Game Review: Gemini Rue

Launching Gemini Rue is like opening a door to the past, to the early 90s when point & click adventure games were king. Even though the game was released in 2011 it plays, looks and feels like on the of the old school adventure games and you could even confuse it with a game released from Sierra or Lucas Arts back in their glory days.

Gemini Rue could be a Phillip K. Dick story. It is disturbing, it asks difficult questions and portrays a dark future for mankind. You are Azriel Odin, a cop. You were an assasin working for a criminal syndicate but you betrayed them and now you are trying to take them down. Your brother has been kidnapped and is being held in a secret facility were they alter people's personalities. Your goal is to get your brother back. The plot of the game is very well written with great twists. The characters are well thought off and each has his/her own motives and past story that you will discover while playing. As far as sci fi stories go this is a top dog. I find that the better sci fi stories are criticism on the present and this is no exception.

One of the game's strong cards is its atmosphere. It has this noir detective mystery feeling. It feels a lot like being in Blade Runner. The graphics are hand drawn and beautiful. They play their part and get the job done without offering millions of polygons. The sounds and voice acting are nothing special but for an indie game are rather good.

The game is somewhat short but the gameplay is solid and you will never feel that you are bored or doing something that you shouldn't been doing. The riddles are almost all inventory based with the occasional logic puzzle here and there. The game is a bit easy but that will not bother you as the riddles are very well blended in to the story and what your characters are doing. During the course of the game you will control 2 different characters, most of the time each being in a different environment pursuing his own goals. There were no illogical puzzles but there are a few "action" sequences. Don't get me wrong these are not 'action' exactly but rather some shooting mini games that you will have no trouble tackling. They don't feel like they were put there to extend the gameplay or to market the game as having action, but they enhance the thrill at the right moments.

Overall Gemini Rue is a highly recommended game for everyone that enjoys a good adventure or a sci fi story. It is very cheap and you can buy it from steam, or from the publisher's website directly. Just launch it and travel back to the glory days of the point & click adventures

Review: Rise of the Planet of The Apes

I went to the cinema with mixed feelings. I had low expectations of the movie mainly because I found the scenario that was suggested in the trailer very silly. It seemed like a far fetched explanation of how we go from today, to the Charlot Heston dystopia of the mute primitive humans and the thriving Ape civilization. On the other hand, the movie was rewarded by a big round 8 on imdb which had to count for something. I was pretty sure that the movie was not an 8 but at least it would be enjoyable and interesting and I was right. In this dry period, of ridiculously bad summer movies, Rise of The Planet of the Apes seems like a good movie, or at at least, a respectable one that the people bored of all the crap of the past 3 months will give a high score to.

This movie is more about characters than it is about action and this is a good thing 'cause when the action starts, about 2/3 into the movie, it feels necessary and well integrated. The movie is the story of an Ape, Caesar. Caesar is a special Ape. His mother was part of some lab experiments to cure Altzheimer's disease which resulted in Caesar having abnormally increased intelligence. This causes some rather interesting side effects in the psychology of Caesar who cannot really place himself as a pet but he also acknowledges the fact that he is not part of the human society. To that mix add many more apes, an advanced version a lab created virus and some stunning CGI effects and you got your self a good summer Sci-Fi mix.

The special effects are brilliant. The people at WETA did some brilliant job bringing Caesar and the other Apes alive. Especially in the scenes where there are not human actors, you really cannot tell the difference. This is not a movie that will astonish you by its obvious use of effects though. It is about not letting the effects get in the way....not let the viewer think that it is CGI. This is really important in this movie since the protagonist is a a computer generated Ape.

Caesar. Very convincing and brilliantly executed role.

Andy Serkis was fantastic as Caesar but I am not really sure how much was acting and how much was 3d modelers working in front of the computer. So, I will just say that Caesar's character was fantastically assumed by whoever that was. I don't have anything important to say about the human actors since you really don't care about them throughout the course of the movie. Ok, James Franco did a good job as the lead human male of the movie but nothing special and you will not really care about him. At least I didn't. The rest of the actors just play their parts to allow the script to move on with nothing particularly bad or good about their performance, except from Tom Felton who played the, badly executed, exact same role of caricature bully he played on Harry Potter for that past 10 years.

