Are Messages in Gaming Harming Us?

Yes, videogames can have messages in them too. Direct, indirect, tangential: read into it and it will be there (mostly when you project your own perception unto it). Like movies, books and dramas, video games can also have a moral message to tell us all, and arguably, it can be done better through this medium because of its inherent interactive nature--at least that’s what I believe.

I enjoy a good moral story every now and then, and occasionally I’ll come across one that will either have a lasting impression on my perception of the world before me, or it’ll utterly change me forever. It wasn’t even a few days ago, at the time of writing, that I watched the TV-film Threads (the British version), which is quite an eye-opener in and of itself, and I believe it was even more so for the people it aimed at back in the early 80s. The message of the story is that, had nuclear war happened back then, it would most probably have lead to X, Y and Z (which aren’t good things at all). It’s not a story for the faint of heart, but it definitely serves as a reminder of what could have happened, and thus has reinforced the impression within me that the “end-result” of nuclear war amounts to ash, radiation and utter Mutually Assured Destruction.

As I was processing the film’s information and images, I couldn't help but wonder if there are any videogames out there that may have a similar message, and I was surprised at the ones that popped into my head..

I believe video games can be more effective at delivering moral messages, because it’s the players who are forced to choose between moral or immoral acts, thus making the moral decision theirs. The inherent interactivity of videogames, I believe, makes moral messages more effective, because it’s unto the player in the end to initiate it. Reading a book or interpreting a movie doesn’t quite compare to enacting something yourself, even if it is in a virtual manner.

Sometimes it’s not even as ham-fisted as simply saying “press X to initiate ambiguous moral message to be interpreted in either way”. Sometimes a message can be more subtle or visually telling without actually being told, like in Anno 2070.

Like mostly everything else in the world, messages are interpretable by the perception and projection of the beholder, meaning that one message can have multiple meanings from person to person. Anno 2070 struck a particular chord with me because its underlying message of burning fossil fuels vs. renewable energy resources forces you to choose between balancing the two or going for one or the other. I’m pro-renewable energies, that I’ll freely admit, so tried my utmost to make sure my cities were as green as possible. 

Anno 2070 has this visual mechanic that shows how beneficial or detrimental you are to the local environment. The more beneficial you are, the more lush and green the environment looks. The more detrimental you are, the more desaturated and grey the environment looks. I didn't want everything to be greyed out, so when my environment got a little more grey and a little less green, I would endeavour to ensure I used as little fossil fuels as possible when I constructed my cities, and I didn’t utilise the convenience of having “tried and true” methods at my disposal, albeit sometimes there are occasions where I had no choice. I believe Anno 2070’s true underlying point is to somehow moderate between the two industries whilst weaning out the burning of fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy resources.

While Anno 2070 has its tangential message of moderating resource usage through visual effect, other games can indirectly express a message without showing you, but instead just telling you. Like human psychology and mental illness in The Cat Lady.

The Cat Lady is an exceptionally dark game. To tell you the truth, The Cat Lady struck a little too close to home for me, and I think it’s a game we should all at least watch a playthrough of, because of the content and messages that it deals with.

The Cat Lady tells the tale of Susan Ashworth, a woman suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies, who has been given immortality by her perception of whatever the “Devil” is, and is tasked to rid the world of “demons” (essentially inhuman people). As she tries to get a grip of reality again with her newfound powers, she befriends a young woman who wants to rent Susan’s spare room in her rather drab apartment.

During their bonding they begin to discuss the young woman’s boyfriend, who (in a nutshell) had taken his own life because he was influenced to by an internet troll. It was during this conversation as she was explaining the full story that I had my “oh, shit” moment. I had this moment because of how “to the point” it was and how comparable it was to real-life scenarios, things that happen--or will happen--today (like suicide), and just how upsetting it truly is to anyone affected by it.

The young woman went on to describe how internet trolls are people who thrive off the “thrill” of telling someone how much they suck, saying stuff like, “lol, go kill yourself,” or just generally being an absolute disgraceful pain in the arse. The game hints to the receiving end of that kind of abuse, telling you what such things can do to people who are mentally vulnerable, and when those unfortunate people do take their own lives as a way to escape the torment they suffer, because they can’t see an alternative at the time. It’s a shame--a real shame. The Cat Lady’s message, in this respect, is meant to serve as an eye-opener to just how damaging cyber-abuse can inflict on a person’s psyche.

