Cuphead

I was recently reminded of the fact that this game is being released this year, as I had forgotten about it until now. Cuphead, announced back in the summer of 2014, is a "run and gun" style game being developed for the Xbox One and PC that looks like it ripped all of its art right out of a 1930's cartoon. The game puts the player in control of the character Cuphead, who, along with his friend Mugman (who can be controlled by another player for cooperative play), are forced to do the bidding of the Devil after losing to him in a bet. The developers of this game said that all of the art is hand-drawn, and it brings a very unique look to an otherwise familiar video game genre. Between the seamlessness of the drawing's animations and the overall wackiness of the art itself, it's hard to look at footage from Cuphead and not think that you might just be watching a cartoon instead of playing a game.

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit Video Game

Wallace and Gromit has come such a long way over the years. I remember watching A Grand Day Out as a very young child, in which the duo travels to the moon to sample cheese. Wallace's silliness mixed with Gromit's silence sarcasm makes for the perfect comedic pair. The short films and TV series that included the two characters were created primarily with stop motion. However, things have changed since the 90's when they first came to life.

The Curse of the Were Rabbit came out in 2005, and is the only full length feature of Wallace and Gromit. Shortly after, a video game for both Playstation 2 and Xbox was released, following the plot of the film. My little sister and I were very excited to control the characters rather than just watch them go on adventures. It was also interesting to see them transformed from clay-like figures to 3D animated figures. Above is a clip of the gameplay, complete with Wallace and Gromit themselves, trying to save the neighborhood from an infestation of rabbits.

NBA 2K15 and Face Scan Technology

The new iteration of the NBA 2K series just came out, and although it's mostly the same as every other version of the game (except better graphics), one new feature they added this year is the ability to scan your face into the game using the Xbox One Kinect or Playstation 4 motion sensor. This way, when you play through the game as your own personal character, you can actually look like a video game version of yourself, which is simultaneously incredibly creepy and really cool. This has been done in video games before; I can remember in other sports games the game would use a camera connected to the system to take a picture and create an in-game model similar to your real life appearance. However, the result always looked horrible. Nowadays, video game characters look alarmingly realistic, and the motion sensing technology of things like the Kinect make face scanning pretty simple:

Of course, this is the 2K sponsored YouTube video promoting the technology, so of course it's gonna work flawlessly in this video. Still the scanning looks pretty realistic, which is scary considering this kind of technology is only going to get better and better.

Still, the face scanning is nowhere near perfect, as illustrated by this fairly hilarious video:

My god that's terrifying. So the potential for face scanning is not quite reached yet, but it's getting there. This made me imagine a future where you can put yourself in almost any video game, which is pretty cool to me. I'd definitely like to run around in Call of Duty or Battlefield as myself killing terrorists and whatnot, but that's just me.

Leap Motion

This technology is very cool.  Supposedly it is 100 time more accurate than “Kinect” for Microsoft's game system, Xbox.  With this new technology, there is a system of cameras, sensors, and inferred light emitting diodes that all interact to make this possible.  Also unlike other existing systems, such as “Kinect,” Leap Motion can track up to ten fingers all at once in a three-dimensional area of about eight cubic feet!  The largest difference between this technology and others, is that this device is placed below that tracking area, whereas many others are placed in front of it, looking straight on.  It is compatible with Apple and PC and just plugs into the computer.  There are also countless applications for the technology including gaming, modeling and numerous others.  The product will me available in the market on May 13th, which makes things all the better!

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

Halo 4 is here! With all the hype and excitement surrounding the latest installment to the series I figured I would share a bit of it with the class. With the release of the game, 343 Industries, the new studio in charge of Microsofts cash-cow intellectual property, has also released a series of live-action shorts to promote it. A lot of money was put into the making of this series, with some pretty interesting actors and actresses filling the roles (Anna Popplewell of Chronicles of Narnia fame!). It is written by Aaron and Todd Helbing and directed by Stewart Hendler (2009, Sorority Row, 2007 Whisper).

This is the fifth installment in the series called Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Some of the effects are incredibly cool, but all look like they came from After Effects and similar programs. The opening sequence to this involves a really cool particle distortion which looks to have been made in Particular. At around 1:49 a firefight begins after an exploding grenade hits the front wheel. Its interesting to see the alien bullets flying around in the scene, because they are clearly edited in with After Effects. In the 4th episode, there is a lot of really interesting effects that they use with a camouflaged alien enemy. As he moves through the scene, he distorts the image just slightly to reveal his position. When he strikes, he uses a glowing energy sword that lights up just before the gore. 

Its interesting to see the direction media is taking. Multi and transmedia projects seem to be the way to go for marketing and promoting new products. We will be seeing a lot more of high budget, live-action mini-series to support video game franchises. There are a lot of really cool effects in this series and I urge anyone who is a fan of the series or is interested in seeing some cool effects in a game to film setting, it is definitely worth checking out.