Ju-on: White Ghost
A son brutally and methodically murders all five of his family members after failing the bar exam. He then hangs himself. At the moment of his death, he made a cassette tape recording in which he can be heard saying “I’ll go, I’ll go soon…”. On the same tape can be heard the eerie sound of a young girl’s voice. It is the voice of Mirai, who was a friend of Akane, whilst at primary school. Mirai was a victim of the mass family slaughter incident. Akane, who is now a senior high school student, has had a strong ESP power since childhood. Suddenly one day Mirai appears in front of her, wearing the yellow cap and red backpack of a primary school student. The terror is just about to begin…
Ju-on: Black Ghost
Nurse Yuko is left in charge of a young girl called Fukie, and begins to experience strange things. Medical examinations reveal that there is a “cyst” in Fukie’s body. The cyst is actually an unborn one that is full of hatred for mankind and curses everyone around her. Yuko’s neighbour is taken by a girl in black, and Fukie’s father commits a murder and goes insane. Fukie’s mother has to rely on the special psychic powers of Fukie’s younger sister to help drive out the evil spirit. However, the exorcism eventually fails, and the worst grudge yet begins.
Tommmy McAlpine always dreamed of escaping his unpleasant dad’s prospect-less sheep farming but never got an opportunity to try his special gift, music, ‘sissy’ by Sir’s Outback standards. When Tommy and spoiled-rotten rich schoolmate Kat are sentenced to community service for a childish watermelons prank, Tommy chooses volunteering as prison training volunteer and manages to turn it into an opportunity to train a cons band so as to execute his premier composition. Key proves bloody habitual criminal Kalai Takalua, who wants the project to succeed because entering a regional competition would yield a ticket for the national finale in Sidney. In time, hidden agendas take over.
BEFORE HE EVER LIFTED HIS MIGHTY HAMMER…Fantastic journeys beckon from the mysterious nine realms. Places of dark mists and fiery voids. Of winged creatures and giants in the ice. And of the most alluring quest of all — the search for the legendary Lost Sword of Surtur. Hungry for adventure, Thor secretly embarks on the journey of a lifetime, joined by his loyal brother Loki, whose budding sorcery equips him with just enough magic to conjure up trouble, along with the Warriors Three — a band of boastful travelers reluctant to set sail on any adventure that might actually be dangerous. But what starts out as a harmless treasure hunt quickly turns deadly, and Thor must now prove himself worthy of the destiny he covets by saving Asgard itself.
A subversive tale that interlaces five stories set in Los Angeles, where no taboo is left unexplored as each character careens toward a dark and often comic fate.
This trailer shows the variety of weapons available in Lord of the Rings: War in the North. See what our heroes use to fight in the new LOTR video game.
Nolan Bushnell’s first exposure to video games was a game called “Spacewar.” Programmed by an MIT student named Steve Russell in the early sixties, this game has circulated computer labs across the country by the time Bushnell would play it in a lab at the University of Utah in 1962. He would spend the next seven years of his life trying to reproduce that game on a smaller, less expensive computer. When it was completed, Bushnell’s Spacewar variation (known as “Computer Space”) did not sell. Frustrated by this, Bushnell changed his entire perspective on computer game design.
In an interview, Bushnell later said, “You had to read the instructions before you could play, people didn’t want to read instructions. To be successful, I had to come up with a game people already knew how to play; something so simple that any drunk in any bar could play.”
In 1972, Bushnell quit his job at Ampex in Sunnyvale, California, and with two other former Ampex engineers started his company. Originally, the three applied for the company name “Syzygy,” but that had already been taken by a roofing firm. Bushnell enjoyed playing the Japanese game “go” and his next suggestion was “atari” which means “check.” This name was accepted by theCalifornia Secretary of State, and on June 27, 1972, Atari was officially established.
Al Alcorn, one of Atari’s first employees, was the engineer who constructed the first Pong arcade game. The game was named after the desired sound that Bushnell wanted incorporated in the game. The dictionary defines “pong” as a hollow, ringing sound, and this was the sound Bushnell felt was necessary in the game.
The first Pong arcade machine was placed in a local bar in Sunnyvale called Andy Capp’s. It was more of a trial than anything else, as the unit did not even have a fully constructed case. The following is an account of the first night Pong was in this bar, reproduced from “Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari” by Cohen.
“One of the regulars approached the Pong game inquisitively and studied the ball bouncing silently around the screen as if in a vacuum. A friend joined him. The instructions said: ‘Avoid missing ball for high score.’ One of [them] inserted a quarter. There was a beep. The game had begun. They watched dumbfoundedly as the ball appeared alternately on one side of the screen and then disappeared on the other. Each time it did the score changed. The score was tied at 3-3 when one player tried the knob controlling the paddle at his end of the screen. The score was 5-4, his favor, when his paddle made contact with the ball. There was a beautifully resonant “pong” sound, and the ball bounced back to the other side of the screen. 6-4. At 8-4 the second player figured out how to use his paddle. They had their first brief volley just before the score was 11-5 and the game was over.
“Seven quarters later they were having extended volleys, and the constant pong noise was attracting the curiosity of others at the bar. Before closing, everybody in the bar had played the game. The next day people were lined up outside Andy Capp’s at 10 A.M. to play Pong. Around ten o’clock that night, the game suddenly died.”
The reason for this was that the milk carton coin container inside the machine was overflowing into the electronics. After it was emptied, the game continued its usual operation.
Pong would become a huge hit in the arcades, spawning numerous imitations and several official sequels. Its popularity would not die down, until it was replaced by more advanced systems that used microprocessors instead of LSI (Large Scale Integrated) circuits.
