Women have been an important part of the armed services since the beginning, with icons like Harriet Tubman participating in the Civil War. While being female in a traditionally male-dominated space hasn't always been easy, these women have still served their countries.In 2023, the US Department of Defense reported that the percentage of women serving in active and reserve capacities was growing. In 2022, 17.5% of active-duty roles and 21.6% of the National Guard and reserves were women, up slightly from the year before, it reported, citing the 2022 Demographics Profile of the Military Community.On Memorial Day this year, here are 12 famous women who have served in the military around the world, including Bea Arthur, Queen Elizabeth, and more. Harriet Tubman was a military leader and Union spy during the Civil War. Harriet Tubman. MPI/Getty Images Most know Harriet Tubman for her groundbreaking work with the Underground Railroad and, later, as an abolitionist, but as National Geographic reported, Tubman was also an integral part of the Civil War.In 1863, Tubman and Colonel James Montgomery led a group of soldiers in freeing slaves from plantations in South Carolina, making Tubman the first woman in US history to lead a military expedition, according to National Geographic.Her work continued as a spy and recruiter for the Union Army. This operation was so covert that only President Lincoln knew about it.Tubman received compensation for her military contributions decades later, in 1899. Thomas B. Allen, the author of "Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent," called Tubman "one of the great heroines of the Civil War." Queen Elizabeth was a military truck driver during World War II. Queen Elizabeth outside a first aid truck during World War II. Keystone/Getty Images Queen Elizabeth was only 18 years old when she begged her father, King George VI, to take part in helping out during World War II. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service in England that same year and was known as "Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor," according to the National Archives.While serving, the young queen drove military trucks and trained as a mechanic, making her, to this day, the only female member of the Royal Family to enter the armed forces.  NASA's Eileen Collins was one of the first female pilots in the Air Force and in space. Eileen Collins. NASA Eileen Collins broke several barriers during her career: Not only was she NASA's first female shuttle commander, but at 23, she became the Air Force's first female flight instructor, according to the agency.She joined the Air Force in 1978, becoming one of the first four women to go through pilot training at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma. She wrote in Time, "The Air Force was testing whether women could succeed as military pilots. We obviously were living in a fishbowl — everyone knew who we were, our personal business, our test scores and our flight performance. My philosophy was to be the best pilot I could be."Her military training directly led her to test-pilot school, where she "knew" she would go on to be the first female space shuttle pilot — and succeeded in doing so.   "Golden Girl" Bea Arthur was one of the first members of the Marine Corps Women's Reserve. Bea Arthur. Lennox McLendon/AP Photo Before she was Dorothy Zbornak on "The Golden Girls," Emmy Award-winning actor Bea Arthur was a Marine.As reported by The Daily Beast, Arthur enlisted in the Women's Reserve when she was 21 years old. She first served as a typist and truck driver. She worked her way up to staff sergeant and was honorably discharged in 1945. Official documents show that Arthur's supervisors thought she was "argumentative," which is not a far cry from the feisty persona she became known for on both "The Golden Girls" and "Maude." "Stranger Things" actor Jennifer Marshall served in the US Navy for five years. Jennifer Marshall as Susan Hargrove on "Stranger Things." Netflix Before Jennifer Marshall scored the role of Susan Hargrove on Netflix's hit show "Stranger Things," she served in the United States Navy from ages 17 to 22. According to Marshall's website, during her service, she was a forklift operator, aircraft handler, and logistics specialist. She also worked for the USS Theodore Roosevelt's Sexual Assault Victim Intervention (SAVI) program. Marshall was awarded many honors and medals for her time in the Navy. Now, in addition to acting, she works with Pin-Ups For Vets, a nonprofit organization that aids hospitalized veterans and deployed troops. Food Network star Sunny Anderson was in the Air Force. Sunny Anderson. Jim Spellman/Getty Images Anderson, who hosts "The Kitchen," "Cooking for Real," and "Home Made in America," grew up around the military because of her parents. As an adult, she enlisted in the US Air Force as a radio broadcaster and journalist, working in Seoul, South Korea, and in San Antonio. "I knew that there were radio stations, television stations, newspapers, and magazines, for the military, by the military, and I wanted to be a part of that," Anderson told ABC News in 2013.She also wanted to train in something that would be useful when she left the military."My transition from the Air Force started before I even got in the Air Force," she said. Radio talk show host Robin Quivers was a captain in the Air Force. Robin Quivers. Walter McBride/WireImage via Getty Images Robin Quivers has co-hosted "The Howard Stern Show" for over 30 years, but before that, she served as a captain in the US Air Force.Quivers got her degree in nursing from the University of Maryland and put it to use by joining the military as a second lieutenant after college. She quickly climbed the ranks, and when she was discharged in 1978, her official title was captain, according to Biography.com.She served as a reserve in the Air Force until 1990, per military records, after which she fully pivoted to her career in radio. But Howard Stern hired her for his show in 1981, which