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Hotline Miami
''Hotline Miami'' is a top-down shooter video game by Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, collectively known as Dennaton Games. The game was published by Devolver Digital and released on 23 October 2012 for Microsoft Windows. Set in 1989 Miami, the game revolves primarily around an unnamed silent protagonist—dubbed "Jacket" by fans—who has been receiving coded messages on his answering machine instructing him to commit massacres against the local Russian mafia. The game blends top-down perspective with stealth, extreme violence and surreal storytelling, along with a soundtrack and visuals inspired by 1980s culture. The game's lead narrative influence was David Lynch, while another notable influence came from the 2011 film ''Drive'' for the game's minimalist plot, use of dialogue, portrayal of violence and musical style. The 2006 documentary '' Cocaine Cowboys'' influenced the game's setting, and ''Half-Life'' series protagonist Gordon Freeman influenced Jacket's lack of v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niklas Åkerblad
Niklas Åkerblad (born 17 April 1983), also known by his pseudonym El Huervo, is a Swedish artist and musician known for his oil paintings, watercolor paintings, and video game art. His portraits are known to be bold and vivid in nature. Åkerblad's wide body of work gained significant attention following the success of the video game ''Hotline Miami'', for which he created the cover art, along with its successor '' Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number''. Åkerblad was also the sole artist for other video games, including ''Kometen'' and '' Else Heart.Break()''. Åkerblad is also widely known for regularly creating the cover art for ''Bandcamp Weekly'', the official podcast of Bandcamp. Åkerblad is also a musician with an extensive discography and created soundtracks for several video games. Biography Early life Åkerblad grew up in Gothenburg, the largest port city in the Nordic countries. As a child, Åkerblad spent the majority of his time indoors drawing, and being influenced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single-player Video Game
A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usually a game mode designed to be played by a single player, though the game also contains multi-player modes. Most modern console games and arcade games are designed so that they can be played by a single player; although many of these games have modes that allow two or more players to play (not necessarily simultaneously), very few actually require more than one player for the game to be played. The ''Unreal Tournament'' series is one example of such. History The earliest video games, such as ''Tennis for Two'' (1958), ''Spacewar!'' (1962), and ''Pong'' (1972), were symmetrical games designed to be played by two players. Single-player games gained popularity only after this, with early titles such as ''Speed Race'' (1974) and ''Space Invade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cocaine Cowboys (2006 Film)
''Cocaine Cowboys'' is a 2006 documentary film directed by Billy Corben, and produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben through their Miami-based media studio Rakontur. The film explores the rise of cocaine dealer Jon Roberts, described by prosecutors as "The Medellin Cartel's American representative". The film chronicles his role in the Miami drug war (the resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida, in the 1970s and 1980s). The producers of ''Cocaine Cowboys'' use interviews with law enforcers, journalists, lawyers, former drug smugglers, and gang members to provide a first-hand perspective of the Miami drug war. Synopsis ''Cocaine Cowboys'' chronicles the development of the illegal drug trade in Miami during the 1970s and 1980s with interviews of both law enforcement and organized crime leaders, in addition to news footage from the era. The film reveals that in the 1960s and early 1970s, marijuana was the primary import drug into the region. Durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drive (2011 Film)
''Drive'' is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel of the same name. The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her young son, Benicio. When her debt-ridden husband, Standard ( Oscar Isaac), is released from prison, the two men take part in what turns out to be a botched million-dollar heist that endangers the lives of everyone involved. The film co-stars Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks. Producers Marc Platt and Adam Siegel optioned the source novel after Siegel read a review from ''Publishers Weekly''. Adapting the book proved to be challenging for Amini, as it had a nonlinear narrative. Gosling, one of Platt's top casting choices, eventually signed on for the lead, as he wanted to star in an action ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film twice, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007, a panel of critics convened by ''The Guardian'' announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era", while AllMovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking". His work led to him being labeled "the first populist surrealist" by film critic Pauline Kael. Lynch studied painting before he began making short films in the late 1960s. His first feature-length film, the surrealist ''Eraserhead'' (1977), became a success on the midnight movie circuit, and he followed that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or ''surreality.'' It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media. Works of Surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and '' non sequitur''. However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism" Breton speaks of in the first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e. artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stealth Game