Over all I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It is not the best movie of the year but it is a good Sci-Fi cinema experience. If you are a fan of the franchise you will definitely enjoy it. The movie contains countless references to the original franchise with names and quotes. On the downside there are 2 scenes were Caesar does something which I consider a very bad choice from the filmmakers because it almost ruins the experience, at least to me, since it is scientifically impossible. When you see/hear it, try to go past it to enjoy the rest of the movie. Oh, and at the end, don't leave the cinema immediately because the credits include some further explanation to how we got to the dystopian future.

7/10

Battlestar Galactica Online: Free Browser MMOG

Bigpoint, the German browser based game giant, is developing a free Battlestar Galactica based game for some time now. At the 8th of February they will open the gates to beta testers from around the world. It will be an open beta so anyone can participate.

The game is in 3D utilizing Unity Web player which brings fast 3d graphics to the browser. Unity is supported by Windows and Mac but unfortunately there is no support for LInux so far. Little is known about the game. You will be able to join the Humans or the Cylons and have various career paths such as fighter or miner.

In the mean time go register a game account and download the unity player. The 8th of february is near. Oh...and check out the trailer..

Philip K. Dick's new robotic head

Philip K. Dick is one of my favourite, if not the favourite, Sci-Fi authours. He alone managed to grasp the dark scent of the future and remain relevant. Underappreciated in his time he rose to mass fame after his death thanks to many of his novels becoming top grossing films. Classics such Blade Runner, Total Recall and more recent such as Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly allowed people to get to know and love novels such as my personal favourite Ubik.

Hanson Robotics funded by the dutch VPRO built an amazing robotic head of Philip K. Dick. It is so lifel-like and creepy at the same time. Apparently there was an old one that got stolen back in 2005 and they wanted to replace it. Dick would be proud!

NASA votes for realism in science fiction films

In all film-savvy groups you will find an individual that dismisses a film simply because it is unrealistic and scientifically bogus(for example "Star Wars sucks because you can't have sound in space"). Besides loving Star Wars I have to admit that I do not really care about the scientific plausibility very much if I do enjoy the movie for any other reason.

NASA and the Science and Entertainment Exchange voted for the most unrealistic/worst sci-fi films as well as the most realistic/science faithful films. It is an interesting list:

Most unrealistic films

1. 2012 (2009)
2. The Core (2003)
3. Armageddon (1998)
4. Volcano (1997)
5. Chain Reaction (1996)
6. The 6th Day (2000)
7. What the Bleep Do We Know? (2004)

Most realistic films

1. Gattaca (1997)
2. Contact (1997)
3. Metropolis (1927)
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
5. Woman in the Moon (1929)
6. The Thing from Another World (1951)
7. Jurassic Park (1993)

Minority Report type interface with Kinect

Remember the really cool hand gesture interface that Tom Cruise is using the in movie Minority Report? Cool hah? Well, some guys from MIT have started experimenting with Kinect and they came up with something that is very close to its sci-fi equivalent. It is all very impressive, but I still find using a gesture interface, were I have to move my arms constantly, tiring. Don't let me ruin the fun though....everything is getting very exciting.

Beneath a steel sky. A classic sci-fi adventure

Getting back to my trusty old Macbook Pro after months of absence I had this impulse to reinstall everything from scratch. I do not know why but after months away I had a feeling of starting clean. I never had formatted it, not that it needed it, so I figured I will just go on with it. There was no trouble really since I had backed everything up before I left. After installing any new system I have the habit of installing scummvm. The magnificent little application that allows you to play old scumm engine adventure games. Since its first release many years ago scummvm has expanded from the Lucas Arts only games to support a great number of classic adventures such as the King Quest series, Broken sword and Legend of Kyrandia to name a few. It is available for all platforms imaginable from PCs and Macs to mobile phones and game consoles. After installing it I said, why not try a game that i haven't played before. I chose Beneath a Steel which is available for free from the scummvm download section. I loaded it and instantly I got hooked.

Beneath a Steal Sky is a classic point and click adventure that takes place in a dystopian future. The setting of the game is the Union City which is run by the oppressive Linc Computer through the Security a gestapo like police force. Our hero is Robert Foster who grew up in the great wasteland outside the city after being rescued by a tribe from a mysterious crash when he was a young boy. Foster has to unravel the mysteries of his childhood, find out about his parents and his true identity and save the human race (naturally...). The game's script is not very original but is very well written. The pacing of finding bits and pieces of the truth is very good. The great Dave Gibbons is one of the games writers and artists.

