Are you ready for an ape-tastic war? All Hail Caesar! The Dawn of The Planet of the Apes trailer has arrived and it looks like the apes are ready for war against the surviving puny, hairless monkeys known as human kind.
[box_light]Synopsis
A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species.[/box_light]
The sequel Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is directed by Matt Reeves and stars Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Judy Greer & Andy Serkis. Arrives in cinemas 17th July 2014.
Hello and welcome to Isometrics; a slightly slanted series analysing the lucid, literary world of video games. The Christmas period after what the Americans call Black Friday is a bit of a wasteland, without a lot in the way of video game releases or news. Oh sure, there are plenty of games coming out and many more on sale but for the most part active development in the bigger companies ceased about a week ago. However, this certainly is not true for the wider community ; there have been more than a few major stories that have affected the community , eerily echoing more than a few classical academic gaming debates. One of the biggest involves Mighty No. 9, a game currently in development, and contrary to the title above, nothing to do with feminism at all.
How could a cute little bot like this cause so much trouble?
In order to give a brief summery of the situation, Mighty No. 9 is the name of the most successful game ever to make it on Kickstarter, raising $3.8 million from pledgers who wanted to turn veteran game designer Keiji Inafune’s (Mega Man, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry) ambitions for a new next gen action platformer into reality. It smashed every stretch goal possible and basically has the potential to be every bit as fantastic as the huge investment promises. In recent weeks however there has been a bit of a controversy. Did it concern the game itself ? Maybe its mechanics? No. It concerned one of the community managers for Comcept and the game, Dina Abou Karem.
At this point the story kind of falls off the rails, as two sides have been taken on the issue as it spreads across the internet community. What is known is Dina is interested in gender representation, is a community manager and has a friend who also works for Comcept. Everything else is a little bit more murky and has been taken at one side as signs of nepotism in the company, bad business practices, a lack of respect for the Mega Man series (since she admitted to not being an avid player of the games) and even some kind of subversive feminist conspiracy to try and ruin the series with their Wily (capitalisation intended) ways and need for some kind of gender parity!
The other side of course is pretty much everyone else, raising their hands and wondering why this has become such a massive deal.
He certainly wasn’t engineered to generate controversy!
Part of this is of course the misplacement of a lot of fan energy and devotion. Series, particularly long running ones get very devoted fan bases, who are incredibly sensitive to changes in the mechanical, social and political aspects of games, and so after being disappointed many times before with mediocre, simplified or just plain cancelled games, they will react very strongly to anything that might possibly take away from what they consider quintessential to the series, including not being ‘hardcore’ enough a fan to know what that is. However for some, this Sarkeesian fear of a feminist game is the problem, and that is where this debate will be taken. Are the fears of a feminist agenda justified? Are there games with feminist agendas in the mainstream Zeitgeist?
Just for clarification, by “feminist agenda”, I mean any video game that explicitly explores feminist issues or pursues the kind of explicit misandry that seems to be feared by the gaming men’s rights activists set. Is there an agenda present here? The answer ( to the shock of precisely no-one) is there isn’t any. That isn’t to say there aren’t games that are praised by certain groups of feminists (it is of course, with such a diverse school of thought , impossible to get a complete consensus), such as Mirror’s Edge, The Last of Us (to a degree), the Metroid series (to a very limited degree) and the Tomb Raider franchise (with a lot of qualifiers and controversy that I will save for a later article). Oh, and the Great Giana Sisters of course!
But in terms of mainstream feminist games there are none and really even looking deeply into it I only found one incredibly primitive Unity engine first person shooter where you shoot people who come on to you, and after playing it was so thoroughly insulted by its badness that I refuse to include a link to it in this piece.
On another note I’m amazed Mirror’s Edge is getting a Sequel
This has genuinely surprised me, and left me with a bit of a problem; the plan for the rest of the article was to explore games that explicitly considered feminist (irrespective of who designed them or anything of the sort) and explore how problematic or prolific they are. The fact I can’t find any is, to use the worst expression for the situation, a cock-up. However it isn’t a difficult cock-up to explain.