means that Quivers — though she was "inactive" — was still technically serving while she was on the air. Actor Zulay Henao served in the US Army for three years. Zulay Henao. JB Lacroix/ Getty Images Colombian-American actor Zulay Henao has appeared on the show "Army Wives," but few know that she herself served in the US Army before becoming an actor.Henao enlisted after completing high school and, after three years of serving, went on to enroll at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.She previously spoke to the paparazzi about her time in the military, saying: "I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing, and I wouldn't have the perspective I have of the world, if it weren't for the Army." Olympic medalist Shauna Rohbock was in the National Guard. Shauna Rohbock. Harry How/Getty Images Shauna Rohbock is an Olympic bobsledder and won the silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. But before that, according to Team USA, Rohbock joined the Utah Army National Guard and was part of the National Guard Outstanding Athlete Program. Olympian Amber English competed while still in the military. She won gold in women's skeet shooting at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Amber English at the 2020 Olympics. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images At her first Olympics, First Lt. Amber English took gold with an Olympic record score of 56, NBC reported. Technically not yet a veteran, she's a logistics officer and member of the Army Marksmanship Unit, according to Military.com.After English's win, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin congratulated her on Twitter, now known as X."Your country is extremely proud of you today, and I'm so glad you're representing us," he wrote.She joins an illustrious list of medal winners, both male and female, with military backgrounds. "Wonder Woman" Gal Gadot served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years. Gal Gadot. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images After Gal Gadot was crowned Miss Israel in 2004 and before she became Wonder Woman in 2017, she served her mandatory two years in the IDF. During her assignment, she worked as a "physical fitness specialist," teaching gymnastics and calisthenics to the soldiers, PopSugar reported.Pro-Palestine groups have criticized her service, as well as her support of the Israeli military and cause in social media posts."I think much of it comes from ignorance and people not understanding what most people do in the army in Israel or what I did in the army during my service in the military," she told The Jakarta Post in May 2021. She added, "Being an Israeli and going to the army is an integral thing. It's something you have to do. It's mandatory." Ruth Westheimer, better known as the sex therapist Dr. Ruth, trained as a sniper in the IDF. Dr. Ruth. Donna Svennevik/Walt Disney Television/Getty Images Dr. Ruth was a Holocaust survivor, and after World War II ended, she moved as a teenager to what would become Israel. During her time there, she trained as a sniper due to her small size.She told The New Yorker in 2013, "I have no idea what the experience would be if I had to show it. But I was a very good sniper."Melina Glusac contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Memorial Day weekend invites important questions like what to marinate the kebobs in, whether it’s warm enough to put the pool up or not, and which new game you should buy while continuing to ignore your backlog. The Switch eShop currently has a few sales running that are worth a quick peek while waiting for the 45 minutes of coming attractions ahead of Mission Impossible 8 to end.Suggested ReadingFallout Season 2 Teaser Confirms Lucy and Ghoul are Heading to New Vegas Share SubtitlesOffEnglishview videoSuggested ReadingFallout Season 2 Teaser Confirms Lucy and Ghoul are Heading to New Vegas Share SubtitlesOffEnglishIf you’re looking at physical Switch games, there are a few good deals going around at the moment. Advance Wars 1 and 2 Re-Boot Camp is currently just $30 at GameStop (half off) while Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is just $40 (33 percent off) at Amazon. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Catherine: Full Body, and Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster are all heavily discounted as well at VGP. Meanwhile, in the digital world of the eShop, the following games are all great and pretty cheap right now:Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - $20 (50 percent off)It Takes Two - $20 (50 percent off) Tales of Kenzera: ZAU - $8 (60 percent off) Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak Deluxe - $20 (71 percent off) Dead Cells - $12.50 (50 percent off) Penny’s Big Breakaway - $15 (50 percent off) Doom 2016 - $4 (80 percent off)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition - $15 (75 percent off)Rayman Legends Definitive Edition - $8 (80 percent off)The Witcher 3 port is just short of ugly on Switch, but if you have no other way to play the grim fantasy RPG it’s well worth picking up, especially on the game’s 10th anniversary. Doom 2016 runs and looks better, and should help sate the urge to rip and tear for Nintendo fans who can’t access Doom: The Dark Ages. If you just want a fun, colorful throwback to pass the time, my suggestion is Penny’s Big Breakaway, one of last year’s great unsung Dreamcast 3D platformer homages. There are two other Switch games that are only slightly on sale but might be of interest. The Chrono Trigger-like Sea of Stars is currently $22.75 (around 30 percent off), but just got a big free Throes of the Watchmaker DLC that adds a new eight-hour quest, additional character, and more classes. Labyrinth of the Demon King, meanwhile, is a lo-fi horror dungeon crawler that just came out last week and is already turning heads. It’s $16 this week (20 percent off). If you’re interested in what might end up on the list of 2025's most overlooked games, I’d give this one a shot. .

