Former Xbox Boss Says GTA: San Andreas' Explicit Hot Coffee Content "Signified a Maturing of the Industry"GTA: San Andreas fans all know the NSFW Hot Coffee minigame whose content was cut, or rather hidden in the files, before the game's launch but restored by a modder. If you prefer to have your experiences pristine, unsullied by mods, here's the gist: Hot Coffee lets CJ have explicit, interactive fun with his girlfriends.This, as GamesRadar noted, was supposed to solidify GTA's fame for controversy, but the developers decided to disable such content to avoid losing the ESRB rating.Former Xbox boss Peter Moore said that sexual themes in this once-PlayStation exclusive reflected changes in the industry:"Getting that franchise on the platform ... was starting to drive a more mature consumer. It was starting to take full advantage of obviously the graphical power of the high definition of Xbox 360. And I think it was the stickiness of GTA, it said to gamers, 'We see you as mature adults. This is no longer content that you will pass through in a phase and get on to more mature things.' GTA, as controversial as it obviously was at times, if anybody remembers Hot [Coffee], I think it signified a maturing of the industry, no pun intended, and put us on par with movies and music," he said during Danny Pea's Gamertag Radio podcast.Video games were not for kids anymore; they covered serious topics that only adults would understand and relate to. It was a revolution of sorts, aimed at staking its claim in the entertainment industry."During that period ... we were fighting for respect, we were the root of all evil in society, 'we' being gaming. I spoke in Senate hearings in Washington DC on behalf of the gaming industry to make sure people understood this isn't some polluting of young boys' minds, this is a legitimate entertainment medium that is interactive in nature and was about to be taking full advantage of the internet in ways even movies and music weren't."Of course, GTA has always talked about mature things: violence, drugs, and whatnot. Still, sexual themes had been, and still are in many ways, a taboo that not many companies are ready to embrace.

Re Read the full report here: https://80.lv/articles/exclusive-ashes-of-creation-developer-intrepid-lays-off-13-devs-for-no-apparent-reason/

Solo game developer yeopstudio decides to try out something just for fun. For this test, they scaled up one of the enemies in their WIP Unity project, so the player will be shooting at a gigantic spider-like monster creature with four legs among the showers of fire-ball bullets.After players fast-move in the Black Planet and avoid being hit by the bullet rain, the footage ends at a victory, with the enemy dying in a dark fog. The effect looks just sick.The project is called The Planetarian, a third-person single-player shooter in which you are a guardian of the World Tree, trying to keep it from malevolent forces that are trying to disrupt the balance of the cosmos. Seven unique planets are your battlegrounds, each with its own challenges, enemies, and environmental hazards.The monster enemy showcased in the above clip is just one of the many grotesque creatures that are influenced by their planetary environments. From grotesque, otherworldly creatures to high-tech sci-fi adversaries, the diversity of foes will keep you on your toes. While shooting them down, you can also collect and upgrade various weapons and equipment to customize your ability and enhance combat effectiveness with their unique stat-boosting effects.Besides the footage from above, the indie developer also shared some more videos on X/Twitter, showcasing the games enemy, intense battle, environments, and enemy bullet types:There seems to be no release date announcement about the game yet, and the developer just joined X/Twitter to share some footage since January this year. So we could expect a further announcement of its release window, as well as more gameplay footage from The Planetarian. If youre interested in this shooter, add it to your Steam wishlist.Dont forget to join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Solo Dev Scaled Up A Monster Enemy In Their TPS & It Looks Cool appeared first on CG SHARES.

3D Artist known as NooB_B3D showcased this dynamic WIP animation depicting the beloved Super Mario characters, Mario and Luigi, playfully gliding on roller skates.The showcased demo is a viewport look. According to the artist, the background elements were rendered separately and then combined with the characters animation. NooB_B3D noted that if there are different parts that only work separately, then rendering each one by itself and combining them together in post-production is the best way to tackle it.The artist said that the characters animation took about four months, and creating the environment took four days. Check out the final version:NooB_B3D also shared the advice on making a spline pass:Before, NooB_B3D showcased a 3D remake of the intro to Mark Haynes Super Mario Bros. Z Reboot:Also, the creator shared some amazing movement and attack animations made for the Mario Frontiers mod, which imagines Mario as a playable character in SEGAs 2022 3D platformer Sonic Frontiers:Follow the artist on X/Twitter anddont forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Check Out This Amazing WIP Mario & Luigi Skating Animation appeared first on CG SHARES.

