sportsdirect: Forever Geek

Friday, October 1, 2010

Forever Geek

Guillermo del Toro Working on “Huge Games” with THQ
Muse in 8-Bit
Astounding New LEGO Artist You Must Follow
Doctor Who Christmas Special Spotted In BBC Holiday Promo [Video]

Guillermo del Toro Working on “Huge Games” with THQ

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 02:00 PM PDT

This is exciting news even for the non-gamer. Geeky director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), aka “He Who Almost Directed The Hobbit,” is working with video game publisher THQ on several entirely new game IPs. Del Toro says that they will be “huge games, huge worlds, [with] long deadlines.”

To drive that last point home, he says that three-year development cycles will be used for each game, so he doesn’t expect the first one to arrive until 2013. He tells MTV News that he can’t say much about this first game, but he describes it as “horror… but a very different type of horror game. It’s not survival horror. It’s truly a strange, geeky mix. It’s a Lovecraftian thing.” Sounds like vintage del Toro to me!

This is not the first time the Latin auteur has attempted to break into the video game industry. Back in 2006, he tried pitching a title he called Sundown, which he says was very similar to Left 4 Dead — one of his favorite games. He’s since abandoned that project, for obvious reasons.

Muse in 8-Bit

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 01:27 PM PDT

I know the 8-bit craze is nothing new, but I just discovered several videos of Muse’s songs that have been converted into this format. Needless to say, I have been watching/listening the videos a lot since yesterday. (I am sure you know how much fun it can be to play around with music.)

Muse may not be every geek’s choice when it comes to music, but this one has a thing for Matthew Bellamy and his gang. One, he does have a British accent (yeah, some are suckers for that). Two, he is not bad looking at all (ask Kate Hudson). Three, he is a musical genius! (Maybe I should have listed that first…)

So anyway, a friend posted an 8-bit music video of Muse’s Uprising, and I had so much fun listening to it. Never mind that the magical voice of Bellamy is gone or that the “real” instruments cannot be heard – listening to the melody and being transported back to many many summers ago is so worth it.

Non-Muse fans may just give me a blank stare, but I am taking the chance that are some Muse fans on FG. Here’s that video.

Here’s another song – I think my current favorite: Super Massive Blackhole.

If you want to know more about Muse, you can visit their official web site. (I strongly suggest that you do if you want to listen to awesome music.)

Now what about other songs that you might want to hear in 8-bit? Do a quick search on YouTube – you’ll find lots. From what I have read, I think you can DIY. Does anyone know how to do this exactly? (For those times when you feel like tearing your hair out because of boredom…)

Astounding New LEGO Artist You Must Follow

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 01:08 PM PDT

His name is Mike Doyle, and he’s about to rock your face off with nothing but plastic bricks.

I don’t have much in the way of background on Doyle, but I must assume that he has a background in art or photography, as his eye is finely-tuned to amazing levels of detail. On his new blog, his first post explains how he recently visited Legoland California with his son and nephews, and got bitten by the LEGO bug. After exploring online and finding a bustling community of AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO), he decided it was time to take the plunge himself.

His first work is what you see above. He calls it simply, “Two Story with Basement,” and it’s a depiction of a dilapidated house that’s indicative of what I think we can expect of him. Click the image for high-res version — it’s worth it. Favorite detail: the melting snow on the roof. His ability to create texture using nothing but standard-size LEGO bricks is genius.

Doyle explains that all of his work will strive for “high realism,” and as such will likely leave out the primary-colored brick hues LEGO is known for, using instead mostly black and white. From the care and attention that he puts into both his written muses on LEGO art and the incredible eye he has for the aforementioned “high realism,” it’s obvious that he’s taking this very seriously, and has a lot of cool work planned.

My browser is bookmarked and eagerly waiting for more.

Doctor Who Christmas Special Spotted In BBC Holiday Promo [Video]

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 12:24 PM PDT

The New Doctor Who Christmas Special looks awesome…Okay I’m not really sure if it looks awesome, since the new BBC fall and winter promo video only shows about 3 seconds of the special…but since it’s Doctor Who I’m going to make the claim that it’s awesome and if you don’t like that…tough.

Watch the promo and you’ll catch the scene. Can you spot Michael Gambon? Yes that Gambon, as he asks Matthew Smith who he is and he responds “the ghost of Christmas past.”

Also note that the part of the video clip where Smith is surrounded by Nazi flags is not part of Doctor Who, but a totally different show called Christopher and His Kind.

ToplessRobot had a good eye on this one, realizing:

The BBC is pimping all the modern Doctors; besides Smith, Chris Eccleston will star in Accused and David Tennant will star in Single Father, none of which have anything to do with who.

Here’s the full promo video:

What do you think about the BBC fall and winter lineup, there definitely appears to be some interesting shows worth catching.