I started writing my own film scripts when I was ten, and I basically wanted to be Indiana Jones. Well, I wanted to be Indy, the director and the guy who did the stunts and the storyboards after seeing Temple of Doom with my dad at the Harrogate Odeon. He'd bought me the Official Souvenir Magazine – I knew it was important – which was full of colourful costume sketches, storyboards detailing some of the action I'd just seen, and glossy pictures of cast and crew in glamorous locations. I think that was the first time I had an inkling of what I wanted to do with my life, but growing up in a small Yorkshire town wasn't exactly conducive to being Indiana Jones: the most useful film locations there were my buddy Richard's back garden and the local woods, but we endeavoured and made a three-minute epic where I, as Indy, swung across imagined alligator-infested swamps and ran through not-so-dense forests pursued by invisible tribesmen. Growing up in the Eighties was a fertile time for the imagination of anyone, particularly anyone who wanted to follow in the footsteps of Lucas and Spielberg. By the time I'd left school prematurely at sixteen and worked as a film assistant (when TV used to be shot on film) before returning to higher education, my friend Derek had already worked on the new Star Wars film, rubbed shoulders with Robert Altman and Tim Burton, and slept on a lot of mates' sofas. That, I thought, was my next goal. Not the sofas part – the working on big movies part. World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo But again, there's this persistent myth that one has to "break into" the film industry, as Spielberg himself did; all one has to do is occupy an empty office at a film studio and pretend one works there until one does. The sad truth is that the film industry doesn't want you. I mean, it might do – but it just doesn't know it yet. Either way, you hear all kinds of motivational and anti-motivational stories in the press: everything from "Just pick up a phone and make a film" to "You can't just pick up a phone and make a film." Or "don't ask permission: be a rebel and just do what you want" but then also "make friends with producers and nurture working relationships" to get your films made. So which is it? I'm here to tell you it's both. I had years of making my own feature films (four to date) where I didn't ask permission to do so, just found private investors and gathered a cast and crew each time, to different levels of ambition and difficulty. There's a Spielberg quote in the Official Souvenir Magazine of Temple of Doom that I always remember, and it's something like: "You look at the script and think, how are we going to do all this? But somehow or other, it gets done." That's been the driving force of every movie I've made to date: we found the money, we gathered the crew, we did everything. Sure, some of them played in cinemas and then didn't do anything else (my first was deemed "too cheap" for a home release), but some won awards, and one even made it to Blu-ray. Score! But then came the pandemic, and I'd be lying if I didn't say it punctured the ambitions of just about everyone. It was not just the personal crises, loss, and fear it faced us with, but also the seemingly insurmountable heights to scale to get films made – which was already a challenge. In 2020, you might have thought things were picking up speed: we released our latest lo-fi feature film – the zombie comedy Zomblogalypse, which ended up on the aforementioned Blu-ray – in cinemas and film festivals, and I met with producers to sign a script deal for my ambitious action-horror. And then came about two years of "the market is dead" and "no one's making anything at the moment" and a hundred times the usual cliched setback talk of "it's not a good time right now…" except it was painfully, abundantly clear that this was in fact true. Zomblogalypse So during this time, all the while trying in earnest to get any movie off the ground (and we're talking baby budgets here), somewhere during the process, I decided to stop thinking of myself as a producer and director and just be a writer for a while. This was partly due to the amount of times I was told in producer meetings – both in TV and film – that they'd find a director for my script. And a co-writer. And a development executive. Now, I knew who all these people were because I'd read my Indiana Jones Official Souvenir Magazine, but the key point was that I needed to stop trying to do everything and focus on the scripts. A director, unless they're Mr Spielberg, can only direct every few years, while a writer can always write on a notepad by the bed, on the Notes app on their phone (which is how I'm writing this), on their laptop with half an hour to spare, and so forth. And yes, you're saying, but what if a writer doesn't have half an hour to spare because of their job or their family? And to that, I say yes, noted, but… you have to write. Find the time. In every minimum wage job I ever had, I wrote scripts. Sorry, former employers: you were all funding my screenwriting habit. I actually left secure and (under)paid employment fifteen years ago this very week and haven't looked back – but that's another story... Steven Spielberg (around 1995) – Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo The point (finally) is that I decided to double down as a writer and pen a movie trilogy. Why, you ask? As if it isn't hard enough getting one screenplay written and submitted to a producer. And it is hard: I submitted my action-horror to my producer five years ago, after five years of scribbling and re-drafting and working with a co-writer and trying to get the damn thing self-financed and finally getting an industry producer to read it… why would I now, while I wait for that one to bear fruit – through strikes and fires and other Hollywood nonsense – go and do something stupid like write a trilogy? It comes down to that rebellious notion of not asking permission. I've got a trilogy in me (after years of working out several individual scripts and realising they're all linked thematically), so why not go for broke and write all three? Advice from my peers so far is a mix of "just write one and sell that first" because that's hard enough, and "f^&k yeah, go for it! No one else is writing a trilogy!" So, having written what has now evidently become the middle chapter, I've set to work on writing the first and drafting out the third. They're a mix of genres, but each one does stand alone, just in case I'm only able to get one into production (they're action thriller, sci-fi romcom, and action horror, in case you wondered). I don't know how wise it's going to prove to write three films at once, but so far, I'm enjoying the challenge. Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo I'm a huge fan of the Back to the Future trilogy (who isn't) and how Bobs Zemeckis and Gale wrote the second and third as back-to-back projects, so I'm inspired by that and other well-made trilogies like Ginger Snaps and the more recent Fear Street. I like the format, and I've never written this way before. But after five years of stalled production and juggling one-off ideas (there are currently about twenty in my In Development folder), I'm doubling down for what, at age fifty, is my most ambitious project to date: writing a trilogy that may never get made, but which I'll do everything to try and get made. I'd rather make up for lost time than not make anything again. And as a writer, it's the ultimate project. Who doesn't love a trilogy? Hopefully, one day, a producer will agree with me that being this insanely ambitious is the way forward. Because I've been hiding in the shadows for too long as a struggling director, it's time to be a writer!

