Xenosaga

Xenosaga (ゼノサーガ, Zenosāga) is a series of science fiction video games developed by Monolith Soft and published by Bandai Namco. Xenosaga's main story is in the form of a trilogy of PlayStation 2 video games. There have been three spin-off games and an anime adaptation. The Xenosaga series serves as a spiritual successor to the game Xenogears, which was released in 1998 for the PlayStation by Square. The creator of both Xenogears and Xenosaga is Tetsuya Takahashi, who left Square in 1998 along with Hirohide Sugiura. Using funds from Namco, they started MonolithSoft and the Xenosaga project.

The first game in the trilogy, Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht was released in February 2002 in Japan, and in February 2003 in North America. Xenosaga Freaks, a lighthearted game with a playable demo for Episode II, was released in April 2004 in Japan, but was not released elsewhere. Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse was released in June 2004 in Japan and February 2005 in North America. Xenosaga: The Animation, an anime based on Episode I, premiered on TV Asahi in Japan on January 5, 2005. Xenosaga Pied Piper, a three chapter-long cellphone-based game depicting the history of cyborg "Ziggurat 8" 100 years before the start of Episode I, was released in Japan in July 2004. Released on July 6, 2006, Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra is the final title in the Xenosaga series; six episodes were originally projected, but by the time Episode III was released, Namco had already established that it would be the last entry, effectively halving the series. A retelling of the first two episodes titled Xenosaga I & II was released on the Nintendo DS in March 2006 in Japan.

Abyss (2012 video game)

Abyss is an action and adventure game for the Wii U and Nintendo DSi. It was developed and published by EnjoyUp Games.

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List of Alien characters

This article lists characters and actors in the Alien series of science fiction films. The series spans four films: Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien: Resurrection (1997). The only recurring actress in all four films is Sigourney Weaver, who portrays the series' central character Ellen Ripley.

The film series was subsequently crossed-over with the Predator films with the releases of Alien vs. Predator (2004) and its sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). Together the two Alien vs. Predator films serve as prequels to the Alien series. The only actor from the Alien films to appear in one of the prequels was Lance Henriksen, who had played the android Bishop in Aliens and a man claiming to be the android's creator in Alien 3. Henriksen returned for Alien vs. Predator, in which he played Charles Bishop Weyland.

Characters overview

Table shows the actors who portrayed the characters in the franchise.

Alien

Ash (Ian Holm) is the Nostromo's inscrutable science officer. He administers medical treatment, conducts biological research and is responsible for investigating any alien life forms the crew may encounter. It is at Ash's insistence that the crew investigates the mysterious signal emanating from LV-426. Ripley becomes suspicious of him when he breaks quarantine protocol by allowing Kane, Dallas, and Lambert to re-enter the Nostromo while the Alien facehugger is attached to Kane. Captain Dallas later informs Ripley that Ash had abruptly replaced the ship's previous science officer, whom Dallas had done five previous missions with, just as the Nostromo left Thedus for its return journey to Earth. Over Ripley's objections, Dallas entrusts Ash with all science-related decisions.

List of Pixar films

Pixar is a CGI film production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. The studio has earned numerous awards for their feature films and other work, including twenty-six Academy Awards, five Golden Globes and three Grammys. Pixar is best known for CGI-animated features created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard Renderman image-rendering API used to generate high-quality images.

As of November 2015, Pixar has released 16 feature films, all released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. The company produced its first feature-length film, Toy Story, in 1995. The film won an Academy Award and was nominated for three others. The success of the film led Pixar to release a sequel, Toy Story 2, in 1999, following their second production, A Bug's Life in 1998. Monsters, Inc. was the next project to be released in 2001, and the following six features Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), and Up (2009) were highly successful.

Hogwarts

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, shortened Hogwarts, is a fictional British school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Rowling has suggested that she may have inadvertently taken the name from the hogwort plant (Croton capitatus), which she had seen at Kew Gardens some time before writing the series, although the names "The Hogwarts" and "Hoggwart" appear in the 1954 Nigel Molesworth book How To Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans.

Hogwarts school was voted as the 36th best Scottish educational establishment in a 2008 online ranking, outranking Edinburgh's Loretto School. According to a director of the Independent Schools Network Rankings, it was added to the schools listing "for fun" and was then voted on.

School location and information

J. K. Rowling says she visualises Hogwarts, in its entirety, to be: