's prison duds. In this case it was Cody, from Street Fighter Alpha 3. It was a fun, but maybe a little obscure way of sneaking in an in-joke.


So when Sano posted, I was so happy that someone actually caught my reference! I was so pleasantly happy that day! One dude! One dude got my reference! Cool! That one guy expressing his appreciation for my in-joke (not even my art, really!), tipped the hate-scales for me by a lot. In my pessimistic head it went like this:

"Maybe nobody liked my art and maybe I caused the game to be brought down a few notches of where it could've been, but one guy actually got my gag! Cool!"

I think I would've been fine if it ended at that. But a few days later, Sano came back to post a screenshot of the panel he liked so much. Wow! He really liked it!


But that screenshot's too blurry, so...


This one's for you Sano, perhaps the only one I managed to entertain with my art! Thanks for single-handedly picking me back up from "my-art-sucks" land and bringing me back to "my-art-sucks-but-maybe-I-can-get-better-someday" land! And in true neverending battle style, here's the rough thumbnail of the drawing:


That's it for me! Good night, er, good morning all and God Bless!

3 comments:

Alan said...

Gaming even more than showbiz has some of the most vicious and vehement critics. It is true, especially on a Capcom remake. That’s like trying to remake a Mario game with a different art style. There’s no way you’ll be able to please everybody.

It’s definitely hard to get criticism on art but one thing we learned at Ghostbot is what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger. We are constantly faced with challenges that question our artistic skills. The trick is not to let critics take you down. Just roll with the punch and come out on the other side stronger. Figure out what people don’t like and find a way to make it work and still look cool.

So take all the hater-critic energy and for your next game come out with something even more awesome than Commando. We all know you can do it!

Ps. I loved the art style of Commando. I thought it evoked the Capcom spirit but in a more graphic and modern way. It was bold and refreshing.

Biggedy said...

Thanks! Glad you liked it dude! Yeah, I guess I didn't expect the reaction to the art to be so negative.

To me, a lot of the art in games nowadays just looks so amazingly similar: design, aesthetics, themes, even personality it seems. I take a quick glance at screenshots of upcoming games in a magazine and they all blur with each other!

I mean how many more super 'real', bald headed, space marines fighting aliens do I have to see? I 'm so tired of seeing everything so realistic in so many video games...

But you're right, all I can do is brush off the dust and dirt, learn from this and move on! Glad I was able to work on some Capcom titles I grew up with!

Apparently, when they showed this game and 1942 to Capcom Japan, some of the higher ups were former team members of these games and they actually liked it, so that was a little bit of a morale boost!

Alan said...

See! I'd trust the opinion of the higher-ups at Capcom over some hater nerds on the internet.

Japan is always pushing the art in different directions. Look at Okami, Katamari, Wario, and No More Heroes.

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