As early as age fourteen, Peter Jackson was making films. He was fond of the special effects of Ray Harryhausen as featured in the movies The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. Last month, Harryhausen was honored at a banquet of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Peter Jackson was present, and screened scenes from his youthful production of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
A study by a psychology professor named Christopher J. Ferguson indicates that young adults who play violent video game experience decreased levels of stress and depression:
“In this study, 103 young adults were given a frustration task and then randomized to play no game, a non-violent game, a violent game with good versus evil theme, or a violent game in which they played ‘the bad guy.’ The results suggest that violent games reduce depression and hostile feelings in players through mood management,” Dr. Ferguson explained.
What's your experience? Have violent video games made you feel better, or worse?
Link via Geekosystem | Photo by Flickr user bdjsb7 used under Creative Commons license
What happens is Red Shirts charge the Troopers, Dodging INTO the trooper fire until they finally get into Melee and start trashing the troopers with their TV Kung Fu. The Red Shirts finally win, but they take horrific losses
This nice Halo spike grenade is up for grabs on eBay. Before you get too excited -- it's only a prop. Not the real thing. But it's 38 inches long and made from PVC pipe, urethane, aluminum and fake leather, so it makes a good impression.
Okay, I get it: DC Comics has recurring, major problems with continuity. That's the point of an eight-panel history of Hawkman by Curt Franklin Chris Haley. This is the third panel, before things start to get really confusing.
I don't care. Like Moe Szyslak says, I was born a DC man, and I'll die a DC man.
We have a winner in our second caption contest! Check it out.
These contests will be a weekly feature at NeatoGeek. Unless technical difficulties interfere, we shall have a new one every Tuesday, with a winner declared on Friday.
Fan and animator Paul “OtaKing” Johnson has been working on an anime version of Doctor Who. Thomas Landry of Nerd Bastards reports that he's trying to pitch the project to the BBC.
The above video shows a few selections from Johnson's work. What do you think? Would Doctor Who make good anime?
Gamervision previously presented Super Mario Bros. as the Quentin Tarantino flick Inglourious Basterds. In the same vein, the crew made a trailer for the video game God of War as though it was a Wes Anderson movie.
http://www.gamervision.com/users/00_19/articles/god_of_war_movie_trailer via Geekologie
Ray Larabie is a video game typographer. Yes, that's an actual job. As Tyler Cowen likes to say, there's a market for everything, and Ray Larabie, formerly an art director for Rockstar Games, carefully tailors fonts to emphasize the moods and tones of particular games. Recently, Robert Quigley of Geekosystem sat down to interview him about his craft:
What makes video game type good? What makes it suck?
Thematic and visual inconsistency makes game type suck. I see lots of games with cool box art; you load up the game and it looks like it came from another company. Then some games have cool in-game nice stuff and lame-o box art. I think a lot of that comes from marketing and game development no cooperating enough. While, it does happen, it’s rare that a game art director knows fonts. It’s not just about having taken a typography course, but actually being up-to-date on what’s cool and what’s not. A good art director in marketing knows very well that Bank Gothic is inappropriate in a futuristic sci-fi context. It’s fine for a cowboy or steampunk game, not for space. A game art director might think it looks kind of spacey so in the game it goes. Nobody feels strongly enough about it to replace it and that’s not the marketing designers job anyway. So there it stays.
I had no idea so much thought and effort went into typography in games.
Brian Murphy and Chris Kalb made an enormous timeline of events in science fiction, starting with "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" and ending at 100 trillion A.D. It's quite comprehensive.
In the current Superman comics written by J. Michael Straczynski and Eddy Barrows, Kalel is walking across the US, earning meals by performing chores and helping people. Perhaps, like homeless wanderers of old, he might leave Hobo Signs -- etched symbols that communicate information useful to fellow travelers. So humorist Chris Sims contemplated what signs Superman would leave for other metahuman hobos.
Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that China built a life-size version:
A 10-meter-high statue of Transformers character Optimus Prime made up of waste materials stands at the north of the Bird’s Nest at Beijing Olympic Park on July 11, 2010.
No doubt China is trying to compete with Japan in the giant, destructive robot market.
New Grounds user JohnnyUtah made this short flash film that introduces the Transformers from the era of silent films. The quality is outstanding, and it's simply cute. The video is about a minute and a half long.
