Category: Notes

Ninjas vs. Pirates

It’s an idea whose time has come: Ninjas vs. Pirates! Sounds homebrew too: “Almost all scenes in NVP were shot in front of 9 sheets of 30-cent green posterboard in a 12’x13′ apartment living room, lit with $12 Wal-Mart halogen work lights.”

All Psych Studies Stink?

Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality takes himself as the basis for his study of computer gaming causing violence: “After playing ‘killing simulators’ for decades, how am I not some kind of crazed predator? Why are me and my droogs not out for a bit of ultraviolence?”

Free Finnish Trek Movie

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a feature length movie that its Finnish creators have released for free. I’ve only seen the trailer, but its production values are amazing for a zero budget flick and the line it walks between parody and fan film is intriguing.

Red Panda in Yer Ear

I ran across a poster in my neighbourhood advertising Decoder Ring Theatre, and boy, do they deliver the goods! Check out their old-timey radio serial podcasts featuring Red Panda, Canada’s Greatest Superhero. It’s a pretty dead-on pastiche of ’40s dramas like the Green Hornet.

Games for Greybeards

The fabulous new videogame magazine The Escapist takes a look this week at what happens when the first generation of gamers starts to get older, including this gem: “Donna and Jack discovered a fact lost on our culture’s anti-game crusaders: Gaming is an extraordinarily effective parenting tool.”