Score: 9

"A spectacular finish!"

submission: Sonic:Nazo Unleashed Pt 3

date: August 23, 2007

Omahdon, voiceover guy for Nazo speaking (ha!) here - that was very, very nice. I loved the way this whole series wrapped up and on a very strong, upbeat note. A lot of cheese and pastiches to DBZ, but carried off so well and so masterfully that it only adds to the entire presentation. Backgrounds are a bit on the simplistic "flash-drawn" side, but it's overshadowed by some great character animations.

Speaking in terms of sound, I wish I'd upped the volume a bit (lot) more on my lines and had a chance to re-record some of the lines I did back in 2006. There's a HUGE microphone quality improvement in the sections I recorded for earlier this year. But I guess it's not so noticeable when my lines are overpowered by the loud music. Excepting Hyper Perfect Nazo's final speech, which I'm glad could be heard properly!

Also, as cool and pretty amazing as it is to use existing voice clips from the games to create the semblance of dialogue between characters - next time, get people to do completely original voiceovers that aren't a mash up of soundbites. Plenty of good places to get good, free amateur voice acting like voiceactingalliance.com and voiceactingclub.com! And you're bound to find good soundalikes are just plain replacements amongst them!

Anyway, great work on this! Don't know if you'll be needing voice actors again in the future, but if you do be sure to look me up again!

Score: 8

"Ignore Fraggles, he's just jealous...."

submission: KAZAHANA:Death of Formula

date: January 15, 2007

Probably still wondering why, with all the flash tools in front of him, he still can't achieve nearly the modicum of success in his flash animations that you have. Perhaps he will never figure it out, but that is a sad thing to wish on anybody who has not yet developed an eye for detail and a mature taste.

Anyway, you know how I feel about this series of yours, Mei Fen: I love your sense of direction and being able to maintain a solid mood throughout the entire piece. Reminded me very much of the best of John Woo's Hong Kong films - a mixture of action, angst and tragedy. To achieve that sort of thing in your first two flash movies is nothing short of stunning and I look forward to future works as your skills develop and mature.

You may not like watching sad movies but by gum, you seem to be pretty good at making them. :P

Score: 10

"Hurrah! A wonderfully sublime piece...."

submission: The Adventures of Steve 2

date: September 15, 2006

Which at the same time manages to be completely over-the-top: BOTH AT THE VERY SAME TIME. In the hands of any other (American) director, this would have been a fairly humorous, if somewhat familiar jaunt. Infuse it with a little bit of something indescribably English and you've got comedy gold! Old jokes told in a new way, so to speak. Or maybe they're just plain new jokes told in an English fashion: which is less a club over the head and more a 12-inch dagger slid between your rib cage and directly into your soft, fleshy internal organs.

Plus, anything that manages to have zombies and Nazis in the space of two episodes has to win some sort of award. I anticipate the next episode with a certain level of impatience. I'm hoping for the appearance of Cthulhu. Or a giant space amoeba. Or something.

Score: 9

"Oh dear"

submission: Pulsatilla (Teaser)

date: August 28, 2006

On behalf of all intelligent reviewers everywhere who hail from New Zealand, I do apologise for the terrible rash of humanity that is St-Anger44. We're not normally that stupid. Sure we may shag the occasional sheep now and then: but all in all we can recognise and appreciate poetic imagery.... if we stare long and hard enough. Sometimes it looks like a pony.

Anyway, great stuff you've got here, Steven: Though I do recognise that guitar strumming as somewhat Xin-ish. :-P

Score: 9

"Argh, darn those bugs!"

submission: 2006| LoP Trilogy Part 2

date: August 5, 2006

I hate the fact that this submission isn't getting the score or views it deserves because of all the darn showstopping bugs. :-\ I mean, quite apart from the fact that I voice acted in this here thang and I'd be biased and all, this game really did come out pretty damn sweet. Definitely reminded me of some of the classic Sierra/Lucasarts games and very easy on the eyes.

I think the SFX/Music is pretty loud in comparison to the voices and that the quality of the voices is pretty low (resulting in really bad hissing because of the low-bitrate because of all the "s"es) but yeah: Pretty much full-on perfect here: Though I have to admit some of the humour is a bit (and ocassionally a LOT) hit and miss. I love the idle animation for Pliskin though, that was a nice touch. :-P

Maybe you should put up a warning of some kind that this game should only be played with the latest version of Flash installed? I know I didn't have TOO many problems with the Flash 8 player (nothing as showstopping as some of the previous reviews have mentioned anyway, ouch!)