Union city sure is ugly dull and depressing

Being a point and click adventure you solve puzzles by getting items and using them in various situations. You can combine items for use and interact with the environment. Throughout the game there are several terminals that you can hack your way into, to retrieve data, open locked doors and cause a lot of trouble to Security. Foster is accompanied by his trusty robot Joey who assumes various robotic bodies during the course of the game. Joey helps you out in various situations and you can ask him to perform certain actions. There are some sections of the game that take place inside the cyberspace. I really liked these parts as they had a distinct feeling and unique puzzles. The puzzles in the game are not very hard but some can get very frustrating especially in the the first parts of the game since it is not exactly clear what you have to do. Later on the goals are much better blend in the story and the pacing is better, knowing what you have to do.

The game has many interesting characters. My favorite though, has to be Joey, especially in his early form. Cunning remarks and ironic humor will get on Foster's nerves. The inhabitants of the city are colorful to say the least. Memorable mentions are the fat and cocky factory manager Lamb and the rich and ugly Mrs Piermont. The atmosphere of the game changes from time to time, from a depressing dystopian future to a comical Brazil like experience depending on the situation.

From the games comic book like cutscenes

The graphics have aged quite well and the colors used will suck you into Union city. I can't say the same for the musical score. Most of them are annoying repetitive old midi music that manages to ruin the atmosphere created by the story and graphics. I strongly suggest adjusting the volume or turning it off all together. The voice acting of the CD version is very well done and convincing with some minor annoying exceptions.

All in all I strongly recommend giving this old gem a try. It is free after all and you have nothing to loose. You will spend a week's worth of evenings to beat the game and you will have great fun doing it. Download the game files from here.

Geeking out: Ridley Scott sci-fi double feature.

Last night I went by a friend's place to hang out and ended up watching two of the greatest science fiction films ever made, Alien (the Directors Cut) and Blade Runner (the Final Cut).

The crew of the Nostromo.

As we were sitting there we decided to watch a movie and immediately a problem emerged. You see when 4 film geeks get together to watch a film, it's not always easy to decide what that film should be, since between the four of us we have watched a very large number of movies. But then the host said: "What about Alien?" Since none of us had watched it in quite a long time and we all love sci fi, our little problem was solved.

Upon finishing that movie we decided to make it a double feature. And what better way* to follow up Alien than Ridley Scott's next film, Blade Runner. Especially when it's the Final Cut which none of us had ever watched before.

Downtown L.A in 2019.

Watching those two films after such a long time, sure makes you realize they deserve all the praise they get and why they are considered classics of not just science fiction, but cinema in general!

PS. A little fun detail we spotted: a screen readout as Ripley is leaving with the shuttle from the Nostromo is exactly the same as a screen readout in the Police car as Gaff is picking up Deckard from the noodles place. Both screens say ENVIRON CTR PURGE 24556 DR 5. And here are the screenshots to prove it!

Alien: Space Shuttle screen

Blade Runner: Police car screen

*OK, maybe Aliens, but a) we didn't have it and b) it was the obvious choice.

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" has a trailer

Is it official! Inception just became my most anticipated film for 2010. Watch the trailer and tell me that doesn't look like a serious contender for best film of 2010.

I've included a YouTube embed but I highly recommend watching it in Quicktime HD here.

The Brit Report: Moon

And thus this review concludes the exclusive trilogy of must-see-now-or-die-in-agonizing-pain movies. I think I'll have to take it easier from now on... Thanks to Hotshuk, I watched this movie only for 6 pounds instead of 10! Hurrah for that!

MOON
(by Duncan Jones)

Moon is a movie that nobody saw. It made $6M worldwide. My prediction is that in 10-15 years, it will be on most top sci-fi movie lists. Destined to become a cult phenomenon and to be rediscovered later on, Moon is reminiscent of the great sci-fi movies of the '70s and '80s: THX 1138, Solaris, Blade Runner, Alien. What these movies have in common besides offering bleak visions of the future is that they use the science fiction backdrop to tell character-based stories, not offering some eye candy just for the sake of it.

