The "of the week" theme is now kind of misleading. But on the plus side, it's like playing safe Russian Roulette with guessing when there will actually be new updated content on this blog. Just keep pressing F5 guys! Speaking of which, if you have been playing, congratulations, you've struck gold (or possibly just shot yourself, if we're making a direct analogy).
This week, we're taking a look at Nosaj Thing's new music vidoe for "Eclipse/Blue", a pleasantly calming track with accompanying choreography and uniquely designed visuals. Take motion tracking out of the games/entertainment industry bubble for a second, and you might turn some heads. The performers here are moving in real-time as the shapes and lines track and react to their dance. The result is a mesmerizing technological and artistic feat: a combination of performance and new media.
Get with the times folks, this is becoming standard practice. Painting and shit better move aside.
YouTube's server just crashed from the traffic of watching the live stream of Felix Baumgartner, Austrian pilot and parachutist, breaking the world records for highest balloon ascent and highest freefall, funded by the Red Bull Stratos project.
A man jumped out of a tiny capsule, into empty space, with the curvature of the Earth in his line of sight. If there is any image that represents singular human ingenuity, courage, willpower and inventiveness, it could be this one. But hey, an Olympic athelete ran track with prosthetic legs and we have a robot on Mars collecting valuable space things. So add this to the list.
The world's a shitty place, which makes moments like these all the more sweet. History was made today.
Ben Wiggins pieces together some mesmerizing landscapes and turns eye candy into a whole other level. These look so amazing I feel like it's wrong for me to be looking at them.
Gawk at it and enjoy!
It's here! One of my personally most anticipated MMO's hits wide release today, and chances are you're gonna get more than what you bargained for in terms of a traditional MMORPG game.
I talked about the The Secret World a year ago when the first news leaked that the guys who did Age of Conan (Eh...) where at the drawing board for a whole different take on the game genre. The first news kinda blew my mind when I discovered there was a plan to make it modern-day dark fantasy, set in the 21st century, and centered around secret organizations, conspiracy theories, and mythological monsters that plague the world at night.
Yeah, that sounded pretty dope.
So I've been following the news around as it comes out, and unfortunately because of school and whatnot I've been unable to stay on top of the news for this blog. But I have been posting a lot a while back about it, so hopefully that tickled your fancies.
The Norwegian game developer Funcom has stated a $14 monthly subscription fee, so everything sucks that I can't play it until I get a steady job (lol) or waste all my remaining funds on more games (God forbid).
The best thing this game has going for it is it's completely unique story world, at least in a fantasy-laden genre such as the MMORPG. You've had The Old Republic, but that got botched pretty damn quickly. And while the new World of Warcraft expansion is on the horizon, and Guild Wars 2 in August is arriving, The Secret World still has the upper hand in the MMO front with the earliest release.
Out of the three, The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 both have a good chance of catching a lot of people's attention in the gaming world. Both games have very specific and unique gameplay mechanics that are a far departure from the steadfaast WoW system that's dominated all games that have come in recent years.
Let's hope that changes with The Secret World. And now, Cinematic Trailers galore!
Still gonna write some fanfiction about this game. Honestly though, this story world looks amazing.
Sorry I've been A.W.O.L this past week and a half. Internship's keeping me busy.
I'm working with Canadian director Casey Walker on a project. Wanna help?
Go to alittlebitzombie.com and read, watch, tweet, and just about anything you can!
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In the meantime, for the rare hours I get of relaxation this month, I spend it with John Powell, Hiccup and Toothless.
Can't embed the full link I wanted. Here's some video to accompany this amazing score.
Sarah Winters makes Top 40 sound like Pitchfork-worthy alternative pop folk greatness. You just want to hug and console her voice. Here’s her Bandcamp.
The video game industry doesn’t have much of the exposure and awareness that other entertainment mediums have, such as film or television—having grown to the size and popularity it has over the past 20 years, I’m surprised a project like this hasn’t been capitalized on by a bigger studio.
Then again, that’s probably a good thing. This trailer seems particularly earnest about its subject matter and those being talked about. Indie game developers logically would be the most mentally driven and have the most internalized struggle in getting their game out there. Without support from investors, a large development team, or higher-ups choosing a production timeline, it’s really a free for all for indie game developers to bring their baby—in the form of an innovative digital experience that’s unique to them and their players—into the real world.
By that notion, it should be full of drama, intrigue, and struggle.
Don’t know about you, but it felt dramatic enough.
A good exposé into a field of work that you might not know particularly well is a good way to expand your perceptions and notions of what goes into something.
Which is a nicer way of saying this documentary might make prejudiced or ignorant people outside of gaming culture a bit less so.
More importantly, HBO has picked up this concept, as rumours have said, for it to be a fictional series in a thirty-minute format (thankfully not a sitcom), about an indie game developer building up their game from ground up.
Hit or miss, it could go down to how much consulting HBO does with the gaming industry. You do something like this wrong and—as recently demonstrated about the Internet—if you fuck up, there will be consequences. And gamers are not a particularly forgiving bunch of demographic. It’s HBO though, so fingers crossed.
