Con-goers to this weekend’s San Diego Comic Con got their chance to drift with a Jaeger from Pacific Rim thanks to Oculus Rift.
It’s a mighty good time to be a Pacific Rim fan. Director of the giant robots fighting giant monsters action flick of last summer, Guillermo del Toro, recently announced that Pacific Rim 2 was in the works along with an animated series.
To top it all off like a cherry on top of a mecha/monster movie sundae, at this past weekend’s San Diego Comic Con fans who visited the Legendary Pictures’ booth were given the chance to pilot one of the movie’s mechs, called Jaegers, thanks to the virtual reality headset tech behind Oculus Rift.
The Jaeger Combat Simulator (awesomest name for a combat simulator ever) was created using the original film assets from Industrial Light & Magic and developed within Unreal Engine 4. With the headset on, the simulator lets players control the Gipsy Danger, the titular robot from Pacific Rim, and take on a kaiju (giant monster) named Knifehead.
Sadly, there’s no direct video of what the Pacific Rim/Oculus Rift experience from Comic Con looked like. Only this short trailer from Legendary Pictures is all there is to tease us of what it must feel like to punch a colossal beast like a ragdoll, a sensation that hopefully one day we’ll all get to enjoy.
No one from either Oculus Rift of Legendary Pictures have given further comment on when we might see an actual release of the Jaeger Combat Simulator outside its Comic Con showing. Reportedly, it was only a mere demo featuring the actors of the movie, and was more of a visual roller coaster ride than an actual game – but here’s hoping it gets expanded on and is eventually released.
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Like many of us, the folks at the new game development studio Robotoki love Pacific Rim. Unlike many of us, they had the funds to go big with their geekiness. Robotoki worked with Tom Spina Designs to make a conference table with a 12ft. severed Jaeger arm underneath.
The arm was based on a sketch by Robotoki concept artist Stan Chan. Tom Spina Designs made it out of steel, PVC piping, fiberglass, wood, and foam. The arm weighs about 300lb in total. If you think that’s heavy, Robotoki said that the table’s three glass panels weighs about 250 to 300 lb. each.
Here’s Robotoki’s silly unboxing video:
[Nerdist via Nerd Approved via Archie McPhee]
Here’s cosplayer Nona Neon with her badass Gipsy Danger costume. As you can see Nona adapted the hunky form of Pacific Rim’s lead mecha to suit her body. She made the suit out of EVA foam plus various household objects, including a strainer for the chest piece.
Nona said she based the EVA foam parts on papercraft templates posted by members of the prop maker community The 405th Infantry Division, modifying them as needed. She also made a replica of Gipsy Danger’s chain sword. It took her a total of six months, a lot of trial and error, and about $175 (USD) to finish the costume.
Link with your partner and pilot your browser to Nona’s Facebook page for more on her cosplay.
[via Fashionably Geek]
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Peter Kokis aka Brooklyn Robot Works made a shiny costume based on Crimson Typhoon, China’s ace against the kaiju in Pacific Rim. The costume is far from perfect – the proportions and even the colors are off, and it’s missing its trademark blades – but it’s still an impressive piece, especially when you find out what it’s made of.
Peter calls his costume the Brooklyn Typhoon. It took him a total of 550 hours to build. It probably takes him as long to walk a mile in it because it weighs 152lb. Peter says that his mini-jaeger is made from an assortment of everyday objects, including “2 rat traps, 7 mousetraps (2 types), 53 toy truck wheels, 2 business card holders, hockey helmet,2 plungers, rotating lawn sprinkler, 4 egg slicers, 4 ice scrapers, 4 ladles, 4 slotted spoons, camping thermos,toilet flush valve, 8 ice skate blade guards (2 types), 2 baseball throat guards, trashcan foot pedal,2 spoon draincups, 2 blender bases, 4 hair cutter spacers, 2 kneepads, thermos base, ski goggles, football shoulder pads, 6 shinguards (3 types), 2 hockey leg guards, wall outlet plate, 3 vitamin cases(2 types), 3 manicure bowls, 3 doorknob wall guards, hand towel holder, 4 bicycle splashguards(2 types), 25 turnbuckles, corner paint applicator, slotted ladle, 2 faucet strainers, paper towel holder,3 screen door latches, handheld spotlight, 2 flashlights, closet pole mounts, lots of bottlecaps” and more. Check out Brooklyn Typhoon in these images by photographer Beth Brown:
Assume the Thundercloud formation and head to Peter’s website for more on the costume.
[via io9]
We’ve all spent a portion of our childhood building robots with LEGO blocks, but, how many of us have built …Of all the movies I watched this summer one of the most surprising was Pacific Rim. I went to see this movie mostly because my son wanted to go check it out, and it turned out to be a fantastic movie. The first creature we see the giant robots in the movie fighting is something called a Knifehead.
It looks like a cross between a swordfish and shark with four arms and legs to me. Now, an enterprising geek has taken a bunch of LEGO bricks to construct his own LEGO Kaiju – and the result is quite impressive. I’m always amazed by the high-quality LEGO recreations that builders are able to make without any sort of instructions.
The builder of this awesome creature is OliveSeon, who unfortunately gives no details on exactly how this massive work of geek art was created. It’s hard to tell exactly how large this LEGO beast is, but I’m betting some glue was used to hold the finished creation together. How else could it stand up to a beatdown by a Jaeger?
[via Brothers-Brick]
We’re all on the same side once the Kaiju attack, and once a delicious cake arrives. We’re ready to take …