environmental malfunction

After our conversation in the elevator unfortunately is interrupted by ↑Francis Pritchard entering, ↑Megan Reed has to go and meet ↑Athene Margoulis, ↑David Sarif‘s executive assistant. The latter is my boss, the founder and CEO of ↑Sarif Industries, whom I now have to meet up in his office. And quite an office it is [see above], although not as impressive as the one of ↑Dr. Eldon Tyrell—but then again Sarif Industries is characterized as ‘a moderately-sized biotechnology company.’ For that the building housing his company is quite impressive.     While talking with the old man [strange to say that, … Continue reading

Share

human revolution

When I entered the last chapter of ↑Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal 2008) my account read 178 diamonds. The sneaky bastard I am, I felt so comfortable once I had the combination of silenced P9, Dragunov, dart rifle, and the camouflage suit, there was no reason for me to spend anything on new equipment. The payments for accomplished missions came in, and the fortune amassed till ↑suicide was painless.     Somehow mixing this up with my bank account, the one my salary as an anthropologist goes to, yesterday evening I strolled into a shop and laid fifty quid down … Continue reading

Share

infiltration

my first ↑vig! The good Evil Doctor to be seen here just recently found out that his newest invention, the death-ray, is just perfectly suited for joining aquatic cartilage and human tissue. While welding the head of a ↑Galeocerdo cuvier upon his latest victim, the latter’s comrades have discovered a sneaky path into his well secured laboratory …     It’s not a mere tradition but a rule that supervillains, ↑mad scientists in particular, build their secret hide-outs and laboratories within or right above active volcanoes at the brink of eruption. In sharp contrast to public opinion this has significant … Continue reading

Share

postapocalyptic interviews

At level-design.org there is an interesting ↑interview with Hélder Pinto aka [HP], my old friend from the Max-Payne modding-scene who became a level artist at Crytek. The above is an example of his art, the devastated Madison Square as it appears in Crysis 2. If it wouldn’t be such an old cliché, I’d say you truly are a master of desaster, my man. Speaking of which, eurogamer.org carries a recent ↑interview with John Carmack, the master of Doom. Engine John not only talks about id’s upcoming title Rage, but also on technology at large, e.g. about the end of Moore’s … Continue reading

Share

cccp

cosmic communist constructions photographed Until recently I never was aware that the cyberpunkish movie ‘Rollerball’ (Jewison 1975) was mainly shot in my city, but Wikipedia wisened me up: ‘Among the filming locations used was the Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle as arena, the then-new BMW Headquarters and Museum buildings in Munich, Germany, appearing as the headquarter buildings of Energy Corporation and the Olympiapark, Munich.’ Fittingly enough the latter today is the base for Munich’s Parkour-practitioners. Back in the early ’70s all those buildings were brand new and deemed to be futuristic—in a strange way they still are today. And that is the link to … Continue reading

Share

penthouse

manuscript-day one of 100    Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling? —M. C. Escher The skies outside the floor to ceiling glass panes resemble all but white noise on television. Nothing of a dead channel here, they are as brilliant as two high-end TFT flatscreens can render. Screens which are quite alive—so much so that they can switch from absolute black hole darkness to blazing supernova white, and the other way round, in less than two milliseconds. Hence the nocturnal nonsky appears as a star-speckled perfect black. The crisp vista of the metropolis skyline … Continue reading

Share

cyberpunk china

↑2R has returned from China and among other things brought along beautiful photographies of which he has put a ↑first set online. Partly noir, partly cyberpunk, partly both, all China. Lots of neon, menacing nighttime indoors and outdoors architecture, artefacts’ details, living urban night without people … go and see yourself. … Continue reading

Share

escher’s quake

Stephen [Edwin] King tells us that associating otherwise unrelated ideas in an original way is the key to creating an interesting novel. In a magazine-article he read that paranormal phenomena of the ‘Poltergeist’ kind are prone to appear in the vicinity of adolescent youths. He associated this story with his recollections of some outcast girls who attended school with him. The plot of “Carrie” was born and this novel paved the road to King’s incredible success … are you ready? Are you hanging at the edge of your seat? Not long ago during some quiet moments sitting at the window … Continue reading

Share