LEGO Universe CGI Trailer
A new animated trailer for the LEGO massively multiplayer online game which was shown the other day at CES. I especially like the bullet-time brick construction.
Snowy United Kingdom from Space
Recently things have been a bit chilly over here in the UK, a large ammount of snowfall in the past few days has caused fairly widespread disruption. On a positive side though it has given us this awesome satellite photo taken by NASA showing what the country currently looks like from space.
You can view the full sized image by clicking here.
50 Best Photoshop Tutorials of 2009
The lovely folks over at Six Revisions have compiled an informative list of the best photoshop tutorials from 2009. Great for beginners or even for the more advanced of you to have a gander. Click here to see the article.
Thorndyke Monster Papercraft
Rawr! That’s the noise you will be making pretty soon when you finish putting together this little guy created by the wonderful folks over at CreatureBox. They are also running a photography contest from now until the end of February to see what strange and unusual places he can find himself in.
Star Guard
“Guide the Spaceman through the castle and defeat the Wizard” is all you really need to know about the premise of this neat indie freeware game for the PC and Mac. Although the graphics are simple the animations are suprisingly fluid and the actual gameplay is pretty fun too.
Now go check it out!
20 High Quality Free Fonts
Smashing Magazine has put together a nice collection of some free fonts for you to use in your projects. They should be free, but be sure to check the liscences first before using them.
Click here to visit the article.
Games of The Year 2009
2009 was a great year for the video game industry and saw a shift towards smaller, downloadable titles. Here is the selection of our favourite games of the year:
5. Braid
Although originally released last year for the Xbox 360, we did not get the chance to experience Braid’s innovative time-bending mechanics, excellent 2D graphics or the perfectly chosen music until this year with the release of the PC and PS3 versions. 2009 saw many notable downloadable game releases, but Braid was by far one of the best.
4. Empire: Total War
As with all of the Total War series, Empire completely captured a period of historical warfare and turned it into an entertaining strategy game with stunning graphics. The naval battles in particular are extremely cinematic to see in motion and have left a lasting impression on us.
3. Flower
Flower’s unique concept of controlling a petal in the wind helps to set it apart from other downloadable games, but the overall presentation and atmosphere of the game, combined with a good control scheme which utilises the PS3’s sixaxis motion control and the subtle orchestral music which paces along with the game earn it a place in our list. We only wish it was longer.
2. Borderlands
Borderlands is not a perfect game, but the concept art style of the graphics and the addictive procedurally generated loot-collecting gameplay held an iron grip over our spare time for quite a long time. So far two DLC packs have been released, expanding the world and providing even more content to the already impressive offering. It shows great promise for future games, and we can’t wait for a sequel.
1. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
Playing A Crack in Time is a bit like playing through a Pixar film. The animation, graphics and overall presentation are top notch and the storyline wrapped up the future trilogy pretty well. Although a multiplayer component would have been welcomed with open arms back to the series (and was even hinted at by the online stat-tracking system) the single player mode was more than enough to make multiple playthroughs entertaining.
Truly though, the main reason this was selected as our 2009 Game of the Year was for the simple feeling of satisfaction which comes from smashing a stack of wooden crates then watching as a swarm of bolts fly towards you, firing the RYNO 5 into a group of enemies while Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture plays, or successfully completing one of the time-bending puzzle segments. This game is full of those moments.
Films of the Year 2009
2009 was an interesting year for the film industry, so I have taken the liberty of choosing just five of the best of them which were released this year.
Well, I was forced to. Details aside, let’s go:
5. Dead Snow
Picking my fifth favourite was hard, but Dead Snow eventually won over Watchmen (which would have been sixth if this list stretched that far).
Blasphemy!? Yes, but this is my list and although Dead Snow was primitive and unoriginal, it was daring and genuinely funny. It never ever even tried to take itself seriously anyway, it was a self proclaimed nazi zombie film.
Even for a comedy, it threw in some tense moments and I admittedly jumped a few times.
4. Avatar
Amidst some great (and some truly terrible films which we will present in another post), Avatar came and confused the hell out of us. We concluded that its ground breaking visuals were astonishing and it was entertainment at its purist.
It lacked in a few places such as the plot (which was nothing groundbreaking), but it set a milestone for films of the future and Avatar has placed itself in the timeline of filmography firmly.
3. District 9
District 9 was the highly anticipated debut of director Neill Blomkamp. As with all long awaited films, it could have been a dissapointment – but it only did the opposite.
It provided us with entertainment, excelent CGI and an original setting, but it also threw in social, political and military commentary and made us think about who we are and humanity on the whole.
2. Inglourious Basterds
And now for something completely different. Quentin Tarantino burst onto our screens once again with his ingenious and liberating film, Inglourious Basterds. Despite its irritating incorrect spelling playing havoc with my OCD, it built up strong characters – most notably the unpredictable and ominous Hans Lander (played by Christoph Waltz).
I was on the edge of my seat and there was lots of blood and gore to boot.
1. Moon
My all time favourite of 2009 was Moon. The superb cinematography, exciting design, gripping plot and fantastic acting on the part of Sam Rockwell firmly planted it into my list of all-time greats. As a fan of science fiction, I can safely say that Moon did the genre justice.
The TV Show
“The TV Show” is a very hectic animated music video created by Sugiomoto Kousuke and Manabe Takayuki. You can find more of their work on their YouTube page.
25 Free Watercolour Textures
A nice pack of 25 free watercolour textures for you to use in your digital graphics. More preview images can be found at the download page.