It it impossible to form a synopsis of the movie without falling into spoiler territory, so I'll just say that the movie involves a certain worker (Sam Rockwell), stranded all alone on the surface of the moon for a 3-year contract for a mining company. His only colleague is the base computer, GERTY (Kevin Spacey's voice). Towards the end of his contract, bad things start happening. Sam Rockwell gives a career-best performance, carrying the movie throughout. His choice was inspired, injecting healthy doses of sarcasm and humor in an utterly dramatic role. Duncan Jones' (son of David Bowie, no less) direction is superb. The sets are impeccable, reminding a bit of 2001 and Alien, and although the movie was shot with a $5M budget, it never feels cheap - quite the contrary. Spacey's role is superb: his chilling and sleazy voice is exactly right for the HAL-like computer, but never being a cliche. Bottom line: if you can catch it at a cinema, go see it.
9/10

The Brit Report: District 9

You have to face it: this year I'm going to produce quite a lot of exclusives, so be patient: all will come eventually! Thankfully this time the ticket was only 4 pounds, albeit at the glorious Whitechapel district, which made the movie feel more realistic... A final word of warning: for heaven's sake, peace my brothers! Do not fight over a lost battlefield, the Jaunty Jackalope will come crashing through the windows and eat all the apples!

DISTRICT 9
(by Neill Blomkamp)

I'll try to keep this one short and spoiler-free: District 9 was a sleeper hit. Made just for $30M (1/10 of Avatar's budget), it has already made 4 times its money worldwide, and it still hasn't opened in a lot of territories. The first geek reviews that came out were ecstatic, so my expectations penetrated the stratosphere. Finally though, I think that I raised the bar a little too much.

Not to be snobbish though: the direction is excellent, with extreme attention to detail, the action scenes are suspenseful, and the CGI are really top-notch. The script has a few twists and turns that generate some excitement, but the movie dosen't delve a lot more than the initial premise. While watching I kept being reminded of these terrific Galactica episodes (ie. Exodus), that really knew how to create sci-fi allegories. The acual problem? "It's the characters, stupid", as Ron Moore had said. While the main lead tries very hard (and succeds) at being likeable even if he's an irritating racist, other basic players feel like cardboard cutouts: the evil plotting businessman, the evil macho mercenary, the sobbing wife... But the movie is owned by a CG: the prawn Christopher - amazing performance. Maybe I'm over-analyzing it. Every geek should see this movie - It's almost a miracle that this one came out. Don't mind my blabbering! Go see it!

7,5/10

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" has a teaser trailer

Christopher Nolan has managed to become one of my favourite directors with just a handful of films. From his debut film "Following" to the mega-hit "The Dark Knight" Nolan's films have always ranged from good to excellent. It would appear that Nolan is set to amaze us once again with his latest film.

Inception is a sci-fi thriller staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine (in his 4th appearance in a Nolan film). The teaser sets the tone for a very atmospheric film without really showing anything. I think I will try to keep it that way and avoid learning too much about the film before it's release.



One more for the MUST SEE list!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (or how to waste 6 euros and two hours)

If I stayed in and spend 2 hours watching the ceiling I would have had much better time plus I would not have wasted 6 euros on a piece of crap movie like this x-men spin off. You can watch bad movies that you enjoy and you can watch good movies that you do not particularly enjoy 'cause its not your cup of tea. This one was a BAD movie that I absolutely did NOT enjoy at all. In fact midway through I wished I was wearing a watch so I could watch it and then go and write that midway through I was watching at my watch because I could not wait for this piss of a movie to be over.

So what was wrong with it? Pretty much everything. Really, really bad dialogs. My girlfriend's dog can write better than this. From a point onwards if they had overdo it just a bit more I could at least be able to think of it as as a bad comedy on par with Zohan. In addition the writers tried to squeeze as many taglines as possible in every sentence in the dialog. I am simply not able to believe that people got payed to write this shit.

The characters where caricatures. No character had real motives for anything. Things were happening for no apparent reason. For a movie about a single hero, wolverine was surprisingly 1-dimensional. Everything looked fake in this movie: emotions, reasoning, plot, characters, motives even the god damn explosions.