The last game I’d like to use as an example is Spec Ops: The Line. Spec Ops expresses a message that I’ve never quite seen in video games before, and did so in quite an effective manner.

Those of you who have played Spec Ops may know where I'm going with this, but for those who don't, let me add a little context. You are the leader of a three-man squad sent to a desert storm-stricken Dubai in search of survivors. Throughout the game the main character is absolutely convinced that what he sees is real, slipping further into delusion and presses onward to find some answers to explain what went on in Dubai.

Eventually you are introduced to the weapon white phosphorus, and the tone and eerie silence in that scene communicates just how devastating this stuff is as you walk past the burning, groaning bodies in a haze of white and ash. Further down the line the main character progressively becomes less composed and less in control of the situation. Despite having a conscience on his shoulder via one of his squadmates, he presses onwards, further damning himself and his squad.

Near the end of the game, the squad comes to a point where there’s just an establishment of “enemies” between you and your destination, but you don’t have enough ammo to take them all out (I tried). The main character notices a cannon loaded with white phosphorus and decides to use it, despite the objections from the other squadmate serving as the conscience for that scene.

The aftermath of that sequence was...eerie. Very eerie. What made it really sink in for me was when I discovered that the soldiers you just burned were actually on my side, and in a small shelter, just around the corner. I see the burnt, charred remains of the survivors I had been searching for from the start, all of them captured in morbid effigies of the people who were struggling to escape the white-hot barrage as it bombarded them only moments before.

Never have videogames left me with a sinking feeling quite like I experienced when I saw that scene, at least not in recent memory. The message of that scene in particular displays a real ugliness of conflict, and gives a glimpse to what the horrors and miscommunications of war can lead to: a soldier trying to rationalize the situation when all there is to rationalize is that they’ve just needlessly and mistakenly taken innocent lives.

Yes, games were originally designed for fun. Yes, games were originally designed for escapism. However, I believe that the medium is a much more powerful platform, one where you can be put right into the boots of those who face situations and scenarios similar to those mentioned above. Message in video games, I believe, have more of an impact on us, because we are the ones interacting with whatever message the game is trying to tell us. We are the ones making it happen, whether it be of our own volition or not is a matter of narrative. It’s messages like these that can teach us, give us insight, and ultimately--maybe--open our eyes a little bit more, even if it’s just the seed of thought, like those who watched Threads back in ‘84 and turned anti-nuclear war practically overnight. We all need a good moral story every now and then.

Source: http://dispatches.cheatcc.com

The Elder Scrolls, The Elder Scrolls Online Release Date

The Elder Scrolls Online - Zenimax's MMO based in The Elder Scrolls universe - is set to release on April 4th, 2014 for the PC and Mac, Bethesda has announced. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game are expected to launch two months later, in June.

Bethesda also released a new trailer for the game, which showcases the game's PvP system.

This is From QuakeCon

Intro

Some of the most Underrated Games Of 2013

From SimCity To DMC: The Most Underrated Games Of 2013

At this stage of the calendar year, with the transition to new hardware and the current onslaught of software, it’s easy to get swept up in the annual gaming maelstrom. ’Tis the season, after all. Having said that, although this year may not signal the curtain call for the seventh generation of consoles per se — with Dark Souls II et al slated to release in 2014 — 2013 will still go down as a notable twelve months for the industry at large. Amid the build-up to the next cycle of home consoles, we’ve explored the xenophobic heights of Columbia in BioShock: Infinite, traversed a post-apocalyptic wasteland in The Last of Us, and took control of a criminal trifecta within Grand Theft Auto V. Undoubtedly, this pixelated trio stole much of the industry limelight during the course of the year, garnering overly positive approval from critics and gamers alike.

In the current climate, however, it seems a video game can either sweep the critical board like the aforementioned threesome with close to unanimous approval, or, more alarmingly, fall off the radar due to good, but not quite excellent ratings. These are the games that perhaps didn’t light up the Metacritic rating system upon launch and were instead forced to carve out a niche audience despite their innate quality. It’s a palpable issue; one which directly handicaps the staying power and overall longevity of any given release. Ultimately, though, it usually comes down to a lack of media coverage or advertising; particularly with smaller companies tethered with appropriately limited budgets.

