Score: 6

"Stylish, but nothing new"

submission: Freerun: Go-Man, Scene 1

date: April 22, 2006

First off, I have to give you points for style. The animation is pretty sharp and the 3-D effects, while they don't mesh too well with the 2-D characters, are still very nicely done. The music also fit the tone of the animation, and the voice acting was pretty good.

The problem is, the characters look very generic. If you're going to do anime, you have to put a twist on the character designs. Otherwise your characters will just blend in with everything else out there.

As for the plot, it's nothing new. The "search for one's own identity / past" has been done many, many times before. And while your intro gets the point of the series across, it's goes on a bit too long and is excessively wordy. Sometimes it's better to keep things short and simple.

Still, it's got style, and I look forward to the next installments.

Score: 7

"I wonder what it all means..."

submission: Ambulance

date: October 4, 2005

4/5

Now here's a Flash that makes you think. A perfect mixture of bizarre, nightmarish imagery combined with a dreamlike song to create something very unique and interesting. And like most dreams, I wonder what the meaning behind this animation is. Of course, we may never know. But that's why it's so interesting. Good work, and keep on dreaming!

Score: 9

"Excellent work!"

submission: Movement

date: October 3, 2005

5/5

And I'm very stingy when it comes out to giving 5's. :)

This was a near-flawless piece of claymation. It's not an easy skill, but your results were very impressive. The animation was smooth and flowing and the video quality was very good considering the restrictions involved. The ideas behind the animation were equally good. Some of the scenes were very clever, well thought-out and humorous. I'm also partial to that song, so that helped too. Excellent work all around!

Score: 5

"Interesting twist on a tired game"

submission: Tunnel Rush

date: September 30, 2005

2/5

When I started to load this game, I saw the "Games of Gondor" intro and groaned. I'm really tired of all their games winding up on here. Then the game started and I went, "Been there, done that" with the random tunnel type game. But then the screen started spinning and it got interesting and addictive.

It's not exactly a challenging game (my high score was 61453 after deliberately crashing into a wall) and the graphics aren't very interesting, but it's a fun diversion and a nice twist on a type of game I've seen far too often lately.

Score: 6

"Not an anime fan, but still good"

submission: Yet Another Day

date: September 30, 2005

3/5

It's good for what it is - but I'm just not really a fan of the anime style. The music was good, the designs and animation were good but a little too fast-paced, and the message was nice. I'm just not into anime though. I'm sure someone who's into that style would get more out of it than me.

Score: 7

"Better than I expected..."

submission: World 1-4 Mario Vs Bowser

date: September 30, 2005

3/5

That's a high 3, though. At first it seemed like your average Mario flash - a big fight scene with boring sound effects. And that's what it was until Bowser busted out his Super Mario World flying cup rendered in 8-bit graphics. That's when things got interesting. I liked how elements of the 16-bit world were simplified into 8-bit and the fight scenes became a little more interesting.

But there were still a lot of drawbacks. The sound effects were boring to listen to and very repetitive. And if you're gonna go for the violence, then go for it! It needed more blood and guts.

Otherwise everything was pretty good. The sprites were good and the animation was smooth. The music was passable, and the story was non-existent (but that's forgivable in this kind of animation). Keep up the good work.

Score: 5

"Finally, I laughed! Once."

submission: On The Moon (episode 3)

date: September 29, 2005

2/5

I've watched all three episodes of this series so far, and hadn't found them all that funny or interesting. But the end of this one, the "carapace" joke followed by the diagram really got me good.

(The next part applies to all three episodes)

The animation and voices are top-notch and the sound is good as well, but the premise is silly and the characters aren't all that interesting or funny. Most of the jokes fall flat (with that one exception). There's potential here - I just hate to see good animation skills go to waste.

Score: 6

"Surprisingly involving!"

submission: Clicklers!

date: September 28, 2005

3/5

I guess I'm just in a good mood tonight. This game is more fun and addictive than it should be. It's simple to learn and fun to play. Keep working on this - add a timer and more levels and more objects and definitely some music. Get creative and artistic with this and it would be a big hit.

Also, good title.

Score: 2

"Bland and unimaginative"

submission: The Green Flea

date: September 23, 2005

1/5

I don't know how this got to the front page, but it's definitely not front page material. The animation is just flat and bland and looks cheap. I don't know if you were trying to imitate the similarly flat, cookie-cutter animation style of the 70's, but it didn't work. It just looks like you took a bunch of cheap shortcuts.

The sound was pretty hard to listen to. The music was bad and the voices were passable, but the sound quality was awful. Subtitles would be a good option here, but the dialogue was so stereotypical and obvious that I wouldn't want to have to listen to it _and_ read it.

The story was derivative - sometimes this can work if you're making a parody, but this was played straight and had none of the fun of those early superhero cartoons. There just wasn't any imagination present in the animation or the writing. And worst of all, it was just boring. Who wants to see something like this on TV when there are already so many better alternatives in the superhero genre?

Score: 4

"Crappy in a GOOD way..."

submission: Tom fights the Ninjas

date: September 22, 2005

2/5

The "animation" is crappy, and the audio isn't anything to write home about, but for some reason it works. The story, being made up as it goes along, is very funny. I actually laughed out loud a couple times. I don't know if good animation would make this any better - it is what it is. But it was kind of fun to watch, and sometimes that's all I want from a Flash cartoon.