Ronald.phillips

There's a movie all about Jared Leto in space, and barely anyone's watched it.

A new zero-day vulnerability has been disclosed in Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect VPN that could be abused by an unauthenticated network-based attacker to execute arbitrary code on affected devices with root user privileges. Tracked as CVE-2021-3064 (CVSS score: 9.8), the security weakness impacts PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 8.1.17. Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Randori

Bethesda has just released the Anniversary Edition Update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. This Update is 5.3GB in size, and adds four new Content Club DLCs. Additionally, this update brings some performance optimizations, although it may also break compatibility with numerous mods. Going into more details, the four free Content Club DLCs … Continue reading The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition Update 1.6 is 5.3GB, full patch notes →

The post The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition Update 1.6 is 5.3GB, full patch notes appeared first on DSOGaming.

After GPUs, SSDs, it looks like its CPUs turn to become another profitable solution for Crypto Mining operations. A new mining algorithm known as Raptoreum has been introduced which makes use of the large L3 caches on AMD's Ryzen desktop CPUs to earn that sweet crypto cash.

AMD Ryzen CPUs Are Now Being Used For Crypto Mining Thanks To Their Large L3 Caches

The Raptoreum mining algorithm is designed to utilize large L3 caches found on modern CPUs. It looks like this mining algorithm will work best with AMD's Ryzen and Threadripper lineup since it offers the largest L3 cache sizes. In a report by BitCoin Press, it is reported that miners are running large crypto operations comprising of several hundred AMD Ryzen CPU-powered systems to earn that Raptoreum cash.

Talking about Raptoreum itself, it is based on the GhostRider mining algorithm to keep Raptoreum blockchain network clean from ASICs The GhostRider algorithm makes use of a modified x16r and Cryptonite algorithm that utilizes the CPU L3 cache for mining. As such, AMD CPUs are going to be the preferred choice owing to their large L3 cache sizes. CPUs such as the older Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 9 3900X offer up to 64 MB of L3 cache whereas AMD's Threadripper and EPYC lineup scales up to 128 and 256 MB of L3 cache based on the configuration.

As for the mining rate, the AMD Ryzen 9 3900 can offer up to 4600 H/s in Raptoreum without any optimizations. The Ryzen 9 5950X which is the successor to the Ryzen 9 3950X can offer up to 6800 H/s but based on pricing alone, the newer CPUs aren't as profitable as their older counterparts. The Intel Core i9-12900K also got an increased cache to 30 MB and can offer up to 3700 H/s in the algo. For profitability, YouTuber, Raid Mining explains how he can get ROI for six Ryzen 9 3900X and two Ryzen 9 3950X mining systems in 284 days. That's almost $31 US per day of profit.

To put things into perspective, a Ryzen 9 5950X can deliver up to 205 Raptoreum per day while the Ryzen 9 5900X can deliver up to 175 Raptoreum per day. Based on energy costs and profitability, a Ryzen 9 5950X can net you up to $4-$5 US per day while the Ryzen 9 5900X can net you almost $3.5 US per day. The bigger the cache, the higher the profits so that will mean bad news for EPYC Milan-X chips that will rock an insane 768 MB of L3 cache per chip. You can see the money you make with AMD CPUs through the profitability calculator here.

In a separate video discovered by El Chapuzas Informatico, a large-scale Raptoreum CPU mining operation can be seen which is running 28 Ryzen 9 Desktop CPUs. The other specs are modest at best since the algorithm relies purely on the L3 cache and not the individual specs of the PC.

The Raptoreum Mining efficiency and profitability have been listed down in a detailed document by the developers of the algorithm in the following docs sheet.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU Raptoreum Mining Algorithm Profitability:

AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop CPU Raptoreum Mining Algorithm Profitability:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper & EPYC CPU Raptoreum Mining Algorithm Profitability:

We have seen with Ethereum and more recently, Chia, that these new algorithms can cause minor and temporary shortages for hardware components. The AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU supply just got a bit better but if Raptoreum kicks off and we see a jump in its value, then there's a possible chance that the chips will be consumed by the mining ecosystem specific to this algorithm.

Furthermore, AMD is expected to launch its Vermeer-X Ryzen CPUs with 3D V-cache which will offer nearly triple the L3 cache so there's a chance that Raptoreum miners will be going for those chips and at launch, a temporary shortage can be produced. That remains to be seen but what we know is that now even CPUs aren't safe from large-scale mining operations.

The post New Raptoreum Crypto Mining Algorithm Turns AMD Ryzen CPUs With Huge L3 Caches In To Money Making Machines by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

The post Kamikaze – Review [HBO Max] appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

New Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition frame rate tests have been shared online, detailing how the three remasters run on PlayStation 5.

The three videos, which have been shared by TeMkA169 on YouTube, highlight how all three games do have performance issues on PlayStation 5, failing to keep a steady 60 FPS framerate in a lot of different scenarios. Grand Theft Auto III seems to have the worst performance out of the three, but the two other games have issues as well.

It's a shame that Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition does seem to perform badly on PlayStation 5, as these are the only versions of the game available for purchase on Sony consoles. On paper, these new remasters offered the definitive Grand Theft Auto experience, but it looks like this will not be true, at least at launch.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition introduces wide-ranging modern control upgrades, including improvements to targeting and lock-on aiming, updated Weapon and Radio Station Wheels, updated Mini-Maps with enhanced navigation allowing players to set waypoints to destinations, updated Achievements, Trophies, and more. The Nintendo Switch version also features Switch-specific controls including Gyro aiming, as well as touch screen camera zooming, pans, and menu selections, while the PC version includes support for NVIDIA DLSS and additional new Accomplishments via the Rockstar Games Social Club.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition launches today on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – the Definitive Edition Frame Rate Test Videos Highlight Performance Issues on PlayStation 5 by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.

WccfTech reports that Skyrim: Anniversary Edition is out, and that there is a free update to the Special Edition as well. Skyrim Anniversary Edition Out Now; Free Update Weighs 5.3GB on PC Today is the tenth anniversary of the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, arguably one of the most influential roleplaying games ever made, and Bethesda is celebrating it with the launch of Skyrim Anniversary Edition....

Ahead of Skyrim Anniversary Edition's launch, a developer behind a vital modding tool warned that the release might also break mods for Skyrim Special Edition, badly. Well, Skyrim Anniversary Edition is out now, and as expected it has broken many mods. But, good news: the person who warned of this is making better progress on fixes than expected.

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Skyrim's amazing run in the game charts hits the decade mark. "The popularity just didn't wane," Bethesda's Todd Howard tells Keza MacDonald.

Skyrim nevertheless became one of the most widely played games ever, a touchstone in the video game world, for players and developers alike.

— Read the rest

It was inevitable that there would be a new "Home Alone" movie. Years after the Walt Disney Company purchased 20th Century Fox in the hopes of, at the very least, mining its intellectual property for all it's worth, the "Home Alone" franchise is one of Fox's crown jewels. Deservedly or not, the series (though let's be honest, it's really just the first two movies) is seen as a holiday standby, and Disney never saw a franchise it couldn't extend just a little bit further. And so we have the new Disney+ original film, "Home Sweet Home Alone," which ostensibly has the same premise as the 1990 original, but subverts the premise in ways that end up making it almost perversely enjoyable.

In short, "Home Sweet Home Alone" asks this question to establish its own premise: what if the thieves were the good guys? The story begins with Pam and Jeff (Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney), a happily married couple in Illinois who are struggling with financial hardship. Though Pam works as a teacher, Jeff's been out of work for a few months and unfortunately, it looks like they'll have to sell their house, the one where they raised their two kids. That is, until a visitor at an open-house event being thrown by their realtor (Kenan Thompson) points out that Jeff's mother's old dolls might be worth some money, and by "some money", I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's a great turn of events, until the doll vanishes and both Pam and Jeff believe it's been stolen by a neighborhood brat.

It is here you may wonder, "Isn't the point of a 'Home Alone' movie that a kid is left alone at home by his family?" And yes, that's where we should bring in the neighborhood brat, an English boy named Max (Archie Yates). It's his mother who happens to point out to Jeff that the dolls could be priceless collectibles, and it's he who Jeff and Pam believe stole the doll, leading them to try their hand at breaking into his family's house over the Christmas holiday, only to be attacked by Max through a series of modern booby traps. But Max is decidedly the supporting character in "Home Sweet Home Alone", and for much of the film, he is arguably the antagonist. It's easy enough to watch the original "Home Alone," which is firmly ensconced in holiday culture in spite of being a smug piece of sentimental pablum, and see Kevin McAllister as something of a budding sociopath. But at least there, you can somewhat contextualize his actions towards Marv and Harry as being deserving -- they're bad dudes because they're career criminals with no qualms about hurting children. When Max lays into Pam and Jeff, you feel a lot more sympathy for the adults than the kid.

A Holiday Surprise

Both director Dan Mazer (one of the co-writers of the first "Borat" movie) and writers Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell (of "Saturday Night Live," specifically having co-written the David S. Pumpkins sketch with Tom Hanks) have a good deal of fun with the upended first hour of "Home Sweet Home Alone." From the first scene, in which Max snidely insults Jeff and Pam, "Home Sweet Home Alone" is steering into the skid of making the kid pretty intensely obnoxious, stacking the deck against him well before his family even goes on their big holiday trip to Tokyo. If you want to be charitable -- and unfortunately, the final 10 or so minutes of "Home Sweet Home Alone" either chooses to be or was forced to be by studio executives -- Max is on the same level with Jeff and Pam, all three of them frustrated and misunderstood and simply trying their hardest to have a good holiday.

