It’s Way Past Time For Wonder Woman to Headline Her Own Video Game. Diana of Themyscira has a big movie coming out this week. She’s also a major player in new release Injustice 2, a video game where superheroes fight each other over crossing moral boundaries. But Wonder Woman shouldn’t just be part of an ensemble; she should be the main character. With the release of the Wonder Woman movie this weekend, Diana Prince finally joins Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and others in the ranks of DC Comics characters who became the focal point of a major motion picture. Superman and Batman have both also anchored dozens of video games ever since the days of the Atari 2. Wonder Woman still hasn’t been afforded the same honor. It’s a bizarre fact because so many of the component parts of the Wonder Woman would be great fodder for a video game. I’ve written about this subject before, seven years ago to be exact, and much has changed on the video game landscape. Nowadays, thanks to the shifting fortunes of the video game publishing business, we’re lucky if a shallow mobile game accompanies a superhero movie release. It used to be that such occasions were accompanied by a big- budget video game featuring the same character. Yes, games for the first Captain America and Thor movies—along with Green Lantern, Batman Begins, and Superman Returns—were cash- in opportunities designed for marketing and ancillary revenue streams. While these releases were largely middling in terms of quality, they made those characters and movies feel like important cultural moments. They also dangled new chances to control these characters in modern- day game design worlds, so that we could leave horrible memories of Superman 6. With the Batman Arkham games, the Dark Knight’s gotten a whole cycle of games that stood apart from goings- on in the realms of movies or TV. Wonder Woman is an important enough character to merit the same treatment. She’s one of the most meaningful superheroes ever, a global icon on par with Superman, Batman, or Spider- Man. And, like those characters, her publishing history and character mythos feature enough scope and depth to power any number of possibilities in the video game space. Diana is a character that game- makers could put in just about any time period or setting with plausible narrative justification. Design Grand Theft Auto 2. The Z-Type is inspired by the 1937 Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic. It is the latest vehicle of the "-Type" series, having a more rounded profile. Quantum mechanics is weird as hell, where the rules of the world you experience don’t apply. Even at distances a thousand kilometers apart, particles seem to be. You can put her in World War I, World War II, or any armed conflict and she’d be right at home. She’s an ambassador of peace so seeing her broker a truce between, say, warring alien races wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, either. Her ties to the Greco- Roman pantheon mean that a Wonder Woman game could be also be a widescreen action- adventure in the style of the God of War franchise or the new Tomb Raider games, something that send her far and wide. She’s one of the best fighters in the DC Universe, with access to a plethora of enchanted mythological weapons that could be used against elite soldiers, demons or celestial beings. Flying around and lassoing giant myth- beasts, then wielding magical axes or swords against them, is reason enough for a Wonder Woman video game to exist. At the same time, in her best iterations, Wonder Woman works toward greater compassion and peace and her inherent contradictions could make for great narrative branching. Does the player have her extend an olive branch to antagonists at a critical moment or harshly eliminate a threat with the edge of her blade? She’s done both in comics stories over the years and putting players in control of such moments would be a great way to illustrate the layers that Wonder Woman has. It’s great that Wonder Woman is getting a special Multiverse event in Injustice 2 to celebrate the release of Wonder Woman in theaters. But, in the dysfunctional Injustice universe, Diana is one of the main enablers of the oppressive regime that Superman established after taking over the world, preaching a lot less mercy and a lot more murder. Google is compensated by these merchants. Payment is one of several factors used to rank these results. Tax and shipping costs are estimates.She needs a video game star turn that spotlights all the best aspects of her character. A full- blown AAA Wonder Woman game should’ve been out this week; let’s hope we don’t have to wait much longer for Diana to show up in the Man’s World of superhero video games. Four Terrifying Ways Space Can Kill You. We’re all clamoring to get into space these days, but lost in our excitement to fly to the Moon and colonize Mars is a brutal truth: the final frontier is a cold, inhospitable wasteland that’ll kill you at the first opportunity it gets. Astronauts already know this, but for the rest of us, here are just a few of the potentially lethal dangers faced by spacefaring pioneers. Exposure to the vacuumof space. Let’s handle the most obvious danger first—exposure to vacuum. This is, as I’m sure would- be explorers are taught on the first day of astronaut school, something that would best be avoided. Exposure to the extreme low pressure environment of space would cause an immediate vaporization of fluids in the skin and uppermost layers of soft tissue. This would cause bubbles to form in the blood, and some seriously nasty swelling, though counter pressure exerted by your skin and circulatory system would keep the expansion in check, preventing you from “exploding,” as science fiction loves to depict death- by- vacuum exposure. Based on animal studies and the little data we have on human exposure to a vacuum, you would likely maintain some level of consciousness for the first 9 to 1. According to NASA, your mouth and nose would rapidly cool to freezing temperatures, and the liquid on your tongue, and soon after in the lining of your lungs, would boil. NASA, being NASA, foresaw this issue, and solved the problem by developing spacesuits, which today are whimsically referred to as EMUs (Extravehicular Mobility Units). Future EMUs (great band name if anyone is looking) will also have to combat an entirely new environment, and new dangers.