Showing posts with label unicorns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unicorns. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Robot Unicorn Attack Available For Android!
What are you waiting for? Get it from the app store right now!!!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Love of Unicorns Isn't Dead ... in Germany
While perusing the daily blogs, one of my favorites, which shall go unnamed (*cough* Geekologie *cough*) as they're my primary competition in unicorn-related news, linked to a German unicorn image blog which I am going to link to now: Rainbowzombies Ate My Unicorn. I can't understand much on the site as although I have a German name, I must admit I am German illiterate, with the exception of Nazi-talk, a pseudo-German sub-language found mostly on WWII message boards and DOD forums. But what I can make out is if you click on the link for Einhörner (LOL, they're called "one horners" in Deutsch), you get a bunch of pictures of unicorns from around the internet.
The name of the blog alone is so powerful, as it contains two of my favorite things and one of my most feared things. I'll let you sort out which is which.
BONUS: The website even has zombie images!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Unicorns Strike Back
Just when I thought unicorns were nearly extinct, they start to make a comeback in a very large way. Today, there were no less than three unicorn sightings on the internet.
Players have been reporting that the Chop Shops in the popular online game Mafia Wars were "being turned into 'castles' and producing 'unicorns.'"
Another web-based adventure game, Dragon Tavern, converted to Unicorn Tavern early this morning. Instead of players killing each other with their various wizard and warrior avatars, they were allowed to hug each other using their unicorn avatars.
Popular retail site ThinkGeek.com put up a new product listing for Canned Unicorn Meat. Lest people be concerned that the production of Canned Unicorn Meat contribute to the extinction of unicorns, rest assured that only those unicorns near the end of their lifespans end up in the aforementioned product. Their last days are spent blissfully receiving massages and eating candy corn. Also listed is a legitimate recipe on how to prepare the Canned Unicorn Meat.
On a side note, the power of [adult swim]'s Robot Unicorn Attack has continued to spread its influence, affecting even video game enthusiast site NSFCD.com. Although there are no unicorns present, the pink theme and Erasure's Always playing in the background are clear nods to Robot Unicorn Attack.
So what is the cause of all this recent unicorn activity? A bit of tom foolery perhaps, but it is clear that while unicorn appearances are still rare, they continue to exist in both our imagination and reality.
Players have been reporting that the Chop Shops in the popular online game Mafia Wars were "being turned into 'castles' and producing 'unicorns.'"
Another web-based adventure game, Dragon Tavern, converted to Unicorn Tavern early this morning. Instead of players killing each other with their various wizard and warrior avatars, they were allowed to hug each other using their unicorn avatars.
Popular retail site ThinkGeek.com put up a new product listing for Canned Unicorn Meat. Lest people be concerned that the production of Canned Unicorn Meat contribute to the extinction of unicorns, rest assured that only those unicorns near the end of their lifespans end up in the aforementioned product. Their last days are spent blissfully receiving massages and eating candy corn. Also listed is a legitimate recipe on how to prepare the Canned Unicorn Meat.
On a side note, the power of [adult swim]'s Robot Unicorn Attack has continued to spread its influence, affecting even video game enthusiast site NSFCD.com. Although there are no unicorns present, the pink theme and Erasure's Always playing in the background are clear nods to Robot Unicorn Attack.
So what is the cause of all this recent unicorn activity? A bit of tom foolery perhaps, but it is clear that while unicorn appearances are still rare, they continue to exist in both our imagination and reality.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Robot Unicorn Attack - The Review
Rarely does a work come along that, once you've experienced it, you realize it is a masterpiece--everything about it so carefully chosen and woven together in perfection that it makes you wonder why no one had thought of it in the first place. Such is Robot Unicorn Attack, a Flash game from [adult swim].
Upon entering the game, the player is asked to "press Z to make [his] wishes come true!" The player gets three wishes (chances) as he takes control of the robot unicorn which gallops at ever increasing speeds over a sparse terrain of floating islands in the sky, complete with clouds and rainbows in the background. Using only two buttons, the robot unicorn can jump, double jump, and dash to avoid falling to its death or crashing into terrain and exploding into millions of pieces causing its head to fly at the screen. Along the way robot unicorn can also jump to catch fairies and dash through large star roadblocks to earn points. Each time robot unicorn dies, and if the player does not garner enough points, he is told, his "dreams did not come true." The player can then "press 'Z' to chase [his] dreams again!" But if the player earns enough points, his wish is granted, and he becomes "a star!"
The game is easy to pick up, but still challenging enough despite it's simple mechanics. Once you start playing Robot Unicorn Attack, you will find yourself at odd moments of the day yearning to play it--that is, of course, if you are not already playing it.
