Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Kong of Kings.



The Orange County Fair has always been good to me whenever I enter a piece. Usually reviewed by a panel I manage to get at least two out of three drawing entered. I'll stop in with my wife on the opening day and check out the world's largest cow. She's huge. Put a plate on her and call the DMV for a CDL.
I'm planning on entering three pieces this year and the King Kong image above is my first drawing. The others I want to concentrate on a something down to earth for once. We'll see if that's possible since I'm a crack junkie when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy themes.
I would love to design a game, this is a running theme in my Fight Club ( 1st rule of..) things to do before dying. So while sitting on the pot or working I usually get a narrative from IGN or Gamestop on the game I'm imagining. No really... I know.
It's a testimony to all the articles I read as a young adult when Valve's Half Life was but a blip on the horizon.
I also love monster movies. Giant rubbery beasts duking it out over a cityscape are the movies for me, especially when I need a pick-me up. The Original King Kong was one of those Saturday afternoon movies that was played almost every other week in the 70s that I loved. In the evenings it ABC broadcasting the 70's remake of Kong and that got me thinking of a interesting game in the present. King Kong 70's version depicted a oil company descending on Skull Island. Along the way they find a blonde just drifting in the sea. You find them in the dangested places.

Peter Jackson would create a fine Kong movie, but I always felt the rush to get Kong to New York took or somehow lessened the nightmarish first half of the movie. I almost wished he had made an four and 1/2 hour version, instead of the film's 2005 three hours running time.
The X-box movie-tie in game was okay. It's shining grace was being able to play as Kong in a few levels.
I personally wanted it to be the entire game. After playing a few hours in Just Cause2 ( Really they owe Lucas Art's royalties for Mercenaries 3) it struck me that Universal could drop players on a Virtual Skull Island. Now that would be a interesting to me. Playing as Kong in a free roam map seems a viable adventure game.
Playing games alone can get boring quick, so adding a few extra Kingish creatures to complement Kong's own grandeur would allow for mixed gameplay and a real chance at never having the same thing happen twice within say a campaign or Multiplayer match. So Kong needed his own Mothra and Rodan to quest with hence all the beasties next to him in the picture. Should be fun to color and I'll be following up with the finished work later on.

Peace.