As a result, these titles can become lost amongst the crowd; flash in the pan moments that sell moderately before nosediving down the chart rankings. Of course, this happens within every gaming year. For every critical darling like 2012’s The Walking Dead there exists the under-appreciated titles such as United Front Games’ Sleeping Dogs. It’s simply the nature of the medium; or any creative platform, for that matter. What strikes a chord with the majority of gamers may not appeal to certain demographics and vice versa. But, crucially, this enthusiasm, or lack thereof, doesn’t necessarily represent the quality of the software. The titles in question can fall victim to tumultuous launch windows, passionate fan bases or general franchise fatigue that can undermine their overall impact on the gaming community.

Undoubtedly, there have been several surprises this year: Crystal Dynamics’ bold visualisation of the Tomb Raider franchise, for instance, along with the revitalised Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which steered the once ailing MMO back on course expertly. Nevertheless, given the spectrum between triple-A titles and the thriving indie community — which has seemingly widened with each passing year — there are numerous games from the last twelve months that weren’t quite given the attention they deserved.

With that said, let’s uncover the hidden, critically underrated gems of 2013

SimCity

Well, where do we start? Like Diablo III before it, SimCity launched head first into an array of DRM-related issues that were a consequence of the game’s always-online requirement. In the months leading up to release, Maxis seemed to have laid every rocksteady foundation imaginable prior to the return of the franchise after a ten year hiatus and yet, much to the disappointment of the fans, the game was borderline unplayable during its early stages on the market. Like a burst water main that couldn’t be tamed, the online outage spanned for days on end and, without an offline mode to compensate, gamers were understandably pissed.

To put things into perspective, SimCity currently boasts close to 1,700 negative user reviews on Metacritic. It was an unparalleled backlash that has stigmatised the game since day one; a dark cloud that will forever loom overhead the towering skyscrapers of Maxis’ city-building simulator. It’s a shame, really, that the much-anticipated reboot of the studio’s prestigious franchise was handicapped by the always-online DRM. While it may have been originally implemented to combat piracy, it effectively tainted the return of SimCity and ruined a potentially excellent release; heck, before it launched, there were premature talks that this title could be a candidate for Game of the Year. Oh, how things change.

At the core of the buzzing metropolis, though, is an addicting, complex title that implements interconnectivity between cities masterfully. When it’s fully functional, and you manage to access the game’s temperamental servers, SimCity excels at presenting the complex minutia of your budding cityscape. Core systems such as power supply and traffic are easy to coordinate and manage for weathered architects and newcomers alike thanks to the intelligent AI. But perhaps the most impressive cog in SimCity’s multi-faceted system is the Glassbox game engine. The company’s in-house simulation engine acts as the foundation for the game and allows for an incredible amount of detail across the four corners of your urban environment. The fact that every individual sim can be accounted for and tracked, even as your population balloons past 75,000, is a testimony to Glassbox’s innate capability.

The recently released Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack proves that there’s still a healthy audience for Maxis’ simulator. Granted, it may forever be tarnished with those initial launch woes and server outages, but SimCity is still a remarkable time-sink that is accessible yet challenging, simple yet complex; one which can stand shoulder to pixelated shoulder with the other great offerings that the RTS genre has to offer.

Metro: Last Light

As one of the victims of THQ’s financial fallout last year, Metro: Last Light had to overcome several hurdles in the lead up to its eventual release; including considerable delays and alleged controversy over the game’s budget. This tumultuous development had a residual impact on the final product, with the studio opting to bypass multiplayer and cooperative modes, choosing instead to pour all of the resources available into the game’s single-player — and quite frankly, it shows.

Though they’re considered a mandatory add on, single-player campaigns within modern first-person shooters are often the weakest point of the overall product; undercooked narratives that are shoehorned in purely to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Metro: Last Light, however, is a commendable exception. 4A Games’ immediate sequel to Metro 2033 continues the unforgivingly bleak storyline with great effect. Similarly to its predecessor, players assume the role of Artyom, a grizzled ranger who harbours a lifelong connection with the Dark Ones — mutated humanoids that act as the overarching villains.

Metro: Last Light is a strictly linear foray; one that has you exploring the bowels of Moscow’s sprawling metro system. Having said that, this concentrated formula doesn’t detract from the overall experience. What gives the game its distinctive sense of novelty is the palpable sense of atmosphere that the studio have melded into every nook and post apocalyptic cranny in the surrounding environment. The game wasn’t necessarily poorly received. Its primary flaws included uneven gameplay and numerous technical glitches — which I wholly concur with. Outside of critical circles, though, it felt as if the game was underserved through lacklustre advertising and its conscious choice to omit multiplayer and co-op modes, which in turn impacted its innate appeal for gamers who took it at face value.

Hype can be a cruel mistress. For a game that remains loyal to a single-player story, touching upon emotional, humanitarian themes with interesting precision in the process, Metro: Last Light deserved a greater shot at a mainstream audience. And though 4A Games plan to bring the title to the PlayStation 4 next year, its latest outing will remain as one of the most underrated games of 2013.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

Survival horror seems to be witnessing a mini resurgence of late. Mind you, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the genre’s lodestones — established brands such as Silent Hill andResident Evil — have failed to deliver in their recent outings. Nevertheless, with notable titles such as The Evil Within and Among The Sleep slated for next year and 2013 heralding spine-chilling releases such as Outlast — which, incidentally, will rear its otherworldly head on PS4 in early 2014 — and, crucially, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, I can assure you the horror genre is very much alive and kicking.

At the core of its dark and twisted DNA, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a survival horror game, and the spiritual successor to 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent. As a timid adventurer prodding in the darkness, players assume the role of Oswald Mundus, a forgetful father who must search for his wayward children as the 19th Century looms to an end. And that’s when things begin to go awry. The narrative heart of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is borderline Lovecraftian; from stylistic tendencies to the perpetual sense of dread, the point-and-click adventure evokes many of the tropes from the American author’s work.

Taking place in London at the height of the industrial age, the game recreates the Victorian setting with chilling accuracy — largely thanks to the stellar and indeed hair-raising sound design, which really reverberates through your nervous system when the Manpigs begin to wail. In truth, much of the story is uncovered through journal entries, but it’s within these fevered scribblings that the game’s narrative manifests itself. Though some titles lean on this mechanic as a bankable platform for superfluous exposition, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigsuses them to great effect as you piece together Oswald’s fragmented memory.

Where Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs stumbled for most, though, was in its final delivery. Not only did the eventual scares undermine the tension that preceded them, the story can indeed become muddled as you weave your way through the hellish, subterranean factory. Still, with The Chinese Room taking the developing reins — in lieu of Frictional Games, who developed the predecessor — Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bona fide horror game; one which recognises that subtlety is the sharpest tool in its gnarled and twisted toolbox, kicking action-orientated elements to the kerb.

DMC

When Ninja Theory’s bold and radical reimagining of the Devil May Cry franchise was announced at Tokyo Game Show back in 2010, it ruffled more than a few demonic feathers. Long-time fans of Capcom’s hack-and-slash series cried out in anger over the modern interpretation of Dante, the game’s protagonist, criticising the sudden departure from the pearly white hair and the decision to introduce a younger Son of Sparda. For the first time, aDevil May Cry title was being manufactured by a British developer, and as the gun-toting demon slayer came West, Ninja Theory crafted the all-new Dante with a particular coat of sardonic paint.

Granted, the story may have been a little trite, and some missions felt like they were spliced in to meet the series’ signature twenty level structure — the level where you navigate the human world alongside Kat as a spectre, for instance. Nevertheless, DMC’s core campaign was fun, challenging and dripping with style. As you’d expect from any Devil May Cry release, dialogue and set-pieces are incredibly sarcastic and Ninja Theory excelled in their handling of the franchise’s legacy. The relationship between the characters, for example, felt genuine thanks in large part to the impressive voice acting which, coupled with the game’s modern, electronic score, brings the darkly satirical Limbo City to life brilliantly.

Perhaps the lynchpin of DMC, though, is the game’s combat system. Ninja Theory may have fine-tuned the fighting mechanic to make things more accessible on the surface — the simplified ranking system and overpowered demon weapons in particular — but there’s still a lot of depth to the familiar system. Much like Devil May Cry 4, switching between weaponry on the fly is deliriously empowering, and bludgeoning hell spawns with angelic and demonic weapons seamlessly as you grapple with airborne enemies is a hyperkinetic thrill ride.

Also, it drops F-bombs flippantly and pokes fun at fanboys while managing to comment on modern society with its tongue firmly in cheek. In fact, from the moment you pick up the controller, it feels like DMC has had one too many cans of Virility. And while Devil May Cry 3remains as the pinnacle entry in Capcom’s series in my book, Ninja Theory’s fiery reboot explored a lot of the franchise’s finer details and brought a pragmatic approach to characterisation that, up until this point, wasn’t necessarily considered.