This Internet idiot looks better than the film

All the scenes looked out of place.They were simply happenings that were put there to fill in some more minutes. The action was horrendous. If you take really bad cliché scenes from 80's action flicks and put them together you start to get a feeling of how this felt. Not even Hugh Jackman was any good at this film probably because of the crap the producers payed him to vomit out of his mouth.

Over all, avoid it at all cost. You have been warned

RIP: Battlestar Galactica

UBER WARNING: MEGA-HEAVY-ULTRA SPOILERS BELOW!

Two days before, the series finale of one of the most compelling TV shows of all time was broadcast, creating a torrent of discussion among the web community. I will try not to delve into plot specifics, but rather attempt to assess the series finale as a whole. Judging by the final episodes of other series (of which the largest majority consists of canceled shows), I believe there are 3 factors that contribute to the success of its finale: i) the character resolutions ii) the plot resolutions iii) the tone and ideals of the finale.

Exhibit A: Twin Peaks. The finale was created as a final insult to the network for the show's cancellation, creating unexpected character turns (Dale's transformation), a change of tone to the surreal and grim, and ignoring all sense of resolution. The result was stunning, and it is a testament to the series' brilliance that that series finale is still debated, 18 years after its premiere broadcast.

Exhibit B: The X-Files. After 9 seasons of dense (and often contradicting) mythology, Chris Carter finally tried to make some sense from all the mess. The resolution is conflicting: the characters are all given extra time to make a final goodbye (a plus is the participation of all the show's major characters) and the tone is wholly consistent with the series' tone, even in the creation of the final cliffhanger for the 2012 final invasion. But the plot resolutions suffered a bit, mostly due to the fact that not all the little mythology pieces actually fit together: as if they were forced to fit.

Exhibit C: Star Trek - The Next Generation. This is considered the perfect example to end a TV series (scripted by Ron Moore, Battlestar's creator). All characters have considerable screen time, the show's plot from the pilot episode is tied together, and the optimistic ideology - prevalent on TNG - is finally justified by Q's assessment of humanity.

Which finally brings us to the 3-hour finale of Battlestar Galactica. After a grim and pessimistic 4^th season, everybody believed that the show would end simply with the death of pretty much everybody. And for about half of the finale’s time, it really seemed like it. But then the show makes an unexpected U turn and concludes in a generally optimistic note, by finding (new) Earth. The show’s thematic was shifted as well, by adding theological discussions rather than political ones. And at the very end, making a fast forward to 150.000 years into the future, our present!

The finale is still heavily debated at the moment. Most criticism is targeted at the last half of the episode, which abandons logic for a more ambiguous interpretation, but one which really tries to bind together all the narrative threads introduced in the show. To be fair, not everything was executed perfectly: some character motivations were unexplained (maybe the upcoming DVD/BluRay expended editions will fix that), but everything was resolved: just in a way that surprised a lot of people. In the end, the finale’s greater strength is exactly the debate it sparkled. As for me, that final episode still can’t get out of my head, because in the end it was not only about plot resolutions, but about big questions that no other show ever dared to ask.

Battlestar Galactica was clearly the best show of its time. It will be missed, but I’m happy that it ended on a high note.

Watchmen: Blood, Latex and Rock 'n Roll

Ok, it's not exactly that, but it sounds like a great title and kinda represents my feelings over the movie. I just got back from the cinema and I am pretty excited. I can safely say that it was an excellent movie. I mean it had it all: good plot, great action, excellent cgi, cool taglines and dialog, humor, blood, more blood, hot women and silly blue dicks. If you are not excited by now I don't know when you will be.

The first part was a plot rollercoster giving us details of the various characters and situations that led to the movie's present. It actually works pretty well since you never get lost even if you never read the comic. It is very interesting to see the development of the story and at some point you start to empathize with some characters. As far as the story goes which I am not going to reveal here I have to say that I am happy. Kouvaristras (who is geekier than I am) wasn't entirely happy with the ending and got Spooky Mulder about it (something about the aliens and where the hell are they) but it really does not matter. It was a great film and everyone that I went to the cinema with fully enjoyed it from start to finish.