Constructive Crit RoadCraft review: Streamlined building biz beset by bumbling AI Bobs Can we fix it? Well, that often depends on whether you’ll let me deliver the bits myself. Image credit: VG247 Review by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 19, 2025 It’s getting close to 10PM on a Friday night. There’s a slightly muddy hill. Halfway up it, their tires spinning helplessly, are two trucks carrying goods they need to deliver to a shed about half the map away. I sigh, and give my bulldozer/cargo truck the beans. As one fourteen-wheeled mass, we begin to crawl up the gentle slope, which would be easy pickings if the AI-manned haulers glued to my front scoop had any off-roading capabilities whatsoever. They don’t. There’s no driving skill to make up for it, either. If they run into an obstacle during the course of the route I’ve plotted out for them which can’t be overcome by simply reversing and pulling forwards less than three times, they just give up. Small rocks terrify them, turns that happen to be in any way sharp are the banes of their existence, and sometimes they seem to roll over just for a laugh. They need me. When I’m not Bob the builder, I’m Bob the babysitter. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. What I’ve just described is one of the main things that sets RoadCraft - the latest entry in Saber Interactive’s Spintires series of off-roading sims - from its rugged, outdoorsy siblings. These games, MudRunner, SnowRunner, and last year’s Expeditions, were generally games about you - the player - getting from A to B through untamed environments and getting stuck when you messed it up. I’ve regularly, and slightly sarkily, compared these games to the driving equivalent of FromSoft’s boss battlers. Notoriously unforgiving adventures about eventual success earned through overwhelming skill or luck, and usually preempted by a crap-tonne of failure that gradually pushes those who haven’t already taken their lumps in the direction of doing the right thing. When you’re behind the wheel, RoadCraft’s by far the least hardcore title in its delivery of that gameplay loop that Saber has put out to this point. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a learning curve and plenty of ways to mess up that’ll require a reset. However, in its creation of a game that’s more focused on construction, maintenance, and logistics management than it is straight-up haulage or frontier-conquering exploration, the studio’s simplified things. As you carry out jobs, you no longer have to keep a watchful eye on your fuel gauge or do any repairs if you slam into a wall. RoadCraft’s fleet is permanently fully-fueled and indestructible unless you roll over, sink, or otherwise get wedged in a spot you can’t extricate yourself from. While this, and the resulting lack of an in-depth upgrade system for vehicles, might be a bit frustrating to hardcore haulers, you can see why Saber’s opted to do it. See? Told you there are still ways you can monumentally mess things up. | Image credit: VG247/Saber The rides you’re handed the keys to this time are generally a lot more specialised towards very specific roles for the jobs you’ll be doing as the game walks you through getting locations which have suffered different kinds of natural disaster - from floods, to earthquakes, to hurricanes - up and running again. You’re running a construction firm that you start off by naming and picking out a livery/logo combo for. When you first deploy into one of the maps, which thankfully are openly free-roamable outside jobs unlike those in Expeditions, you’ll do the usual thing and head out in a nippy scout 4x4 to recon the environment. Then, your re-construction efforts begin, and can be divided into about five or six different general activities you’ll do in various orders and with different quirks as you progress - scouting, logging, road and bridge building, plotting routes for AI supply runs, debris clearing, and resource delivery. In terms of the latter, there are four types of resources you’ll need to fix various things - logs, steel beams, metal pipes, and concrete slabs - all of which you’ll acquire by either recycling debris at the plants on each map that part of your job is to get up and running. Getting ahold of those, ferrying them where they need to go, and installing them is done in very SnowRunnery fashion, albeit with manual loading being your only option. As such, the vehicle I’ve spent by far the most time in during my time with the game so far is the Mule T1 crane cargo truck. As the name suggests, it’s a lorry with very decent off-roading capabilities that’s built to transport goods, and even boasts its own built-in crane. (Slaps roof) You know how much junk this Mule can haul? | Image credit: VG247-Saber If you’re playing solo, it’s by far the most important purchase you’ll make early on, because its good stats and that crane mean it’s ideal to handle the vast majority of haulage jobs the game gives you. There is a point where some loads start to get a bit too heavy for it to deal with easily, but I’ve made it up to level 12 so far and it’s still the heart of my fleet. That arguably exposes a bit