First Bastion, Now Transistor, Creative Director Greg Kasavin Tells Us How to Make Great Storylines Come to Life
Tuesday, 9th April 2013Posted in Industry
Tags: Action RPG, Bastion, RPG, science fiction, supergiant, supergiant games, Transistor
Written by: R Bryant Francis
Supergiant Games’ newly announced Transistor easily looks like one of the most compelling games to come out of this year’s PAX. In a medium where narrative often has to take a back seat to mechanics from a design perspective, Supergiant famously delivered on both storytelling and gameplay with 2011′s Bastion, and has set out to do so again with their second game.
Transistor focuses on the story of Red, a singer in the city of Cloudbank who survives an attempt on her life and acquires a weapon called the Transistor to take on a force known as “The Process,” choosing to fight back against the enemy that stole her voice.
Continue reading “First Bastion, Now Transistor, Creative Director Greg Kasavin Tells Us How to Make Great Storylines Come to Life” »
Man Auditions For Every Sci-Fi Character…Ever
Tuesday, 8th May 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Online Video, Pop Culture
Tags: bill and ted, Frank Gorshin, Lorenzo Lamas, Sci-Fi, science fiction, science fiction audition, star trek
Written by: Jeff Nau
Follow @jeffnau
Upon first watching this, I could have sworn the ‘Centauri Stripper’ was from the Arnold version of Total Recall, and that ‘get out of my mind’ line is by that crazy bald b*tch from Dune who melts Paul Mu’Diib’s hand in a box. That’s the point: in Jake Fleisher’s “Science Fiction Audition” they’re all supposed to sound familiar, because they’re all token tropes from the world of sci-fi pop culture.
Thus Mr. Fleisher manages not only to give several impressive auditions, but also call to attention the various stereotypical plot devices of what feels like every sci-fi movie ever made. There’s the ‘it’s not where are we… but when are we’ line, which sounds like it could be Bill and Ted via Tom Cruise; the “why do your eyes make water?” line, Continue reading “Man Auditions For Every Sci-Fi Character…Ever” »
Science Fiction-Themed Brothel To Open Next Year
Monday, 2nd January 2012Posted in Blog Archive, Offbeat
Tags: Alien, brothel, Dennis Hof, Heidi Fleiss, Moonlite bunny ranch, Queen, science fiction, star trek, star wars
Written by: Jeff Nau
Your prayers have been answered…
O.G. socialite hooker Heidi Fleiss and Moonlight Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof have teamed to open what is surely the greatest thing since, well, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch: The Alien Cathouse Brothel.
Straight outta Area 51, this science fiction-themed hooker palace will be conjoined with – what else – a gas station and food store, officially designated as The Alien 51 Travel Center. According to TIME, there’s an opening date scheduled for sometime in the next few months. Continue reading “Science Fiction-Themed Brothel To Open Next Year” »
What Does “CyberPunk” Actually Mean? Only One Man Can Answer That Question
Thursday, 3rd November 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Pop Culture, Technology
Tags: cyberpunk, science fiction, term, William Gibson
Written by: Jeff Nau
Written By Jeff Nau
From Blade Runner to Akira,’cyberpunk’ has become almost as ubiquitous as ‘science fiction’ when it comes to referring to futuristic movies.
Though it was Bruce Bethke who officially coined the term in his short story of the same name, William Gibson popularized cyberpunk with his revolutionary landmark sci-fi works like Neuromancer and The Gernsback Continuum. But is he trying to shake off the label in the same fashion that some nerd musicians are shying away from nerdcore? Continue reading “What Does “CyberPunk” Actually Mean? Only One Man Can Answer That Question” »
Roland Emmerich to Direct “Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series”?
Tuesday, 4th October 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Offbeat, Pop Culture
Tags: adaptation, Foundation, Foundation series, Isaac Asimov, Roland Emmerich, Sci-Fi, science fiction
Written by: Jeff Nau
His career’s been a bit mixed to say the least — for every Independence Day or even 2012, there’s one or two Day After Tomorrows or Godzillas. But Emmerich might have taken on a challenge that will earn him the scorn of some of ‘hard’ sci-fi’s biggest geeks out there, and that’s because he’s tackling Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series.
Some would consider this a perfectly natural reaction. Not only are Asimov’s Foundation novels considered by many to be the greatest Sci-Fi epics of all time, even more than Dune or Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey series, but it’s also a complex, interweaving tale of robots and humans who struggle over a series of generations to save humanity from destruction using a new kind of mathematics and science. Continue reading “Roland Emmerich to Direct “Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series”?” »
TECH – ‘Science Fiction’ is Officially Just ‘Science’: Meet the Digital Person
Thursday, 23rd June 2011Posted in Blog Archive, Pop Culture, Technology
Tags: digital person, science fiction, tech culture
Written by: R Bryant Francis
Meet Aimi Eguchi. She’s the latest member of J-Pop band AKB48—a band so big in Japan, the group receives millions of votes each year on which of their 61 members is the most popular. She’s just like the other girls—pretty, a winning smile, can woo dozens of Otaku just by showing up on camera…except there’s one catch. She’s not real.
Aimi Eguchi isn’t an actual new member of the musical group. She’s a digital composite, with facial features and body profile borrowed from her fellow group members. But as you can see from this video below, she looks pretty damn life-like.
This wasn’t just a one-shot stunt though—she’s been part of the group “officially” for some time now, complete with her own page on their website that detailed her hobbies, age, and hometown. She even appeared in a photoshoot prior to this.
Of course, this isn’t Japan’s first non-human idol, it’s just the first one where active deception has taken place. While this should evoke questions about the nature of humanity and what the state of existence is for a human-like entity created in a computer and not in the womb…instead mostly just evokes a certain Disney Channel Original movie. Personally, I’m not exactly excited that our first A.Is won’t be awesome, sarcastic badasses, but instead…pop singers.
But hey, maybe you’re okay with this? Or are you with some of her fans, who are shocked by this reveal?
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