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Animation

Animation

Metal Gear Solid: Cold Blooded

Graham Cornell, Creative Director over at multimedia studio TheDuoGroup, directed us to this amazing animated Metal Gear Solid short his company created. Did you ever stop to think about how the enemies that Big Boss and Solid Snake see their nemesis? Cold Blooded explores this in the form of a brief encounter in 1972 that Captain Mikhail Tarasov calls "The Margov Incident." The short is just so beautifully done, and at the end I felt an odd sort of pride at being briefly in control of such an absolute bad-ass. Very, very nice work Graham.


paul robertson

Kings of Power 4 Billion % Due Next Week


Australia's favourite son, Paul Robertson, will be releasing his new animated flick, Kings of Power 4 Billion % next week. Don't know Paul Robertson? This might help jog your memory. If it doesn't, the words Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight might. Trailer's above, and if you feel like joining me in feverishly counting down the days, please, be my guest.
film stuff [via IndieGames]


konami

Castlevania Animated Movie: The Goat Fucking Stays In The Picture

Warren Ellis, salty-tongued screenwriter for the who-knows-when animated film based on Castlevania III, updated his production blog on the subject recently, indicating that things are moving along quite well. Very well, actually, as the folks at Konami didn't seem to blush at the more mature themes of Ellis' screenplay. Dialogue about the sexual violation of a goat? Cool. Lots of bad language? Just peachy, it seems. Ellis and company's plans for "a film for adults" look like they're shaping up.

Still, we're a long way off from seeing Castlevania: Dracula's Curse for ourselves, as Ellis points out.

Notes [Castlevania: Dracula's Curse]


mario kart

Student Made Stop Action Mario Kart Parody


This little clip was put together by some students for the final project of their Spring 2007 Animation class. For a student made film, it's got some pretty great moments in it, my favorite being the mushroom eating. Also, the guy in the bowler hat's sideburns are killer. Having some massive 'burns of my own, I totally respect the chops.

animation

Lee Takes On Lara, Re\Visioned Takes On Activision

The final episode of the first season of GameTap's Re\Visioned animation series is upon us, featuring comic book legend Jim Lee's take on Lara Croft in "A Complicated Woman." Over the past season some of the top names in comics and animation have taken turns with Lara, as voiced by Minnie Driver, producing some truly amazing animation. With the success of this first season, GameTap is also announcing season two of Re\Visioned, which will be taking on games from the golden age of Activision. Comic book greats Mark Waid, John Ostrander, and Paul Jenkins will be taking on games like Pitfall, Kaboom, and Pressure Cooker. You can catch Jim Lee's "A Complicated Woman" over at GameTap's Tomb Raider site. For a special look at a still from next season's Pitfall episode, which features Pitfall Harry on a therapy talk show, hit the jump. More »

companion cube

Weebl Gleams The Cube

The weighted companion cube is quickly becoming one of the most popular characters in gaming. I fully expect for it to start showing up somewhere between Mario and Sonic in those greatest characters of all time lists websites like to post when they've got nothing better to do. Even Weebl, master of web animation and pie consumption, is not immune to the charm of the cube, creating a nifty little flash cartoon in which the cartoon Weebl tries to woo the cube with jewels and a sammich. It almost makes up for that month of my life I spent listening watching Magical Trevor over and over and over. More »

animation

"What's Opera Doc" Free On XBL

As we reported earlier this week, the Xbox Live Video Marketplace just added a ton of old Warner Bros. cartoons to it's lineup. I logged on to XBL earlier to investigate that IPTV rumor and discovered that one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons is currently available for free. What's Opera Doc, Bugs' take on Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, is offered in both HD and regular versions. So if you're like me and love the site of Bugs Bunny in Valkyrie drag riding an obese horse with tiny legs, log on to XBL now and get it while it's still free. "Kill the wabbit!"

hi-tech pigskin

NaturalMotion Tackles Football With Backbreaker

Why would anyone try to take on the next-generation console football genre up against EA's Madden series when even their biggest competitor has fallen? Watch the video. NaturalMotion is the company behind the euphoria Animation System used in GTA IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and they're taking that animation system and applying it to the gridiron.
"Backbreaker is the first football game with truly interactive tackles. By utilizing our motion synthesis engine, euphoria, players will never make the same tackle twice, giving them an intensely unique experience every time they play the game," said NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil. "Backbreaker puts players in the middle of the gridiron by providing a pure, realistic football experience only possible on next-generation consoles."
If the game ends up anything like that video, NaturalMotion could give EA a run for its money in 2008. Wow. Just wow. More »

unplug the tv

ReBoot, Returning in Safe Mode

Confession: I hated ReBoot. I tuned in to enjoy the computer graphics, excited for the first episode. And I quickly realized, even in my youthful ignorance, that this show sucked. And I also figured that if I, as a youth, could tell it sucked—it must really suck. It had all the vague, heavy handed themes of Tron without the timeless animation or general fashion sense.