of a flaw in RoadCraft’s launch vehicle offerings - there’s only one or very occasionally two better successors you can unlock for each of the different vehicle types as you progress. You do unlock some new types of vehicle around the midpoint, such as a heavy crane and beefier cargo truck that together can handle the heavier loads the Mule struggles with, but in plenty of cases there’s a beginner rusty variant of a specific vehicle, a refurbished version of the exact same model with slightly better stats, and then an advanced variant you’ll unlock once you’re starting to home in on the endgame. The most egregious example of this is with the field service vehicles. There are two. One you’re given for free at the start of the game and can’t even be repainted in your company livery as far as I can tell, and then its endgame replacement, which you won’t unlock until level 20, which based on my progress so far looks like it’ll be when you’ve basically finished all of the game’s current content. You’re still unlocking one or two new vehicles or variants of existing vehicles with each level you gain to help freshen things up a bit, but the relatively thin depth at each position and lack of part customisation means the sense of progression feels a lot more limited. No doubt there’ll be plenty of DLC to beef up the roster, but Focus seems to be leaning a bit too heavily on that. C. W. McCall intensifies. | Image credit: VG247/Saber Combined with the aforementioned stripping out of stuff like fuel management, and the XP/cash rewards for jobs being quite generous (the latter especially so because you aren’t constantly spending on upgrades), to this point RoadCraft is the entry in the uber-hard Spintires series I’ve made my way through with the least struggle. The one exception to that, as I outlined in the intro, is that damn route plotting for AI trucks. If it’s the part of the game that’s supposed to dial the difficulty back up, it certainly does just that at regular points, often in infuriating fashion. If I’ve gotten stuck while driving, usually because I’ve done something stupid, that’s annoying, but at the end of the day it’s on me to do a better job. If an AI lorry I’ve already built a bunch of bridges and roads for requires me to follow it along its entire route and do some push-based babysitting whenever it encounters the tiniest obstacle because it’s using a truck that only works on perfectly straight asphalt highways, that’s less easy to take on the chin. Kudos to Saber for trying something different, but some of the ways I’ve had to resort to helping its lorry Lemmings feel like they pretty much defeat the point of not having me just make the deliveries myself. While folks who take a bit more time to clear the perfect path might well find RoadCraft lacking a bit of challenge, I’ve personally enjoyed the non-AI lorry bits of it generally being a lot more chill than the usual. The game’s at its best when you’re heading to a base or driving your field service vehicle somewhere and setting up to spend some time doing a specific job. Both act as spawn points for vehicles, though the latter requires fuel tokens that’re pretty easy to earn from side jobs. Once you’re there, you’ll be doing something like watching the four stages of RoadCraft’s namesake party trick, building roads by dumping sand with a dump truck, using a dozer to flatten it, wheeling out your paver to coat it an asphalt, and then hopping in a steamroller to make it nice and smooth. It’s as mega-satisfying as you always dream baking a cake will be, even if the first step can be pretty unforgiving because it’s near impossible to drop sand in a nice uniform fashion. Luckily, you’ve got the choice to do each step manually or let the computer do it automatically, with the latter tending to go ok given you’re only making short stretches of road. Well, unless your paver finds a small rock you haven’t cleared. It's a piece of cake to lay a pretty road. If the way is hazy, you gotta do the laying by the codex. | Image credit: VG247/Saber Logging by chopping down trees with a tree harvester, picking up the big twigs with a log hauler, and then cleaning up your mess with a stump mulcher is just as fun. There’s not as much process to laying electrical wires between different spots on the map to power up substations, but finding a way to guide the comically unwieldy cable layer through the backwoods has its good moments, even if it’s possible to get stuck in weird ways. Overall, RoadCraft offers a unique enough twist on the established Spintires formula, if a streamlined one, to be worth giving a go. Some series veterans will end up longing for the elements it’s stripped out, especially when the new stuff that’s been drafted in is being more frustrating than fun. But, that central loop of frustration giving way to jubilation as you overcome the environment is still there and regularly just as satisfying. Especially when the convoy you’ve spent all evening pushing up hills finally reaches its destination. RoadCraft releases on March 20 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. This review was conducted on PS5 using a code provided by the publisher.