Delaney and Kemper are unsurprisingly quite charming (though Kemper's innate sweetness as a performer makes the inevitable violent, "Looney Tunes"-style pranks in the final half-hour hurt all the more because she's so likable) as the adult leads. Unlike Marv and Harry, neither Jeff nor Pam are career criminals, and Delaney and Kemper dive into their characters' blend of desperation and terror really effectively. Yates, last seen in "Jojo Rabbit," does a decent enough job of making Max feel like a spiritual successor to Kevin McAllister, in that Max is enormously obnoxious and precocious. But it's the adults' show -- even supporting performers like Tim Simons, Andy Daly, Thompson, and Pete Holmes make more of a mark.

That, in effect, makes "Home Sweet Home Alone" a curious beast, and an especially odd choice for Disney+ to make its big original-film release on their self-created celebratory "Disney+ Day" on November 12. Yes, it's based on familiar IP, and there are a couple of tie-ins to the original films, including a cameo (but not from Macaulay Culkin, so don't get that excited). And it's not as if this low-budget comedy, which spends a good chunk of its running time in two different suburban houses, would be better served on the big screen. But "Home Sweet Home Alone" runs counter to whatever standard expectations any audience member would have about what to expect from a film in this franchise. To those of us who disdain the original, that actually works in its favor for the first hour. To others, this film may be alienating and perplexing. But it's a pleasant holiday surprise if you're willing to go with it.

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Read this next: The Best Animated Film Of Each Decade

The post Home Sweet Home Alone Review: A Perversely Enjoyable and Surprising Subversion appeared first on /Film.

If Bright Memory: Infinite has one thing, it’s bombast. It’s a game where at one point you jump and electro-grapple onto an in-flight plane as it careens into a black hole, but it’s also a game where you can easily miss the poorly telegraphed jump three times in a row and wind up having to slog through the same brief firefight again and again.

This is a short, linear shooter about riddling high-tech corporate goons and ancient mythical chinese warriors with bullets and blade wounds - a shooter that’s left me both razzled and dazzled, but not without reservation.

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YouTube is a treasure trove of movies. I know we all have a million subscriptions (both paid and ... loaned) to a million quality streaming services, but you don't need to give Google a dime to peep some truly fascinating films. Whether they've made their way onto YouTube through less than legal means or they've just been uploaded wholesale out of the kindness of someone's heart, there's a lot to sift through. And with the news of Sylvester Stallone's reworked "Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago - The Ultimate Director's Cut" hitting theaters this week, we figured we'd let you in on a little secret.

And by secret, we mean a behind-the-scenes doc that takes you through the making of the new director's cut. Shot on an iPhone and titled "The Making of ROCKY VS. DRAGO," the film is a fairly intimate look at Stallone's process and how he feels about the "Rocky" franchise at large. Stallone actually started working on his director's cut in the fall of 2020, when we were well into the pandemic, which almost makes it feel kind of relatable. I mean, it's a more interesting pandemic hobby than when I tried to learn French by using Duolingo and watching nothing but French extremity movies and psychosexual thrillers. I literally remember nothing I learned, but I finally watched "Martyrs." It ruled.

Gonna Stream Now!

If you're a huge "Rocky" fan or someone who just loves getting into the nitty gritty of film making, this is an easy recommendation since it's just sitting there for free on YouTube. It mostly seems to consist of Stallone just hanging out in the editing booth and monologuing his thoughts on the franchise and his film career in general, which could either be really interesting or really boring, depending on how you feel about Stallone and his films. Either way, you don't have to spend any money to check it out, which is currently my favorite kind of movie experience. I don't know about you, but I'm trying to buy a condo, so YouTube and Tubi recommendations are my favorite recommendations right now.

For the ultimate "Rocky" fan, this would be an excellent double feature with "Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago - The Ultimate Director's Cut." Fathom Events is screening it in select theaters for one night only on November 11th, 2021, but it will also be available to stream on November 12th. So grab yourself some popcorn, crack open a cold bev of your choice and sit down for the ultimate "Rocky" double feature.

Read this next: The 11 Best Music Documentaries Of All Time

The post The New Rocky IV Director's Cut Has a Feature Length Documentary Just Sitting Out There on YouTube appeared first on /Film.

Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" was once an X-rated film that Roman Catholics in the U.S. were forbidden from seeing. The movie, which earned a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, is now in the National Film Registry, and it made AFI's list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. Since it was a British co-production, it also made BFI's list of the 100 best British films. However, Warner Bros. withdrew it from release in the U.K. in 1973 — at Kubrick's behest — and it was not until after his death in 1999 that it became available there again.

In short, "A Clockwork Orange" is a classic with a controversial history. Kubrick was infamous for his methodical nature as a filmmaker, and The Ringer notes that "A Clockwork Orange" almost "plays like a critique of control-freakery made by a control freak." Upon its rerelease in the U.K. in 2000, The Guardian questioned, "Was Kubrick effectively the victim of censorship, or its most notorious and autocratic perpetrator?"

There are other classics that received an X rating in their day, with "Midnight Cowboy" being a second one featured on AFI's list. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) eventually did away with the X rating altogether after it became associated with pornography. Part of what made "A Clockwork Orange" a source of such intense controversy was the sexual violence in it.

Kubrick's film went into wide release in the U.S. in 1972, but the Anthony Burgess novel it adapts and lifts voiceovers from had already been published 10 years earlier. After the movie, however, the book started getting banned in schools and libraries across the country. The power of the moving image had a strong effect on how people perceived it.

A Bit Of The Old Ultraviolence

"A Clockwork Orange" introduces the character of Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), who enjoys "a bit of the old ultraviolence," as he calls it. Unfortunately for those in his path, what that entails is shocking.

Rape and murder are the order the day for Alex and his droogs, as they take to the streets in their jockstraps, fake eyelashes, and bowler hats. The most notorious scene in "A Clockwork Orange" is perhaps the home invasion, where the thugs leave a writer paralyzed and Alex sexually assaults his wife to the tune of "Singing in the Rain" — a song previously associated with the beloved Gene Kelly musical of the same name. Unlike that film, there is no romance in "A Clockwork Orange," and what comedy there is can only be described as the darkest of gallows humor.

Yet the home invasion scene (via the AFI Catalog) was based on a real crime perpetrated against Burgess' own wife by four soldiers in 1944. Concerns over copycat violence, buoyed by the murder of a homeless person in England, still arose. It did not help that other random acts of violence pervade Kubrick's film, which went on to influence the stylized cruelty of later movies like "Reservoir Dogs." 

In "A Clockwork Orange," Alex attacks a homeless man and kills a cat lady before his crimes land him in jail, and he subsequently volunteers for rehabilitation via governmental aversion therapy, whereby his eyes are literally pried open and he is forced to watch disturbing images until the very thought of sex and violence makes him sick. It's not so different from the reaction that the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures had when it condemned "A Clockwork Orange."

Kubrick removed two explicit scenes to garner an R-rating, and ultimately, the movie's legacy rose above censorship and endured. Nevertheless, given the visceral subject matter, it's understandable why "A Clockwork Orange" was so controversial in its day.

Read this next: 20 Movies About Serial Killers That Will Absolutely Creep You Out

The post A Clockwork Orange's Controversy Explained appeared first on /Film.

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A slang survey by online language tutor platform Preply reports 50% of American use slang words without knowing their meaning, such as ghosted, salty, on point, extra, catfish, and thirst, which were ranked as some of the most popular slang words in use today. — Read the rest

Alex Yu finally comes out of hiding and we see him for the first time since the start of the game. He still owes us the arming key he promised, but he wants to speechify a bit before he turns it over. 

He sums up what we know so far. These two siblings ran Talos-1, but it was Morgan who pushed for taking more chances and dreaming bigger. Alex is somewhat hurt that, after talking him into this, you’re turning on him and threatening to blow up the station. You were always the one pushing for more risk, and now you’re treating him like the bad guy for following your lead.

He also expresses disdain for the TranStar board of directors and calls them “Leeches”. Alex – whatever his many faults might be – is not doing this for personal glory or financial gain. He believes that what he’s been doing up here is right. Or at least, it’s worth the short-term moral compromises the two of you have been making.

Like most people, I emphatically disagree with this point of view. Even if you really do have a miracle to share with mankind and even if it all works out in the end, I don’t think you can solve this with arithmetic. “Oh sure, I murdered a few hundred people, but in the end I made a new technology that saved millions so it all cancels out.” But while I disagree with him on a philosophical level, I love his character and I find his viewpoint understandable. I can also see how maybe this whole thing started with sacrificing a small handful of bad people for “the greater good”, and how the sunk cost fallacy dragged him into making bigger and bigger sacrifices, and he’s so sure it’s all going to pay off any minute now, he just needs to talk you out of blowing the place up. 

The Galactic Dinner Bell

Alex also talks about the data you gathered just before we were ganked by Walther Dahl. It turns out that past-Morgan was right. The coral is some sort of (and I’m paraphrasing here) neurological whatzit that does thinky stuff. It seems to be sending out a signal. What has Alex curious is: What is that signal saying, and who is listening to it?