Dragon’s Crown

In the build-up to release, Dragon’s Crown had a staggering weight on its shoulders. Not only did it represent Vanillaware’s most expensive project to date — a reported ¥100 million, or approximately $1 million — but the beat-em-up title has been lingering in development for thirteen years, a time which forced Ignition Entertainment to pass on the developing duties to Atlus. After this lengthy incubation period, Dragon’s Crown launched exclusively for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, and though it received generally favourable reviews, it perhaps deserved a little more praise for reintroducing a very dormant genre.

Like all categories in gaming, the 2D beat-em-up has experienced its fair share of peaks and troughs; although with the mass-market push towards 3D adventure games of late, the genre’s legacy has filtered into hack and slash properties such as God of War and the aforementionedDevil May Cry. Nevertheless, Dragon’s Crown harnesses the old school sensibilities found in games such as Guardian Heroes and Odin Sphere — which, incidentally, was also developed by Vanillaware — to deliver a truly modern, hyper-stylised, beat-em-up title.

Often when two genres are merged, the results can be somewhat lacklustre. But Dragon’s Crown skates past that pitfall stylishly, implementing some highly addicting character progression choices alongside a randomised, Diablo-esque loot system. For the game, your side-scrolling begins in the realm of Hydeland, wherein you must take up arms as one of the game’s six classes — namely The Dwarf, Elf, Sorceress, Fighter, Wizard and Amazon — to reclaim the titular Dragon’s Crown and restore the calm.

Truthfully, the narrative through line feels a little generic, and the fact that there are only eight dungeons to fully explore is a little disappointing, particularly when visiting the locales for the second, third and fifteenth play-through. Having said that, the combat system in Dragon’s Crown is complex and rewarding. It’s so grounded in conventions that it will feel intuitive to any RPG fan from the get-go. And though the game drew criticism for its female character models — with the Sorceress drawing particular attention — Dragon’s Crown is an eye-catching title that offers style, substance and replayability in spades.

Dead Space 3

They say bad things come in threes, and there is perhaps no other gaming protagonist who could attest to this motto more-so than Isaac Clarke; Dead Space’s very own engineer-cum-monster hunter. Picking up the dismembered threads of its predecessor, Dead Space 3 takes place largely on Tau Volantis; an abandoned ice planet that’s been overrun by nasty necromorphs — go figure. For the game, players are tasked with recovering a wayward, 200-year old codex to unearth the planet’s mysteries, all the while trying to trace Ellie’s SOS signal — Isaac’s love interest from the second game — amidst the unforgiving terrain (imagine Hoth, but overrun with reanimated corpses).

Dead Space 3 also marks the introduction of several new features for the series, including cooperative play and pesky human enemies in the form of Unitologists. One of the standout features of the game, however, is the way in which the harsh environment filters into the gameplay. Visceral Games haven’t simply transposed our world-weary hero to a new locale for the sake of it. From thick blizzards obscuring your field of view to the way your body temperature plummets when exposed to the elements, it’s almost as if you can feel the icy cold air creep down your spine from the other end of the screen.

In gaming, threequels have been a historically difficult feat to pull off. For the third release, it’s quite often the case that an intellectual property begins to either stutter due to repetition — Batman: Arkham Origins, for example — or, in a bid to keep things fresh, implement a new feature that inevitably dilutes the core heritage. Alas, Dead Space 3 is a slightly less linear foray than its ancestors, and though it may not be — whisper it — as scary or unnerving as the first two titles, there’s still plenty of moments in the game when you realise that playing alone in the dark probably wasn’t the best strategy.

Over the years, Visceral Games’ interstellar property has established a sense of legacy through its interesting, quasi-religious story and signature, horrific aesthetic. And though I would tend to agree that the series has become more action-orientated with each iteration, diluting the sense of tension in favour of blockbuster set-pieces, there’s still an innate gravitas to Isaac Clarke’s space-traversing odyssey that lends Dead Space 3 the benefit of the doubt.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why Splinter Cell: Blacklist — the latest in Tom Clancy’s long-running, espionage franchise — fell off the community’s green-tinted radar so soon after launch. Though Ubisoft made the decision to pass over Michael Ironside’s signature night vision googles to newcomer Eric Johnson — the Canadian actor who assumed the role of Sam Fisher’s voice and performance capture — Blacklist picked up the narrative reins from its immediate predecessor, Splinter Cell: Conviction, with style.

