Rockstar Newswire

 

The French are known for their many strides in the world of the arts. In cinema they gave the world Jean-Luc Godard, in music they gave us Daft Punk and fashion is pretty much dominated by French patriots. We won’t even get into their innovation in the arts of fried potatoes and kissing. One of the lesser known mediums that Frenchmen have made some impressive contributions in however, is comics. 

Back in the 70s, dudes like Caza (Philippe Cazaumayou) were running the European comics scene with really wild and colorful illustrations. While American comics were languishing in a relative creative down period, Caza and his contemporaries were making exceedingly weird science fiction comics. Caza consistently created artwork that danced the line between surrealism and a sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast’s fever dream hallucination. His illustrations often feel like he has a direct line to the visual history of some long dead world, or somehow was painting live from the Houses of the Holy. As such, he was particularly fond of drawing images that explored subjects of alien civilizations and otherworldly rituals/symbols. Art students out there take note, these are two great themes to concentrate in if you want your parents to think you’re taking tons of drugs and wasting their money at college.


 

There's a time and a place for everything. Sometimes when playing Episodes From Liberty City, it’s nice to steal acquire yourself a boat and just cruise the ocean and waterways. This is usually a good time to throw on The Journey and relax to the soothing sounds of ambient music. You know, get away from all the mayhem and hecticness of city life, take in the sunset on the horizon. When you’re ready to return to a life of crime on the mainland you need the right music too. If you’re dealing with the world of corrupt nightlife as Luis Lopez, it makes sense to get into The Beat or San Juan Sounds to soundtrack your activities. But if you’re riding around town with Johnny and The Lost you’ve gotta ride to Liberty City Hardcore.

While listening to LCHC, a great record to rampage to is Sepultura’s “Dead Embryonic Cells”. It's a mean track from their seminal 1991 album Arise, landing in a perfect middle ground between thrash and death metal. Basically, it’s fast enough to make you want to ride a motorcycle recklessly and it's heavy enough to inspire you to try and aim a shotgun while speeding on your Revenant. Honestly, that’s gotta be somewhere in the charter statement for thrash. Plus, it features dudes playing inside ruins which has been metal since Slayer killed it in front of the great pyramids.

The Great Gatsby is considered among many to be the great American novel. In other, occasionally intersecting circles, the NES is considered by nostalgists to be the seminal video game console. So it was merely a matter of time before someone breathed life into The Great Gatsby as a NES-styled platformer. Charlie Hoey and Pete Smith whipped up this four level, 8-bit style Flash version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel. Replete with the disembodied eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, evil crabs, flappers and of course ghosts — because what platformer is complete without ghosts? As fans of literature and games we had to shoutout this gem. The unanswered question here: is this game a godsend to high school teachers trying to teach The Great Gatsby to uninterested students? Or the bane of their existence, as students erroneously await the point in the book when Nick has to fight devilish crabs?

Play The Great Gatsby here.

Back in the early days of computers, screensavers weren’t just a decorative element people used to customize their idle screen displays. In their initial heyday, screensavers were completely necessary and functional applications used to preserve the integrity of monitors and protect them from image burn — imagine the millions of dollars saved by the Flying Toaster Screensaver. At the same time, those monitors would play stylishly pixilated yet crude animations that looked like reality as filtered through the eyes of pointillist artists. Combining the conservational elements of old school screensavers and the style of 8-bit video games, we present you with the Rockstar Pixels and Polygons Screensaver.

The screensaver transitions through an array of shapes and colors using generative functions to create a hypnotic effect. In other words, there's some crazy math involved to make your screen look like it’s building itself, changing colors, and then falling back apart one pixel at a time.

Don’t stare at it too long though or you might freak out and think a bunch of brightly colored ants are engaging in unending turf war on your computer screen.

Grab it now at the Rockstar Screensavers Collection. 

Argyle

The fashion world releases their Fall/Winter lineup in the summertime, when it's way too hot out to even think about wearing jackets made of heavy fabrics. They call it being fashion forward.

The Scottish come from a cold climate, yet, traditionally they wear kilts (which don't offer much warmth) with beautiful patterns. 16th century fashion-forward.

Accordingly, we present the Textile Series, Rockstar Games' F/W'11 desktop collection — in July. Inspired by several beautiful textile patterns (all originating from beloved Scotland) this series features the Rockstar logo three-dimensionally draped in luxurious fabrics originating from classic Scottish clan garments. A special nod to our brethren at Rockstar North.



Royal Stewart


Houndstooth


Lumberjack


Previously:
Chronos Series
Light & Shadow Series
Light & Shadow Screensaver
 

One of the best parts of noir as a genre — especially film noir — is the tradition of arresting, moody imagery. The best noir posters & covers are filled with femme fatales, knowing glances and dramatically drawn guns. These images play out like self contained, mini narratives all their own, with all the drama distilled into one picture.


"The Third Man", "Gun Crazy" & "The Postman Always Rings Twice" posters via Posteritati.

The Japanese versions of noir poster art (like giant monster movies and efficient small cars) are intangibly, arguably even better. Part of it may be the geometric flair of the kanji itself. When contrasted against the imagery, the curved and angular lines of the lettering jumps out at you. There's also an added element of enigma (at least to Western eyes), as the unreadable text becomes not only a design element, but a subconscious visual riddle. As you look at a Japanese poster (or game packaging) you not only appreciate its aesthetic, but part of you is also put in the shoes of the story's detective — trying to work those clues to suss out their meaning.


Related: 
Kojima: L.A. Noire Technology is Fantastic (via CinemaBlend)
Famitsu's 39/40 Review of L.A. Noire (via 1Up)
L.A. Noire is Japan's Bestselling Game (via Kotaku)
 

A couple of weeks ago here in the U.S., we experienced Daylight Savings Time, a biannual event where we collectively travel through time. Unfortunately, there were no reported run-ins with dinosaurs, killing of ancestors resulting in grandfather paradoxes or trips to the distant future. That’s probably because we only moved forward an hour. Coming on the heels of our recent trip through the fourth dimension, we have our new Chronos Series desktops. They serve both as abstractions of the omnipresent future/past and as decoration for your computer. So, until time travel becomes a reality for all of us — instead of a pastime exclusively for morally flexible billionaires — enjoy these wallpapers.

Get this pair of wallpapers (along with some buddy icon and avatar versions you can get weird with) in our Downloads section.


 

As released via the Rockstar Twitter feed this morning.

Click through each for hi-res versions.