Actually, there were quite a few years after Rampage‘s release when it remained one of the best ways to live out your giant monster fantasies. Later games would more fully realize the “destroy everything” philosophy that Rampage was built on, but it took a long time for another game to come close to matching (must less surpassing) Rampage‘s simple and satisfying gameplay. For years, it was the best way to let gamers play as Godzilla, King Kong, and even The Wolfman (despite the fact the games didn’t use those names)....

For most of his career, Steven Spielberg has spoken of his desire to make a musical. It turned out to be well worth the wait. Despite harboring serious reservations about a remake of one of the finest movie musicals ever made—Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story movie from 1961—I was entirely won over by Spielberg’s sparkling and passionate reimagining of the original 1957 Broadway show. As if by magic, it returned to the Oscar winning director some of the irresistible exuberance of youth....

Westworld Season 2 Episode 7 You never really know how much you can miss someone until they’re gone. Nor do you realize how crucial Anthony Hopkins’ pseudo-philosophical and congenial malevolence is to the Westworld algorithm until he comes back. And it really did feel like the HBO sci-fi saga regained something this week that we all intuitively felt was lost, right? Such is the case when we spend much of tonight inside of the Cradle with Robert Ford, or at least some facsimile of the man’s genius, waxing poetic to Bernard....

Before breaking down what this might mean, it’s important to note that the seven members of BTS have always had their own, individual outlets for communicating with ARMY (most notably in their VLive vlogs) and expressing themselves artistically (most notably in their respective contributions to the writing and production of group songs, and in the release of solo music and performances). The mainstream American perspective of K-pop is usually framed within a stereotype of corporate-controlled, “cookie-cutter” idols—this includes a band like BTS, which is an outlier within the K-pop industry in many ways....

In the last few hours, Twitter has turned into a particularly fun pitch meeting for fans who want to see the Dark Knight in all kinds of bonkers big-screen situations based on other beloved franchises. If you scroll through the hashtag #BatmanAMovie right now, you’ll find an interesting mix of Bat-puns as well as a few choice illustrations that give you a better idea of what these fake flicks would look like....

But they also addressed a comparison that had been made in conjunction with the renewal news. Justin Roiland went on to say “We’re also not trying to do what The Simpsons is doing and we’re doing less episodes than The Simpsons.” Yet, when looking to shows that have enjoyed incredible longevity, the 20th Century Studios series is definitely one to learn lessons from. Rick and Morty is already seemingly following some of the formula of The Simpsons despite what its creators are saying, but how else can the Adult Swim show look to its Disney/Fox competitors in ensuring it remains relevant for the foreseeable future?...

Now that Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit is racking up awards (with a presumable Emmy sweep still to come) it’s time for the story to enter into yet another medium. Deadline reported today that entertainment company Level Forward has acquired the theatrical stage rights to the novel. That’s right: The Queen’s Gambit is about to be a play…and a musical no less. “It is a privilege for Level Forward to lead the charge of bringing The Queen’s Gambit to the stage through the beloved and enduring craft of musical theater,” Level Forward CEO Adrienne Becker and Producer Julia Dunetz said in a statement....

So while speculation rages about who will take on the mantle of the 14th Doctor, it’s Chris Chibnall‘s replacement as showrunner who will ultimately carry the weight of the universe on their back. Realistically, a candidate needs not just writing but also producing experience (Chibnall had co- and executive producer credits on Torchwood, Camelot, Law & Order:UK, Broadchurch and more before landing Doctor Who). Because the UK TV industry has significant work to do on widening access for writers and producers of colour, that requirement frustratingly narrows the field for such jobs at present....

A modder named Lance McDonald has been combing through leaked files related to the upcoming Demon’s Soul remake and recently revealed that it appears the upcoming remake will not restore Demon’s Souls infamous Sixth Archstone or add any new content related to it. In fact, it sounds like the Demon’s Souls remake’s file structure is fairly similar to the original game. That could mean that many of the enemy and item placements (as well as certain level design aspects) will be identical to what we saw in the original....