Capcom has released a new update for Monster Hunter Wilds, which mainly fixes for some frustrating bugs that made customizing equipment or collecting monster parts more frustrating. You can find the full patch notes below.Monster Hunter Wilds launched on the last day of February and has already sold over 8 million copies, according to Capcom. While Monster Hunter Wilds is a great game overall, players did spot several issues that made the hunting process more frustrating. New content is on the way in Title Update 1 next month, but in the meantime Capcom has addressed a number of the issues in Monster Hunter Wilds Ver. 1.000.05.00.That notably includes a glitch where cut-off monster parts would change into different monster parts and issues that would revert certain customization changes when using the Equipment Loadout menu. You can check out the full list of issues Capcom plans to resolve in Ver. 1.000.05.00 below. courtesy of the official support page for Monster Hunter Wilds.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Barbarian director Zach Cregger may be helming the next Resident Evil movie, but Paul W.S. Anderson--the man who directed or produced the first six Resident Evil movies--is turning his attention to bringing Sega's House of the Dead back to the big screen. According to Anderson, that film may begin production as soon as this year."The script is almost done," Anderson told Variety. "We're aiming to shoot in the fourth quarter of this year. I'm really going to push the envelope on this one. It's going to be something different for me."Anderson added that he's attempting to recreate the feel of the arcade game by dropping audiences in on the story and letting it play out in real-time until the end of the movie.Continue Reading at GameSpot

There are many ways to win a game in Civilization 7. You can go the scientific route and launch a satellite, you can pursue culture and drown the globe in your artifacts, you can display your military might with Project Ivy, or you can even win over the world with nothing but cold hard cash.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A taking place entirely within Lumiose City is a bold choice, as it stands almost in direct contrast to Legends: Arceus' map set across the Hisui Region. However, the recent gameplay trailer for Pokemon Legends: Z-A showcased how Lumiose City has undergone a significant transformation in the years since its debut in Pokemon X and Y, opening up the city to feature new Wild Zones where players can capture wild mons. With the new areas potentially becoming accessible in Legends: Z-A, Lumiose City shouldn't miss the chance to feature one creepy area based on a real-world location.

