#gives up on using custom icons. just gathers icon hunts instead.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 5: Felyne

If you’ve seen enough of Monster Hunter, even if you’ve never played it, you probably know about this next monster. Not because it’s known for epic fights or anything like that, but because there’s almost always one around to give players a hand. Let’s talk about the hunter’s little helper, the Felyne!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 4)

Appearance: Felynes are a type of monster called a Lynian. Unlike most other monsters, Lynians are as intelligent as humans are and have their own cultures. Lynians are either ape-like or cat-like, and if you can’t tell which one the Felyne is, then...I don’t know what to say here that isn’t offensive, so I’ll just stick with “you’re wrong.” Since Felynes can wear different clothing, I’ll stick to how they look without any; that is to say, just like a bipedal cat. While this is boring in concept, the Felynes are so iconic and lovable that they don’t really need to stand out in a huge way appearance wise. Though I should point out that Felynes typically have light fur colors; if you see a cat Lynian with darker fur, it’s almost certainly not a Felyne. 7/10.

Behavior: You can’t sum up Felyne behavior any more than you can sum up human behavior. Felynes have different cultures, which means that Felynes in one geographic region will almost certainly have different customs and values than those living in other regions. They do, however, typically get along well with their human and Wyverian (basically the elves of Monster Hunter) neighbors, and participate in cultural exchanges with them. Several Felynes even live in human settlements as farmers, traders, chefs, and even “Meownster Hunters.” ...yes, they use cat puns in their speech. While this would certainly appeal to Nepeta Leijon (and some of my sister’s friends), I think it’s just...too easy. “Hey, here’s a cat person. They use cat puns in almost every sentence because they’re cats.” It just seems unnecessary. Something else I don’t really like is how often Felynes seem to be in positions of servitude in human villages. The Felyne housekeeper in Rise calls you “Meowster” (”Master”), and while I get that they’re supposed to be a maid, it still seems degrading, especially since the ones that help you on hunts (we’ll get to those soon) call you that, too. It doesn’t seem as bad as a House Elf situation, but it and the cat puns are enough to keep me from giving this a perfect score. 9/10.

Abilities: Again, you can’t really sum up what Felynes are capable of since they have as much potential as humans do. They’re intelligent enough to make tools, such as the pickaxes seen in the images above, and even bombs. They can get good with all manner of weapons, too, and they put these skills to good use when hunting on their own or when fighting alongside a human hunter. Felynes that join the player character on hunts are called Felyne Comrades, Partnyers (ugh), and, in Rise, at least, Palicoes. Palicoes have their own armor and weapons, and both are unique from the ones that players can equip. Seriously, one of the weapons you can equip to a Palico in Rise is literally a squirt gun, which is amazing. Palicoes can also have different roles, such as Healers and Gatherers, which affect their behavior and abilities. Here’s a fun fact for you: Monster Hunter has had a lot of crossover events and DLC across the games, and a lot of it usually involves giving Palicoes weapons and armor based on whatever series is collaborating with MH at the time. You’ve got stuff like the Mario and Luigi outfits in Monster Hunter 4:

Now, MH4 was on the 3DS, so it makes sense that there’d be some Nintendo rep in the series. But you’ve also got some weirder ones, like this one from Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (known in Japan as Monster Hunter XX, pronounced “Double Cross”):

This is...unorthodox, but again, it makes some sense; both Phoenix Wright and Monster Hunter are Capcom properties. But this next one, which is also from MHGU? It makes no sense whatsoever to me:

No, you are not hallucinating. There was literally a canon crossover event between Monster Hunter and Sailor freaking Moon. I don’t like the way this thing is looking at me, and I like what the internet probably did when they saw it even less. And this isn’t even the weirdest or most disturbing outfit Palicoes have gotten because of crossovers! I just didn’t show images of some of the other ones because the wiki won’t tell me what franchises they’re from. If you wanna see them, click this link and scroll down a bit: https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Felyne_Photo_Gallery#Felyne_Comrades_.2F_Palico_.2F_Partnyer

If you wanna see some of the franchises MH has collaborated with (including Pizza Hut...twice), go here: https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Hunter_Collaborations

Where was I? Oh, right, the Felyne abilities. Well, they can basically do anything humans can, and they can fight alongside you, so 10/10.