Video games are, for all their rapid movement and development, a very new artistic medium, currently going through a troubled but artistically fascinating adolescence. The market is growing, and diverse (with figures putting the gender split at 53/47) and there are more ways to play and more styles of game to play than ever before. Yet at the same time the primary demographic that game companies focus their biggest budget games are has depressingly remained mostly the same. The so-called AAA titles are invariably aimed at adolescent and very slightly post-adolescent young men, simply because they are perceived to have the most disposable income. This is why the biggest games this year are all first person shooter games with gruff, rugged man’s men, women either pushed to the sidelines or off the screen entirely.
*Insert humourous counterpoint to argument here*
So video games have never before, and are not now being used to push any sort of feminist agenda, but surely they could in the future right? After all, literature has a great tradition of female writers exploring the female condition, and likewise independent cinema. Whether or not it is a stupid thing to fear, surely it is possible right?
Perhaps, but it is highly unlikely for several reasons, chief among which being that there really isn’t such a thing as a ‘feminist agenda’. One of the biggest misconceptions by detractors is that feminism is a unified singular set of beliefs but, as I shall inevitably explore a lot more, feminism is a diverse school of thought with a branching and schismatic history. Feminism is just too many things to too many different people to have a unified agenda, which is precisely why for instance characters such as Lara Croft can be both vilified and praised by different feminist thinkers. Realistically however, the big thing stopping the progression is that if current trends in women in video games, from Rhianna Pratchett to Roberta Williams, to Stevie Case and Jessica Curry are anything to go by, they seem to be too busy actually making video games to care about any supposed agenda. Perhaps in the future there will be certain genres and certain games which have enough of a literary focus to actually explore feminist themes but it seems frightfully unlikely that a game featuring a blue robot shooting things will be one of them.
Can you think of any other feminist video games, be they feminist friendly or with an explicit agenda? Have any other thoughts about the blog? Leave a comment below, or comment on Twitter, Facebook or with a very large bugle!
I’ve never played Terraria. And while I enjoy Minecraft, I’ve always been fairly casual about it, never one of those people building themselves replicas of the USS Enterprise. And when Starbound was released I genuinely had no intention of buying it. Then, as is so often the case with me, a friend suggested it might be a laugh to play together and I was suckered into an £11.99 purchase of an Early Access game. Which sounds like a bad plan. Especially considering that the last game I bought on early access was Godus, Peter Molyneux’s latest project that he claimed would “re-revolutionise the god game genre”. It was a massive disappointment and simply left me frustrated and without a clue as to what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Also, I’d never bought Terraria despite many people raving about it because, to me, it simply looked like a worse Minecraft. Minecraft is simple enough as it is, why would I go for a downgraded version. So, to summarise: bad history of Early Access, low opinion of related game and impulse buy. What a great way to enter a game.
Endless Worlds, Endless Possibilites
But Starbound has gone above and beyond the call of duty. I cannot express how much this game has exceeded itself in my expectations. The essence of the game is this – take all the best bits of Minecraft, throw away the frustration, add in a sci-fi setting and inject the game with a truckload of character and intriguing backstory. Then you leap into this world and begin exploring to your heart’s content. There’s no problem of losing gear as, when you die, you respawn with all your equipment but instead incur a “pixel” cost, pixels being the in-game money necessary for higher level items. So no more edging around lava trying to get to that diamond sword hovering just out of reach. And speaking of diamonds, you won’t want to kill yourself trying to get enough for them to be useful. Starbound makes diamonds rare enough that they’re still of great value but not so rare that you can search endlessly without finding any. Though, that said, I currently have absolutely no idea what to do with them. But never mind, cos I’ve got copper trousers and crimson-lensed flight goggles that make me feel like Cyclops. And while you may see a fair amount of people with these goggles running around, you may not see so many with circlets on their heads. Because the copper helmet can only be upgraded into the Hatchling’s Circlet if, like me, you’re a member of the Avian race. Oh yeah, Starbound has races. 6 to be precise.
Quick rundown. Avian (Bird-People), Glitch (Robots), Apex (Ape-People), Floran (Flower-People), Hylotl (Fish-People) and Human. There is also a seventh race, the Novakid (Light-People) who have not yet been released. Each race has a unique backstory and though they don’t seem to possess any kind of racial abilities, not as yet anyway, there are items that are unique to certain races and your race can shape the look of crafted items, such as my goggles turning into the Circlet. So while it may not have a huge effect on how the game actually runs for you, it does provide a certain aesthetic appeal that lends itself to the well developed and somewhat surprisingly dark backstories that each of Starbound’s races possess. And aesthetics is something that Starbound does very well
Because Bird-Men
indeed.
