It seems as though we’ve settled on Mars being the next step in humanity’s continuing quest to explore space.
A few weeks ago, millionaire Dennis Tito announced his Inspiration Mars project to send a two-person crew on a mission to travel to and around Mars in a 17-month round-trip from Earth to the Red Planet in 2018.
This isn’t the first manned mission to Mars that’s been announced. In 2011, Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp announced his plan to send people to Mars to start a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023. However, in a recent interview with the CBC, Lansdorp revealed that his Mars One project isn’t a round trip.
Hotline Miami was one of the surprise hits of gaming in 2012. It might have been because of the gratuitous violence but it was more than likely because of how fun and challenging the gameplay was.
Well, the gratuitous violence was recreated in this fan film by a group of high school students. I doubt it would go over well with their teachers but the Hotline Miami Facebook page sure liked it.
The RTS world begins and ends with Blizzard’s StarCraft series. People love it so much that I don’t recall much in the way of complaining when Blizzard said that StarCraft II would come out in three parts focused on each of the three species in the game. It launched with Wings of Liberty in 2010. Last week, the first expansion pack for SC2 was launched. Did the critics think Heart of the Swarm lived up to the franchise?
Researchers from the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh have done a thorough study of professional StarCraft games and have determined which of the three factions would win the war. [Wired]
This week, a source inside Maxis tried to blow the lid off of EA’s story that SimCity needs to be hooked up to the cloud to work. Well, a modder confirmed that story by making the game run offline. Hell, it might actually be better modded than standard. [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Looking for something to drink in a couple of weeks’ time when Game of Thrones returns? You should try Game Of Thrones: Iron Throne blonde ale. [Businessweek]
Google is killing Reader as of July 1st. It’s only been the backbone of my blogging and internet surfing for years. There are a lot of people who use it or rely on it more than I do. So what is Google’s game? [Forbes]
The thinking is that Google is trying to replace Reader for reading recommendations with Google+. The problem is that no one actually uses G+ and it drives absolutely no traffic, especially compared to Reader. [BuzzFeed]
Mar 15
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Folks like Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark have more than enough money to fuel their superhero habits but, in general, being a superhero is not a high-paying job. So what would it look like if superheroes had to support their supervillain destroying habits by signing endorsement deals with major brands? That’s the inspiration behind artist Roberto Vergati […]
Just when you thought that BlackBerry had gotten back in the game, Samsung officially unveiled their new flagship mobile phone for the Android platform.
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 isn’t a revolutionary new phone but it certainly is a step above the GS3. It is also, on paper, a step above the iPhone 5. You have to wonder if Apple doesn’t answer the bell with the iPhone 6 (or 5S, which ever they launch this year) if they will start to noticeably lose market share to Samsung and Android.
I didn’t want to turn this week into Mass Effect 3 Week Part Two but we’re getting close to that. The team of Holly Conrad, a noted Commander Shepard cosplayer and costume designer, and Jessica Merizan, a community manager at BioWare and also a FemShep cosplayer, also known as Crabcat Industries, show you how to build your own soundproof booth (which, ironically, looks more professional than the booths they had at the campus radio station at my alma mater).
They also talk to Jennifer Hale and Ali Hillis, AKA FemShep and Liara from the Mass Effect trilogy (or Bastila Shan from KOTOR and Lightning from FF13), about voice acting. If you’re interested voice acting or are a huge Mass Effect fan, you probably should give this a watch.
For many years, fans of the cult hit TV series Veronica Mars have been clamouring for a movie to continue the series. The script for the movie has been ready since around 2008 as series creator Rob Thomas had been working on the movie since the show was cancelled in 2007. However, the movie has been pushed back due to a lack of funding and support from the studios.
Now, thanks to Kickstarter and the power of crowd funding, it looks like the Veronica Mars movie will become a reality. Thomas took to Kickstarter looking for $2 million to get the movie made and came up with it in under ten hours.
Has Kratos worn out his welcome? God of War: Ascension is the fourth game in the God of War series for the PlayStation home consoles. The GameRankings and Metacritic scores for each of the first three games were 92 or higher. The aggregated scores for Ascension are around 80%.
Critics haven’t taken to GoW: Ascension quite like they did with the numbered GoW trilogy but does that mean that this is a bad game? Read the rest of this entry
On Monday, Lucasfilm announced what they called a “new direction” for their animation division. Unfortunately for fans of Lucasfilm Animation, the direction that Disney has set appears to effectively close down Lucasfilm Animation.
In an announcement posted on StarWars.com, Lucasfilm announced that they would be “winding up” The Clone Wars animated series and indefinitely postponing the Detours series that was in production with the team behind Robot Chicken.
As expected, the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney marked the end of The Clone Wars run on The Cartoon Network. However, it was expected that a Disney network would pick up the series from starting from this fall. Lucasfilm seems to have decided that the critically acclaimed series will finish its run on TV this season.
The announcement did leave open the possibility of “bonus content,” possibly in the form of webisodes, to wrap up The Clone Wars’ story. Sounds to me that this season’s finale wasn’t planned as a series finale and a few loose ends will still have to be tied up.
As for Star Wars: Detours, Lucasfilm felt that the series wouldn’t fit with the direction that the new trilogy is taking. In other words, don’t expect the humour of the old trilogies to be in episodes seven through nine. I’d guess that this is our first official indication that the new trilogy is going in a darker or more serious direction.
What’s next for Lucasfilm Animation? The company says “We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming.” No one quite knows what that means but safe money says that it’s going to be a prequel of sorts to the upcoming film trilogy.
Source: Star Wars – A New Direction for Lucasfilm Animation
et geekera 