Future Shanghai

Note: If you are new here, read this then this, first.

Shanghai, China's largest city, is the grand showcase for China's rapid economic development. Once a small textile and fishing town, it has grown in a sprawling metropolis within a matter of a few short years. It is now a leading financial center and the world's busiest port. Just look at the below photo showing Shanghai as it was just 20 years ago and how it is today:

At first glance I thought that top image was some small town in America, but no, that is 20 years of change and progress.

Seeing how a city can change so much in just 20 years, Ive come to wonder how this rapidly growing city will change in the next 20 years.

I recently finished playing the cyberpunk action/adventure game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, set in the year 2027. At least twice in the game you visit Shanghai, and it looks drastically different than today.

Holy Shit

In 2027, Shanghai is literally a two tiered city. Building upwards alone couldn't satisfy the city's need to support an ever growing economy and population. So instead, you build another city right on top of it!

This megastructure is known in the game as "the Pangu" (盤古) literally; "ancient plate" though it is anything but ancient.

It's a radical idea, but sounds extremely expensive and poses massive engineering challenges. But you saw the other photo. If Shanghai could change that much between 1990 and 2010, who knows how it could change between 2012 and 2027? Ok, maybe the above screenshot won't become a reality that quickly, but only time will tell.

In Deus Ex, the city is divided into two tiers not just literally, but social-economically as well. China's richest and most powerful live a lavish life above the Pangu, while the commoners live in the slums below, constantly in the shadow of the Pangu. The symbolism is just too perfect!

In the game you spend most of your time below the Pangu. First off, there are prostitutes everywhere! Around every corner, though this isn't really that surprising. Also, everyone speaks English and/or Mandarin, I did not hear any Wu Chinese (the local dialect which is drastically different than Mandarin)  in the game (though this may be due to the PRC's continued push in the future to make putonghua the de facto national language, even in areas resistant to it like Shanghai and Guangdong). Much of the infrastructure below the Pangu doesn't look much different than today (I think, Ive never been). Strangely, all of the signs plastered all over the city are written in traditional Chinese, while in Mainland China (where Shanghai is) they use Simplified characters. What's also unusual is that the developers actually bothered to make the signs actually say something rather than just gibberish, same thing with the dialogue.

Here are some excellent videos on the architecture of this future city as well as some artwork. Enjoy!

Glorious Mission is coming to a PC near you!

Note: If you are new here, read this then this, first.

Some while back I posted about a CoD-like Chinese video game created for the PLA. Well the game will be availible to the Chinese public this May!

Still can't find a download, but once the game is released in China it's only a matter of time before it ends up on the internet. An English version is unlikely so you may need to learn a little Chinese before you can play it right.

Glorious Mission

Epic

The Nanjing military region has hired Giant Network Technologies to produce a Modern Warfare-esque video game to help train soldiers. Despite being Chinese, it looks very well made. There is a full article here.

Destroy the American Imperialists!

I MUST HAVE IT!!!

Someone please, find me a torrent or something!

Some entertaining games

Much as I hate the way in media HK is portrayed as a place full of gun toting degenerate psychos gang bangers and people who lisp their English terribly.

Such as Hitman code name 47.




Deus Ex



Or even Soldier of fortune 2



Though SoF2 is rather a good game, though the NPC chatter when you are shooting them sounds really funny to my ears (they really got a bad translator for it) though it does make it seem more authentic.


I have been enjoying over the weekend a game of stranglehold by John Woo. With Chow Yun Fat as the ultimate killing machine. Its only a couple quid on Amazon.



It is everything Max Payne 2 should have been (max payne 2 was crap)



In that the hodge podge of buildings signs etc on the first 2 levels and also the penultimate level really do look like some of the places I've seen before.. Well you know aside from all the gun toting lunatics trigger happy cops whose guns never seem to run out of ammo, who can slow down time at will and dodge bullets in super slow motion and take on Hind gunship with little more than a pistol (though rambo does exactly the same thing here) I thought it was worthy enough to give it a thumbs up.

A Post from a little farther East

This post is much more related to Japan than China, but most Sinophiles like me tend like things from the far east in general. Besides, Japanese culture evolved with major influences from Chinese culture in a process my history teacher called “cultural diffusion”.

But on to the post, there are two things that have truly captivated my interest in the far east. The first one is a video game believe it or not. However this is like no other video game you’ve ever played. It is more like an ancient Japanese scroll put into digital interactive form. Complete with a Sumi-e style brush art presentation and a soundtrack to die for.

Ōkami (大神) is Japanese for “Great God”. This marvel of a game tells the ancient Japanese tale of the Shinto goddess Amaterasu and her struggle to bring peace to the land of Nippon which has been corrupted by the dark serpent Yamata-no-Orochi. You take control of Amaterasu in the form of a wolf and are put on a Zelda style adventure where you must return the land to its former beauty and defeat the spirits of darkness. The game features many figures from Japanese mythology such as Izanagi, Izanami, Susanoo, Konohanasakuya-hime, Issun-boshi, Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune (aka Waka), and Yami. You will learn exactly who these figures are as you play the game, or you can check Wikipedia.

What really puts the icing on this cake is the Celestial Brush. Pressing a button freezes the environment and covers it in a canvas. The player can then draw on the screen. Certain gestures do certain things, for example, drawing a slash through enemies damages them as if they were struck by a sword. You learn new brush techniques as you progress through the game.

If you own a Wii or a PlayStation 2, I urge you to pick up this game. For an experience like no other. Its relatively old (2006), so you can pick it up on the cheap!

The second thing that inspired me was an old flash cartoon series from the early 2000’s (ancient history rite?) called Ninjai: The Little Ninja

This Epic adventure tells the story of a boy called ‘Ninjai’, who wanders the land searching for his identity and the key to his past. He encounters strange and formidable characters, spilling the blood of many along his way.

There are 12 chapters so far, and can be viewed free at the website of the Ninjai Gang.