Mass Effect 3 is the conclusion to the brilliant sci-fi RPG series detailing Commander Shepard’s efforts to save the galaxy from total destruction. Or at least partial destruction—you can never trust a bad guy to do this sort of thing right. You’ve probably already heard and read many dissenting opinions about the game, so I imagine you’re asking why you should read mine. Because I’m entertaining, that’s why. Also, I have some good, common-person common-sense opinions. So read on.
Good news, everyone! Thanks to the wonderful folk at EA South Africa, we have the ENTIREMass Effect trilogy on PC to give away to one very, very lucky winner. If you’ve wondered what the brouhaha was all about, now’s your chance to play the entire trilogy from start to finish, and enjoy the adventures of Commander Shepard. You know you want to win, and we want you to win…it’s a win win situation!
“I want it! I want it!” I hear you clamoring. Patience, my prawnlings. There’s always a little quid pro quo. All you have to do is answer one very, very simple question for us in the form below, and then fill in your contact details.
QUESTION: Name one alien race from the Mass Effect universe.
[Form closed]
“That’s ALL I have to do?” you say. Yep! That’s it! It could only be simpler if you had to pour water from a boot. Assuming you have boots, of course. Naturally, there are the usual terms and conditions that apply, including the fact that it’s one entry per person.
The competition ends on Midnight, Sunday 15th April, and we’ll announce the lucky, lucky winner on Monday the 16th.
So what are you waiting for? Get to it! Good luck! We’re all counting on you!
Reality Fighters is one of the launch titles for the PS Vita meant to show off the AR capabilities of the little console. Plus it’s also, you know, a fighting game. The prime question is, however: is it fun? Let’s punch through this review to find out.
Being an avid movie watcher, I use the term “movie” to includes both blockbusters and those busters that are somewhat less than blocky. I am constantly waiting on new reels of escapism. Unfortunately, with the film industry going gaga (not of the Lady variety) for 3D and apeshit for reboots and remakes, the offerings are few and far between.
Even though I’m a movie fan and not a film connoisseur, it’s very hard to look forward to anything that doesn’t fit into one of the aforementioned categories. So when prawn1 asked me to make a note of five—yes, Five!—movies that I have been looking forward to seeing this year, it was difficult to list to compile. Who does he think I am? Barry Ronge? However, I have done better than the five he originally asked, and I’ve found not seven, not nine, but a whole ten movies that I would (whether willingly or grudgingly) pay the ridiculous ticket fee to see. Find out what my fantastic choices are—in no particular order—after the jump.
The humble animated GIF is one of the older image formats. First introduced in 1987, there has been a resurgence in the use of animated GIFs in recent years, be it in memes or the more arty cinemagraphs.
Illustrator Dain Fagerholm creates some wonderfully quirky animations that he calls stereographic drawings. By constantly flitting between two images, the animations trick our eyes, giving us the impression that they are in 3D. Using this technique, Fagerholm brings his adorable hand-drawn monsters to life. Have a look at some of them after the jump.
Last year Derick Watts & The Sunday Blues set the country alight with their anthem for Braai Day. Yesterday they released a song about yet another South African insitution—the ubiquitous car guard.
Filmed near parking spaces next to the local Spar in Vredehoek and sung in the same style as “Love The Way You Lie” by Eminem, Watts tells us about the life and often thankless job of a car guard. Some people give R2 while others give excuses, and Watts is about to hang up his high visibility vest when the car guard king arrives, dropping R5 coins and a whole lot of sage advice. Check out The Car Guard Song below.
People have polarized opinions about car guards. What are your thoughts—do you pay them for the protecting your car or do you leg it before they get there?
From the high-speed pursuit to the slo-mo big air jump to the classic train escape, the chase scene is an integral part of movies.
In his short film, Wes Ball of Oddball Animation studio creates the thrilling post-apocalyptic chase sequence in which an unnamed protagonist is invariably spotted by a flying sentry and must take to his trusty Yamaha motorcycle to escape. Check out RUIN below.
Ball’s short film leaves off where all good teasers should—with you eager to know more. To see behind-the-scenes work on RUIN, be sure to check out Oddball Animation’s concepts page.
As part of an all-sky astronomical survey, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (or WISE) satellite took over 2.7 million images and beamed back 5 trillion bytes of data to eager astronomers back on Earth. This composite image is made up of 18,000 images covering the sky and shows more than 560 million stars and galaxies! You’ll notice that the prominent Milky Way Galaxy runs horizontally at the centre of the map.
The mosaic image has an oval shape and that is because of the method used to render the 3D sky onto a 2D map.
The sky can be thought of as a sphere that surrounds us in three dimensions. To make a map of the sky, astronomers project it into two dimensions. Many different methods can be used to project a spherical surface into a 2-D map. The projection used in this image of the sky is called Aitoff, named after the geographer who invented it. It takes the 3-D sky sphere and slices open one hemisphere, and then flattens the whole thing out into an oval shape.
If you are a huge fan of the “Alien” franchise as I am, and if you haven’t heard of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, then my son you have been living under a rock.
After all those horrible sequels that followed Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking sci-fi epic, he has finally returned to give what all fans have been waiting for. Saying that, he has made it very clear that Prometheus really is not a reboot or an “Alien” movie. It’s more of a stand-alone film that so happens to take place in the Alien universe. Whatever it is, it will explain the origins of the Xenomorph and, finally, that mysterious fossilized creature found aboard the derelict ship in the first “Alien”.
One of the most exciting details to come out, is that they brought back H.R. Giger. Giger’s designs, as fans know, were the inspiration for the original Alien film, which included the creatures and the spacecraft. This is a good omen as his art, coupled with Scott’s vision, is what made the film the classic it is today.
The Plot: In the distant future, two superpowers control Earth and fight each other for all the solar system’s natural resources. When one side dispatches a team to a distant planet to terraform it for human colonization, the team discovers an indigenous race of bio-mechanoid killers.
The Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Logan Marshall-Green & Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland. Yes Peter Weyland, the eventual partner of the notorious Weyland-Yutani Corporation in the films. As you can tell the story is not following the “Alien vs Predator” film’s Charles Bishop Weyland played by Lance Henriksen.
Well that’s enough from me, so watch the trailer, drool and let us know what you think.
Prometheus is due for release in the United States on June 8, 2012.
Envisat (or “Environmental Satellite”) is an Earth-observing satellite that was launched into space by the European Space Agency a little over a decade ago. In that time the €2.3 billion, 8-ton satellite has orbited the Earth thousands of times and had beamed down data that has helped scientists to study ozone depletion, the spread of pollution, and monitor maritime traffic.
Envisat has also taken a few photos during its tenure. Wired Magazine celebrates the 10th anniversary of the satellite with a gallery of images of the earth as shot from space. Have a look at some of the beautiful topographies after the jump.