[Ghostface voice] Do you like scary movies? [Slightly less Ghostface voice] Do you, like 300 million other human beings on the planet Earth, have a Netflix account? Then, logically, youve probably found yourself scrolling around, looking to find the best horror movies on the service. Unlike Jamie Kennedy in Scream, we have answers.But rather than wade through that ever-shifting glut of films pouring in and out of the service every month trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, weve got you covered with a list of our own written and curated by Polygons own resident horror aficionados. (And if youre looking for a list of the best horror movies to watch across multiple streaming platforms, weve got you covered there, too.)Weve slashed our way through the horror offerings on Netflix to find you a heap of movies worth an evening alone with the lights off and surely no one watching you through the window right nowApostleFans of the classic 1973 horror movie The Wicker Man (let us not speak of the 2006 Nicolas Cage version and its beeeeeees) should be warned: The Raid director Gareth Evans 2018 movie Apostle deliberately starts in the exact same place, and then takes the same scenario to much bloodier and more graphic ends. Set in 1905, it opens with addled addict Thomas (Legion and The Guest star Dan Stevens) getting a letter that says his sister is being held prisoner by a cult on a distant island. So he fakes his way into what looks like a quaint religious community, but is actually the kind of place where people routinely leave bowls of their own blood in front of their doors at night and something is audibly crawling around under the floorboards. Tense, gory, and in places almost ludicrously over-the-top, Apostle has a lot to say about the nature of religious fanaticism, both for the obedient flocks doing whatever their leader says God wants, and for the manipulators that weaponize whoever they can find whos willing to be led. But this isnt just Wicker Man redux its a creative, relentless spin on the same idea, leading to its own unique horrors. Tasha RobinsonArmy of the DeadAny movie where a team of misfits, led by Dave Bautista, has to rob a Las Vegas vault is automatically great. Army of the Dead adds zombies to the equation. The movie takes place in a near future in which a deadly virus creates zombies, but the outbreak ends up contained inside Las Vegas, which becomes infected territory. This is among the biggest and loudest heist movies on this list, blending the zombie-killing of later Resident Evil movies with all the tension of safe cracking. The real key to this movies greatness and fun, though, is Bautista, who is without question the most interesting and sensitive of the giant-man action stars. He counterbalances the bombastic premise with genuine heart and is endlessly watchable as a zombie-killing, one-man army. Austen GoslinCamMadeline Brewer stars in Daniel Goldhabers Cam as Alice, an ambitious camgirl trying desperately to reach the coveted number one spot of the site she streams for. After a particularly intense show, she wakes to find that her account has been taken over by a mysterious doppelganger, one who will seemingly go to any and all lengths to achieve what Alice herself could not. As Alice fights to regain control of her show and expose the identity of her impersonator, shell have to deal with the consequences of her offline and online identities blurring into one. Cam is a chilling psychological horror that leaves the audience wondering at every turn how, if at all, its heroine will manage to overcome and survive the horrors that assail her life. Toussaint EganCreep & Creep 2Leave it to indie darling Mark Duplass and his regular collaborator Patrick Brice (The Overnight) to keep the found-footage horror movie kickin 15 years after The Blair Witch Project. In Creep, Josef (Duplass) recruits Aaron (Brice), a videographer, off Craigslist with the intention of filming a goodbye letter to his unborn son. Josef is dying at least, thats how he convinces his new buddy Aaron to spend the night in the woods drinking whiskey with him. The batshit revelations are best left unsaid, and just how Creep 2 picks up the story, with Girls actress Desiree Akhavan front and center as a hopeful YouTube star, is even more of a hoot. Creep is the deranged, internet-friendly horror franchise we deserve. Matt PatchesThe Dead Dont DieThe world is full of zombie movies, and there are always more on the way, but few of them are as entertaining and odd as Jim Jarmuschs The Dead Dont Die. The legendary indie filmmakers take on the genre is full of unsurprisingly offbeat jokes, bizarre plot points, and far more heart than you might be expecting. Alongside Jarmuschs excellent script, The Dead Dont Die also sports an unreal cast that includes Tom Waits, Chlo Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Bill Murray, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, RZA, Carol Kane, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, Selena Gomez, Austin Butler, and more including Adam Driver giving one of the funniest line readings of his entire career. AGHereditaryOver the past decade, arguably no other filmmaker has had a more consequential role in establishing what a so-called A24 movie looks and feels like than Ari Aster. Alongside films like Moonlight and Uncut Gems, Asters 2018 feature debut Hereditary is a touchstone in the aesthetic trifecta of what audiences expect from the brand that is A24.Toni Collette stars in the psychological horror film as Annie, a miniature artist and mother of two who is grieving the death of her mother, Ellen. Not long after the funeral, Annies family is hit with a second inexplicable tragedy, one that threatens to tear them apart and usher forth a darkness unlike anything they could have ever imagined. Macabre, unsettling, and pitch-black in its occasional comedicism, Hereditary was the highest-grossing film ever produced by A24 until the release of Everything Everywhere All at Once. All that being said, youve likely already seen it, but even if you have, its a film worthy of rewatching and reappraising on the merit of its production quality and editing alone. TEHis HouseHis House turns the trials of immigration into a shock-filled ghost story. Gangs of Londons Sope Dirisu and Lovecraft Countrys Wunmi Mosaku play a Sudanese couple seeking asylum in Britain, where they encounter supportive but not exactly friendly social workers (including House of the Dragon star Matt Smith) who cant accept that the home theyve been given is haunted. Caught between the ghosts at home and an inflexible system ready to send them back to a war-torn country, the couple struggle with their past and their highly questionable future. TRThe RitualEven in our post-Cabin in the Woods world, there are still opportunities for clever filmmakers to spook us with creepy-shack-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-why-the-hell-would-you-go-in-there-what-was-that-in-the-shadows-no-no-no-no-no stories. The Ritual follows four friends who trek along northern Swedens Kungsleden trail as a tribute to a fifth friend, who was recently murdered in a convenience store. The death especially weighs on Luke (Prometheus Rafe Spall), whose drunken belligerence put his buddy in harms way in the first place. Luke is also the member of the group who realizes that, after discovering a wooden deer altar in an abandoned house along their unadvised detour, the group is being haunted by more than memories. Like a unique mix of Euro-horror and The Hills Have Eyes, The Ritual twists a familiar journey with creature-feature instincts to keep the genre fresh. MPThanksgivingFirst, a word of caution. If you have difficulty with gore in movies, you are better off with just about any other movie on this list. Go ahead, there are plenty of great ones for you to choose from here just not this one.Now, for the rest of you freaks (I say that with love), you are in for a treat.Thanksgivingis unofficially the best Scream movie sinceScream 4, Wes Cravens final entry in the franchise. Its a delightful slasher with a firmly tongue-in-cheek tone and some extremely gnarly holiday-themed kills.The movie has the kind of twisted kills youd want from a holiday-themed slasher, and while the dialogue is occasionally uneven, I was particularly impressed by the character work.Thanksgivinghas the perfect mix of characters you really want to see get killed and characters you want to survive. Thats a hard balance to strike in the genre, but a vital one.Pete VolkUnder the ShadowDuring a string of Iraqi airstrikes in late-1980s Tehran, the Iranian government bars medical student and political activist Shideh (Narges Rashidi) from continuing her studies. She retreats to her familys apartment, and despite her husbands wishes, remains with her young daughter in the war-torn capital this is her home, and shes not leaving. But when a missile blasts directly through her building, the normal life Shideh and her daughter knew becomes marked by an invisible, nefarious presence. Is it a djinn? Much like in The Babadook, first-time director Babak Anvari allows the question of the supernatural to orbit the action of Under the Shadow as he captures the erosion of his plain main set and Shidehs very existence. MP

