T0MMY's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pico's Unloaded]

Review for "Pico's Reloaded"

I knew this wouldn't fail to shake Newgrounds; this is a superb movie.

In the beginning I noticed some of the graphics could have been polished up a bit, but I just say it's got a style. When the action picks up the graphics take second seat to the really nice animation.

You definitely got motion down very well, the frame by frame animation totally rocks and your tweens were stunning (the psuedo 3d look of the bus was flawless as far as I could tell, and all done with tweens).

It was nice to see a remix of a song you put together. Animations always work out so much better when the audio is worked in with it rather than just putting it in afterwards.

I don't really like Matrix themed movies, but this seemed to stay original enough with the ice cream store intro and the effervescent ending.

I think you really showed Pico's personality and captured what a Pico story, and Newgrounds is all about.
Great job. That just leaves me an Eric now... ^_~

-T0MMY

MindChamber responds:

Thanks for the indepth and thought out review. Your right the art itself is a bit scratchy. Like in any craft there is always room for improvement. and I agree I cant stand Matrix spoofs myself, haha, had I been on time with this like , a year ago, the theme might have been alot more fresh :). haha, something else I need to learn.. deadline :). The Pico jam Idea of yours was a great one, I guess we all got too ambitious :)
Now all I can do is sit anxiously for your version as well as Eric's, which should be around in another year or so...
^_^

[Decline of Video Gaming 2]

Review for "Decline of Video Gaming 2"

While talking with you when you were working on this I didn't know how big of a project this was going to be.

Also, I would suggest, or maybe have suggested to you already, not to pour that much work into a single animation for a place like Newgrounds. There are movies under 30 seconds long with high scores. Breaking a quarter of an hour long movie into parts would get you more recognition and more portal awards. However, you're on the #1 spot of the Top 50, so obviously what you're doing is just fine too ;)

Since I've talked to you enough online I won't bother writing an incredibly long review for your movie like I usually do. Also, there really isn't much more to say about where to improve. I will say that I miss the frame by frame movies like the Another Day series. Yes, I know, you're hard at work on Another Day 6 (everyone watch it). So my words here are merely for encouragement to keep doing your best and to wish you a successful future. I think you've secured a name here on Newgrounds now.

I was waiting to see something written about me in the commentary during the scenes I helped with, but no mention :(
If there's going to be a part 3 you'd better give me a cameo where I totally own Dim and Tom at Super Smash Brothers Melee for compensation ';^p

-T0MMY

[A Grave in the Desert]

Review for "A Grave in the Desert"

I liked the graphic work you used with the tones of color. It worked well with the tone of the song.

One thing I want to mention is the use of transitions, which look like mask layers were used. Those were some nice transition from one scene to another. An example would be the reflection on the sword bringing us to the next scene. Think about bringing the alpha channel down a little for the reflection then bringing it to 100% when it comes to the next scene.

Not a lot of nice frame by frame movements that I can compliment you on, though I would have really liked to see some more work on the fbf movement that I did see (the birds flying, blood dripping). The tweened movement was nice though, it definitely had a weight to it.
Stay away from the shape tweening, I don't think it worked well.

The music was sometimes clashing with the imagery seen, but for the most part it fit well, and the pacing of the animation followed along pretty well with the pacing of the music.

I enjoyed how there was some kind of story running throughout, but I couldn't quite understand it. I'm not sure if it's following the lyrics to the song or not. If not maybe go with an instrumental for something like this. The angel motif, the cutting of the hair, the consuming of human flesh and the slaying of an enemy and reuniting of a loved one... something is there, but I'm not quite putting it together.

Check the part with the silohette of the man in the desert at the end, it looked like the top of his head was behind the sky.

Overall, very well done. Looks like you're quite an artist, hope everything goes well with your work. I voted 5/5.

-T0MMY

[Tier]

Review for "Tier"

First thing that caught my eye was the graphical work. This has a really solid look to it from desing of the characters to the background machinery.

The use of red in the background was a really good choice, it gave the entire environment a feeling of anger, hostility, intolerance, and energy as if the construction equipment themselves were some kind of belligerant army.

With all the nice graphic work it made it really difficult to get some good movement going for the animation. However, since you were animating mostly just the machines the tweens came off working out just fine.
The problem came with the main character. When he walked it was just a simple motion tween, two keyframes, a slow magnitude from right to left. With the detail that character had I don't blame you for not giving him much more movement than that. Did you consider keeping him static and maybe doing some kinestasis movement instead? That would give him more of a dynamic leader look if you got the poses down right-- like you did there at the end. Nice body position you had him in at the end, by the way; he didn't move at all, you just faded a brightness on him, and it worked well that way.

As for the sound, well, it was just a music track you laid over. Actually, it played out like you worked with the song in mind first. In which case I have to point out that I'd have liked to see the movement keep with the song. I really liked when it did play out to the song like with the energy bars lighting up. I don't think it's because of lag because I have a fast computer and I switched to low quality just in case.
Yeah, the lyrics didn't match the content of the movie. I took two semesters of the German language and the conflicting lyrics did not bother me at all while watching this. Maybe people just want to look smart by pointing this out or maybe they should focus more on the animation which the music is supporting, not vice versa.

And just to touch on the other categories of interactivity, violence, and humor. Really, those categories need to be removed. I saw one person actually averaged all the scores out and gave you an unjustified 5/10. Come on, it even says ""Overall" is not necessarily an average."

Great job, keep working.

