Games

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 27 Jul 2009 19:10

Here's a list of games for which it would be nice to have headers for the frontpage (i.e. without logos). I'll upload artwork for all of them later, so that you don't have to waste time looking for it, but in the meantime you might like to try making some if you have some spare time:

Max Payne, Planescape: Torment, Far Cry, Operation Darkness, Out Zone, any Fire Emblem, Aliens vs. Predator, Daimakaimura, The Super Shinobi, R-Type, R-Type II, Battle Garegga, Zero Gunner 2, Ikaruga, Ketsui, Espgaluda, Espgaluda II, Ray Force, any Gekka no Kenshi, Samurai Spirits, Shin Samurai Spirits, any Street Fighter II, any Street Fighter III, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, The Secret of Monkey Island, Quest for Glory, Phantasmagoria, Alpha Centauri, Master of Magic, Age of Empires, Age of Empires II, Pikmin, Total Annihilation, Wing Commander, Wing Commander II, Strike Commander, Tekki, Metal Gear Solid, Shenmue, Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto III, Gears of War, Killer 7, Onimusha, any Otogi, Metal Wolf Chaos

Note that they have to look really awesome to go on the frontpage, but even if they just look good we can still use them in the upcoming review pages. I know it's hard to find decent art for many of them, especially the old ones, so do what you can. Even if you end up making five or six of them, they will still be very useful. It's getting a bit tiring seeing the same two dozen games every time I look at the frontpage, and I bet other people feel the same...

ronan · by **ronan** » 28 Jul 2009 03:26

So I will post my suggested headers here, and you can then just take the ones you like. I have already added my first tries for Max Payne and R-Type. They may not be really awesome, but you will see.

ronan · by **ronan** » 28 Jul 2009 14:03

R-Type header sharpened. Shin Samurai Spirits and Planescape: Torment headers added.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 28 Jul 2009 22:52

Some of these might work for reviews or archive pages, but not on the frontpage. You are not really using the good artwork for these games. Torment for example has a pretty awesome wallpaper with the Lady of Pain, which should work for the frontpage if done in a similar manner to the Deus Ex header:

http://www.bestrpg.org.ru/images/pla/wall/1.jpg

I'll try to look for more art soon...

ronan · by **ronan** » 29 Jul 2009 01:31

Yeah, right. However, I don't know what other artwork I could use for R-Type.

Here can be found a BMP version of the Lady-of-Pain wallpaper you mentioned: http://www.bootstrike.com/Torment/wallpapers.html
I have added several headers for Planescape: Torment. Is one of them close enough to what you want?

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 29 Jul 2009 14:25

The last one is great, it's on the frontpage now. For R-Type, you might be able to do something nice with the top part of this image:

http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer ... 20&image=2

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 29 Jul 2009 22:22

Another thing... I am currently editing this article by Josh:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/winners_always_use_drugs/

which links to the New Super Mario Bros. review:

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/ds/newsupermariobros/

This review has a pretty shitty header, so I was wondering if you could come up with something better for it, since once Josh's article goes up a lot of new people will end up reading it...

ronan · by **ronan** » 29 Jul 2009 22:59

Done. Better?

I could also try to make something with images from the official site:
http://mario.nintendo.com/_dloads/wallp ... 0_1280.jpg
http://mario.nintendo.com/_dloads/wallp ... 2_1280.jpg

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 29 Jul 2009 23:55

Much better, thank you, and thanks for being so quick too.

ronan · by **ronan** » 30 Jul 2009 10:47

I have added several headers for Far Cry. Maybe you will like one of them.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 30 Jul 2009 18:48

The second one is great! I put it on the frontpage.

JoshF · by **JoshF** » 31 Jul 2009 12:54

Ronan, I'm wondering if you could do me a favor too.

http://turntoch3.com/megashock/

I need to change those icons at the top (AC, GG, MD, etc.) to "AC", "PC", "08", "16", "32", and ">>". The problem is I'm all free-trialed out. Think you could create those new icons to look like the old ones?

The font I used is this one. All I did was give it a gray outline. Anyway, if you're up to up I'll be sure to throw a few bucks your way for the trouble.

ronan · by **ronan** » 02 Aug 2009 23:29

Josh: I PM'd you

Alex: I tried to combine two artworks for Max Payne. If you have any idea how to improve it, tell me.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 02 Aug 2009 23:49

Better... I am going to try them on and see how I like them. In the meantime, check this:

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/xbox36 ... paper1.jpg

I think it would be pretty awesome if you just rotated it, so that the baseball bat would run the length of the header. Not exactly horizontal, but almost -- more like diagonal, really. I think you know what I mean... Try a few variations if you can -- I think it could look great.