The sixth installment brings back several much-loved features from previous titles. Not only does Splinter Cell: Blacklist include the ‘stealth-only’ option for the game’s campaign, but, after a seven year hiatus, Spies vs. Mercs returned for the multiplayer component; which brings its interesting blend of first-person and third-person perspectives to the tactical playing field. In terms of story, the United States comes under threat from a terrorist organisation called ‘The Engineers,’ prompting Fisher to lead the Fourth Echelon against the group in order to protect the Blacklist – a list of US assets that act as the plot’s MacGuffin.

With 14 unique co-op assignments to complete and four different mission types available,Splinter Cell: Blacklist isn’t exactly short of content. Granted, there were several technical issues during its early days on the market — which, for me, materialised in the form of freezing issues on the PlayStation 3 — and though the core campaign wasn’t anything to write home about, the latest entry into Tom Clancy’s prestigious series has the production values of the biggest triple-A title with the intelligence to match.

Tell us, were there any games from the last twelve months that you felt didn’t receive the critical praise they so deserved? If so, be sure to drop your thoughts in the comments section below.

Source: http://wegotthiscovered.com

Sci-Fi Comes to the Kitchen With Foodini 3D Food Printer

Set phasers to yum.

It seems like pretty much every week a new innovation in 3D printing is announced, only to disappear without a trace. Hidden amongst these flash in a pan innovations is this (presumably Star Trek–inspired) food printer from Barcelona-based startup Natural Machines.

Called the Foodini, the device features six capsules of different liquid food types, which it combines to create a number of prepared foods. The prototype is still in the early stages of development, but once completed could theoretically create a huge variety of dishes, including pasta, bread, pastries and chocolates.

The creators are quick to point out that the Foodini does not cook food—it merely prepares the raw materials so you can cook them more easily. In other words, it can get your dough ready, but it can't bake the bread.

[Image Credit: Natural Machines]

Although in edibles created by this device would be the very definition of "processed food," Natural Machines is hoping that the Foodini will be a hit with foodies. The company envisions a future where owners could purchase their ingredient capsules from speciality food stores. Additionally, the Foodini is WiFi-enabled, so users could download recipes from other users and professional chefs. The finished device should also prove a boon to calorie-counters and those with specific dietary requirements.

The device could have further commercial applications beyond the home. Natural Machines hopes to market the printer to the food service industry as a automated alternative to line chefs. Yep, your next restaurant meal could be partially prepared by robots. Welcome to the future.

Question of the day, would you eat it?

Via: Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine

http://refrigerators.reviewed.com/news/sci-fi-comes-to-kitchen-foodini-3d-food-printer?utm_source=MyLikes&utm_medium=PPC-intoff

5 Pokemon Status Updates

Lindsay Lohan allegedly plans to sue Rockstar Games for ‘GTA V’ likeness

Lindsay Lohan’s lawyers are reportedly preparing to file a lawsuit against Rockstar Games for the unauthorized use of the bad girl celeb’s likeness in Grand Theft Auto V, according to TMZ. The allegations seem to stem from three specific, unrelated elements in the game: a bikini-clad woman holding a cellphone on the game’s cover; a random event mission in which you help Los Santos celebutard Lacey Jonas get back home while avoiding paparazzi; and a pair of Strangers and Freaks missions involving Poppy Mitchell, (a returning character from the Grand Theft Auto IV DLC The Ballad of Gay Tony) in which you must snap photos of another local celebutard having sex in the Los Santos take on Chateau Marmont, where Lohan used to live, then later chasing her as she flees from police while driving drunk.

There’s been no official word on Lohan’s alleged plans to file a lawsuit, and our request for comment from Rockstar was greeted with silence. It’s not even clear if the examples cited above are specifically targeted in the as-yet-unfiled lawsuit or if they’re simply being held up as speculation on TMZ’s part. Rockstar boss and GTA V writer Dan Houser has publicly stated in the past that GTA V skipped using real world celebrities in the game for a range of reasons. 

Perhaps Lohan is trying to build a case that she’s got the monopoly on ridiculous celebrity behavior, and so all examples in the game of famous, young women doing terrible things all fall into her wheelhouse. More likely, there’s some specific instance or set of instances that Lohan’s legal counsel intends to zero in on. From a non-lawyer’s lay perspective, it seems like these will be tough allegations to prove, given that there’s no character in the game bearing Lohan’s name, and no behavior or talk that specifically references any of her past antics.