Now, I feel strongly that this ought to be the cue, but it doesn’t happen quite yet. Maybe this moment is too on-the-nose.

Alex then hands over a fabrication plan for the nullwave device that will french-fry the coral. It’s not totally clear what the device will do or what the aftermath will be, but Alex is pretty confident that it will allow us to tame the Typhon.

Alex then brings up the arming key he’s been promising us for the last six hours, but he doesn’t finish because THIS is the cue the Typhon have been waiting for…

From The Darkness

We’re in the domed Arboretum, surrounded by the vastness of space. Suddenly, a shadow appears across the stars. Some sort of opening has appeared in the sky. And through the opening we see…

Earlier in this series I said the game isn’t really aiming for a Cthulhu-style story, but screw it. Purists can haggle over the works of H.P. Lovecraft and what counts and what doesn’t, and which works are too problematic and which ones are okay. I don’t care. This moment is exactly the kind of thing I think of when I hear the phrase “cosmic horror”. 

This writhing mass of tentacles slips out of the hole in space and envelops the entire station. The game calls this thing “The Apex”, but that name doesn’t work for me. When I hear “Apex Predator” I think lions and sharks. I think comparing this thing to conventional animals actually makes it seem more pedestrian. If I had to give this thing a name, it would be something more abstract, like “The Horror” or whatever.

The Apex?

This business of calling it the “Apex” is, I think, an attempt at making the “Prey” name fit a little better. I appreciate the effort, but I’d rather they called this game “NeuroShock” or “PsychoShock” and left this predator / prey stuff out. Calling this thing an Apex predator is like saying a nuclear bomb is “a kind of heater”. Ok, I suppose that’s technically correct, but you’re really selling it short, you know?

Also, calling it “apex” implies that we know this thing is on top of the cosmic food chain. Frankly, we’re nowhere near being able to make those sorts of claims. In fact, who’s to say this thing isn’t just the next step up from us, and there are even greater monsters out there that eat critters like this thing as a snack? 

The universe is really big!

I find it interesting that this thing is about the same size as Talos-1. Maybe that’s just a coincidence. Maybe that’s just what was convenient for the game designers. Or maybe – and this is the possibility I find interesting – these creatures operate on many different scales. Maybe if Talos-1 was an enormous Death Star sized station, then the Typhon here would have sent a slightly different signal that would have attracted a larger horror.

Allow me to speculate on how this thing works…

The Actual Literal Eater of Worlds

Somewhere out there is some horrendous ball of tentacled flesh that’s grown to something approaching planetary mass. Or perhaps it’s just so big that it’s enveloped an actual planetary mass. It flings out these tiny little mimic-shaped creatures that drift through the universe like spores. We don’t know the exact mechanics of how they get around, but somehow they tend to end up in orbit around planets with a reasonable chance of harboring life.

And maybe a few of these creatures find some. Somewhere out there, various sapient species busy themselves building rockets, space elevators, shuttles, super-jetpacks, or what-have-you. Mimics land on their vehicles and platforms, devouring the inhabitants. Once the Typhon get enough biomass together, they start scaling up, forming Weavers and other creatures designed specifically to ambush these particular sapients and exploit their technology. Maybe for humans they make Telepaths and Technopaths, but for another species they’d make a creature that released pheromones, or certain sounds, or chemicals, or confounding radio signals, or whatever would work on the locals. 

Once the Typhon feel like they control their environment, they start building coral. The bigger the ship / station, the bigger the resulting coral structure. Then the coral reaches out to that Ur creature – that mother, or queen, or whatever we want to call that huge mass that kicked all this off. It responds by sending something of the appropriate size to seize the structure. If we absolutely must, I suppose we can call this thing the “apex”. Eyeroll. Heavy sigh.

Here is the tricky part for the Typhon: Despite all the crazy stuff they can do, they still can’t survive atmospheric entry un-aided. So the “Apex” shows up to do two different things:

1. Goad the sapients into fleeing. Maybe they have small pods. Or other ships. Or maybe they have awesome spacesuits that let them fly around. Or maybe the station itself breaks into smaller ships. Whatever. As long as the little buggers scatter and retreat back to the safety of their homeworld, then they’ll be travelling in things specifically designed to survive reentry for this particular planet, whatever its mass / atmospheric profile might be. The goal is to just get a few mimic-sized creatures down to the surface, which is hopefully densely populated.
2. If that fails, then the apex still has plan B, which is to rip the station apart and attempt to de-orbit sections of it. A nice big chunk of ship ought to be strong enough and massive enough to act as an ablative shield for the Typhon critters inside. They don’t need to land comfortably. They just need to survive. Perhaps the hull of the space station can shield them while the atmosphere slows them down, and then they just need to land in some water or other favorable spot where they won’t get pulverized on touchdown. Typhon are more durable than humans, so they have a much more generous definition of “survivable landing”. 

Plan B wouldn’t work for Talos-1, since the station is orbiting out beyond the moon. But it would probably work for things like (say) the International Space Station, or Skylab.

If your species has made it far enough to begin building crap in space, then it’s a good guess that you’ve spread out over the face of your homeworld. There are no doubt a lot of you, and you’re probably packed into cities. Once a couple of Typhon reach these population centers, it’s game over.

So then the Typhon eat the whole planet. They devour the entire food chain, from the plankton to the sapients, and in the end the planet is just a big rock covered in Typhon cells. Then it flings a few mimic-sized seeds into the void and the process begins again.

*BURP*

The Reapers? Are you kidding me? Buncha fucking clowns. The Typhon do more damage,^[1] and they don’t feel the need to brag about how awesome they are afterwards. They don’t claim to be beyond anyone’s comprehension, and they don’t feel the need to flex about how many civilizations they’ve wrecked, because they don’t care what their food thinks of them. The Reapers are posers. The Typhon are the real deal.

Anyway, that’s my guess on how these critters work. I’m sure other theories are possible, but this is what I came up with based on what I learned within the game.

Uh, Guys?

Oh right. I got so excited talking about the Typhon that I forgot about our main characters and their current predicament. The Apex envelops the station, which shatters the arboretum and depressurizes the entire area. The gravity generators go offline, so Alex and Morgan find themselves drifting in a vacuum.

Morgan’s suit switches over to spacewalk mode, but for whatever reason, the helmet on Alex’s suit doesn’t deploy. You’re given the option of shoving Alex into his nearby hidey-hole and sealing him in to save his life. Or you can just ditch him. Whatever.

This Apex thing though? This is going to be a problem. Somebody should probably be doing something about that.

Hot water heaters can be a contributor to high energy bills, especially during the winter months. Conventional water tanks can be replaced with a “tankless” on demand water heater, which requires some investment up front but can help you save on energy costs long term. If you’re considering making the switch, here are…

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A University of Arizona-led effort to reconstruct Earth's climate since the last ice age, about 24,000 years ago, highlights the main drivers of climate change and how far out of bounds human activity has pushed the climate system. The study, published this week in Nature, had three main findings: 1.) It verified that the main drivers of climate change since the last ice age are rising greenhouse gas concentrations and the retreat of the ice sheets. 2.) It suggests a general warming trend over the last 10,000 years, settling a decade-long debate about whether this period trended warmer or cooler in the paleoclimatology community. 3.) The magnitude and rate warming over the last 150 years far surpasses the magnitude and rate of changes over the last 24,000 years. There are different methods for reconstructing past temperatures. The team combined two independent datasets -- temperature data from marine sediments and computer simulations of climate -- to create a more complete picture of the past. The researchers looked at the chemical signatures of marine sediments to get information about past temperatures. Because temperature changes over time can affect the chemistry of a long-dead animal's shell, paleoclimatologists can use those measurements to estimate temperature in an area. It's not a perfect thermometer, but it's a starting point. Computer-simulated climate models, on the other hand, provide temperature information based on scientists' best understanding of the physics of the climate system, which also isn't perfect. The team decided to combine the methods to harness the strengths of each. This is called data assimilation and is also commonly used in weather forecasting. [...] Now, the team is working on using their method to investigate climate changes even farther in the past.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to climate change, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. From a report: "We're actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged," the minister, Simon Kofe, told Reuters in an interview. "We're looking at legal avenues where we can retain our ownership of our maritime zones, retain our recognition as a state under international law. So those are steps that we are taking, looking into the future," he said. Images of Kofe recording a speech to the United Nations COP26 climate summit standing knee-deep in the sea have been widely shared on social media over recent days, pleasing the tiny island nation which is pushing for aggressive action to limit the impact of climate change. [...] "We didn't think it would go viral as we saw over the last few days. We have been very pleased with that and hopefully that carries the message and emphasises the challenges that we are facing in Tuvalu at the moment," Kofe said. Tuvalu is an island with a population of around 11,000 people and its highest point is just 4.5m (15 ft) above sea level. Since 1993, sea levels have risen about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) per year, according to a 2011 Australian government report.

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French horror cinema, much like horror cinema in the west, has enjoyed a long and storied history. Perennially a reflection of its time and the common fears and ailments therein, the genre has undergone several distinct shifts. Early noir with perverse psychological underpinnings gave way to the French New Wave, otherwise known as La Nouvelle Vague. The movement emerged in the late '50s, a stylistic and narrative approach that subverted conventional filmmaking techniques for iconoclasm, experimental editing, and visual styles.