But the game itself is so much greater than its gameplay. The artwork is spot-on. Robot unicorn has the appearance of a metallic, robotic unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail. And when robot unicorn jumps, a rainbow and stars trail behind it. Gathering fairies yields more stars, and once robot unicorn has gotten far enough, dolphins appear, jumping across the bottom of the stage as if they always want to be with you, and make believe with you, and live in harmony, harmony, oh love! Which brings us to the oh so important music.
Accompanying robot unicorn in make believe, harmony, and love is Erasure's 1994 hit single, Always. When Erasure wrote and performed this song, they probably didn't know that they were really writing it for Robot Unicorn Attack, but they were. Always and Robot Unicorn Attack go together like stoners and White Castle. Hall and Oates. ToeJam and Earl. It's a marriage that was destined to be, and it couldn't be more appropriate.
"Awesome" is a word that is overused in society today, and much of its impact has waned over time. But imagine it like it was centuries ago, when hearing it was like a righteous punch of goodness in your overloaded gut, causing uriny bad-assitude to issue forth. Now take that and multiply it by rad to the power of sick, and that's what Robot Unicorn Attack is, full on awesome!
Play Robot Unicorn Attack. Now.
BONUS!!!: Always music video. May it always be with you.
Friday, February 26, 2010
When Are Unicorns Going to Get the 'Twilight' Treatment?
Unicorns, and the concept of unicorns, have been around for centuries. And over time they have been slowly re-envisioned. However there are dozens of other mythical creatures and fictional monsters that have been updated far more drastically within the last few years.
Greek mythology was the backdrop for the God of War video game series which saw many of the stories re-imagined and tailored to fit a modern audience. The series plays with the myths, creating warped versions of the originals which serve the emotional arc of the game. At Universal Pictures, all of their famous monsters have been given face-lifts despite having first made it to the screen a little less than a century ago. In the cases of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, the Wolfman, and Dracula, most of their core stories have been held intact, while their characterizations and visual portrayals have been updated. Even zombies, a midnight horror film creation and staple, have been tweaked to the extent that much of their original allure no longer exists. But perhaps the most extreme changes have occurred to vampires, with series such as Twilight and True Blood playing with the very way people now perceive vampires. Despite all this need to revitalize myth, very little has been done with unicorns.
While most people today would consider a unicorn to be a horse with a single horn growing from its forehead (which, a horse, it most certainly is not), traditionally the unicorn has the beard of a billy goat, a lion's tail, and cloven hoofs. The Chinese qilin, perhaps a relative of the unicorn, is more chimaera, with a deer's body, a lion's head, green scales, and a long, curved horn. However the Japanese kirin, derived from the qilin, bears more resemblance to the Western unicorn.
The unicorn's prominence was probably greatest during the Medieval times, when it was depicted in many pieces of artwork, such as the Hunt of the Unicorn and Dame a la licorne tapestries. Unicorns were usually displayed in either their traditional form, their modern interpretation, or a combination thereof, and it is likely that during that time the idea of the unicorn changed dramatically. Writers and artists of the era romanticized the unicorn, attributing special powers and properties to the horn and its owner. The unicorn myth truly emerged, and the unicorn was no longer just a rare, flighty creature, but was a creature that embodied certain qualities, a creature that could not be caught by fair means, and a creature whose horn became a much sought after prize.
In modern times, the unicorn and its myth have rarely been utilized in the popular media. Unicorns made a brief appearance in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in two significant scenes. In the 1980s, My Little Pony launched a line of unicorn ponies. But perhaps the two works most responsible for keeping unicorns alive, were the Peter S. Beagle novel and Rankin/Bass film The Last Unicorn, and the Ridley Scott film Legend. Those works followed the romantic tradition of the unicorn. Legend, as a live film, was constrained (by real-life terms and the lack of visual effects at the time) to using a horse made up to look like a unicorn. The novel of The Last Unicorn did its best to differentiate unicorns from horses, describing them as being "smaller and cloven-hoofed," and having "pointed ears and thin legs with feathers of white hair at the ankles." Since the film version was animated, the filmmakers were able to keep Beagle's vision of the unicorn intact. But aside from those predominantly '80s works, unicorns have all but fallen out of the limelight, except for a few recent appearances.
In April of 2009, pranksters hacked ESPN.com so that when one's browser was opened to that page and the user entered in the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, "B," "A," "ENTER"), unicorns filled the screen. It was a neat combination of unicorn activism and digital graffiti. Most recently, Cartoon Network's [adult swim] Games have launched a flash game called Robot Unicorn Attack, where the player controls a robot unicorn as it runs across floating land masses while trying to gather butterfly fairies and avoid crashing or falling which result in the robot unicorn's death.