The procedurally generated worlds of the game, which make for near endless exploration, look incredible, lurid neon shades painting a landscape interrupted by strange looking trees and rocky outcrops. The world below ground is wildly diverse, ranging from slime to sand and all manners of oddness in between. One cave I found myself dropping into lakes of poison, 10 minutes later I was trudging through a sewer complex. And this is what it really comes down to. In all this beautiful diversity, there is one constant. The whole universe wants you to die. Every little dip in the ground, every wonderfully colourful puddle and every single damn one of the multitude of LSD fantasy looking Pokemon rejects that make up the worlds’ native inhabitants. I’ve spent a lot of time dying on Starbound.
But, to be perfectly honest, I don’t care. The fact of the matter is that Starbound rocks. This 2D world is beautifully rendered and thought out with intriguing backstory, great gameplay and a level of playability that is simply incredible. And death by death, cave by cave, it’s fascinating to see the worlds of Starbound expand as the game ever improves and your character grows ever stronger, building a world for themselves that is limited, clichéd as it may be, by your imagination alone.
It’s about a week to Christmas so if you’re still on the hunt for gifts (like I am ) then you better get your skates on. Here is part two of our geeky gift guide. For US readers, I apologise that most sites are British but I’m hoping I can at least give you some ideas of what you could buy people.
What is a better gift for Christmas than a calender ready for the new year? And even better than that would be a geeky themed calender full of cosplay photographs alongside some great artwork. And even even better than that would be a calendar that has all of that and supports an important cause such as cancer… a charity like Cancer Research UK. Well look no further, here at Geek Pride we have that sorted for you. For £15 you can get this awesome gift (for others or for yourself) which will be useful the year round and for no extra fee you get the super warm feeling that you’re helping to fight cancer. All the cosplays are by Geek Pride writers and include popular characters such as R2D2, Joker and Harley Quinn. Find the calendars here… go on, you know you want to.
If you’re looking for something that you could pick up or click & collect instead of worrying about delivery, Tesco has a range clothing suited towards geeks at the moment (including some in the sale, yay!). For a choice of men’s nightwear you can choose from Batman, Hulk, Spider-man and Superman lounge pants for £8 or a Star Wars set for £12. With t-shirts you can get a Batman t-shirt for £10, a Thor t-shirt for £8, Avengers top for £8, a Christmas pacman top for £5 or a non-Christmas theme pacman top for £8. For women there is the choice of a Wonder Woman Pyjama set for £13 and two DC pyjama sets (here and here) both for £12.
For those wanting to try their hand at illustration why not buy a ‘how to draw’ book? With hundreds of books out there to help wannabe artists, you’re sure to find one tailored to their interests. Stores such as The Works have a great collection online and (usually) in store at great prices. They also stock some basic art supplies so you could always buy them a sketch book to go with the guide. The works have a How to Draw Manga book for £1.99 and How to Draw and Sell Digital Cartoons for £3.99. Sites such as play.com and amazon.co.uk also have hundreds for offers, although I’m sure you could pick up how-to guides at most bookshops.
For Breaking Bad fans, Asda is offering the box set for £49.97. If that’s a bit pricey, then allposters.co.uk (or allposters.com) has a range of posters and t-shirts to fill the gap that the end of the series has made in your heart.
What do we all get at Christmas? Socks. So let’s liven it up with these epic Wonder Woman superhero socks. Batman and Superman versions are also available. They are a little expensive for socks (the Wonder Woman socks being £7.99) but they’ll definitely stand out in the sock drawer. (For you Americans, here is a great site selling a variety of these caped socks.)
For a quick gift sure to make a TV or Movie junkie happy, you could buy a Netflix gift. Choose how many months you want to fuel the junkie’s addiction and choose a design for the card and you’re basically done. No queuing at the shops and no worrying about whether it’ll fit or they’ll like the colour. Easy-peasy. And if your Movie lover is more of a cinema-goer then most cinemas sell gift cards.