As the decades trundled on, French horror cinema rejected Western constraint, discarding the underpinnings of most horror fare for considerably more extreme, sadistic, and almost insurgent outputs. "Inside" and "Martyrs," for instance, remain some of the most violent movies ever made. Here, we'll be counting down the top French horror movies ever made. These run the gamut from wickedly suspenseful to outright exploitation. In other words, prepare to be scared.

Frontier(s)

Xavier Gens' "Frontier(s)" is not for the faint of heart. Released in the United States with an NC-17 rating, a rarity for even the horror genre, Gens' film probes the darkest recesses of humanity via two full hours of some of the bleakest genre cinema France has ever produced. Riots in Paris are spurred by the success of a far-right candidate, and caught in the middle are Yasmine (Karina Testa) and Sami (Adel Bencherif), two of several young Muslim youths hoping to steal some money and flee from the chaos. After Sami is shot, the group splits up, and soon enough find themselves at an inn near the French border run by innkeepers Gilberte (Estelle Lefébure) and Klaudia (Amélie Daure).

The savagery that follows is almost unprecedented. With narrative shades of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" coupled with the iconography of the French Extremity Moment, "Frontier(s)" never holds back. The violence drips in every frame, and even ravenous gorehounds will find their limits tested. An interrogation of neo-fascism and the ostensibly pastoral ideas of old, "Frontier(s)" crucifies the sins of the past by launching an all-out assault on the present. It's lean, mean, and borderline sadistic. It's also, for those who can stomach it, scary as hell.

Revenge

"Revenge" is a pastel, candy-colored romp that stretches credulity to make a terrifying point –- men don't care about the violence they promulgate. Matilda Lutz is sensational as Jen, an American socialite having an illicit affair with a married neighbor, Richard (Kevin Janssens, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for most of the runtime). They abscond to Richard's desert property for a weekend away, but things go awry when Richard's hunting buddies show up. Though merry at first, one assaults Jen while Richard is away, and rather than sympathizing, the men opt instead to silence her.

Coralie Fargeat's "Revenge" is a propulsive reinterpretation of horror convention. Left for dead after being impaled on a tree, Jen rises as something of an avenging angel -- signified as much when she brands herself with a beer can to cauterize her wound. Little of it is grounded in reality, and the deaths are almost comically violent, though the point remains. A microcosm of our current culture, what's dismissed as bubblegum horror fantasy here remains all too real for some members of the audience. That's true terror.

7 Days

"7 Days," titled "Les 7 jours du talion" in French (which roughly translates to "The 7 Days of Retaliation"), is so thoroughly terrifying and assaultive in its content, it's unlikely audiences will be able to see it more than once. Similar to Belgium's "The Treatment," another horrifically dark and dour genre exercise, "7 Days" is an endurance test.

Bruno Hamel's (Claude Legault) daughter is raped and murdered in a park, and when the police arrest a suspect, Lemaire (Martin Dubreuil), Bruno kidnaps him, planning to take revenge. He phones the police and tells them that in seven days, on his daughter's birthday, he will murder Lemaire, at which point he intends to give himself up to the police. In the week that follows, Bruno brutally tortures Lemaire. Kneecaps are smashed, animals are gutted, and Lemaire is made to confront the savagery of his crimes in increasingly gruesome ways. Ripe for debate, "7 Days" is firm in its conviction -- revenge is wrong -- though there is enough nuance and violent verisimilitude to leave even the most passive viewers wondering whether they might do the same. 

Calvaire

Our own Matt Donato ranked "Calvaire" 28 out of 82 on his list of the best Christmas horror movies ever made, and he did so with good reason. "Calvaire" is a seriously disturbing slice of backwoods horror juxtaposed with Christmas cheer. Director Fabrice Du Weiz, in his feature debut, probes the darkest recesses of the human mind in a way the horror genre is distinctly capable of doing.

Laurent Lucas stars as Marc Stevens, a young musician traveling in the country. After performing at a nursing home on Christmas eve, he finds himself on the road, though shortly after, his van breaks down in a deserted region. Mr. Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), an innkeeper, takes him in, but Mr. Bartel is psychologically unwell, and soon, Marc's night becomes more horrific than he ever imagined. Certainly not for the faint of heart –- "Calvaire" features several scenes of sexual violence and abhorrent animal cruelty -– it's still one of the scariest French genre imports ever. Unhinged, deeply chilling, yet gorgeously composed, "Calvaire" is poised to haunt dreams long after it's over.

The Beast

"The Beast," otherwise known as "La Bête," is a classic, though it's certainly not for everyone. A deeply erotic horror-fantasy hybrid, director Walerian Borowczyk's "The Beast" is a loose retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," though it's more allusion than outright adaptation, borrowing the woman-beast relationship and little else. Though highly charged in its sexuality, Borowczyk is still mindful enough to incorporate considerable horror elements, and as such, "The Beast" is fondly remembered as a cult classic.

Lisbeth Hummel stars as Lucy Broadhurst, a young woman bequeathed her father's estate after his death on the condition that, within six months of his passing, she marry Mathurin de l'Esperance (Pierre Benedetti). "The Beast" is hazy and committed to its dreamlike aura, so much so that the plot itself is almost incidental to the imagery. There are graphic allusions to bestiality, and though violence is sparse, it's still unsettling when it does appear. If nothing else, "The Beast" is a cinephile's dream, a movie unmatched in its sheer brazenness and erotic subversion of conventional fairy tale mythos.

Raw

Director Julia Ducournau's "Raw" took the world by storm when it premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the same festival where Ducournau's next feature, "Titane," was recently awarded the Palme d'Or. Ducournau is a filmmaker with a singular vision, and while "Titane" is clearly poised to cement her legacy, it's worth remembering the debut feature film that started it all.

Combining coming-of-age sensibilities with, yes, cannibalism, "Raw" is simultaneously tender and aberrant, a movie that commands attention like a hand around the throat and refuses to ever let go. Justine (Garance Marillier) has just begun her first semester at veterinary school. After a hazing ritual that involves eating raw rabbit kidneys, Justine develops a strange rash and soon -– despite being a vegetarian -– feels an overwhelming desire to eat more meat. I won't spoil what follows, but it is as graphic as it is profound. For fans of wickedly cruel horror cinema, "Raw" packs a real bite.

In My Skin

The French love body horror. While David Cronenberg is the king of that subgenre here in North America, the French have had several hits of their own, and "In My Skin" is one of the templates that started it all. Thoroughly upsetting and psychologically chilling, "In My Skin" is all but guaranteed to get under yours.

Esther (Marina de Van) injures her leg at a party after stumbling over some industrial supplies. Though she initially brushes it off, she grows both increasingly fascinated with her inability to feel pain there and, more broadly, the nature of her body in general. Esther spirals and engages in increasingly gruesome acts of self-mutilation. She slices at her skin and cuts the folds of her legs and even goes so far as to chew at it while alone in a motel. It's not for the squeamish or faint of heart, to be sure, yet it remains one of the most propulsive works interrogating our relationships with our bodies and our penchant for consciously destroying something so delicate.

High Tension

"High Tension" is likely one of the better-known French horror films in the United States, on account of it receiving a wide release stateside and director Alexandre Aja's English-language horror output (see: "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Crawl"). Ludicrous ending aside -– seriously, it's almost but not quite enough to ruin the move in its entirety -– "High Tension" is a breakneck home invasion slasher that, even almost 20 years later, remains unmatched in its high octane scares.

Cécile de France stars as Marie, a young woman traveling with her friend, Alex (Maïwenn), to spend the weekend at the latter's country home. The hope is to study, though Marie, harboring a secret attraction toward Alex, is hoping it might lead to something more. Their first night there, a serial killer in a trucker's uniform breaks in and graphically murders Alex's entire family, including her adolescent brother. Alex is kidnapped, and Marie -– by virtue of being a guest -– remains undetected. Marie manages to stow away in the killer's truck, and so begins a night spent playing a vicious game of cat-and-mouse as Marie eludes the killer and endeavors to free her friend. Originally rated NC-17, "High Tension" was trimmed and dubbed for its U.S. release, though it remains no less violent and terrifying for it. "High Tension" is an understatement.

Them

Before "The Strangers," there was "Them." No, not the movie about giant atomic ants. This "Them" is an austere and slim French home invasion thriller. Clocking in at just 74 minutes, the film wastes no time getting to the unbridled terror of unknown faces intruding upon one's domicile.

After an opening scene that lays the foundation for what's to come, "Them" shifts focus to Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy), a school teacher, and her boyfriend, Lucas (Michaël Cohen). While staying the night at Lucas', Clémentine is woken by the sound of music outside, and when they go to investigate, they realize a group of intruders have broken in. Following the same format "The Strangers" would apply just a few years later, "Them" is less concerned with narrative depth and character development than it is the verisimilitude of home invasion. Short, terrifying, and chillingly random, "Them" is one of the scariest home invasion movies ever made because it feels so real. Additionally, though no reports have surfaced to support the veracity of the claim, "Them" is ostensibly based on a true story.

