Latest Stories from Charlie
Sonic The Hedgehog film – Review
SEGAs iconic video game mascot hits the big screen after facing delays and redesigns last year. Thankfully, it’s not the train wreck many were expecting. It’s finally here. This time last year Paramount dropped its first trailers for what would soon become the infamous, nightmare inducing first Sonic design, which combined realistic animal proportions with cartoonish colours. It was terrifying, to say the very least. It seems that top Paramount executives agreed...
Valve drops ten minutes of gameplay for Half Life: Alyx
I’m still a little sad that this isn’t Half Life 3, but Alyx certainly looks impressive. Could this be the killer app that VR’s been in need of? Gimmicks are a tricky business in the video game industry. Time and time again, big publishers vow that their new iteration of controller or experience will be the permanent game changer. Kinect, Wii peripherals, Eye Toy cameras, and many more unique bits of...
Mac Miller ‘Circles’ – Review
The would-be 28-year-old rapper’s posthumous release is a tentative, delicate ensemble of rich storytelling, that’s as much about inner peace as it is turmoil. Mac Miller’s story is one I think about often. It ends in tragedy and an untimely passing, obviously, but it’s also a shining example of how resilient evolution and talent can reinvent an artist. Within a few short years, a young, white, frat-rap teenager, who seemed unlikely...
Parasite’s Oscar win and the rise of South Korean art
The black comedy is the first non-English language film to ever win Best Picture, and is further evidence of South Korea’s increasing influence on global art. Parasite, the critically acclaimed 2019 film directed by Bong Joon-ho, has been causing a stir in the entertainment industry ever since its release last May. A twisted, dark examination of class in South Korea, the movie has been sweeping up glowing reviews and awards...
Rockstar founder Dan Houser leaves company
Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar, will be departing the studio on March 11th, leaving doubts over the state of GTA VI. Not many gaming studios have enjoyed the monumental success that Rockstar has since it was founded in 1998. Having developed the Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, and Bully, the company has become one of the most prolific and profitable in the industry. This year will see some shake up internally, however, as...
Instagram rolls out new follower interaction feature
Ever wondered who you interact with least online? Looking for a cheat sheet for who to unfollow? Instagram’s got you covered. We’ve all joked about the idea of being able to see who looks at our social media profiles the most. It’s a proposition that provokes feelings of curiosity and terror in equal measure. Everyone wants to know who’s checking their pages out, but nobody wants others to know who they’ve been...
The highest earning gamers of 2019
Last year’s most prolific video game celebrities proved that the industry is continuing to grow at an unprecedented rate - and there’s plenty of money to be made. 2019 was an exciting year for online gaming. It saw the biggest annual growth in eSports yet, taking on top sponsorships from Louis Vuitton and propping its biggest names up on late night television shows, while streamers continued to surge in subscriber numbers....
Understanding the scope of Australia’s wildfires
Australia’s wildfires may not be circulating in mainstream headlines now, but the ramifications of last year’s catastrophe are staggering and will take years to recover from. The giant, sweeping fires that spread across Australia in 2019 have finally been extinguished, over 240 days after they first began. While we’re no longer seeing them on international news stations, the environmental damage and toll is unprecedented. Over 26 million acres of Australia...
Snapchat and TikTok investing in deep fake tech
Both Snapchat and TikTok have been making progress with their own pursuits of deep fake technology, for better or worse. It looks like deep fake tech could soon become much more than just an obscure practice for computer nerds. According to SocialMediaToday, Snapchat has bought the start-up company AI Factory for $166 million this week, while TikTok is rumoured to be working on a deep fake filter...
Toyota invests in flying taxis
Toyota has just pumped $394 million worth of investment into Joby Aviation, a company working on electrical flying taxi shuttle services. It’s safe to say that 2020 probably doesn’t look as cool or futuristic as twentieth century writers and film makers predicted. We aren’t all living in space just yet, neither do we have flying vehicles tearing up the skies on floating motorways. The world doesn’t yet resemble any scene...