A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow the player to choose between a stealthy approach or directly attacking antagonists, but rewarding the player for greater use of stealth. The genre has employed espionage, counter-terrorism, and rogue themes, with protagonists that are special forces operatives, special agents, secret agents, thieves, ninjas, or assassins. Some games have also combined stealth elements with other genres, such as first-person shooters and also platformers. Elements of "stealth" gameplay, by way of avoiding confrontation with enemies, can be attributed to a diverse range of games, including '' Pac Man'' (1980). Early maze games have been credited with spawning the genre, including ''Manbiki Shounen'' (1979), ''Lupin III'' (1980), ''Castle Wolfenstein'' (1981) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Mafia
Russian organized crime or Russian mafia (, ), otherwise known as Bratva (), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The initialism OPG is Organized Criminal (''prestupnaya'' in Russian) Group, used to refer to any of the Russian mafia groups, sometimes modified with a specific name, e.g. Orekhovskaya OPG. Sometimes the initialism is translated and OCG is used. Organized crime in Russia began in the Russian Empire, but it was not until the Soviet era that '' vory v zakone'' ("thieves-in-law") emerged as leaders of prison groups in forced labor camps, and their honor code became more defined. With the end of World War II, the death of Joseph Stalin, and the fall of the Soviet Union, more gangs emerged in a flourishing black market, exploiting the unstable governments of the former Republics. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, said that the Russian mafia posed the greatest threat to U.S. national security in the mid- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Answering Machine
An answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as telephone messaging machine (or TAM) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone or ansafone (from a trade name), or telephone answering device (TAD), was used for answering telephones and recording callers' messages. If a phone rings a number of times predetermined by the phone's owner, and nobody is present to answer the incoming call, the answering machine will activate and play either a generic announcement or the voice of the person being called announcing that nobody is able to come to the phone at the moment. Following the announcement is a beeping tone which prompts the caller to record a message after the tone concludes. Unlike voicemail, which can be a centralized or networked system that covers, and mostly extends, similar functions, an answering machine is set up in the user's premises alongside—or incorporated within—the user's land-line telephone. Unlike operator messaging, the ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Protagonist
In video games, a silent protagonist is a player character who lacks any dialogue for the entire duration of a game, with the possible exception of occasional interjections or short phrases. In some games, especially visual novels, this may extend to protagonists who have dialogue, but no voice acting like all other non-player characters. A silent protagonist may be employed to lend a sense of mystery or uncertainty of identity to the gameplay, or to help the player identify better with them. Silent protagonists may also be anonymous. Not all silent protagonists are necessarily mute or do not speak to other characters; they may simply not produce any dialogue audible to the player. Origin The earliest player characters in video games of the 1980s, including the likes of Mario, '' Metroid''s Samus, and ''The Legend of Zelda''s Link, were silent protagonists. Characters such as these may occasionally speak through text or audible words, but are otherwise limited to making gestures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in Florida, second-most populous city in Florida and the eleventh-most populous city in the Southeastern United States. The Miami metropolitan area is the ninth largest in the U.S. with a population of 6.138 million in 2020. The city has the List of tallest buildings in the United States#Cities with the most skyscrapers, third-largest skyline in the U.S. with over List of tallest buildings in Miami, 300 high-rises, 58 of which exceed . Miami is a major center and leader in finance, commerce, culture, arts, and international trade. Miami's metropolitan area is by far the largest urban econ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UBM Tech
UBM Technology Group, formerly CMP Publications, was a business-to-business multimedia company that provided information and integrated marketing services to technology professionals worldwide. It offered marketers and advertisers services such as print, newsletters, custom web sites, and events. Its products and services include newspapers, magazines, Internet products, research, education and training, trade shows and conferences, direct marketing services and custom publishing. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, UBM Technology Group was a part of UBM, a global business-to-business (B2B) events organiser which in turn owned by Informa and later absorbed into Informa Tech. History In 1971, Gerard "Gerry" Leeds and his wife, Lilo, founded the company as CMP Publications Inc. in Manhasset, New York. Their sons Michael and Daniel managed the company in 1988, and launched TechWeb in 1994. CMP Media went public in 1997. CMP Media acquired McGraw-Hill Information Technology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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