Many gamers see the film industry as the premier model that video games should follow, and it's no surprise. Movies are seen as the most legitimate and profitable of all artistic visual mediums, which is certainly qualities practitioners of any new medium would desire. Big budget games like Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire strive for the same level as film by aping its techniques, focusing on storytelling in a cinematic fashion, rather than creating compelling gameplay experiences.
Most of the oddest games in the world are free web games. They may not always be well made, but low budgets (and consequently low risk) allow them to be as weird as they fancy. That's a big part of why they are so interesting. Prime examples such as Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story and Lesbian Spider Queens of Mars have graced these pages previously, and both are great games. But the quality of the games hasn't stopped mysterious Glorious Trainwrecks user snapman (else...
Earlier this month, the U.S. Army agreed to drop quite a big chunk of change ($461m to be exact) on 423 M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicles (ASV), made by Textron Systems.
Weddings are expensive, but there is a way to have all the glamour and beauty of a wedding day without it costing a fortune.
1. Extend your engagement. A longer planning period means a better chance of getting the best vendors in your price range. Plus, you can typically lock in rates that might increase by the time your wedding date arrives.
This tutorial is for all fitted fanatics like me out there. I’ve been wearing fitted caps and snapbacks since I was in elementary school, and it has become a part of who I am. However, I also know that fitted caps and snapbacks are expensive, especially those from brand name companies such as New Era. That is why it is important to me to make sure that my hats remain wearable and stylish as long as possible. The following are some steps I take to make sure that my hats don’t become too dirty,...
Welcome to the Official Jackass 3D Prank Contest Submission Page Think you've got the wit and imagination to be a Jackass? Well, here's your chance. Johnny Knoxville and Jackass 3D crew are hosting the first ever Jackass 3D Prank Contest to celebrate the upcoming release of their new film, in theatres October 15th!
Representative Henry A. Waxman is in charge of California’s 30th Congressional district. He is part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Ever since he began his career in the government business, he has been involved with health and environmental issues. He represents cities such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Malibu, Westlake Village and West Hollywood, as well as such areas of Los Angeles as Beverly-Fairfax, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Beverl...
There’s nothing like a great horror movie to really get the adrenaline pumping during the Halloween season. I don't know about you, but the sight of blood dripping into a pool of even more blood creeps me out, so you can imagine my reaction to harrowing creatures that go bump in the night and rip people's faces off. It's intense, but I love it.
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Review: Get Him to the Greek So much puke
The very people this humanitarian mission seeks to help are outraged at the portrayal of their problems and lands. In my previous post, I talked about how this new internet sensation is most probably a hoax designed to force us into a new war. Guess what? It was.
It's been a Consumer Electronics Show bonanza at Edit on a Dime this week. Here's the stories we looked at over the last seven days.
Having bills to pay is one of the worst parts of life, especially around the holidays. And if you're extremely unlucky, you might also have to pay some hefty medical bills. This can put a heavy damper on plans, wants and needs. What's worse? The people that you owe money to are pushy and always bother you to pay in a more timely fashion, or worse, pay bigger premiums.
For more than a decade, Interplay was arguably the best video game publisher in America. Their list of games is a who's-who of the most creative and forward thinking games of the '90s, including everything fromOut of This World to Alone in the Dark to Earthworm Jim to Descent. They've been around since 1983, but have fallen on hard times since 1997, when they became a public company. They were acquired by a French publisher who then went bankrupt. They were forced to close their internal deve...
It's one of the greatest fears among parents and politicians the world over—video game violence spilling out into reality. The shooting at Columbine and the more recent tragedy in Utøya, Norway have touched deep nerves in Western consciousness. And that's why there's a giant pink, juggling elephant in the corner of every production meeting and press conference for each shooter game that comes out.
The last week has been a trying one for me. On Sunday, there were four computers in my office, three of which were broken. The fourth was not really a computer, but more of a collection of parts that were cobbled together for the purpose of constructing a PC that would sneer derisively at the mere mention of turning down any game's ambient occlusion settings.
The indie game scene is constantly expanding, but in 2008, Minecraft, Braid and Angry Birds had not been released, along with all of the other indie games that established the financial viability of the format. Indie games were the all-but-exclusive purview of free Flash game sites and the proud users of TIGsource.com. The Independent Gaming Source is a massive forum for indie game developers to share their projects with like-minded individuals, while seeking help and approval of their games.
Largely thanks to Banksy's critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated docu Exit Through the Gift Shop, the pseudonymous British graffiti artist's notoriety has skyrocketed—so much so that there's now an app for geo-locating a Banksy-near-you. If you've got an iPhone and you're a fan of the artist, you're in luck. For $1.99, Banksy-Locations detects your current location and if there's a piece nearby, drops a pin on the map, locating and identifying the name of the work. The app also contains compr...
Japanese game shows are legendary for being more extreme (and absurd) than their American counterparts. Chris Farley immortalized the concept in a classic SNL sketch, and MXC and Ninja Warrior have both achieved great success dubbed and subtitled on American television. A big part of their appeal is how demanding they are compared to U.S. game shows. Only a few people have actually won Ninja Warrior in its 23 seasons on the air, and MXC is a constant comedy of failure and pain.