Diabolique

"Diabolique," titled "Les Diaboliques" in French (which loosely translates to "The Devils") was remade in 1996 with Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani. Skip that one, for as pulpy and sultry as it might be, it's no match for the sheer power of the original. A noir thriller with horror undertones, "Diabolique" follows a wife, Christina (Véra Clouzot), who alongside her husband's mistress, Nicole (Simone Signoret), plan to murder their husband and lover respectively. A cruel headmaster, he is abusive to Christina, Nicole, and the children, and both concede the world would be better off without him.

Right away, "Diabolique" eschews antagonism to have these women team up to kill the cruel man in their lives, though "Diabolique" really gets going when the husband, Michel's (Paul Meurisse) body disappears, and Christina especially begins to believe he is still alive or something much worse. Frequently bone-chilling, it's one of the best psychological thrillers ever made. An early blueprint for works ranging from "Psycho" to "Gone Girl," "Diabolique" cannot be missed.

Eyes Without A Face

"Eyes Without a Face" is the oldest entry on this list, though it is also one of the best. Immediately recognizable even among non-genre initiates, Georges Franju's classic has remained wildly influential in the 60 years since its release. Pierre Brasseur stars as Doctor Génessier, a plastic surgeon determined to perform a face transplant on his daughter, Christiane (Édith Scob), after she is disfigured in a horrific car accident.

Christine wears a mask for most of the film, lending "Eyes Without a Face" its most iconic bit of imagery. Modeled after her face, it's both alluring and uncanny, adding a veneer of unease to every scene. To graft a face, though, Doctor Génessier needs a face, and, well, he's going to get one. By dint of its year of release, "Eyes Without a Face" is noticeably less graphic than other entries here, but it is no less terrifying. Sometimes, mere suggestion is scarier than what can be seen, and Georges Franju has conceived a classic that's not simply one of the scariest French movies ever made, but one of the scariest movies of all time.

The Tenant

It must be mentioned here that Roman Polanski is a criminal. A coward who has largely avoided his own reckoning on account of extradition laws and a fervent cinema-going public, the director's crimes remain, no matter how profound his body of work is. It's difficult, then, to reconcile the creator and the art. Polanski's work continues to exist despite his crimes, and as such, so too does the legacy and perennial influence of even his earliest works. "The Tenant" is no exception. Polanski is both behind and in front of the camera here, and for as abhorrent a man as he is, "The Tenant" was groundbreaking in its psychological subtext and remains a seminal horror work today.

An uncredited Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a young man who rents an apartment in Paris and soon thereafter finds his mental state unraveling. He has visions, hears strange wails, and even imagines (or not) his neighbors accosting and assaulting him. The imagery is deeply disturbing and unreliable, and the entirety of the psychological thriller subgenre would not be what it is without "The Tenant." It's a hard movie to recommend on account of the man who made it, but "The Tenant" laid the groundwork for almost 50 years of thrillers. Do with that what you will.

Martyrs

These final two entries, alongside "High Tension," are likely the best known French horror movies in the United States. Though often reduced to exhibitions of savagery -– and both "Martyrs" and the forthcoming "Inside" are exceptionally gruesome, make no mistake -– both have considerably more going on behind the spraying blood and flayed skin.

"Martyrs," directed by Pascal Laugier, is ostensibly the story of a young woman (Mylène Jampanoï) tracking down the family who kidnapped and abused her years prior. At first, it appears to be her story, though it soon shifts attention to Anna (Morjana Alaoui), Lucie's best friend, and the savagery she endures while helping Lucie overcome her trauma. Torture, martyrdom, and existential questions of life and death abound, and while "Martyrs" is by no means an easy watch, it is nonetheless a profound meditation on trauma and abuse and the scars, even decades later, both can leave behind. Nothing has matched its potency since release, and there's a strong chance nothing ever will.

Inside

"Inside" is a masterpiece and is poised, if it hasn't already, to enter the pantheon of classic slasher films. Alongside "Psycho," "Black Christmas," Halloween," and "Scream," among others, "Inside" is an enduring and terrifying home invasion slasher with way more on its mind than carnage (though rest assured, there is plenty of that). The feature debut from French directing duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, the film stars Alysson Paradis as Sarah, a pregnant woman spending Christmas alone following an auto accident that killed her husband.

When she turns in for the night, a woman -– credited simply as "La Femme" (frequent collaborator Béatrice Dalle) -– breaks in, intending to literally cut Sarah's baby out of her body and take it as her own. As expected, the violence is almost cruel, and there's more blood here in one scene than most movies cram into entire franchises. It's painful, deeply uncomfortable, yet never anything but totally rapturous. Conceptually, "Inside" is unlike anything else. It's terrifying, visceral, and leaves a lasting impact.

Read this next: 17 Horror Movies Based On True Stories That Will Creep You Out

The post The 14 Best French Horror Movies Ranked appeared first on /Film.

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Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard has been a regular Chatty Cathy as of late. Yesterday he dropped a number of new hints and details about the future of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, and today he took to Reddit for a quick AMA in which he revealed a bit more about Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield. For instance, when asked about Starfield’s character creation process, and whether it would resemble Morrowind and Oblivion’s more in-depth systems, Howard said he was “really excited” about what has been developed and promised in-depth backstories and more for players’ characters.

Really excited about what the team has done with character creation here. Including choosing background, skills, etc. You also can pick your pronoun (he, she, they) and we've recorded all the relevant dialogue to support that choice.

Howard also promised “full mod support” for Starfield, which presumably means a similar scope and openness to modding as something like Skyrim.

Our plan it have full mod support like our previous games. Our modding community has been with us for 20 years. We love what they do and hope to see more make a career out of it.

Finally, when asked if Starfield will include robot companions, Howard responded with a slightly cryptic “Yes, kind of.” Of course, there were plenty of other questions answered, but those were the most interesting revelations in my opinion. You can check out the full AMA for yourself here.

Haven’t been keeping up with Starfield? You can get some more detail on some of the game’s locales here, and a broad description of its universe, below.

Our game is set in the year 2330, in a relatively small pocket of the Milky Way, in an area that extends outward from our solar system for approximately 50 light years. Around 20 years before the start of the game, the two largest factions in the Settled Systems, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective, engaged in the bloody Colony War.

Today, the major factions enjoy an uneasy peace, but the Settled Systems is still pretty dangerous. There are plenty of human threats out there. Like Ecliptic mercenaries, the pirates of the Crimson Fleet, violent Spacers, or even the fanatical religious zealots of House Va'ruun. The organization known as Constellation is committed to uncovering the mysteries of the galaxy. And as one of its newest members, you'll explore the deepest reaches of the Settled Systems and you'll find yourself at home... in the Starfield.

Starfield launches on PC and Xbox Series X/S on November 11, 2022.

The post Starfield Character Creation Has Todd Howard “Really Excited,” Full Mod Support Planned by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure package is jam-packed with initiatives but sprinkled in there alongside $17 billion in funding for road safety programs is a mandate requiring carmakers to implement monitoring systems to identify and stop drunk drivers. The mandate, first noted by the Associated Press could apply to new vehicles sold as early as 2026. Courts have ordered some drunk drivers to use breathalyzers attached to ignition interlocks to start their vehicles for years, but the technology noted in this bill would take that concept much further and would need to be capable of "passively monitor[ing] the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired." Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver's breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver's fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin's surface. [...] The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. "It's monumental," Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the "single most important legislation" in the group's history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA's DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver's civil liberties. "The group also expressed concerns over how the collection and storage of driver data would work and who would have the rights to that data," adds Gizmodo. Others have also expressed concerns over the accuracy of driving monitoring technology and potential risks of bias.

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In fandom circles, people fear a visit from the Suck Fairy. This mythical being alights upon the books, movies, and TV shows you loved as a kid—we’re talking works foundationally important to your development—and taints them with toxic magic. “Oh man, I loved this when I was 12!” you think, scrolling past an old show…

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The animated series "The Real Ghostbusters" ran from 1986 to 1991, the "Real" prefix added to distinguish it from Filmation's animated series of the same name, which was based on a live-action TV show that aired back in the mid-'70s. A spin-off from the incredibly popular 1984 movie "Ghostbusters," it continued the saga of Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, and Peter Venkman (with the cast's appearances all slightly tweaked to avoid any pesky arguments over likeness rights, of course) and became a beloved series in its own right.

Indeed, in an era where a great many cartoons seemed to exist solely to promote a toyline, "The Real Ghostbusters" stood out. Yes, there were plenty of "Real Ghostbusters" toys, too, but the show's quality control prevented the show from ever feeling like an extended commercial (having a pre-"Babylon 5" J. Michael Straczynski on writing and story editing duties surely played a large role in that).

So, strap on your proton pack, flick off the safety on your particle thrower, and let's capture the 15 best episodes of "The Real Ghostbusters" in our containment traps! Just make sure you don't cross the streams -– that would be bad.

The Thing In Mrs. Faversham's Attic

The Peter Venkman of "The Real Ghostbusters" might come across as a sarcastic cynic, but in "The Thing in Mrs. Faversham's Attic," we get to see a rare sentimental side to the derisive doctor.

Taking a job from an old lady who hasn't been inside her attic for 70 years, the team crosses paths with Belleranthon, a gigantic, purple, demonic spirit with a talent for holding grudges and a name that sound like a brand of suppository. You'd be angry, too.