Score: 10

"I doubt the veracity of the previous review"

submission: PALADIN episode 4

date: March 29, 2006

I mean, I'm not exactly going to give the fairest of reviews either, given that I actually did some of the voiceovers for this flash, but to just have absolutely nothing nice to say at all: pointing out a whole bunch of negative points, not even giving a whit of space for the positive (especially for an animator who has improved so much over the course of 4 animated shorts).... Well, I gotta say that those words just aren't going to help anyone at all. And anybody who has engaged in any kind of creative work at all should know better.

The content of the review below are either the words of a heavy industrial cynic who should not take part in the judging of any kind contest whatsoever (except for the purposes of entertainment a la Simon Cowell) or they are the words of someone of moderate skill confronted by the fact that there is someone who has the potential to be much, much better than they could ever hope to be. No one is going to take (or needs) this sort of smug advice, tinged by bitterness and the need for "putting someone in their place".

And if he or she thinks to post a negative review to try and balance out the good, then he or she has failed completely as a reviewer by providing a review in relation to the trend of reviews on this site, rather than a review that (in theory and under the best of circumstances) should exist in its own right. And yes, the irony does not escape me.

I guess I should say something about the animation at this point so: Good job, Jazza! Working on this has been lotsa fun. I'll get started on the lines for Paladin 5 ASAP!

Score: 7

"Argh, I really wish I could post links here...."

submission: Batman : Mr. Freeze

date: December 18, 2005

At least without my account being deleted. Anyway, I thought that was some great work bringing the Batman universe to life in flash, and gives me fond memories of BTAS. Very nice job on the animation front and good choice on the adaptation material.

But yeah, I'm going to have to agree with everyone else here regarding the voiceover work: You need some help in that department at the very least. If you go into my profile, go to the "VA Resume With No Name" link and head to the "links" section of that page to find links to various messageboards full of amateur voiceover people ready and willing to help out. There are quite a few Batman fans on the Voice Acting Alliance that I know of, seeing as there is an audioplay adaptation of the "Batman: No Man's Land" series. You might do well to check them out, as they've got some great voice actors for some of the established villains in the Batman universe!

Of course, while you're at the first link I meantioned, you can check out some of my demos and see what you think. :-P

Anyways, good luck with the next animation!

Score: 8

"Glad to see this one finally come out!"

submission: PALADIN episode 3

date: September 23, 2005

Very nice animation coupled with excellent detail and a rather good character movement synching with both music and voiceover. And the choice of voiceovers was pretty damn fine too, if I do say so myself. :-P

I love the designs you have for the zombie and the Paladin, especially for when he goes fully silver-armoured and rather badass looking. And I'm amazed that you kept the quality of the detail and animation the way you did throughout the piece. I have to admit though, the episode feels a little shorter than the previous eps for some reason.... I guess it's due to the fact that a good third of it is devoted to exposition and a historical flashback rather than sticking to the Paladin's POV and kicking ass and taking names. On the otherhand, the exposition grounds and explains the Paladin's struggle against evil a little more so I can't really complain too much about that.

One thing you have to watch out for though: there's quite a bit of distortion in some of the music and SFX because they've been dialed up too loud and it's cutting off the upper ranges of the sound. You might just want to just make everything a bit softer and force the audience to turn up their speakers a bit. That way the full quality of the sound can be heard without causing those annoying pops. The lower quality streaming of the voiceovers causes some noticeable hiss as well (especially for the sibilances) but when you have to weight image quality with sound quality well.... You gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyways, great job! And I'm glad to have been a part of this episode! Looking forward to more from this series!

Score: 10

"I can't find the words...."

submission: Autumn Tree

date: August 5, 2005

I can't express just how.... masterful this flash was done. It sits on a most delicate knife edge: between beauty and tragedy, between the thoughtful and the reckless, between placid calm and terrifying chaos. A masterpiece of animation which portrays the events of Columbine with a fine touch of subtlety. This is not an outright condemnation, nor does it condone what the boys did, but rather it's a call for understanding in a world that has become so very mad and strange.

I wish I could write some more on this but I think I'll go the minimalist route and just leave it here.

Score: 8

"A moody, atmospheric little setpiece"

submission: Len - ep. 1 - part 2/2

date: June 30, 2005

Reminds me vaguely of a science fiction version of a Sergio Leone western. Add vampires in there and you'd have Vampire Hunter D. :-)

Anyway, I realise this isn't the place for this sort of thing, but if you need voice actors for future episodes of this (or any other series you might be planning), please look me up! I'm greatly impressed by your artistic skills and would love to contribute in that small way. My resume is in my profile. Take a look!