“The EMUs in use today are designed for use in microgravity with significantly different requirements than those necessary for operation on the surface of Mars,” Dansberry said. Current EMUs don’t provide the mobility an astronaut on the Red Planet would need for, say, bending over to pick up a rock, or pulling a potato out of the ground. An astronaut would simply have to hightail it back to the airlock before the suit fully depressurized. We’re all clamoring to get into space these days, but lost in our excitement to fly to the Moon and colonize Mars is a brutal truth: the final frontier is a cold. Get the latest science news and technology news, read tech reviews and more at ABC News. It’s great that Wonder Woman is getting a special Multiverse event in Injustice 2 to celebrate the release of Wonder Woman in theaters. But, in the dysfunctional. Drowning in space (really)An important lesson—sometimes, your life- protecting EMU may attempt, albeit inadvertently, to kill you. On July 1. 6, 2. 01. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano was working on the outside of the ISS, his EMU’s cooling system failed, and proceeded to slowly flood his helmet. According to a detailed blog post penned by Luca in 2. He considered that the wet sensation at the back of his helmet might be water from his drinking straw, or even a build- up of sweat from the effort needed to manipulate the heavy spacesuit. But the liquid was too cold to be sweat, and Luca could see no water escaping from his straw. The order was given to terminate the spacewalk, and return immediately to the airlock. As Luca retraced his path, the volume of liquid increased, covering his visor and headphones. With the setting of the Sun, he was left blind, disorientated and unsure of his path to the airlock. In his darkest moment, the astronaut considered venting the water into space by releasing a safety valve located on his helmet. Thankfully, the story had a happy ending, and the valve remained untouched. Luca was able to follow his safety cable back to the hatch, where he waited for fellow astronaut Chris Cassidy to join him before beginning repressurization. As Luca summarized the event, “Space is a harsh, inhospitable frontier and we are explorers, not colonisers. The skills of our engineers and the technology surrounding us make things appear simple when they are not, and perhaps we forget this sometimes. Better not to forget.”An unfortunate meeting with orbital debris. Considering the fact that the ISS has been flying continuously since 1. However, the health of the station, and that of its human crew, is under an ever- increasing threat from orbital debris. The ISS is protected by hundreds of micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) defenses, making it the most heavily shielded spacecraft ever to orbit Earth. While this is enough to guard against impacts from tiny dust particles, the shielding would be unable to protect the station and its crew from a collision with a large piece of space trash. The critical systems of the space station—its habitable compartments and pressure tanks—are its best protected parts, but they could still be heavily damaged by a piece of space debris over a centimeter in diameter. According to estimatesgenerated via statistical modelling, there are roughly 2. Some of these pieces of trash are known to circle the planet at over 1. At such a velocity, even a small piece of debris would pack an enormous punch. You think the trash problem in your city is bad? Try outer space. We humans have been littering our . This is thanks to the sophisticated early warning system that watches over the ISS. Large pieces of space trash are regularly tracked by the U. S. Space Surveillance Network. If the likelihood of a dangerous piece of debris passing within 1 km of the station exceeds 1 in 1. ISS is ordered to temporarily boost to a higher orbit, relying on the thrusters of a docked Soyuz spacecraft. This happens on average once per year. To date, there has been no significant damage to the ISS via a collision with debris, but to prepare for such a scenario the crew run regular depressurization drills. During these practice scenarios, the crew attempts to identify and seal a simulated leak. If a genuine breach was to put the station at risk, the crew would be directed to move to their Soyuz spacecraft, and use them as lifeboats to return to Earth. The relentless effects of microgravity and radiation. Put yourself in the boots of an astronaut. You may think that upon touching down on Earth in your trusty Soyuz chariot, the danger has passed and you have bested the challenging environment of low Earth Orbit, emerging triumphant. Wrong. The fact is that scientists are far from fully understanding the long- term effects that microgravity has on the human body, but we are aware of more than a few unpleasant side effects of life in microgravity. Wu , director at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, told Gizmodo. This leads to one of the most serious side effects to long- term spaceflight: significant bone loss.”Indeed, an ISS crew member could lose on average one to two percent of their bone mass per month spent on the station, and upon returning to Earth, stand a greater risk of suffering from osteoporosis- related fractures.“Another serious side effect from microgravity is significant muscle loss,” Wu continued. In orbit, the heart doesn’t need to work as hard to circulate blood around the body. This causes it to atrophy, like any underused muscle, and take on a more spherical shape as it loses muscle volume. There are other ways that microgravity wreaks havoc with on astronaut’s body, not limited to bone and muscular degeneration. Bodily fluids behave differently in a low gravity environment, and this can cause an array of problems, including deformation to the back of a spacefarer’s eye, which can lead to some pretty nasty blurring of vision. Worryingly, the researchers found that, not only might the trip severely weaken an astronaut’s immune system, but the genetic damage could also significantly increase the risk of developing leukemia. So, while you might fulfill your life’s ambition of becoming an astronaut, there could be some pretty fatal side effects. These are just a few examples of how life outside of Earth’s atmosphere is a risky business. A side effect of the incredible engineering talent that has made humanity’s presence in space possible is that it can, on first glance, appear relatively safe. But the reality is that death is only a single misfortune away. Astronauts know this, and venture into space regardless. We should admire the individuals who risk their lives to advance humanity’s scientific ambitions, and personify the motto of the space station they crew: “off the Earth, for the Earth.” Anthony is a UK- based science writer with an undying respect for the noble capybara.
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