If you’re looking for a new drug for your police procedural buzz, then I’m going to taunt you with what could have been, had this show been picked up by NBC.
As with recent news, a la Whitney getting a prime-time slot in the fall comedy line-up and sidelining Community, NBC has really been goofing on their executive television decisions.
Ratings may matter, but targeting the dumbest demographic isn’t always the best decision. If you kill smartly written and produced series, somewhere a long the way the market is going to decline. Can’t ride the success for too long.
Exhibit B: Ron Moore—creator of 2004’s Battlestar Galactica, you may have heard of it—had a show in the works that would blow all of its contemporaries out of the water. Adding to the fact that the show’s premise effectively blends two completely different genres of fiction into something that you can actually see on screen, this pilot throws around some ambitious concepts, and it’s exciting.
Full pilot below, albeit not the best quality.
The final few minutes throw a curveball that, whether you were expecting it or not, would be a pretty awesome storyline to play out.
The sceptics can suck it, this looks way too fun to have passed up. Thanks, NBC.
Thanks for all you do to kill good television programming.
Right now, Spike’s 2011 Video Game Awards are in full swing, and a slough of awards have already been won, with Portal 2 rightfully taking many of them, including sweeping the voice performance category, as well as Minecraft snatching a well deserved indie game victory.
Pretty happy with what’s been shown so far, save for the uber-casual vibes I keep getting from both host (though he was great in Tangled) and audience—the way they say ‘graphics’ just irks me, maybe it’s just my elitist geek showing through—but one of the greatest things about gaming award shows is that I can see the trailers live as well. Conventions are lame in that you have to be there to see them.
Despite the fact that I just saw Charlie Sheen onstage and Modern Warfare 3 win an award, it’s still a good feeling when you feast your eyes upon something like this:
Naughty Dog Inc. are the guys behind the Uncharted franchise. Three games in, they’ve established themselves as one of the most innovative game developers when it comes to interactive storytelling. They did the games industry a huge favour, if you already didn’t know.
They’re developing this. So hopes are high, and that’s helped well along by this amazing cinematic trailer above. What’s wrong with that zombie-or-whatever’s head in that trailer? Well, it’s not science fiction.
It’s just science.
Okay, not fully just science, but damn it, this concept is outstandingly cool for a post-apocalyptic game, and there’s already been a huge surge in recent years, we’re hoping for a fresh take. Could this be it?
Naughty Dog has yet to fail its fans, or its industry. Or its console. If this is a PS3 exclusive, Microsoft might finally have a run for its money. Console-war pointlessness aside, this trailer is a definite reminder for me of how far video games have come artistically as a form of more than just cheap entertainment.
It’s a medium that’s like no other, and should stay that way. It should be the next step. If this lives up to what this trailer is teasing, lets hope games like this push that notion forward.
UPDATE: Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim takes Game of the Year, along with Best Role-Playing Game. Bethesda Game Studios takes developer. This makes me happy, and makes up for Charlie Sheen / MW3 combo (a fitting one, actually).
Kevin Wada has a knack for combining the elegant with the awesome to create a pretty stellar take on our favourite X-Girls. Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, and Mystique below.
There’s more at his art blog. He takes on many recognizable ladies from the X-Universe and retools them into chic supermodels with some clever visual references to their looks in the comics. Neat-o!
Round 2? Max Wittert who takes another stylistic direction with his depictions of the X-Ladies. Equally high-end and chic, but a very different look. Tons more at his blog.
Jubilee and her trenchcoat. Don’t fix what ain’t broke.
Any of of these works by these guys could pass off as magazine ads in Vogue or something. These guys are legit fashion illustrators, so that explains most of it.
Lights Out at The Daily What usually has some interesting internet tidbits for those who can’t really sleep at one in the morning, and they usually help the insomnia along with videos like the one I’m about the show you.
Apparently, a French animator/director by the name of Jérémie Périn knows his away around the tablet and the timeline, and brings a pretty stellar animation to the table for DyE’s debut single “Fantasy” of his new album. The sounds remind me a lot of M83, really good atmospheric melodies combined with simple, bubbly synths. Matches the video a lot. Until…
Lovecraft approves.
If you ever do watch The Thing, which I endlessly prompt you to do in every other post, you’ll like the similarities. Or Akira. You know what, just anything with mutating flesh and terrifying monster-morphs.
Audio production last year was an awesome course, save for the shitbag teacher that gave me and my buddy a 75 for the most horrifying soundscape our class has ever heard.
But I learned a few things, and I like how I can appreciate stuff like this now:
I’ve always been a fan of alternative art—the creative phenomenon where many fans and artists alike visually reimagine some our most beloved characters. The result? Hours of browsing interpretations, and how cool and weird and incredibly well done they are, more often than not.
Well, this time Futurama steps up to the plate once more, and it’s a common subject for visual reinterpretation. Deviantart (or deviantsculpt?) user artanis-one takes it to…