Venkman, in an act of altruism surprising to both the audience and his fellow Ghostbusters, does the job for free because Mrs. Faversham reminded him of his mother -- a plot twist as unexpected as Egon's PKE meter overloading due to Belleranthon was predictable.

The Grundel

Another episode featuring pure, high-octane nightmare fuel involves a ghost named the Grundel, an unsettling, red-eyed, green-faced, raspy-voiced fiend who could pass for Rondo Hatton in poor lighting. This loathsome spirit convinces children to be naughty, making them more like him; one particular scene, in which the Grundel hovers outside a boy's window asking to be let in, is very reminiscent of a similar scene from "'Salem's Lot" -– and is equally terrifying.

The versatile Ghostbusters team, clearly as comfortable hunting entities from Lewis Carroll poems as they are trapping ghosts, opens the episode by capturing a Jabberwocky (complete with fetching waistcoat). Later, they encounter Alec, a troubled teen suspected of being under the Grundel's influence. His brother, Lee, knows that something is wrong, and asks for the Ghostbusters' guidance.

Despite ending on a positive note that reinforces one brother's love for the other, the villain alone makes this one of the grimmer episodes of "The Real Ghostbusters," and would not mark the Grundel's final series appearance. 

Citizen Ghost

Directly following the events portrayed in the 1984 movie, "Citizen Ghost" sees our victorious heroes returning to their trashed fire station and its ruined containment grid (Thanks a bunch, Walter Peck). After getting rid of their old, ectoplasm-encrusted jumpsuits, Egon and the boys begin the lengthy process of repairing their headquarters. 

Over time, it becomes clear that an apparition is living amongst them: Slimer, the globulous green glutton from the Sedgewick Hotel and the first ghost the 'busters ever captured. He's joined by the since-forgotten jumpsuits, which come to life thanks to their ectoplasm coating and seek to rid themselves of their pesky, living equivalents.

Positioned near the end of the show's 1st season, "Citizen Ghost" makes a great "Real Ghostbusters" origin story. Not only does it reveal why these Ghostbusters have color-coded jumpsuits (as opposed to the khaki uniforms of the movies), but also explains why the team would choose to share their home with one of the very creatures they hunt down for a living. All in all, it almost makes "Citizen Ghost" a better sequel to the original film than 1989's "Ghostbusters II" (ducks the impending projectiles of flying ectoplasm).

Mrs. Rogers' Neighborhood

The argument that little old ladies can't be scary is, of course, somewhat dependent on how old they are. 70 years old? Not scary. 700 years old? Probably scary. And when the little old lady in question is, in fact, a mortal disguise for an ancient, class 7 demon? Forget about it.

It's a quiet day when the Ghostbusters are called to sort out a haunted house, and –- despite breaking Egon's PKE meter with an off-the-scale reading -– the little old lady who answers the door doesn't raise any red flags. Suspecting an easy job and a simple invoice, Ray takes Mrs. Rogers and her canary back to Ghostbusters HQ whilst the others investigate. It soon dawns on them that Mrs. Rogers may be more than she appears, and that her house is quite a bit more than a spirit-saturated snare designed to trap the Ghostbusters forever.

It's a simple premise, but a fun one. Puns galore are from a demon named "Wat," and the title conjures up pleasant memories of the lovely, inoffensive "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (Rumors that the real Fred Rogers was possessed by an ancient Kandarian demon are, at the time of this writing, unproven).

Ghostbuster Of The Year

When Charles Foster Hearse III (publisher of Boosweek and Spooks Illustrated) offers the Ghost Hunter of the Year award to whoever can capture his grandfather's ghost, our intrepid quartet are pitted against one another –- yet the only clue for the haunting is the ghost's mournful cry of "Rosebud."

"The Real Ghostbusters" was always at its best when it aimed to function on multiple levels, and in this case, it delivered a solid story while operating as a pseudo-sequel to one of the most revered films of all time. Barring the (minor) name change, the grandfather is Charles Foster Kane of "Citizen Kane" fame, and -– as anybody with a passing interest in cinema must know by now -– "Rosebud" was his final word before dying.

In addition to voicing Egon, Maurice LaMarche does his very best Orson Welles impersonation as the ghostly grandfather (and would go to voice him again seven years later, in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood"). Also worthy of note in this particular episode: Venkman mentioning Huey Lewis, which seems particularly apt given his unfortunate link to Ghostbusters.

The Boogieman Cometh

"The Boogieman Cometh" begins with the Ghostbusters capturing a ghostly gangster (which, incidentally, reinforces the rule that all cartoon mobsters must sound like James Cagney). Shortly thereafter, a few kids try to hire them with the contents of their piggy bank, claiming there's a boogieman hiding in their closet. Egon seems especially determined to take the case, and we soon find out why: This same legendary monster is directly responsible for Egon getting involved with the supernatural in the first place.

A far cry from the comparatively cuddly Sully and Mike from "Monsters Inc.," this closet-dweller -- with his pointed ears, rat-like features, and gargantuan head -- is capable of inspiring absolute terror (Indeed, one suspects the Boogieman of causing many nightmares in the wake of this episode's debut). "The Real Ghostbusters" was at its best when creating its own mythology rather than borrowing from the movies, and this recurring villain serves as a perfect example. There's genuine tension and peril here, and when Egon confronts the Boogieman in his own realm (in a scene reminiscent of Billy squaring off against the titular "Predator"), it's easy to forget you're watching a show aimed at children.

When Halloween Was Forever

The closer the Ghostbusters get to Halloween, the more difficult their busts become, and Egon suspects that a new museum exhibit (ruins dated to the seventh century) may be to blame. His fears are justified; soon enough, goblins have broken into the museum, releasing a pumpkin-headed creature from an ancient Irish monolith, who then proceeds to wreak Halloween havoc. The streets flood with spirits, apples –- once nonchalant about being bobbed –- begin fighting back, and grotesque statues perched atop churches come to life.

This is Samhain, who –- to the delight of ghosts, dentists, and pumpkin spice latte fans everywhere –- wants to make Halloween last forever. Ancient Irish monoliths haven't caused so much bother since "Halloween III: Season of the Witch."

He's eventually captured, but the episode ends on a chilling note: The other assorted specters within the containment unit are constantly agitated and seeking escape, whereas Samhain, already used to being trapped in a rock, waits there, patiently biding his time. This "Ghost of Halloween" would become a regular villain across the "Ghostbusters" franchise, appearing again in "The Real Ghostbusters" and also featuring in the "Extreme Ghostbusters" spin-off.

Ain't NASA-Sarily So

A suspected ghost collides with Space Platform Galileo (no relation to the USS Enterprise shuttlecraft, and any resemblance to Starfleet insignia is entirely coincidental) and the Ghostbusters are sent to investigate. They meet the multinational crew: a captain who throws in random Russian words as exclamations ("Rachmaninoff!," "Dostoyevsky!"), a paler-skinned Uhura, and a Scottish engineer who has to physically restrain himself from reminding the crew "he cannae change the laws of physics."

The Ghostbusters are excited (most of the team's just excited to be in space, while Venkman's thrilled by the prospect of a big, meaty, government contract) until they meet the ghost in question: A red, undulating, amorphous heap of eyes and mouths, it looks like it would be more at home terrorizing an Antarctic research station than a space platform. This ghost -– definitely not an alien, the plot is at pains to point out –- feeds from the proton energy in their packs, and any attack only strengthens it.

Are our heroes doomed to die in space? Of course not; Sony would never have jeopardized their huge franchise. But it is fun seeing our heroes in another environment confronted with an interesting and novel villain.

Ragnarok And Roll

Jeremy and Dytyllio, his Igor-esque hunchback companion, arrive at a hidden shrine in the mountains. This broken-hearted mystic, whose marriage proposal to his beloved Cindy has been rejected, decides to bring about Ragnarok (the literal end of the world) with a magic flute, which is more than a tiny bit selfish.

In New York, our exhausted Ghostbusters battle against waves of winged black fiends that seem immune to their proton shots. As Jeremy and his diminutive deputy arrive back in New York to oversee the final stages of the end of the world -– which is now tormented by earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods -– Egon fears for the worst.

There's a genuine sense of jeopardy here, with a threat of such intensity rarely seen in the series. At one point the despondent quartet realizes the only way to save the day might be to overload their proton packs, sacrificing themselves to save the world, but it's our team's mutual friendship, and Egon's last words being "Janine," that really strike a chord in the end. Dytillio makes for an interesting figure, still loving the world despite how cruelly it's treated him, and it's that level of characterization that makes this episode stand out from the crowd.

The Revenge Of Murray The Mantis

There's a rare moment of downtime for our busy 'busters. Egon and Ray are building an airlock for the containment grid (to establish diplomatic relations with the ghosts), while Ray and Winston are washing Ecto-1 in an effort to get it ready for the New York Thanksgiving Day parade. When a parade float -- a giant balloon of beloved TV cartoon character Murray the Mantis –- breaks lose, headstrong Peter thinks he's helping by shooting it down. Little does he suspect that the iniquitous inflatable is infused with dead energy, and the blasts from his proton pack bring the creature to life.

Confronted with such a huge foe, the Ghostbusters are left with no option other than to fight fire with fire –- or ectoplasmic, carnivorous insects with anthropomorphized chewy-sugary gelatin, at least. That's right, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is released from containment. It is, quite frankly, a huge relief that they'd have the new airlock built just in time to make this whole concept achievable.