Robot Unicorn Attack
Pushing the unicorn mythos into the next decade, [adult swim] is trying to offer a new, advanced take on unicorns. The robot unicorn presents a myriad of debates. On the one hand there is the human vs. robot debate. The inherent fear involved with that issue juxtaposes the fanciful nature and mysticism of unicorns. Perhaps it is also a commentary on the rare state of unicorns, that with the possible extinction of unicorns, the only way man will be able to see them in the future is if he builds them himself. In any case, this may be the first step towards seeing the unicorn myth rebuilt, since we simply cannot rely on Deviant Art to keep pumping out mediocre unicorn artwork to keep unicorns alive. And the world would be far less mysterious and beautiful if unicorns truly ceased to exist.
Greek mythology was the backdrop for the God of War video game series which saw many of the stories re-imagined and tailored to fit a modern audience. The series plays with the myths, creating warped versions of the originals which serve the emotional arc of the game. At Universal Pictures, all of their famous monsters have been given face-lifts despite having first made it to the screen a little less than a century ago. In the cases of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, the Wolfman, and Dracula, most of their core stories have been held intact, while their characterizations and visual portrayals have been updated. Even zombies, a midnight horror film creation and staple, have been tweaked to the extent that much of their original allure no longer exists. But perhaps the most extreme changes have occurred to vampires, with series such as Twilight and True Blood playing with the very way people now perceive vampires. Despite all this need to revitalize myth, very little has been done with unicorns.
While most people today would consider a unicorn to be a horse with a single horn growing from its forehead (which, a horse, it most certainly is not), traditionally the unicorn has the beard of a billy goat, a lion's tail, and cloven hoofs. The Chinese qilin, perhaps a relative of the unicorn, is more chimaera, with a deer's body, a lion's head, green scales, and a long, curved horn. However the Japanese kirin, derived from the qilin, bears more resemblance to the Western unicorn.
The unicorn's prominence was probably greatest during the Medieval times, when it was depicted in many pieces of artwork, such as the Hunt of the Unicorn and Dame a la licorne tapestries. Unicorns were usually displayed in either their traditional form, their modern interpretation, or a combination thereof, and it is likely that during that time the idea of the unicorn changed dramatically. Writers and artists of the era romanticized the unicorn, attributing special powers and properties to the horn and its owner. The unicorn myth truly emerged, and the unicorn was no longer just a rare, flighty creature, but was a creature that embodied certain qualities, a creature that could not be caught by fair means, and a creature whose horn became a much sought after prize.
In modern times, the unicorn and its myth have rarely been utilized in the popular media. Unicorns made a brief appearance in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in two significant scenes. In the 1980s, My Little Pony launched a line of unicorn ponies. But perhaps the two works most responsible for keeping unicorns alive, were the Peter S. Beagle novel and Rankin/Bass film The Last Unicorn, and the Ridley Scott film Legend. Those works followed the romantic tradition of the unicorn. Legend, as a live film, was constrained (by real-life terms and the lack of visual effects at the time) to using a horse made up to look like a unicorn. The novel of The Last Unicorn did its best to differentiate unicorns from horses, describing them as being "smaller and cloven-hoofed," and having "pointed ears and thin legs with feathers of white hair at the ankles." Since the film version was animated, the filmmakers were able to keep Beagle's vision of the unicorn intact. But aside from those predominantly '80s works, unicorns have all but fallen out of the limelight, except for a few recent appearances.
In April of 2009, pranksters hacked ESPN.com so that when one's browser was opened to that page and the user entered in the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, "B," "A," "ENTER"), unicorns filled the screen. It was a neat combination of unicorn activism and digital graffiti. Most recently, Cartoon Network's [adult swim] Games have launched a flash game called Robot Unicorn Attack, where the player controls a robot unicorn as it runs across floating land masses while trying to gather butterfly fairies and avoid crashing or falling which result in the robot unicorn's death.
Robot Unicorn Attack
Pushing the unicorn mythos into the next decade, [adult swim] is trying to offer a new, advanced take on unicorns. The robot unicorn presents a myriad of debates. On the one hand there is the human vs. robot debate. The inherent fear involved with that issue juxtaposes the fanciful nature and mysticism of unicorns. Perhaps it is also a commentary on the rare state of unicorns, that with the possible extinction of unicorns, the only way man will be able to see them in the future is if he builds them himself. In any case, this may be the first step towards seeing the unicorn myth rebuilt, since we simply cannot rely on Deviant Art to keep pumping out mediocre unicorn artwork to keep unicorns alive. And the world would be far less mysterious and beautiful if unicorns truly ceased to exist.
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