And hey, while TMZ does tend to have solid sources that give accurate news, it’s also possible that this report is either untrue or lacking some important context. Whatever the reality is, we’ll hear about it soon enough if any kind of legal action is to move forward. 

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/lindsay-lohan-allegedly-intends-sue-rockstar-games-likeness-infringement-gta-v/#ixzz2ms2qhli7 

5 GREATEST KNOCKOFF CHARACTERS IN COMICS

One of the most accepted truisms in super-hero comics is that there’s not a whole lot of new stuff to be found underneath Earth’s yellow sun. With seventy years of heroes, villains, selfless acts and dastardly schemes, plenty of creators have come up with bold new ideas, only to find out that they were done years ago. Probably by Jack Kirby.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the fun of super-hero comics comes from taking those old elements and seeing a new spin on them. Whether they’re obvious and intentional stand-ins — like The Authority‘s Apollo and Midnighter as Superman-and-Batman — or creations that try to slip by unnoticed, there are plenty of bootleg versions of super-heroes out there, and some of them actually become great in their own right. And those are the characters we’re spotlighting today with a look at The Top Five Greatest Knockoff Characters In Comics!

The Original: DC’s Darkseid

The Tipoff: One’s a gigantic evil godlike being with distinctly rough facial features who lives in space with other “gods” and seeks to dominate the universe in pursuit of the opposite of life, and the other’s… well, you get the idea.

Back in 1973, Jim Starlin was given the chance to write an issue of Iron Man for Marvel, and he decided that was as good an opportunity as any to introduce a set of characters he’d come up with during a collegepsychology course. The characters were based on two competing mental concepts that should be familiar to anyone who caught their appearance on The Venture Brothers, and while Eros (named for the sex drive) would take up the name “Starfox” and go on to become the creepiest Avenger, his brother Thanos (shortened from “Thanatos,” the self-destructive “death drive”) entered the Marvel Universe as a universe-conquering bad guy who bore a striking resemblance to DC’s Darkseid, created by Jack Kirby three years earlier.

“Uxas of Apokolips… You are the father!”

It’s not like they’re exactly the same, though. I mean, Darkseid has a miniskirt and Thanos has a shiny golden codpiece. And Thanos is totally into death, while Darkseid is into anti-life! See? Completely different!

Okay, okay, they’ve got a lot in common. But that wasn’t the original plan. While Starlin cops to the fact that Thanos and the rest of the folks on Titan were inspired by the mythology Kirby was building with his New Gods, he also says that his original idea of Thanos was more along the lines of the knowledge-seeking Metron, right down to cruising through space in a chair. The connection between the two was only made when editor Roy Thomas told Starlin to give Thanos a more powerful build, suggesting “If you’re going to steal one of the New Gods, at least rip off Darkseid, the really good one!”

With that in place, Thanos pretty much grew into the role, right down to holding a similar position as a cosmic-level tough-guy, something that Kurt Busiek and George Perez referenced in their JLA/Avengerscrossover, when Darkseid got his hands on Thanos’s signature galaxy-dominating weapon, the Infinity Gauntlet, and decided it just wasn’t for him:

“Also, the whole ‘one glove’ thing is a little Michael Jackson.”

But it doesn’t stop there. In 1980, Starlin would co-create Mongul with Len Wein, a character that’s often treated as DC’s version of Thanos, who was Marvel’s version of Darkseid. Throw in the Modern Age verison of Despero, and we might actually be dealing with a great-grand-knockoff.

The Original: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Tipoff: Soldiers with super-technological weapons waging a kinda-secret battle against an organization that, for some reason, is always capitalized, and is involved in increasingly ridiculous plots of world domination.

G.I. Joe is, of course, the codename for America’s daring, highly-trained special missions force whose purpose is to defend human freedom against COBRA, a terrorist organization determined to rule the world. I mean, c’mon, everybody knows that, right? But before they were the subject of a cartoon and toy line reviving Hasbro’s Kung-Fu-Gripping bearded action dolls, the Joes were actually meant for the Marvel Universe.

When Larry Hama created Hawk, Scarlett and Snake-Eyes, his original intent was to provide Marvel with the next generation of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. called the Fury Force. Instead of Hawk, the team would’ve been led by Nick Fury’s kid, and rather than COBRA’s attempts to steal Alaska, employ mind-control perfume or take over the fast food industry with nuclear missiles, their opponents were slated to be the slightly scarier neo-Nazis of a resurrected HYDRA:

Comics’ two greatest braided shoulder-rope enthusiasts.