For geeks who not only love Star Wars but enjoy a spot of Shakespeare then what better than to mash those two worlds together and buy William Shakespeare’s Star Wars for £11.99 from firebox.com
And lastly, for you rich readers, why not just buy an electric DeLorean for £70,000 – who could refuse it? It won’t be ready in time for this Christmas but I’m sure showing a receipt in preparation for the gift will be enough. And when they get the present I’m sure you’ll never have to think of a gift idea again.
Well that’s it from me. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Everything I heard about Bravely Default: Flying Fairy before it was released was good: that this was a genre changer, but that it also hearkened back to the old school Final Fantasy games, that people who grew up on the Square Enix games of the past would love it.
Mostly, they are right.
Available on the 2/3DS only, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is, at its heart, a typical turn-based JRPG. You have four characters who can select from a list of jobs, each with different skills, abilities, spells, and weapons of choice. Using these, you fight random battles or bosses to clear dungeons and progress through the story.
So far, so typical. How Bravely Default differs is in its combat system, and in the incredible range of touches added to the typical formula.
As well as acting each turn, you can choose to either ‘Brave’ or ‘Default’: Braving allows one to take up to four turns at once, whilst Defaulting allows you to defend yourself as you relinquish your turn to use later. This is done in the guise of Brave Points. You can store up, or expend a maximum of three additional Brave Points each turn. This allows for interesting tactical decisions, for enemies to be rushed all at once, with the risk that the opponents will have three turns to deal damage to you unimpeded. And the monsters and bosses can Brave and Default just as you can!
There are also Special Moves granted on the basis of the weapon you wield, which you unlock by delivering certain kinds of attacks: Bows unlock their special moves by delivering attacks which the enemies are weak against, for example. You can also customize these Special Moves, making them deal status effects, elemental damage, and provide certain bonuses to you and your allies.
Another new element of ‘gameplay,’ though it’s hard to tag is as such, is the sub-plot of rebuilding Norende, a town destroyed at the opening of the game. You use villagers to perform tasks, which take hours to finish, but you can use multiple villagers to do a task quicker: five villagers take one fifth of the time, for example. Doing these tasks grants you free items at random, as well as giving you access to special and powerful armour and weapons. It also grants you the parts you need to modify your Special Moves, and the components which the Salve Maker class can use to devastating effect.
There are a number of other interesting little touches: you can turn off random encounters, or even double their rate, and you can switch off XP, Job Point, and cash accrual from fights as well. One can also earn bonus XP, JP, and PG by achieving certain criteria, like winning in one turn, or winning without taking damage. This keeps the grinding fresh, and the customization also allows you to just avoid annoying fights or blast through a dungeon.
In fact, this whole review could be called, ‘Another Interesting Feature.’ You can connect, via Streetpass or, once per day, online, to add Friends to your game. Adding friends not only increases the rate at which you can improve Norende, but also lets you summon their characters in fights. And, the more you summon a person, the better connected you are with them, which ultimately allows one of your characters to access their abilities, should you not have access to them currently.
On top of this, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy has an incredible soundtrack and visual aesthetic. Square Enix very rarely ever skimp on this front, but the music in Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is incredible. Perhaps the best we’ve seen in a Squenix game. And the painted and rendered maps and scenes are gorgeous, well worth exploring.
However, it is not all sunshine and lollipops for this review: the plot is the source of many of my gripes. Continuing with Square Enix’s never-ending obsession with crystals, particularly with four elemental crystals which manage the world, which are then threatened by an overarching villain. This lack of imagination continues through the main plot, with most points either predictable or uninspired. Uninspired is the best word for it, with elements often introduced because they were needed, not because they were interesting.
Being a Hunter ruins every cut scene. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Most of the best writing comes in the optional sub-plots, with some very interesting ideas explored, such as the effects of commercialisation, war crimes, and seriously creepy date rape (yes, really). Beyond that, there is little which will make you desperately want to proceed, or make you hate any villain but Victoria.
The Jobs are all really unimaginative as well. They follow the somewhat-boring Final Fantasy Tactics lot, with Ninjas, Black Mages, Summoners, and so on. How you get new Jobs is at least new, with you having to defeat their current owners in order to attain them, but that’s about all that’s new in here. But those are niggles: the Jobs feel familiar because they are, allowing a seasoned player to settle in and plan their crew easily. At least there are new Summons available, and the way which you get them (no spoilers here) is unique.
