SciFi List

In Japan, the Chikyuu Boueigun series has been garnering fans since 2003. The first title to be released in America was the third in the series, titled Earth Defense Force 2017 in English. EDF 2017 borrowed familiar sci-fi vices (an alien invasion made up of giant bugs and giant robots) and welded them to addictive, arcade-style gameplay. With over 150 weapons and 53 levels, the game also offered a lot of replay value despite concerns over graphics and voice acting.A preview of the new iteration in the series, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, shows that publisher D3 is aware of the last game’s limitations, and is doing its best to fix them. The game has a new American developer, Vicious Cycle, who created the devilishly satirical Matt Hazard series of games. Vicious Cycle is adding online play for the first time, with 4-player co-op and 6-player competitive. The best news is that if this all sounds interesting to you, you can track the last game down for cheap and imagine it even better, then be there for the new game’s launch early next year.

If a fictional character is lucky enough to survive 70 years, they are generally rewarded with the honor of being a household name. Such is the case with comic heroes Batman and Green Lantern. Now, I can’t say definitively that author Ray Bradbury is not as well known as he should be, but I’m sure that many people who’ve seen his work are unaware of it. For example, who remembers that he wrote the 1956 film adaptation of Moby Dick, or that his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes was a major influence on Stephen King?Bradbury’s first work was published in the sci-fi fanzine Imagination! In 1938, a short story title “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma.” Although this story is not currently collected, it wasn’t long before he was gaining recognition from science fiction and literary circles alike. In 1945, his story “Big Black and White Game” was collected in the Best American Short Stories annual anthology. The title refers to a baseball game played between a white team and a black team, in which racial tensions bubble to the surface. The story can be found in the omnibus collection A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories. Read all »