World of Warcraft has been on top of the world for seven years. No other MMO has come close to challenging its dominance of the genre, and it has generated billions of dollars for Blizzard. They have spent a lot of money adding more and more content, to the extent where the full game with all the expansion packs takes up 65 GB of hard drive space. It is a beautiful game; well balanced, and a milestone in the history of the medium.
It's like the H-bomb. In slo-mo, it's stunning. In real life, it's terrifying. The footage below was uploaded by YouTube user NielsBorg, unfortunately lacking in description, but offers the following information via headline: "T90 shot taken by Photron camera at 18000 fps". The T-90 is a brute of a tank, a third-generation battle vehicle used by the Russian Ground Forces and Naval Infantry. The tank contains an autoloader which can carry 22 ready-to-fire rounds, loadable and ready to go in 5-...
Yesterday we showed you 10 different ways to make the most of your iPhone's front facing camera, but today's app takes shooting video with your iPhone to a professional level. Highly recommended by our resident filmmaker, Mike Goedecke (see his RED ONE camera tutorials here), FiLMiC Pro is a professional app for shooting industry standard video on the iPhone.
As inspiration for the Levitation Challenge, a demonstration of pure stop motion genius: Jan Kounen's Gisele Kerozene, the tale of four extremely odd witches "flying" on motorized brooms. If Tokyo's Levitating Girl has to jump 200 times to get the perfect shot, imagine how many times these four guys had to jump to get a full 4 minutes and 30 seconds of stop motion magic.
Calling all curious minds—scientists, anthropologists, relentless tourists: Saturday, April 9th, is International Obscura Day, the day to "explore hidden treasures in your hometown," or so says Atlas Obscura, a website dedicated to public curiosities and esoterica. If you're the kind of person who appreciates public oddities every day of the year, tomorrow is icing on the cake. Celebrate Obscura Day in one of hundreds of locales—from Los Angeles to Sydney, from Berlin to Manila.
Choosing the right axe for you There are many choices and factors when it comes to buying a new electric guitar. Price, style, quality and comfort are major players.
Huzzah! My sentences have been recorded! This is normally the most exciting part of beginning a language with this method, because you actually had another person do something for you that is really of great value. I remember receiving my first recording in Japanese. I listened to that thing about 100 times. I shadowed it, repeated it to my family multiple times and still hear it in my head from time to time.
In January of this year, I went to Kuwait with director Fawaz Al-Matrouk to complete photography for the film "To Rest In Peace". We shot the majority of the film in Southern California, duping air force bases, homes, and beaches for authentic Kuwaiti locations. Because traveling was a significant theme for the film, we went to the small, nearly deserted island of Failaka (about 20km off the mainland). Captured by the Iraqi army and deserted by its citizens almost 20 years ago, this island wa...
Defined by Urban Dictionary, Nerdtastic: Something generally not cool, but to a nerd it's freakin' fantastic. Below, a collection of WonderHowTo's top 10 favorite, utterly nerdtastic Halloween costume tutorials. The clock's ticking, so if you don't have your costume yet, peruse below and get started!
George Yoshitake is one of the remaining living cameramen to have photographed the nuclear bomb. His documentation of the military detonation of hundreds of atom bombs from 1956 to 1962 reveals the truly chilling effect of the weapon. Below, images and explanatory captions via the New York Times. Don't miss the melting school bus. Creepy.
If you have any little ones in your life (or you're simply a grown-up kid yourself), Just Bento has has posted Maki's Top 10 Bento Rules for Back-to-School. Rules listed below, click through for full explanations.
I've got this awesome looking gorilla suit, that I use to mess around in, and it always has good results. For some reason people are just afraid of the suit. I think its because it looks so real, or that the face has an eerie stare. Some people don't even know what it is till its too late. Anyways, this thing is loads of fun and I still use it to this day.
We don't often get super excited about upcoming flicks over at thesubstream.com, especially during the long, hot & more-often-than-not disappointing stretch of cinematic cruelty that summer has become. We've been hurt before. We've been buoyed up on cresting glorious waves of hype and what-ifs and heady nostalgia only to be sent hurling like a fat guy from Ohio on vacation down onto the cruel, razor sharp Jar-Jar Binks reef.
WonderHowTo World LEGO People points us to an amazing chess set made with LEGO Star Wars characters.
The Job Board is a weekly entry of the most ridiculous Cinematography related jobs posted online. Note: This posting was from a year ago.
Darrin Judkins - BMG Models NYC, Women's Board Booking Agent
Just a normal day in the life of the Dunn family. Seasoned stunt professionals Jim and Celia Dunn have appeared in Hollywood films such as Poltergeist , Scary Movie, X-Men II, Shanghi Noon and Jumangi. Their children, Connor, 15, Ali, 11, and Austin, 9, boast impressive IMDB resumes as well.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can be really good. Jack Nicholson was appealingly disturbed in As Good as it Gets. I bought a script about an intriguing OCD detective named Monk. His OCD made him magnetic and brilliant. Well, this next tutorial takes the cake. HowTo teach your cat to use a light switch.
The Equipment The Jackass Crew climb inside a bunch of different human-size hamster balls, just like the Aussies use in zorbing.