A month after launch, a small percentage of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered players have completed the main questline. But for a game like this, that’s not particularly surprising — fans are saying they’re way too busy doing other stuff.I’m one of those fans! I’ve been playing and enjoying Oblivion Remastered since it shadow-dropped on April 22, and upon leaving the sewers and handing over the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre at Weynon Priory, I’ve done everything BUT the main questline. I’ve joined the Fighters Guild, explored Cyrodiil, and completed loads of side quests. I’ve even tried to brute force my way out of the map, as one player managed to do.Why? Well, the side quests in Oblivion are brilliant fun (I won’t spoil any story stuff here), but I'm also trying to avoid the main quest (and potentially difficult parts of it like Kvatch) for the time being while keeping leveling up to a minimum.PlaySo, I’ve decided to enjoy Oblivion until I get bored enough to play the game properly. Although there is no properly with a Bethesda game like this one, is there? That’s why they’re brilliant. You do what you want whenever you want, and the game still works.It seems a lot of other players are doing the same thing. “I'm BUSY doing OTHER STUFF like hunting for SLAUGHTERFISH in Lake Rumare,” the wonderfully named redditor MrCrispyFriedChicken said in response to the percentage completion stats for finishing Oblivion Remastered’s main questline.“I spend 160 hours in already and Kvatch is still waiting for me,” added Roffear. “I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes the Oblivion gates so I purposefully don't finish the main quest until I've found all 60 gates in my world and closed them,” said Ellert0. “44 hours and an actual in-game year, and I haven't even been to Weynon Priory,” said PlayaHatinIG-88. “Those poor Kvatch city guards never stood a chance.”At the time of this article’s publication, a paltry 2.97% had completed Oblivion Remastered's main questline on Xbox and a slightly better 4.4% had on Steam. Why the difference? I presume that’s because Xbox factors in Game Pass, which will have seen a number of players dip their toe into Oblivion Remastered before bouncing. Steam players are all in, of course, because they actually bought the game outright.     Either way, it’s still a low percentage for Oblivion Remastered, which has so far seen over 4 million players. But in truth most video games have a surprisingly low campaign completion rate, whether it’s an epic, 100-hour open-world fantasy role-playing game like Oblivion Remastered or a five-hour story like Call of Duty. Indeed, a lot of games have a surprisingly low percentage of players who stick around after an hour or so or continue playing after the tutorial. Such is the fickle nature of the gamer.For Oblivion Remastered, the stats may be skewed further because it’s a remaster of a beloved game many of its players finished back in the day. If you completed Oblivion's main quest 20 years ago, perhaps you’re less inclined to do it again now, and would rather focus on all the pretty new visuals and upgraded bits and bobs. Or, as one player has done, spend seven hours lining up books to get a Dominoes chain reaction just right.Thaddeus122 said they were almost 100 hours in and hadn’t even completed three of the main quests. They have, however, completed the Arena and the Mages Guild. And the rest of the time? “Leveling, getting money for homes, closing all the Oblivion gates, the Nirnroot quest, a bunch of little quests. To be fair, also don't fast travel anywhere.”Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen would be the first to tell you: writing a video game is work.At least writing a novel is a one-person operation for most of the time. At least a screenplay for a film only needs to come in around 120 pages, unless you’re working for Martin Scorsese. But writing a video game? That means filling hours of space, bending the material to fit the play, and usually working with a team of other writers to make it all cohere. Sometimes to hit a deadline, you just need to throw words at the wall. Especially when it’s 3 a.m. That can still result in brilliance.All the Frenchy bits and bobs in Clair Obscur have captured the imaginations of players, but few quite like the character of Esquie, and especially one camp conversation in which the oversized gestral reflects on his friend François with Verso. Verso knows François to be a grump, but Esquie insists that “Franfran used to be all ‘Wheeee!’ But now he’s all ‘Whooo.’” Over about a minute, Esquie further defines “whee” and “woo” while players even choose their own whee/woo path through the dialogue tree. It is tremendously silly.“That was me at three in the morning trying to come up with something,” Svedberg-Yen admits with a laugh. “I needed to write seven relationship dialogues for Esquie!”Svedberg-Yen says the script for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 comes in around 800 pages long, which doesn’t even include all of the NPC dialogue or the piles of lore-related documentation written as foundation for the story. To fill that much space, the writer says she grabbed inspiration from everything and everywhere around her. For instance, Svedberg-Yen says Monoco, the floating gestral who later joins the Expedition 33 crew, is based on her dog, and when her pup needed a haircut, she decided to write that into the story. “I was like, OK, that’s going to be the conversation for Monoco and Verso about haircuts. He says, ‘you look like an overgrown mop.’ I literally said that to my dog — and I could use that.”The “whee whoo” sequence made even less sense in the wee hours of the morning, but it felt right. “I knew what I wanted to say, where it’s talking about something heavy and sad and how you can feel the joy and the grief,” Svedberg-Yen says. “And I was so tired. I didn’t have any words. So I was just like, ‘wheeeeee!’”As a fantasy writer, Svedberg-Yen says her number one goal is authenticity, sculpting characters who are born from real places and real circumstances, even if they’re otherworldly. So she doesn’t often question her instincts – even the kooky ones. There was room for moments of levity in the otherwise tragic Clair Obscur because, hey, that’s life. “Did I push it too far at all? Sometimes, when I’m at a loss for words, I’m like, what am I feeling right now? And then I put that into the script. That’s authentic because it is what I am feeling.”See More:

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube812k Super Mario 64 is one of those classic sorts of games that, almost 30 since its release, is still giving up delightful little secrets. This time around, and as reported by GamesRadar, it's a hidden sound effect that's gonna take an insane snack budget to settle into listening out for. Kaze Emanuar, a hacker who's been reporting his findings on Super Mario 64 for years now, has released a new YouTube video detailing some bugs that result from inbuilt game timers, some of which - he's found out the hard way - take some 14 months to go off. That's ages, mate. The bug in question revolves around Sushi the Shark in the game's Dire, Dire, Docks course. To break it down simply, Sushi makes a sound every 16 seconds or so, according to Emanuar. This sound is repeated so frequently by the character that you never hear it in full. Images: @KazeN64/YouTube However, due to the nature of the timers built into the game - to prevent "overflow bugs" - if a player were to, oh we don't know, sit on the screen with Sushi present for 60.8334 weeks or so, the sound will abruptly stop playing. Then it'll play fully, just the one time. A brand new sound, heard for the first time in full, in a 29-year-old game. Hat's off to that man, as it really is quite the aural massage, a complex - and barely audible - mixture of "fish struggling" with undercurrents (there's a pun!) of "post-takeaway bum noise." Sound good? You can hear it for yourself in full in the timestamped video at the top of this very article. Life is just great sometimes, innit. The reasoning behind the bug is explained in much more detail in the full video, and it's absolutely worth jumping into for some other fun tidbits on bugs, timers and other cool bits and bobs about how those games we all love so much actually work! Know of any other cool secrets or bugs in Super Mario 64, or any other Nintendo game for that matter? Let us know! From cute penguins to rude owls [source gamesradar.com] Share:0 0 PJ is a staff writer across Pure Xbox and Nintendo Life. He's been playing video games pretty much nonstop since the early 1980s, and enjoys boring people with tedious stories about how long ago that really is. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Updates Its User Agreement To Crack Down On Emulation Offenders may find their Switch bricked PSA: My Nintendo Store Switch 2 Invites Are Starting To Roll Out Refresh that inbox Palworld Dev Announces "Disappointing" Game Changes Resulting From Nintendo's Lawsuit "We have had to make certain compromises" Nintendo Reconfirms Release Windows For Major Switch 2 Games And original Switch, of course

A few summers ago, when the culture was moving through micro trends as fast as they could be Instagrammed, Cottage Core was born. The trend, which came out of a Covid-influenced romanticism for living close to nature (but not ruffing it, à la gorpcore, fashion’s cousin trend), inspired an infusion of chintz and whicker-filled interiors, and, of course, lush English-style gardens.Flash forward to 2025. All those cottage gardens planted in early 2020—rustic, sophisticated, chic—are at their peak. And there really is something to an outdoor space that merges with the indoors, is there not? On a warm summer evening, when the bougainvillea is in bloom, and the grass is a bit damp, what could be more appealing than a home built to nestle into a fantastical garden.Here, we’ve collected some of our favorite cottage gardens. They range from fairy house gardens to campground landscape, historical (Anne Hathaway’s famed cottage that has inspired Shakespeare devotees the world over) to contemporary compound gardens in the woods.While we may have a specific notion of a cottage garden, but they are—and should be—as unique as the people who tend them. One lesson for planting your own? A small space is an asset rather than a limitation.Below, you’ll find 15 of our favorite cottage gardens from Marin County California to Stratford-Upon-Avon, England.William Jess LairdThis Amagansett cottage was literally designed for “summertime snoozes.” It’s also a good reminder that a delicate slate garden pathway can take you far. Designer Melissa Lee noted how “unexpected” the whole place felt, surrounded by the many mansions of the Hamptons. As she rightfully notes, the charm is in the surprise. A suggestion of mystery always adds to a cottage! Think The Secret Garden or the unexpectedly expansive Weasley Family home.Noe DewittVines climb up this 1920s English Art and Crafts style cottage in the Hamptons. The elegant and eclectic cottage was re-designed by Nick Olsen to emphasize outdoor