Marvel passed, but Hama used the premise to provide the storyline for Hasbro’s relaunched line of Joe toys, and ended up writing the accompanying comic at Marvel for over 150 issues, although tying into a toy line meant that there were definitely some changes to the original concept. William “The Refrigerator” Perry, for instance, does not exist in Marvel continuity. Seriously. Check the handbooks.

The Original: Deathstroke the Terminator

The Tipoff: Slade Wilson, meet Wade Wilson. You two have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.

Okay, so after a military experiment ends up giving him super-human abilities that can be put to good use stabbing and/or shooting super-heroes, a man named Wilson goes rogue and becomes one of the world’s top mercenaries, taking down his targets with an inexplicable (and inefficient) fondness for swords.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a pretty solid description of both Marvel’s Deadpool and the genuine article he was created in response to: Deathstroke the Terminator.

Two dudes who are definitely not compensating for anything. No sir.

The fact that Deadpool’s a knockoff of the Stroke (as I like to call him) has never really been what you’d call a secret, because really, when you give a guy a name that rhymes with another character’s, you might as well give him a sign to carry around. Frankly, I’m surprised that DC didn’t respond by having Batman slap around a crooked circus strongman called Beater Barker.

The comparison was even directly acknowledged in 2006′s Superman/Batman Annual #1, when the World’s Finest faced off against a guy identified as a verison of Deathstroke from an alternate universe:

That story was, of course, written by Joe Kelly, the writer who is also largely responsible for transforming Deadpool from being a generic mutant mercenary to the successful parody he would eventually become.

Deathstroke, meanwhile, continues to parody himself purely by accident.

The Original: Mr. Tawky Tawny

The Tipoff: The hair, the jacket, the tie and the best friend.

Thanks to panels like the one above, I’m of the firm belief that Jimmy Olsen is the single greatest character of the Silver Age, but even he is standing on the shoulders of giants. Or, at the very least, on the shoulders of a talking tiger, because when you get right down to it, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen is just an update of Captain Marvel’s Pal, Mr. Tawky Tawny.

Introduced in 1947′s Captain Marvel Adventures #79, Tawny blazed the trail that Jimmy Olsen would walk down in the ’50s and ’60s. Not only do the two characters have the same distinctive orange hair, matching checked jackets in various shades of green and brown and a penchant for neckwear, but they were both trouble-magnet sidekicks for incredibly powerful super-heroes, who were themselves considered knockoffs of each other:

Friendship was a pretty different concept 50 years ago.

The most telling trait, though, comes from the presence of writer Otto Binder, Tawny’s creator and the writer most associated with Captain Marvel’s Golden Age adventures. While Jimmy Olsen was originally created for the Superman radio show, it wasn’t until the comics that he became the iconic representation of Silver Age madness that we all know and love. So who’d they get to write those comics? Otto Binder, who produced multiple stories for over fifty issues of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Seriously, that dude was way into checked jackets.

And amazingly, despite the fact that DC owns them both, these dudes do not hang out with each other. What gives, DC?

The Original: Spider-Man

The Tipoff: Don’t those villains seem awfully familiar?

Batman Beyond, in which a cranky old Bruce Wayne mentors a young successor in a future of flying cars and truly hilarious dance clubs is one of the greatest premises of all time. Seriously, there are like 9 things I love in that sentence. But when it came time to flesh out the details of the next generation of bat-themed vigilantes, the creators borrowed an awful lot from the story of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man.

Admittedly, the basic premise of a teenager fighting crime and maintaining a secret identity in high school and juggling crime fighting and girl trouble is a solid start for any number of young super-heroes, and even if Spider-Man popularized that gimmick, you can hardly say that it really belongs to him. But then you get to the villains, and you find out that Terry McGinnis’s arch-nemesis is an evil industrialist who turns into a murderous green super-villain.

Where does a radioactive skeleton shop for double-breasted futuresuits, anyway?

And then you find out that he fought a sinister big game hunter who came to his city in order to prove himself against a different class of prey.

I have honestly never been able to figure out if Kraven’s jacket is meant to be made from an actual lion’s face. I really hope not, because that is gross as hell.

And then you find out that he also fights a criminal bonded to a strange black shape-shifting skin.

They really got to the point where they didn’t even want to hide it anymore, didn’t they?

And then… well, you get the idea. But like everything else on this list, it worked out. I mean, c’mon: Spider-Man being mentored by Batman? How awesome is that?