Bravely Default is the classic JRPG filtered through a modern sensibility, with Farmville-esque town management, social elements, and complete customization of your experience. It is well worth playing, despite the faults in the main plot, and some elements being unimaginative, as it is an interesting and addictive game.
With the new Anchorman film about to land this Burgundy Wednesday, I thought I would break out the scotch and trim my tash. But different tashes mean different things (don’t you know) and we only have to look at the movies to prove this.
Below is a helpful Infographic, that was sent to us, to help you trim your facial hair to suit your mood; be it classy like Ron or Sinister like Jafar.
It’s time to crack out your calendars and book that time off, dust off your spandex and work on your best Joker laugh, because London Super Comic Con is back on the 15th and 16th of March 2014!
Now for those of you that don’t know, LSCC is a fairly young and new event having only come into inception two year ago. It’s the English equivalent of what the US has been experiencing for years ( those lucky devils!) – a fun, friendly, comic-centric convention in which every facet of geekdom is given free reign. It’s the home to many a creator, draws in intricate cosplays, and fuels a level of camaraderie rarely seen in the UK circuit.
I was so excited to go and see for myself what wonders awaited as the convention unfolded at London’s Excel centre earlier this year(which incidentally also serves as MCM’s base of operations for London Expo later in the year) and when I arrived I have to say I was not disappointed. Everything from start to finish was essentially perfection. From the friendly smiling staff that helped you to pick up your registration (with an astonishing queue time of less than a minute!) right through to wandering the halls and grabbing seats at the panels, this was convention going at it’s finest.
I thought after it’s first year in existence, when the likes of Mr.Stan Lee himself attended as the guest of honour, it was unlikely to raise the bar higher. How can you improve on something already so jaw-droppingly well structured? Yet the LSCC organisers managed to do it anyway. This year didn’t see a return of the main man himself, but we did get the equally fabulous George Perez! Who I may or may not have been too absurdly nervous to go and actually speak to, but hey! That’s the level of star struck we’re talking about here.
And with only a few guests announced so far for LSCC 2014, I have to say, it’s looking like it’s going to be a repeat performance and knock the ball right out of the park for the third year running. With the likes of Arthur Adams, Frank Cho, Max Brooks and Charlie Adlard to name but a few, you know you’re going to be in for a real treat. And what’s more, there’s even a much bigger presence on the cosplay scene this time to boot too!
I was impressed enough back at this years event, when the level of skill and talent was phenomenal behind every costume choice. The individuals partaking in the hobby really did extend it to a new level. They not only looked like the characters they were portraying, but they acted like them too – almost to the point where you felt surprisingly at peace while queuing for the DLR after a night of revelry the bar; simply because you knew you had Batman or Wolverine nearby watching your back!
2014 sees this extended into a whole new realm of awesome, with a costume contest to rival those often held across the pond. The grand prize of which being a trip to the ever amazing Dragon Con! But you can’t have a cosplay competition without some very formidable judges, and LSCC has most definitely scored them, with the extremely talented Riki Lecotey and Yaya Han putting contestants through their paces!
Impressed yet? I know I am. Which is why I’m eagerly awaiting more news of what panels are going to take place and what other stellar guests we can expect this time around. This year I was very much enamoured with the screening of ‘Judge Minty’, a 2000ad inspired fan film that definitely sated my not-at-all-secret penchant for Judges! Will 2014 bring something equally awe inspiring? I can certainly hope so!
So c’mon, what are you waiting for? Head on over to www.londonsupercomicconvention.com and get your tickets now! I promise it’ll be worth it – but if you still aren’t convinced, why not check out this video to show you what you’re missing!
The first time I saw Peter O’Toole in a movie I was about eight and I thought he was the funniest man ever. It was High Spirits and while not the most impressive movie ever made, I still loved it. Since then I’ve learned he was actually one amazing actor, one that had graced the stage and our screens, bringing to life characters so vastly different that each role spoke of his great ability to bring them to life. His career has spanned decades, starting in 1956, his roles slowly starting to grow since he appeared as an extra in The Scarlet Pimpernel TV series. Perhaps best known for his role in Lawrence of Arabia, in which he played the titular character, Peter O’Toole has definitely left his mark on the world of entertainment.