-T0MMY

poxpower responds:

Yeah what's one to do with those categories :p
I hate animating haha. As you can EASILY tell from my awful Trio movie, I like drawing complicated shit, but I'll be damned if I start FBF in it. I didn't want to animate my main dude by breaking him into different parts because that always looks crappy. When I do it. :/
And he's not a leader. He's like evil science dOOd :o

Thanks for putting it on low quality to check it out :p Most of the time all I bothered to synch with the sound was the white Flashes and the scene changes. I like the power bars loading up a lot though, that's spiffy. Makes me want to make a video that actualy does synch to every bit of sound. But I have to make a new Pickleman for Halloween, so that'll have to wait :o

[Piconjo Jam #20]

Review for "Piconjo Jam #20"

Biggest thing to point out is the improvement of graphical and animation work for most of the movies.

I'd also like to point out the incredibly nice audio work that was put into this as well. The SFX were well placed, the voice acting was really believable and varied. Even some of the audio was original, a Piconjo song? Have things gone too far?

I won't score for the "Piconjo Quickys" those were obviously bonus movies sticking to your older style... or, maybe perfered style?

And I can't help to mention the movie with the "T0MMY" character. Seems you've taken a jab at recognized artists here on Newgrounds, I guess I should feel honored to be mentioned?

Overall, very impressive from your earlier works.

-T0MMY

[KILLER KAZUKI]

Review for "< < <Killer Kazuki > > >"

First off you make really great menus. Everything is laid out well and navigation is easy.
The graphics were decent in the beginning, though I didn't like some of the imported graphics. The uzis in particular seemed flat and the small amount of white outline gave them a cut-out look. Some of the backgrounds I didn't think were very fitting, like the part where the zombies come out of the gates and there's that guy at the doors that doesn't move, just looks frozen in time.
However, the animation style was superb towards the end. There were some parts of the animation that really stood out from the rest and looked top-notch professional. If you could get that look throughout the entire story you would have a really great movie.
The script was a basic plot of revenge, but, really, there is no story that hasn't been done a million times. I loved how you worked with cliches and spoofed some things (I wonder if anyone caught the Equilibrium homage). I loved all the in-jokes there for the Newgrounds audience, though I won't mention them ;)
The sound was really nice, you did some good voice acting and the sound FX were added well. There wasn't much fuzziness or low quality sound to distract the viewer so you got a good overall sound score from me (the only way to get a 10 is to compose original music).
My biggest suggestion would have been to break the movie into two or three parts and submit seperately which would have kept the file size down getting more people to view, gaining you a bigger audience, got you more Portal Awards, and you wouldn't have had so much trouble uploading.
Hope this makes it on the Front Page, too many bad movies get put on there and a lot of really great movies miss it.

-T0MMY

VirulentShuriken responds:

hehe thx for ur thoughts on the movie, but it looks like NG isnt the place for original characters, expect my next movie to have a whole bunch of video game characters, and a much shorter production time. because thats what seems to get all of the attention. lol!!

atleast i learned a few things from this, mainly not to spend so much time on one movie. from now on, 4 weeks is more than enough for me to spend on an animation.

[FBF Collaboration]

Review for "FBF Collaboration"

I absolutely love frame animation, a jam session, heh heh ;), showing off some nice fbf animation is a nice concept.
However, it's got's it's downs as well. Some of the movies had about as many tweens as frame by frames.
The buttons had an akward hit field, which is a pet peeve of mine.
And the individual movies seemed to be lackluster.
But, all in all, I always enjoy seeing some hard work and a nice style that fbf animation brings out. Hope you guys continue the work and bring out even better movies using this idea.

-T0MMY

Freetospeak responds:

Thanks for your reveiw!

[Zelda: Heroic Rage 4]

Review for: "Zelda Heroic Rage 4"

The graphics were pretty decent, though I didn't really like how you designed the main character, Link. It looked like you wanted to stay true to the Zelda world and tell a story about an older Link, so I'd think your character design would be based more on the "adult Link" character from the games rather than on the anime "Berzerk."

The animation was really stiff, but it did it's job.

The story was... well, basic. It had Link kill stuff and get the Master Sword, just whate everyone on this site wanted to see.

The choice of music was good, but I only give high marks to people who make their own music. I liked the music from the games a lot more than the pop music you had with the fight scene.

And, of course, in my review I have to mention that Nintendo made the original Zelda games with a young Link in mind. He was always a kid. It's the usual coming of age story with young man slaying a great evil and becoming a man. The actual plot is much more symbolic and goes back long ago that the actual meaning is lost now.

I am looking forward to all the cel-shaded Zeldas, all the 2d sprite zeldas, and whatever else they decide to utilize because a Legend of Zelda game is always great ;)

-T0MMY

[DEUS EX MACHINA]

Review for "DEUS EX MACHINA"

Although the author's comments about the movie is about as helpful as hitting myself in the face with a brick I'm starting to think that maybe the non-sequitur content of the comment was just echoing the content of the movie.

The graphics were well designed, and the animation of the graphics were well excecuted. The movement was simple, but effective.

Hard to comment on the story considering what type of story it is. It didn't really have a strong motif, but it's always interesting to try to pick out the meaning of the images you created for the viewer to observe.

I enjoy these kind of animations, so I shall list it in my list of favorites, and the people who might see some of my "crazier" movies can watch this.

-T0MMY

[Decline of Video Gaming]

Review for "Decline of Video Gaming"

Hey, that movie was actually funny. It didn't make me roll on the ground snorting and frothing at the mouth losing bladder control, but I do tip my hat at the clever video game jokes (if I were wearing a hat, hold on let me get one). *tip*

The style of graphics and movement went well with the story, they weren't meant to totally wow the viewer, but they were still very well done for what dialogue you were working with.

Nice job, I thought this was much funnier than the Chateau scene you made... maybe YOU should write for Legendary Frog ;)

I enjoyed the credits, the outakes, the box viewer. Those bonus features get bonus points for my review. Overall a 10.

-T0MMY