And by the way, I am intrigued by the way you named these two headers. What is the significance of "maxpayneoct" and "maxpaynesep"? What do the months have to do with these images?

ronan · by **ronan** » 03 Aug 2009 01:24

I think I have understood what you meant, but it is not easy to get something nice while keeping the head, the hands and the bat in the header, without the black border. I've added two headers. Quite a lot of edition was needed because the left part was empty.

And about my notations (spaces removed by imageshack, by the way), I was of course not referring to the months. It is just a silly habit of mine to use some Latin to identify different versions of an image (bis, ter, quater, quinquies, sexies, septies, octies, novies, decies). So the answer lies in etymology: september and october used to be the seventh and eighth months of the calendar, and the images I gave you were also the seventh and eighth versions.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 04 Aug 2009 02:02

The first one was awesome -- easily my favorite header at the moment. It's on the frontpage right now.

As for the Max Payne ones: I looked at them carefully, tried them out for a while, but they don't work on the frontpage. They are just too "busy", if you can see what I mean. The frontpage stuff has to be as elegant as possible. It's too bad, because I doubt there's any Max Payne illustrations that would work on the frontpage -- and it's a hell of a game. It deserves to be there. Oh well.

Also: interesting bit about your notation.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 04 Aug 2009 20:26

I've made a Max Payne header myself -- actually, I made it a while back, then decided I did not like it and removed it from the page, and now I put it back on because I am going to be posting a review later today or tomorrow:

http://insomnia.ac/graphics/headers/fro ... xpayne.jpg

Can you add in the logo for me? I uploaded a bunch of images to the archive which you can use:

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/pc/m/maxpayne/

You could also lift the logo from this movie poster:

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/pc/m/m ... poster.jpg

It's much sharper and cleaner than all the logos from the screenshots and box art images...

Apart from that, if there's any hope for an alternative/better header, the only image we could be used towards this end is this:

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/pc/m/m ... twork3.jpg

Let me know what you can do...

ronan · by **ronan** » 04 Aug 2009 21:57

Actually, I am currently trying to make another header for Max Payne. It could be improved by further editing the explosion and maybe adding a motion blur effect. I have added the current version.

I will post your header with the logo later. It shouldn't be too difficult.

ronan · by **ronan** » 04 Aug 2009 22:28

Headers with logo added, as well as frontpage headers using the artwork you proposed (actually taken from http://bestgamewallpapers.com/max-payne/cover).

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 05 Aug 2009 02:45

They are all great. I uploaded them all to the archive, as well as the wallpaper you found. I also added the yellow one and the first white one to the frontpage, though I think both of them could use a bit more work. The yellow one would probably look cool with more explosion effects, as you said, and the white one I think would be nice with a brick background, as in the cover of the game's box, otherwise it looks too similar to the PN03 header:

It would also be nice to have a version of the white one with a logo as well. And none of them will go to waste -- I can add 2 or 3 or more headers even on the review page, and have them load randomly. Awesome stuff. The review will be great too, I think. I am going to be reviewing a series of great games in the next few days, starting with this, and then moving on to Halo, Far Cry and Gears of War. Hopefully I'll have all four done by this weekend. I am really aiming to make them the best videogame reviews ever. We'll see how they turn out!

ronan · by **ronan** » 06 Aug 2009 16:10

Explosion effects added in the yellow header.

I am looking forward to your four reviews, as well as the following ones (Street Fighter II, Samurai Spirits...).

ronan · by **ronan** » 11 Aug 2009 00:19

Brick wall texture added in the white header.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 11 Aug 2009 02:58

Very nice. We are all sorted on Max Payne. Here's a good cover shot of Master of Magic, in case you can do something about it. Slightly diagonal, perhaps...

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/pc/m/m ... ont_us.jpg

ronan · by **ronan** » 11 Aug 2009 12:54

Headers added. I changed the proportions back to those of the original artwork.

icycalm · by **icycalm** » 11 Aug 2009 15:22

I picked the second one, though I will keep the others also for when I write the review and we need to place a logo on it.

And where did you find the original artwork? Can you link it?

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