If you were ever desperate to see the Ghostbusters fight kaiju, here's your opportunity. It's great to see such an iconic character return to the screen (and Venkman back to his womanizing ways), but I wouldn't want to be the Ghostbuster responsible for trying to talk the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man to voluntarily go back into containment.

Drool, The Dog-Faced Goblin

The Ghostbusters take a rare road trip out of the city, journeying to a remote travelling sideshow where Egon's interest gets piqued by a sign advertising a dog-faced goblin. They encounter the creature on stage, but the owner of the sideshow, Madame La Farge, insists that Drool is harmless, just a pet. Prevented from proton-packing it into purgatory, our team try to return home ... but a flat tire on Ecto-1 forces them to take refuge in a nearby hotel.

Encountering a shape-shifting antagonist during their stay, they suspect that it's Drool, but upon returning to the fair they discover that there is more than one creature capable of shape-shifting, and that they have made an ally in the unlikeliest of places.

Other than Slimer and a few occasional exceptions, ghosts and monsters are rarely portrayed sympathetically on "The Real Ghostbusters." "Drool, the Dog-Faced Goblin" deviates from this norm, presenting an affable, kind goblin –- far from the selfish, cunning, mischievous creatures in the series to date -- and the episode ends in a way that's both heartbreaking and poignant. 

Janine, You've Changed

Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted that, from this list, almost every episode is from the show's first two seasons. There's good reason for that, as a consultancy firm called Q5 were brought in during season 3 to shake things up. This led to Venkman's voice duties moving from Lorenzo Music to Dave Coulier, and Janine being rewritten to soften her up and make her more maternal, a change that saw story editor J. Michael Straczynski leave the show. In earlier episodes, she was a stronger personality, a worthy foil for the four male leads, but later episodes softened her, lessening her as a character.

"Janine, You've Changed" is a rare exception of that rule, a season 6 episode that's half-decent, seeing the brief return of Straczynski for an episode as meta as they came. The Ghostbusters, looking through an old photograph album of receptionist Janine Melnitz, suspect that something is awry: Her appearance has changed dramatically since they've known her, and her Brooklyn accent has vanished completely.

It's brilliant that the series could eventually acknowledge and justify the weird changes in continuity, and that Janine could star in an episode. If only they'd produced an episode that establishes why Venkman went from sounding vaguely like Bill Murray to sounding like he was on the verge of falling asleep.

Knock, Knock

Were you to be put in charge of guarding a door that holds back ancient spirits, preventing them from being released upon the end of the world, I'd recommend implementing a stronger security system than just an imposing voice repeating "Don't open until Doomsday." I would, in fact, recommend a padlock. If nothing else, that'd likely prevent some curious subway workers from stumbling upon it and then trying to open it, which, in turn, would save our intrepid ensemble of ghostbusters a whole heap of trouble. 

"Knock, Knock" is an interesting one. It doesn't have the strongest plot and the resolution is a little unclear, but it does have some wonderful character moments. Every one of the Ghostbusters gets a moment to shine here, and the episode contains a number of striking visuals (some of the designs of the monsters running amok within the New York subway are outstanding, perfect examples of classic "Ghostbusters" creature design). I'm also fond of the idea that the door is never properly defeated –- it remains, to be opened during some future Doomsday event, and not a moment before. Sumerians: If you can't get a decent lock for the door, perhaps rest a heavy rock in front of it.

The Collect Call Of Cathulhu

Like the episode of "The Waltons" with the poltergeist, "The Collect Call of Cathulhu" is one of those episodes where you might be tempted to wonder, "Did I imagine that?" upon thinking back on it later.

How do you get bigger than Gozer, the Sumerian god of destruction? You pit the Ghostbusters against Big Bad Cthulhu (here named "Cathulhu"), that's how. In the same way that the concept of fighting the forces of Hell with a shotgun in the videogame series "Doom" seemed vaguely silly but simultaneously amazing, so did confronting the High Priest of the Great Old Ones with four unlicensed particle accelerators operated by blue-collar New Yorkers.

Here in 2021, the Cthulhu mythos has wrapped its tentacles around every aspect of popular culture, but it was relatively rare back then: the Necronomicon, Arkham, Miskatonic University -- they're all in here, operating as a sort-of H.P. Lovecraft greatest hits collection. Cathulhu is repelled, but not defeated (presumably to keep the literary fans happy) and the episode offers a brilliant example of how to piggyback off another writer's mythology with just enough respect to make the whole thing feel like a heartfelt tribute.

Read this next: The 13 Scariest Animated Movies

The post The 14 Best The Real Ghostbusters Episodes appeared first on /Film.

IndieRetroNews reports on an enhanced edition of Quest for Glory IV. Yes indeed welcome to QFG4 Enhanced 1.1; A new update to the game which features tons of bugfixes and improvements, including but not limited to, over an hour of lost audio by the narrator, John Rhys-Davies which can now be heard as intended including death screens, all dead ends removed, annoying bugs fixed including bone cage and the paladin honor shield, improved sounds, cut encounters restored, death sequences restored, and much much you'll just have to play to experience for yourselves! [....

Hello /Film friends! I don't know what made you click on this article but I'm simultaneously glad you did and I'm also terrified you'll find a way to bully me online. This might sound ridiculous, but even though I've been writing about movies (and food, art, music and all other sorts of cultural joys) for almost a decade, I still have to imagine the internet as a black void where no one can actually read my content. What can I say, I'm fun to have at parties.

Even though the internet is listicles all the way down, writing them is hard, especially when the topic is something as personal as your 15 favorite movies. While I love every title on this list, there are so many more I could discuss at length, and frankly, this list is shifting around in my brain all of the time. But, sometimes you have to buckle down and make a decision.

With that being said, most of my blurbs call out the people who introduced me to these movies or the people I watched these movies with for the first time. All of my friends and loved ones are very cool and smart. 95 to 99% of my best thoughts are essentially ripped from the brains of the people I love, which is why I felt a need to shout them out here. What I'm really saying is, /Film should actually hire my mom to write about movies. I'm just a conduit for her good taste.

15. Saw

I very much want to play a game. I was a pre-teen during the rise of the torture porn genre in the U.S. and it has left a mark upon my heart and soul. Watching "Saw" (and to be honest all of the "Saw" movies, every single one) feels like coming home. Everything about this film screams "gritty mid-aughts horror" and that's 100% what I love about it. Everything is dirty, everything is cool toned, and nothing makes sense. While this is weirdly the only James Wan film on my list, know that my love for him runs deep. If this list was a top 25, "Dead Silence" absolutely would have weaseled it's way in because, just like Wan, I love a good puppet.

14. The September Issue

I am a documentary fiend and while I will watch all of the very sad movies about heart-wrenching murders and real crises, my favorite docs are essentially useless puff pieces about niche worlds. "The September Issue" is very much one of those films. If you read "The Devil Wears Prada" at a young age, this documentary will scratch a very specific itch in your brain. If you've ever had a job in an unconventional workplace that required way too much of your time and heart, this movie will take you right back, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. For me, this documentary kind of reminds me of a life I lived once and while I'm not in a hurry to go back, it's nice to visit. It also reminds me of my best friend Marissa who is the only person in my life who will have in depth conversations about fashion with me. We dress very differently, but we somehow have all of the same opinions. It's magic. Also I love the Anna Wintour gossip. She's a weirdo and I want to know everything.

13. Valley Girl

Okay, so this is the first movie starring Nicolas Cage on my list and you're going to have to keep scrolling if you want to find out what the second movie is, but don't do that just yet. Stay here and bask in the ridiculousness that is "Valley Girl" with me. This is your classic teenage love story, but also every aspect of this movie is upsetting. The sexual politics are horrible. No one has any charisma or sexual chemistry. I love it. It's so uncomfortable and unrealistic, like a bad version of "Euphoria" if it took place in LA in the 80s, and yet I am truly obsessed with Cage in his role. My best friend Aminah found this movie in a dollar bin at a Best Buy and we haven't stopped quoting it since. My phone background used to be a low quality still of Nic Cage from this movie and acquaintances would ask me if he was my boyfriend. This is what it's like to know me.

12. Somm

And we're back to puff piece documentaries! If you like underdog competitions and consider yourself to be a snob or snob adjacent, "Somm" needs to get on your watch list because it will honestly teach you some cool stuff about the wine world. But at its very core, it's also basically a sports movie. You root for people to pass their fancy wine test, and if you're mean like me, you also root for people to fail their fancy wine test. It's specific and nerdy and so much fun. Also, everyone in this doc is a character. No one is boring. Every person in this movie would corner you at a party so they could talk down to you about wine and it rules. Those are (sadly) my kind of people.

11. Only Lovers Left Alive

In my heart of hearts I'm still a 15-year-old girl, so I love vampires and I love vampire romances, both of which this movie has in spades. It's also just cool. It's just a cool movie with cool sounds and costumes and actors. I hate basement apartments, but I would live in that plush gothic sex dungeon Tom Hiddleston has set up in the middle of Detroit right now. I would move there quite literally immediately. Of course, the complicated, but loving relationships in this film are what make it more than just a sick-looking music video. Also, I know this list is just supposed to be about the movies I love, but I can't believe my love for this film and most of Jim Jarmusch's catalogue lulled me into watching "The Dead Don't Die." I've seen that movie twice and I've regretted it both times. Has it affected my love of "Only Lovers Left Alive?" No. Do I still get mad when I think about it anyway? Absolutely yes.