living with comfy couches, a tiled patio and a pool.William James LairdThis pink cottage kitchen looks out over a garden in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Designer Clive Lonstein’s work is vibrant and unexpected, particularly for a modest Connecticut cottage built in the late 1800s. In a way though, the bright colors all throughout the house are a reflection of the original design for the house. The architect, Ehrick Rossiter was known for his own whimsy, and even included a turret in this design. This cottage is a great reminder to leave the door open all summer long.Stephen Kent JohnsonThis former fishing shack in Provincetown proves that a sprawling garden can fit into a small space. From Windex yellow fox gloves to arching lavender, this is a bucolic slice of heaven. A classic shingled home, complete with flower boxes and a white picket fence, it has a deeply cottage-core sequence backstory. It was used as an artist studio for William Maynard until his death in 2016, and when it was sold, prospective buyers were asked to write why they wanted to live there.Rachael SmithWe love an indoor / outdoor cottage garden. Ideally, you have a branch that grows through a window, like this one in Suzie de Rohan Willner’s English Country Garden. It is a charming marriage of dynamics: English and French, contemporary and historical, and, of course just as eclectic as a cottage should be. Willner notes, “The whole house is a collection of things from each period of my and my husband’s lives. I love to pick up bibs and bobs and it all comes together very happily.”Chronicle / Alamy Stock PhotoKate Middleton’s Adelaide Cottage conjures images of an Arthurian fantasy. The Wales family made this their Windsor home since 2023. Built in 1831 for Queen Adelaide (the German-born wife of William IV, who was the Uncle of Queen Victoria). It went through a transformative renovation in 2015 which left the historical decorations in tact. Fun fact: the Wales family pay market rent for their use of the home.Photo 12//Getty ImagesThe poet, actor, and playwright Anne Hathaway’s famed cottage and accompanying garden must have inspired her husband’s plays (that would be Shakespeare). This might be what comes to mind when you think of a cottage garden. Now open to the public daily, it was originally built more than 500 years ago, and is the site of Hathaway’s own birth in 1556.CostcoThis Costco (yes, Costco!) shed turned cottage is an ideal backdrop for your cottage garden fantasy. If you’re feeling very DIY this year, start here. Priced at $6,499, it measures 12’ x 24’ feet, a perfect amount of space for your own summer hide away or gardening shed.Richard PowersThis glass house is a reminder that a cottage garden doesn’t have to follow a prescribed style. The Amagansett cottage, originally built in 1960, is a marvel of mid-century design, an aesthetic reflected in the mod-furniture choices. Again, we love a stylistic mix in an updated cottage. Japanese Maple Trees complete the woodsy vibe.© David Hockney, Photo By Jonathan WilkinsonDavid Hockney illustrated his own cottage garden during the Pandemic. His drawing is illustrative of the benefits of an English garden: a bit wild, extremely lush, and more green than anything else. If we could, we’d jump right into this scene like Mary Poppins on a rainy day.John M. Hall for ELLE DecorHere’s a rule of thumb: trust Ina Garten. This cottage-like structure, on the grounds of the East Hampton home Garten shares with her husband Jeffrey, is perennially perfect. Note, too, the green and purple color scheme here. This is perhaps the dream cottage garden and something of a childhood playhouse. It has just enough space for a cozy chat and is a reminder that you can build your own little cottage on a very small plot of land.Photo 12//Getty ImagesMarie Antoinette’s Hamlet on the grounds of Versailles still sets the standard for the cottage garden with a thatched roof, hedges, and roses straight out of a fairy tale. During the former French Queen’s reign, her hamlet was used as a faux farm house, where she and her young daughter, Princess Marie Thérèse, would dress as idealized versions of French peasant farmers and milk cows. The interior, though, of this modest cottage, is appropriately grand with silk furnishings and canopy beds.Douglas FriedmanA garden that proves succulents and cottages are a match made in heaven. This one, in Marin County, California, adds a bit of desert flair. On the other side of this cottage is a water way and a perfect little dock for launching paddle boards. We love how the greens liven up this side of the house and create a completely different, almost modern desert-like, aesthetic. As with any great cottage garden, there is a distinctly transportive factor.Michael CliffordA light wood sauna and cold plunge on the grounds of Jenni Kayne’s Hudson Valley farmhouse are hidden behind shrubbery for a sense of privacy against a wide open landscape. We love the idea of adding a spa-like ambiance to a cottage garden as well as finding inventive ways to use the space. This is exactly where we want to be in the summer!Getty ImagesThis is sort of cheating, but Bunny Williams is a necessary inclusion! Williams’s Oak Spring Garden in Upperville, Virginia continues to inspire garden and cottage enthusiasts the world over. Rather than one cottage, the grounds of Williams’s large estate feature a guest cottage and a basket house, both of which are charming in the extreme.Dorothy ScarboroughDorothy Scarborough (she/her) is the assistant to the Editor in Chief of Town & Country and Elle Decor.