Mapping the Uncharted Games – Map-It

TL;DR – We map the route Nathan Drake, and the gang took on their adventures in the quadrilogy of games.  

Mapping Uncharted

Whenever I upload one of my maps, I ask if there is anything else people would like to map? Often, I get some excellent suggestions, and today’s is just such a case. A little birdy asked me if I could map the Uncharted video game series? Well, yes, of course, I could, and after much thought, I decided to do it in the same style as my Indiana Jones Trilogy map. You will instantly get the comparison if you have played/watched the two.

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Mapping Star Trek Series – Map-It

TL;DR – We map every location on Earth used as a ship name in the Star Trek universe.

The fleet comes together.

Mapping Star Trek

At the end of last season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, we were introduced to nineteen new members of the California Class. Which made me wonder where they fit on a map of California and lo our Lower Decks Map was created. However, since then, I have wondered what would happen if we expanded it globally. We have had 849 episodes of Star Trek at the time of writing, so we have charted every ship, shuttle, class and transport named after an Earth location.  

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Halo Infinite – Or How I Found the Love of a Game Without Playing the Main Game

TL;DR – I discovered why so many people love the Halo series by exploring the custom content with friends.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Game Pass that obtained this game.

Halo Infinite title card.

Halo Infinite Review –

When I was growing up, my family had a PC, so I did not grow up with the console classics that so many of my friends had. I had heard of Halo. You can’t live in the video game space without knowing who Master Chief is. I listened to the musical score at performances and understood why people worldwide break into that hum on command. I had watched the previous games streamed on Twitch, and I even watched the Halo TV series. However, no matter what I  did, I only felt like an observer, like an academic who never does fieldwork. But all of that changed one day.

I had dipped in when Halo Infinite first came out of PC. It was on Game Pass, so there was not a significant financial barrier for me to drop into. A lot of it did feel like the shooters that I was familiar with. Come capture that flag, kill as many enemies as possible, find that sniper, or keep on the point. I was running around mantling up ledges, jumping over crevices that could lead to your death, and finding the gun set-up that works for you. While there were some of these more familiar elements to grab onto. However, my head or the keyboard/mouse controller did not click with the grenade, gun, and melee combo. Add some jump crouches and odd slides, and I fell away until earlier this year.

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Mapping Enya’s Orinoco Flow – Map-It

TL;DR – We map all the references made in Enya’s Orinoco Flow from Bali to Cali, far beneath the Coral Sea

Ocean and Clouds

Mapping Orinoco Flow

Some songs are so iconic that you can recognise them by a single chord or word. For me [and I assume many others], one of those songs is Enya’s Orinoco Flow. The song has a rare power to rip me back to the early 1990s in a way I don’t think any other work of media can.

Orinoco Flow is a cultural touchstone, so of course, it has been used in films and TV, both full of irony or used with sincerity. Recently, it was used to strong effect in Gran Turismo, and as I was listening to it, the song came alive. For maybe the first time, I didn’t just vibe with it. I listened to the lyrics.

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The Flight of the Milkmen in Twisted Metal Season 1 – Map-It

TL;DR – We chart the route of John Doe the Milkman through post-apocalyptic America in Twisted Metal.

A vulture on the roof.

Mapping Twisted Metal –

We have just finished Twisted Metal, and at the time of writing, our full review will be out soon. I did want to take a moment to look at the route that they took across the post-apocalyptic landscape of America.

In some respects, I got feelings of The Last of Us, but with a loop rather than a march across the continent. Also, vultures other than zombies. Oh, and a markedly increased vehicular murder count.

In the map, we have, of course, the main route that they take from New San Francisco to New Chicago and back again. But also every location mentioned in the show or seen on different maps. The red line is the apparent barricade stretching across the continent, a significant effort. I would have liked to see more walled-up cities, but this was a good start.

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Mapping Mission: Impossible 2023 Update – Map-It

TL;DR – We map all the locations Ethan Hunt and his team have visited.  

Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise running.

Mapping the Impossible –

All the way back in the before times of 2018, one of the first maps we constructed for our Map-It series was of the Mission: Impossible franchise. It was an old-style map, and parts of it have not aged all that well. But with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One jumping back onto our screens galivanting across the planet, now felt like the perfect time for an update.

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How a World Map Got the Barbie Movie Banned in Vietnam – Map-It

TL;DR – We explore the context behind why the Barbie movie got banned in Vietnam.

Barbie Land.

Barbie World Map Time

When you dive into the world of media classification, many odd things can get a movie/show/game banned in a particular country. Pepper Pig could have an episode on Spiders are Friends, which you understandably don’t want to air in Australia. Or Zoolander being banned in Malaysia, which is fair given the country’s depiction. But can a film be banned for a map? Well, yes, as the Barbie Movie has found out today.

This leads us to have a bit of a different Map-It than usual as I combine my twin loves of Pop-Culture and International Relations to explain what has happened. To start with, what happened? Yesterday it was announced by Vi Kiến Thành, head of the Department of Cinema under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, that National Council for Film Appraisal and Classification had banned the Barbie film after a review of the movie [1]. But why could a map get a film banned? Well, can I introduce you to the Nine-Dash Line and Exclusive Economic Zones.

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PAX Australia 2022 & Melbourne Day 4 & 5 – Explore-It

TL;DR – We dive into PAX properly and discover all the new indies out there.

Disclosure – I paid for all products featured or mentioned here.

Set Phasers to 'Fun'

PAX Australia & Melbourne Day 4 & 5

Well, it may be almost a year late, but we are finally getting to the end of our PAX 2022 series with a look at the final days. It was the last day of PAX Aus, and for the first time, I actually took the time to stop and have a decent breakfast down by the river as the morning Sun warmed off the previous night’s rain. It was a beautiful day by any standards, but apparently quite good for Melbourne’s sometimes temperamental weather.  

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Mapping the Transformers Series – Map-It

TL;DR – We map the many locations featured in Transformers, including that one time that all the Transformers went on holiday to Havana for some reason.  

Optimus Prime.

Mapping Transformers

With the release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, I decided it was a good time to go back and look at the Transformers Series as a whole. There are some areas where it is still the trailblazer it was and others that have aged, as well as blue cheese, left out in the summer sun. You can read it all HERE.

However, as I started this process, I wondered how global the series got, given its first very American focus and then that odd moment when China was bribing good coverage in Hollywood. Before I knew it, a map was being made, and it might have been the best part of looking back.  

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Indiana Jones Series Review – Exploring a Franchise

TL;DR –.We look at the varied highs and lows of the Indiana Jones franchise up to now.   

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed these films

Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Image Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Indiana Jones

There are moments when you sit around with nothing to do for a weekend and decide it is time to dive into some nostalgia from the past. With Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny coming out later this month, and it has been years since I had seen the older films, some not since cinemas, it was good timing when they all appeared on Disney+ this week. Well, good time with a massive dash of marketing. So we dive back in time not quite to a galaxy far, far away, but not, not a galaxy far, far away.

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