A few years ago, a sound bite went viral on TikTok: Darling, Ive told you several times before, I have no dream job. I do not dream of labor. As writer Caitlyn Clark put it in Jacobin at the time, its no surprise that the statement resonated with people: a tighter labor market, Clark wrote, put increased pressure on workers over the past several years. Its an increased strain thats put more and more money in the pockets of the richest among us, yet it hasnt created better workplaces or a better world for the rest of us. And Ive been thinking about this phrase I do not dream of labor as I play developer Ivy Roads Wanderstop. Though the foot on protagonist Altas neck is not one of a corporation, but of an individual drive to succeed at all costs certainly influenced by culture at large she is ultimately worn down so severely that she can no longer continue. Shes forced to rest, to engage in a less laborious life. But her new life does, indeed, involve labor.Wanderstop begins with prolific and successful fighter Alta failing. Its her first major failure something she vowed would never happen to her. She had gone to a forest in search of a woman who can train her up, bring her back to her peak form, but the journey didnt go as planned. Where she lands, instead, is a tea shop. The affable tea shop owner, Boro, plucked her from the forest after she collapsed, no longer able to wield her sword. She doesnt want to stay, but she also cant leave: Every time she tries, she collapses. She cant hold her sword. And so, she does stay. People start to trickle into the tea shop and its surrounding clearing, so she makes them tea.At this point, Alta probably does dream of labor the labor of training and fighting for redemption. But over the course of roughly a dozen hours, she begins to let go of that compulsion. Alta trades one type of labor for another: one thats more caring, slow, and, yes, healing. Wanderstops tea shop does not operate for profit. The land around the shop provides everything necessary to make a cup of tea, aside from the tea-making contraption itself. This is where Wanderstop pulls in its cozy gaming elements the comforting repetition of a farming simulator, with a little twist, is the backbone of its gameplay. Working as Alta, I must plant seeds in specific formations to produce different sorts of plants to harvest both seeds and fruits; the seeds keep the farming running, and the fruits I use to brew tea. I explore the forest for tea leaves, sweep up piles of dead greenery, and snip invasive vines. The tea leaves get dried, and then I can make tea for the different people who pass by.Each of these people stays briefly at the tea shop, their own stories playing out with every interaction. At first, Alta is desperate for labor begging people to let her make them tea. But that attitude shifts with each cup of tea she makes as she grapples with her dark past, something shes long blocked out. Her new form of labor, the act of foraging for ingredients, growing essential fruits, and brewing tea to serve to others, is whats healing her; shes engaging in her community in a useful, thoughtful way. Her labor makes a difference not only for herself, but for others, too. Separated from an exploitative system, her work means something more. Beyond the narrative, Wanderstop largely succeeds at engaging with this ideology through its gameplay. Im not necessarily rewarded in any way for brewing tea for people in the clearing, other than learning their own stories and preferences. This doesnt unlock tools to do the job better or faster; I brew tea the same, complicated way each time, using a big ol contraption that requires several steps of manual labor.Theres no real time limit on appeasing these customers; theyll stay for as long as necessary to get their cup of tea. If you wanted, instead, to brew a dozen cups for yourself or Boro, thats quite all right. Maybe youd rather play around with decorations, or test out new combinations of patterns to grow other plants. Thats OK, too. But Wanderstop is a game, and there are still plenty of game-y elements that do detract from its themes. Its pretty aggressive with its notification icons, for one, so its always immediately clear that theres a new customer to serve or something another wants to tell you. For instance, theres an early character whos an eager knight placed under a curse. After one interaction, he sets back out into the forest to complete some task but in my playthrough, he returned not even a minute later ready to push his own story further, a big yellow exclamation mark over his head as he rushed back toward me. The urgency of these sorts of interactions is entirely at odds with everything else in the game. Theres a meaningful friction in the narrative that makes Wanderstop memorable, but that friction isnt replicated in the slightest with the gameplay. I can understand why, because adding that friction, be it simply through more time spent waiting or removing notification icons, risks players becoming frustrated and quitting. But its a friction that the game could have benefited from to better serve Wanderstops unique framing.This all comes back to the idea of dreaming about labor or not. I dont dream of labor within the system we live under now, but that doesnt mean I dont dream about labor at all. The future I dream of isnt one without friction, but one that ensures a slower, happier life for my community, even if that means doing the work. Wanderstop feels the most meaningful when it focuses on that.Wanderstopwill be released March 11 on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Steam Deck using a pre-release download code provided by Annapurna Interactive. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can findadditional information about Polygons ethics policy here.