The soundtrack of the movie was very good and actually helped with establishing certain situations and feelings about the characters and the story. It included artists from the likes of Jimi Hendrix to Simon and Garfunkel which is very weird for a super hero movie. It worked very well nevertheless. The action was fantastic and was as much as it was needed it to be for us to enjoy it without getting bored. The movie contains a lot of gore scenes with lotsa blood which are very well done as well. At some points you are really going to enjoy mutilations, a fact that is highly disturbing if you ask me, but that's how good the action is.

In IMDB a gave it a nice round 8 which is as much I gave Dark Knight. In fact I think I enjoyed it more than Dark Knight. The pace was better, I liked the characters better and it had hotter women than weird looking S/M secretaries. Its not like someone can compare those two, other than they are both about people walking around in Latex suits, but we had the relevant conversation on the way back. Anyway...go watch it.. you will have great time!

I have no mouth and I must scream

It is not very often that you can play a game that truly investigates the fears of the human mind. I have no mouth and I must scream is such a game. It is 1996 adventure game based on the 1966 Harlan Ellison's short story of the same title. In fact, Ellison worked on the script of the game and even gave his voice to AM the supercomputer featured in the story.

The story is different from book and centers around the characters imprisoned by AM. AM is a supercomputer created by the joinning of the AIs of the three superpowers at the end the cold war. AM started a nuclear war that killed all mankind but kept 5 people alive to torture them for all eternity for his amusement. After 109 years he decides to give each of these characters the opportunity to participate, in what AM is calling, his "little game". You play as each of these characters to unravel their personal tragedies, fears and shortcomings in 5 distinct stories. After the completion of all the stories you get to play as any of character for the game's finale.

Despite the game being old it manages to suck you into its nightmarish world of fear, madness and tricky soul complexes that leave you with a sick feeling. This is no game for the faint of heart, or those easily disturbed, since it contains highly depressing scenes and some of the stories will leave you strange feeling for a long time. Each of the characters has to solve his/her own story to achieve personal salvation from their nightmares, be it either guilt, or fear, or madness, or anything else. There are many ethical dilemmas through the game and the player is free to take his own path leading to different outcomes.


The graphics help to the overall gloomy presentation of the game with appropriate colors and scenery for each of the stories. There are other characters that you talk to, that are either people from your past, or manifestations of AM himself. The music is fitting and is different for each character. In terms of difficulty the game manages to be challenging but at the same time does not distract the player from the story or the atmosphere. The gameplay involves conversation decisions and inventory-related puzzles. There are many locations to visit and many items to use.

I highly recomend playing this game to anyone who enjoys a good story and a deeper experience than most of the superficial games of today. An intense look at the human nightmares and the evil that we are capable for as a species. An excellent example of fine adventure gaming.

Play Wing Commander Prophecy on a new Computer

I have been a great fan of space combat simulators. I have played many of them but my favourite has to be Wing Commander Prophecy. I do not know why that is as I adore elite, privateer or even Starlancer but Wing Commnader series and especially prophecy hold a special place in my space flying heart.

Recently I started rewatching the first season of BattleStar galactica and some of the flying missions in the BSG reminded me of missions I had flown in Prophesy. I ended installing the old disks to my new gaming rig and blasting my head on the wall because all of the videos where coming out wrong. I Googled it and found out the audio on the videos is the problem and that I may overcome it with some directx configuration hacking. Needless to say I was in no mood to do that, i wanted to play the game right away. Ok I admit I got lazy, but as always is the case, someone on the interne was not. I googled it and found that there are ready made patches by fans of the series that wanted to play the game on their their new gaming rigs as well. I downloaded the patches and, not only the videos where corrected, but the graphics resolution could be changed to anything beyond the standard 640x480 of the time the game was released.

So for anyone looking for it you can get all the patches from here. A big thanks to the WCP community for creating those.

New AKIRA movies

One of the most popular Japanese Anime of all time is in the makes for the big screen with real life actors. The original AKIRA movie is the 1988 classic that defined the genre of anime movies. How will this translate to real life actors is yet to be known. All that we know is the it will be a two-parter more faithful to the original graphic novel by Katsuhiro Otomo.

The creators of the new movies describe it as something between Blade Runner and City Of God. Each movie will deal with 3 out of the 6 graphic novels and they will be directed by the newcomer, better known for small-length movies, Ruairi Robinson. We have to just wait and see what will come out.

Further on AKIRA:
AKIRA graphic novels on wikipedia
The 1988 AKIRA movie on IMDB