The Original Star Wars Trilogy, All Mapped Out
Slashfilm has just posted three incredible maps for the original Star Wars trilogy, as visualized by artist Andrew DeGraff. Images below; click here to view the original Slashfilm post, which continues more information on the art, the artist, and some more cool artwork, too.
Nintendo Announces Pokémon X and Pokémon Y for 3DS; Fans Proceed To Shit Their Pants
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced at this morning’s Nintendo Direct video press release (which he called a special “Pokémon Direct, a pair of brand new main series Pokémon games–the first to be developed for Nintendo’s current-gen handheld console, the 3DS.
What made this announcement so interesting and so revolutionary was that it was targeted at Pokéfans internationally; in a trend-breaking first, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y will be released simultaneously in Japan, the Americas, Europe, and Australia in October of this year. Pokémon series games are typically released in Japan first, finding their way to foreign shores only after lengthy localization processes that average about a year.
So, what are my thoughts on this? My initial reaction is that it seems pretty cool. After nine full-scale RPG releases on the outgoing DS, a Pokémon game on the newer 3DS platform, first launched nearly two years ago but seemingly ignored by Pokémon‘s developer, Game Freak, Inc. (until now, that is), was vastly overdue. I’m glad to see that Game Freak chose to use cel shading rather than take a more photo-realistic approach; it makes the Pokémon “come alive” without sacrificing the look we’ve grown used to in the anime, the older sprite-based games, and Ken Sugimori’s artwork. The gameplay itself looks interesting, too, but I’m not sure I’ve seen enough to really make a solid decision yet.
What worries me are these new Pokémon, five of which were introduced in the Nintendo Direct release (and three of which, the grass type starter, Chespin, the fire starter, Fennekin, and the water starter, Froakie, were named). They look… Terrible. Cheesy. Stupid. Chespin, in particular, is nothing short of an abomination–perhaps worse than Oshawott.
Anyway, I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about this games in the coming months. Until then, I’ve posted a link to the games’ trailer below.
The Geek
Happy birthday, William Hartnell!
Today marks the 105th birthday of the first man ever to play everybody’s favorite Time Lord. Hartnell played the Doctor from 1966 to 1969. He died in 1975 (during the era of the Fourth Doctor) at the age of 67.
37 years ago today…
On this day in 1976, Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie completed his first painting—The Droids in the Desert—to help sell the look of George Lucas’s faraway galaxy to studio executives at Twentieth Century Fox. The rest, as they say, is history…
WalMart: The Evil Empire
People—myself included—refer to WalMart as the “evil Empire” for a variety of reasons, but it never occurred to me that WalMart might actually recognize itself as such. For years it used a star as its logo, but that star was replaced on June 30, 2008. It’s taken me until now, however, to see the connection.
Happy birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien!
The legendary English writer, poet, linguist, and Oxford university professor, best known as the creator of Middle Earth and the author of many books about its inhabitants—including the The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion—was born 121 years ago today in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Incidentally, today is also my sister’s birthday, but she’s not nearly as famous.
Happy New Year/A New Year’s Resolution
Happy 2013! Unfortunately, I’ve been so busy over the past few weeks that I haven’t had much time to post anything. Going into the new year, I aim to post at least once a week… Hopefully things at work and in my personal life will quiet down enough for me to do so!
The Geek
Happy anniversary, Doctor Who!
The first episode of the series, starting William Hartnell as the first Doctor, aired 49 years ago today! And now we begin our countdown to the golden anniversary and (hopefully) all the awesomeness it will bring!
Happy birthday, Paul McGann!
The Eighth Doctor turns 53 today!
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