10. The Game

This movie is a puzzle and I love every minute of it. I feel like you'll probably hear (read?) me say this over and over again in this list, but it's dripping in atmosphere. This is the perfect off-kilter thriller that is filled with weird moments that almost, kind of, verge on horror but pull back just before things get too grim. Also, I have a soft spot for movies that are really just about rich people problems, and this movie is a rich person problem shrouded in paranoia and dipped in acid. Everything about it is sinister. Now that I think about it, it's kind of like "Succession" but weirder and meaner. As a side note, I watched this movie in the basement of my high school friend Eli's house and now he's out in the world being a successful doctor. I hope you're having fun out there, man!

9. A Nightmare On Elm Street

I've always been a Freddy girl. What can I say, I like a good joke and a bad dream. If I'm remembering correctly, I believe I watched this movie in high school for the first time with my best friend Chloe, who has impeccable taste in horror movies and is still my best friend to this very day. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is such a wild surrealist ride while still sticking to the genre conventions of the day, which makes it feel familiar but also so different from the other films it gets lumped in with. Also, it can't be understated how fun Freddy Krueger is in comparison to the sad hulking monoliths that are Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. And even though he is fun and distinct and has a real discernible personality, he's still actively frightening. What a flex.

8. Jane Eyre (1943)

Unfortunately for me and my brain I was shown this movie at a very young age and then I read the book as an impressionable teen, so the moody Rochester is forever my lit/cinema crush. It's a curse! Anyway, "Jane Eyre" is the perfect gothic romance featuring Orson Welles as your sad boyfriend who loves to neg you and Joan Fontaine as an absolute babe with perfect hair and a tenacious spirit. The mystery at the heart of this unconventional love story is wonderfully unhinged and the fact that it's in black and white only makes it feel more goth and bleak and British. I used to watch this movie all the time with my grandmother, who is from England, and it definitely made me think that every house in England was a decrepit castle, which isn't not true.

7. The Exorcist

I was raised Catholic and I love a horror movie that has a healthy dose of Catholic guilt, and boy oh boy does "The Exorcist" deliver. Besides the deeply sad religious tones, it also packs in an incredible amount of gore and general unease. There are aspects of the movie that feel so subtle and delicately placed and then you get the famous, "your mother sucks cocks in hell line" and there's vomit everywhere. It's got range and atmosphere for days and so many quotable lines. I also feel personally blessed to live in the same city as "The Exorcist" stairs, so it feels like a real hometown movie.

6. Howl's Moving Castle

Okay, so I was truly obsessed with "Kiki's Delivery Service" as a child but I had no idea who Hayao Miyazaki was or that he made any other movies. Cut to me being like 10 or 11 years old and watching "Spirited Away" for the first time, which owned so hard and made me obsessed, but again, I was too young to drive myself to Blockbuster and rent my own movies, so that filmography continued to go unexplored until I was in high school and a friend lent me her DVD copy of "Howl's Moving Castle." There are a lot of Miyazaki movies I love, but this one takes the cake. It perfectly juggles the more adult aspects of the characters while still giving into these wild childish scenes of pure joy. It's a real romp of a love story and the world building is top notch, both intimate and sprawling. I love a man who knows how to put an ensemble together.

5. Moonstruck

I am not really a romantic comedy person but "Moonstruck" owns and even if you're someone who hasn't been overly impressed with romantic comedies, I think this film is charming enough to win anyone over. I mean 1) Cher is a revelation in this movie, she owns every scene she's in and most of the scenes she's not in. 2) Nicolas Cage as a frenzied and passionate lover who also happens to have a wooden hand is truly impeccable casting. 3) It's legit funny and sweet and everyone in this movie is obsessed with the moon and its magical love powers, which is kind of heavy metal. All three of these facts make it sound like a movie I made up completely, and I love that about "Moonstruck." It's a little slice of magic.

4. The Blair Witch Project

I mean, I'm a Maryland girl so I believe there's a state bylaw that makes me legally obligated to love this movie, but I'd like to think I would love it even if I wasn't born with Old Bay blood or whatever. My younger, and much cooler, cousin Rachel convinced me to watch this movie with her when we were kids and we did 100% think it was real and we did think the Blair Witch would be coming for us. Besides eliciting real fear because we were real dumb, you cannot deny the pure unadulterated menace that ekes out of this movie. Even if you can't deal with the shaky cam style or the constant screaming (there is a lot of screaming but frankly wouldn't we all be screaming if we thought a witch was going to kill us?), from a business perspective, this movie was able to do so much with so little and that alone is impressive. Did it launch a thousand copycat found footage films? Sure. Do I love all of those movies too? Yes.

3. The Lost Boys

My love for these last three films are also love letters to my mom, a woman who is down to watch literally anything but is also the shrewdest and most discerning critic I know. I remember coming home from high school and my mom immediately saying to me as soon as I walked through the door, "Did you hear Corey Haim died?" and my response was something along the lines of, "Who?" And she, without pausing, told me to get in the car because we needed to drive to the local Sam Goody (RIP?) so that we could buy "The Lost Boys." We came home and immediately watched it, and as a goth kid turned goth adult who still loves vampire media, I'll never be able to thank her enough for introducing me to this film. It has everything! An incredible soundtrack, cool motorcycle vampires, true love, Kiefer Sutherland with bleach-blond hair. What more could you ask for in a movie?

2. The Silence Of The Lambs

I'd like to start this off with the weird and perhaps surprising caveat that I've only seen half of the first season of "Hannibal" and it was fun but it's not "The Silence of the Lambs." And I don't care how many tumblr gif sets you make of Mads Mikkelsen, I'm not going to change my mind. Anyway, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster own so hard in this movie, I could watch them act the hell off of each other for hours. Truly, the rest of the plot could go away and this movie would still rule, but its conventional thriller sensibilities combined with those one-off moments that feel legitimately transgressive, boggle my mind. This is another movie my mom introduced me to when I was a teenager, and I'll never forget my little brother asking to watch it with us and my mom aquiescing, just to send him out of the room when that scene in the prison happens. I grew up in a cool family.

1. The Shining

I've made everyone I love watch this movie and most of them still love me, which feels like a very specific and unprofitable grift. I mean, it's very long and also polarizing, the kind of horror film you either love or hate, and the reasons you can hate it are so varied and most of them are correct ... and yet. I love all of the wild overacting and repetitive scenes that lull you into a kind of hypnotic nightmare about the breakdown of the classic American family unit. It's honestly perfect to me. Two fun tidbits about me and this movie are that 1) My mom gave me a DVD copy for Easter one year when I was a teenager (like it was placed in an Easter basket surrounded by chocolate, how I was cosmically gifted such a heavy-metal mom I'll never know) and 2) My dad looks strikingly like Jack Nicholson. I will not be taking any further questions at this time.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021 So Far

The post Kaylee Dugan's Favorite Movies of All Time appeared first on /Film.

With The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim getting its Anniversary Edition soon, Bethesda's director Todd Howard took part in the latest episode of IGN's Unfiltered show (you can check out his previous appearance over here). The resulting interview covered Skyrim's 10th anniversary, of course, but also revealed a thing or two about Bethesda's next big project - Starfield. Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls VI also got brief mentions.

The main article linked above directs us to some helpful text excerpts from the interview, and here's the full thing:

Welcome to IGN Unfiltered, our (somewhat) regularly occurring interview series where we sit down with the best, brightest, and most fascinating minds in the video game industry. (Catch up on the other 60 episodes here.) My guest this episode is Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard – my first repeat guest! – who returns to discuss Skyrim as The Elder Scrolls V celebrates its 10th anniversary this week. Of course, we don't just talk about this past. Todd also discusses his next big project, Starfield, and his next next project, The Elder Scrolls 6.

Quick Hits

• Making Starfield was a now-or-never scenario, Howard says, even if The Elder Scrolls 6 had to wait.
• Bethesda Game Studios is committed to making single-player games.
• There's an idea for Fallout 5, but it's a long way away.

Humankind recently received a beta version of its mod tools, and the developers previously released a basic guide on how creators and users can start to employ Humankind mods now that Amplitude Studios is ready for us to move beyond maps and camera alterations. What you may also have noticed that the studio has partnered with a third party called mod.io to help fuel this new era.

In case you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of mod.io before, it’s because it's new, but one of the founders is no stranger to mods - Scott Reismanis is one of the original founders of modding powerhouse ModDB. “I founded ModDB in 2002, because my friends and I loved discovering creative content to play,” he tells us. “Back then, mods were scattered all over the internet and half the time the links didn’t work, so ModDB really was a selfish endeavour to solve that and it was inspired by IMDB (hence the name).”

ModDB and its main rival Nexus, along with Valve’s own Steam Workshop, can easily be considered the holy trinity of PC gaming mods, which begs the question what gap mod.io is trying to fill. “ModDB provides a very unstructured way of organising modding,” Scott says. “Any user can add any piece of content and connect it with anything on the site, so it’s totally unofficial and manual.

RELATED LINKS: Humankind release date, Humankind review, Pre-order Humankind