The first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, called, aptly enough ‘Strange New Worlds’, was about as generic a Star Trek plot as you could imagine – and that proved to be a massive plus. The USS Enterprise arrived at a planet that was technologically not far off present-day Earth, inhabited by people that looked like humans with a new kind of bumpy forehead. But not everything was well on this planet, in fact they were on the verge of a war fought with devastating weapons of mass destruction, and so it fell to Captain Pike and his crew to bring these aliens to the negotiating table (while bending “General Order One” as far as it can go without snapping)....

As reported by Digital Spy, the director spoke about the movie’s length, explaining that it was originally 4 hours and that no one who’s seen it has any complaints. “A movie is very different when you’re writing the script and you’re building a story compared to what the final product is. At the beginning, when you’re writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story....

When you belong to a cultural superpower, you get used to things being all about you. Wrapped in the soft cotton wool of cultural dominance, you so rarely feel the prick of non-recognition. To grow up the same nationality, race, and on the same patch of land as the planet’s most celebrated writers, artists and musicians is to feel that their stuff is yours too. Unlike other groups, there’s no fight for representation on your hands....

For those who haven’t heard, Take-Two recently announced an astonishing $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga Inc.: a social and mobile game developer best known for casual gaming hits like FarmVille and Words with Friends. There is obviously quite a lot to say about what seems to be the most expensive acquisition in video game history, but the first thing we should make very clear to everyone is that Zynga is essentially a money machine that wears a game developer mask....

Music festivals have come to represent generations. The original Woodstock: an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music concert in the summer of 1969 brought half a million people together with the artists who spoke for and to them in a communal love bond. The organizers lost money, the capacity was underestimated, but the audience came together to share what they had to make the weekend legendary. In December that year, the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont was marred by the pool cues and knives of the security team, the Hells Angels....

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with the show thus far, here’s the broad strokes: Season one saw a team of rag-tag heroes in a zombie apocalypse fail to get a man to the CDC that survived being bitten thanks to an experimental vaccine. Season two saw most of the same rag-tag heroes succeed in getting said man to the CDC in California, which was actually a nuclear submarine....

At first, the idea of horror films for children seems like an oxymoron. ‘Horror’ as a genre inspires thoughts of gore, body horror, screaming ‘final girls’ and overt sexuality. However, horror is more than this – a great deal more. Recent adult horror films such as A Quiet Place and IT can highlight tensions and fears of the adult human psyche: the invaded home, the transmogrified self, our deepest anxieties brought to life....

My mom took a bunch of us on a couple road trips to Florida. She’d heard horror stories about the ride from various aunts and uncles. Somewhere outside of Atlanta the locals couldn’t understand my aunt’s thick thick Brooklyn accent and locked up her husband as the Georgia skunk ape. Another uncle who made the trip couldn’t get through a waitress’s honey molasses accent and when she asked if he wanted grits he thought she said grass....

Of course, NES RPGs were a far cry from the titles we see nowadays. There were no real cutscenes, combat was either turn-based or featured very simple real-time systems, and storylines were nowhere near as complex as what we see now in modern BioWare or Square Enix games. Still, many of the games released for Nintendo’s first home console hold up remarkably well. While what constitutes an RPG is certainly open to debate, for this list, we tried to narrow it down to games that emphasize character growth through experience or equipment customization....

Television, with its multiple episodes and seasons, is often more discursive and therefore less viable for truly great sports stories. Thankfully, that all seems poised to change. While some sports TV shows have found success in the past, now the medium has really kicked things up a notch. Sports stories like Brockmire, Ted Lasso, Cobra Kai, and more are not only welcome on television, but an essential part of the cable and streaming landscape....

When it comes to dealing with the after effects of trauma, perhaps no character is quite as mired in the process as June’s friend, Emily Malek. Appearing in the original novel only briefly, her state-imposed title of Ofglen is her only known name, making her a Handmaid’s character built more by the series than the book. Even as we meet Emily in Season 1, we see someone who is dedicated to bringing Gilead down at all costs....