Peter O’Toole passed away, aged 81, following a long illness. That was the sentence that has shocked the world today, when we were all forced to say goodbye to one of the best actors ever, a man that has shown his integrity and commitment to his craft through his struggle to create and re-create the lives others have imagined for their characters. With each of his movies he’s given us the chance to set foot through the looking glass, bringing us close to adventure, tricks and plots, love and misery.
Rest in peace, Peter O’Toole. You will be greatly missed.
We all want superpowers, from TK to invisibility if you are reading this then you have probably already decided and are patiently waiting for your moment to become a hero or villain, equality and all that.
My favourite heroes as a whole are probably the X-Men. I long for my X-gene to trigger revealing unto me my powers. Whilst this is considered a fantasy, who’s to say it has not already happened, people can perform great feats and that may well be what real world super powers are.
Take Derren Brown for instance. Now before you start I will say that, yes he states that he has taught himself and anyone could learn to do it. But aha, that is exactly what someone with the gift of telepathy would say. We all know what would happen should powers reveal themselves to the human race. Big fat science experiments, the nasty cut you open, sensory deprivation, pain test, kind of experiments. I mean the ‘man’ refuses to confirm they have aliens, why on earth would they reveal humans with superpowers. We role-players know the scenario, shady government organisations and people disappearing. So yeah I would be a little cautious about announcing I could read people’s minds.
The reason he has got away with it is showman ship, he is intelligent and subtle about the use of his abilities, just enough for us to exclaim “that’s amazing, no way”. So if Derren Brown is a mutant, there must be more. For my research I turned to, well mostly the internet, but also my mate Guru Mel, the perfect person to point me in the right direction.
Frosty, the snow man
Frosty balls anyone?
Wim Hof, now 53, found his teenage self, running through the snow barefoot with no unwanted side effects like losing toes to frost bite. As everyone who is new to their powers would, he began a series of frosty challenges to push his limits. All credit it to him; he holds 18 Guinness World Records including running a marathon above the Arctic Circle in shorts, climbing the highest mountains in the world in only his shorts (although he failed to master Everest but this was due to an injury) and swimming under ice for 66 meters.
As you would expect the scientific community clambered in their snugly mittens and padded jackets to test his claims. Dr Kenneth Kamler, described as practising extreme medicine (which is apparently is medicine in extreme climates, not doing a kidney transplant whilst sky diving), monitored Hof when he immersed himself in ice for 1 hour, 13 minutes. Kamler confirmed the effects of Tummo meditation allowed Hof to control his own body temperature and maintain a normal internal temperature of 37c. Furthermore, in 2008 Hof took part in the “The influence of concentration/meditation on autonomic nervous system activity and the innate immune response” case study where it was proven that Hof could directly influence his Autonomic Nervous System and Immune System using, well what is basically, special yoga.
Immunity to extreme cold is a rather limited power, really only useful if operating your super hero activities out of Russia, Norway may be the Arctic, that’s it! Though I suppose he could be the next Father Christmas, assuming he can also navigate the world and deliver presents in a very short period of time. Want to know more check out his website
The Devourer
Michel Lotito, known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mister Eats-it-all) consumed a whopping 9 tonnes of metal in 25 years. In his youth he was diagnosed with the condition Pica, a mental disorder in which people compulsively eat non-food items such as Lego and mattresses. As time went his boring diet of dirt inevitably became quite boring and so he began experimenting with more dangerous items such as nails and glass, learning along the way that his stomach and intestines were double the thickness of the average human, allowing him to consume almost anything.
Realising how entertaining this may be, he began performing from the age of 16 and he became famous for devouring metal, glass, rubber and other such indigestible materials. It took him about two years to munch down on a Cessna 150. In his lifetime he ate 2 beds, 7 television sets, 6 chandeliers, 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, breaking each item down into tiny small pieces and swallowing them down with mineral oil and a lot of water as lubricant. Now I’m not sure who funded his expensive diet because planes don’t come cheap. Guessing a scrap heap is like Costco for this guy. Sadly he died in 2007 but this was not due to any ill effect of consuming everyday objects.