Why I'm so excited to hear about its return, I have no clue. ReBoot will be coming back, but now in the form of comic books and three feature films by Rainmaker Animation. In true web 2.0 fashion, creators are asking what fans want to see. Would they prefer the same (horrid) storyline and characters—complete with old voice actors and remnants of crappy animation—to finish where they left off? Our should the universe be recreated anew? If you care either way, hit up the link and vote.

Zeros 2 Heroes [via therawfeed]


be vewwy quiet

Playlogic Captures Dragon Hunters

Dragon Hunters might be unfamiliar to the US audience, as outside of two short runs on Cartoon Network and a series of DVD's released by Anime distributor Geneon it really hasn't had much exposure on this side of the pond. Produced by French company Futurikon, the quirky, highly stylized series follows muscle-bound Lian-Chu and witty Gwizdo - dragon hunters in a futuristic medieval world. Now there's a major CGI motion picture due out in 2008, and publisher Playlogic Entertainment has just signed a 3-year agreement with Futurikon to exclusively produce games on the series across all platforms. The company currently plans to have a DS title ready for the film's release on early '08. More »

super mario bros 3

Super Mario Bros. 3 Series Coming to a DVD Player Near You

Just when you thought it was safe to go DVD shopping again we get this terrifying news from the the bbps. The Adventures of The Super Mario Brothers 3 cartoon series will be arriving in stores on June 5 in a 3 disc set. I really would like to say I'm sure this is going to be awesome, but I think that might be a bit misleading. More »

dragon lair

Oh Goody, Dragon Lair Hitting Blu-ray

One of my earliest arcade memories involves shoving an endless supply of quarters into Dragon's Lair and getting really really honked off. Nobody could figure the game out! And, from what I remember, there was actually an episode of "That's Incredible" in which someone cleared the game. More »

clips

Clip: Human Pole Position

Filmmaker Guillaume Reymond from NotsoNoisy.com has impressed us before with his amazing live action, stop action animation hybrids. So far, his "Game Over" video series has included such classics as Space Invaders and Pong. Now Reymond brings us his version of Pole Position. It was created the same way the other two were, using real people sitting in a large theater to create the illusion of the pixelated graphics. Pretty great stuff, especially when the lights go out. More »

lego

Super Mario Brothers 3 in Legos

Over at recently launched animation site Bitflicks, they've posted an absolutely wonderful stop-motion Lego clip of Mario running through the first level of his third eponymous title. According to Bitflicks, it's a "mix of stop motion animation, Lego and CGI, all mixed up until the lines between each element begin to blur." More »

art

Surprise: Characters Look More Realistic When Given Muscles

Character movement is one of those things that can make or break a game's realism, even moreso than character design. Good movement will get you through times of bad design more often than good design will get you through bad movement. More »

pes

Video Game Stop Motion

PES created a cool little video called Game Over which shows some retro gaming death recreated with toys, household appliances and food. The whole thing is done in stop animation and the end result is pretty amazing, especially when you consider how accurately the film recreates the motion of games like Asteroids. More »

computer animation

Koopa Force!

Princess Daisy looks a mite thyroidic in this video, but we're still extremely impressed by the computer animation skills on display in 'Koopa Force', a fan film originally made for The Mushroom Kingdom. More »

mutant rampage: body slam

Phillips CD-i Presents... Mutant Rampage: Body Slam Intro

The Phillips CD-i is a console best known for outsourcing its animation to a Vietnamese Animation Workshop / Veteran's Home for Amputees. But these guys didn't just take a crayon in mouth to animate the intros to the lousy Zelda and Mario CD-i games... they did intros for other, less well known games. And the intro to Mutant Rampage: Body Slam? A masterpiece from the moment the bird baby attacks the delivery room doctor. More »