The Conductor
For the next guy I want you to watch this video, you will need no more convincing. Not only is the video presented by the world’s bendiest man but the focus of this video is an Indian man who can conduct high voltage electricity through his body frying an egg in the process. Watch it and be amazed.
The reason that none of these people have succeeded in becoming heroes is because on their own, the powers aren’t all that significant. But just think, if Nick Fury could bring them together as a team…okay so they wouldn’t be the Avengers, but they would be able to attempt smaller feats. May be, just may be these extraordinary people are just the first indications of our evolution into the era of super powered humans. It will not be evident in our lifetime, but rest assured it is where we are heading, your future great great grandchild could be Cyclops, a sulky douche with awesome uncontrollable eye beams!
NB: I have no scientific basis for that statement, so don’t quote me on that.
With awards season just around the corner, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (the people who give out the Oscars), announced their short list of 10 potential nominees for the Best Visual Effects category. As you will no doubt see, there is certainly a geeky trend running throughout the list:
Visual Effects Shortlist:
1. Elysium: Set in the year 2154, the population is divided in two social classes: the wealthy people live on Elysium, a space station with all the resources; the poor live in the exhausted Earth. Matt Damon plays reformed car thief Max da Costa living in Los Angeles. Da Costa, who is backed into a corner when exposed to a lethal amount of radiation at his job, has only a few days to live and seeks to travel to Elysium, where a medical chamber is capable of saving his life.
2. Gravity: Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone as a bio-medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission, accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). During their final spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, the team is hit by debris from a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite. All communication with Mission Control is lost, though Stone and Kowalski continue to transmit in hopes ground control can hear them.
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: After successfully crossing over the Misty Mountains, Thorin (Richard Armitage) and company must seek aid from a powerful stranger before taking on the dangers of Mirkwood Forest. If they reach the human settlement of Lake-town it will be time for the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) to fulfill his contract with the dwarves and seek out the Secret Door that will give them access to the hoard of the dragon Smaug.
4. Iron Man 3: Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark whose personal world is being destroyed by an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him.
5. The Lone Ranger: In the 1930s, an elderly Tonto tells a young boy the tale of John Reid, the Lone Ranger (Arnie Hammer). An idealistic lawyer, he rides with his brother and fellow Texas Rangers in pursuit of the notorious Butch Cavendish.
6. Oblivion: Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the few remaining drone repairmen assigned to Earth, its surface devastated after decades of war with the alien Scavs, discovers a crashed spacecraft with contents that bring into question everything he believed about the war.
7. Star Trek Into Darkness: When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.
8. Thor: The Dark World: Once every 5,000 years the nine realms of Asgard align. Earth happens to be one of these realms. These realms create portals between the worlds during the alignment which is called ‘Convergence’. On Earth, in London, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) believes she and her crew have discovered one such portal. Whilst investigating the phenomenon, she comes into contact with a substance called Aether. Upon coming into contact with the substance, it draws Thor (Chris Hemsworth) from Asgard back to Earth. He takes Jane to Asgard to be cured from the Aether. Unfortunately a Dark Elf called Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) wants to use the Aether to destroy Asgard.
9. Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures Pacific Rim: Directed by Guillermo del Toro, a war wages on between humankind and monstrous sea creatures. A former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from apocalypse.
10. World War Z: United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) traverses the world in a race against time to stop the zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.
The only question left to ask is which five movies will make it to the next round as official Oscar nominees? Will it be the new Hobbit film? Or the breathtaking visuals of Gravity?
Who would you vote for to make it through to the next round?
Votes for the final five have to be cast before Thursday, January 9th 2014 and the Visual Effects nominees, along with all the other Oscar nominations will be announced on Thursday 16th 2014
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Michel Lotito, known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mister Eats-it-all) consumed a whopping 9 tonnes of metal in 25 years. In his youth he was diagnosed with the condition Pica, a mental disorder in which people compulsively eat non-food items such as Lego and mattresses. As time went his boring diet of dirt inevitably became quite boring and so he began experimenting with more dangerous items such as nails and glass, learning along the way that his stomach and intestines were double the thickness of the average human, allowing him to consume almost anything. 