Equipment: Despite what you may think, you can fight Felynes if you encounter them in the wild, and they do drop items upon defeat. However, they’ll only attack you if you attack them. Thankfully, you can’t kill them; when you’ve done enough damage to them, they’ll burrow away, leaving behind items for you to pick up. However, none of these items are very special, from what I can tell, and don’t seem to be used in making any equipment, so there’s literally no reason to hurt these little guys (unless there’s a mission where you have to defeat them that I don’t know about). But they do have weapons based off of them, which you can make from items that I presume aren’t dropped by anything when you kill it. Now, this is the first time I’ve felt that I’ve needed to show multiple weapons here, and that’s because Felyne weapons are...weirdly inconsistent. There are a few which look like what you may expect--that is, sticks with paws on the end--but there are more that are...well, to start, here’s a Light Bowgun you can make in several games--it’s called the Felyne Helldoll in MH1 and the Felyne Ragdoll in other games:

...well, at least they made the tail the barrel instead of, well, the butt. This is...kinda cute? But then you’ve got weapons like this Switch Axe (an axe that can turn into a sword) from MHG/MHGU and Rise called the Grim Cat:

Okay, what about Felynes made the devs think “Cheshire Cat?” This is disturbing. And then you’ve got this Hammer from Monster Hunter Frontier G which--oh, god, what is that.

Th-that’s a hammer? How is that--y’know what, no. I-I think we’re done here. The point is that Felyne weapons are so diverse in terms of design that I don’t think I can rate them as easily as I can other weapons. I’m just gonna give these a nya~/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: Felynes might as well be the secondary mascots of Monster Hunter (we’ll get to what many consider the true mascot another time); they’re easy to understand and they’re cute enough to be iconic. They’re the most human out of all of the monsters, and that makes them easier to connect with, especially if you’re a cat lover. The fact that they’re a huge help on hunts just makes them easier to appreciate, and the different weapons and armor you can give your Palicoes adds even more personality to these little guys. 8/10.

[americangirlstar]

american girl contemporary dolls’ animal crossing islands

bc apparently covid is now canon to the agverse you know they all got new horizons

lindsey bergman: the first contemporary doll also has THE most chaotic island. she does what she wants and nobody can stop her. she only accepts the villagers with the wildest designs, made everyone’s catchphrase either uwu speak or smth like “gay rights,” only wears the most hideous outfit combinations, and buys everything from redd no matter how fake it is. one room of her house is filled with haunted artwork, another has nothing but snapping turtles. she’s figured out how to make memes into clothing patterns and now every pathway on her island is the pogchamp face. best friends with flick. honestly she’s an icon 

kailey hopkins: spends 90% of her time swimming or fishing. only 90% because she actually takes her role as island rep seriously and she has worked very hard to get it to five-star. she does abuse her power to make a million rivers and turn her island into basically a waterpark, but that just makes it cooler. died of joy when swimming was enabled and now has two of everything you can collect in the ocean decorating her house, every room of which resembles a beach house. also collects seashells and has very pretty shell arches decorating doorways

marisol luna: she went into the game with a list of who she will and will not allow on her island and is ruthless in kicking out villagers in order to get who she wants to move in. absolute QUEEN at catching tarantulas/scorpions, goes hunting for them on islands with the insane amount of nook miles she collects by doing random quests. loves collecting emotions for her character to do and then making funny videos out it. filled out the fossils in her museum FAST and now just digs up fossils to decorate the lawn with. each room of her house is a different dance studio. 

jess mcconnell: QUEEN of fishing and bug-catching but can’t dive for SHIT. she has about three of every fossil because she can’t stand the idea of selling them. is obsessed with gathering every possible DIY recipe even if she doesn’t plan on making anything with them, she just thinks they’re neat. has a shrine on her island for redd and celeste in attempts to get them to come more often. she’s been on her island religiously every day since she got the game, it’s a little scary. thinks murder should be legal on her island 

nicki fleming: cannot chose a mean dialogue option to save her life. she can barely stand to kick out villagers she dislikes either, only does it if they ask to leave and then prays to the nintendo gods that bunnie will come visit the island. the main room of her house is reflective of her actual room, the rest of it is absolutely gorgeously decorated, stuff made to look like meadows or snowy mountains. winter is her favorite, she makes a snowboy every day no matter how many times she crashes the snowballs. LIVES for cj and flick because she always hated the idea of her fish/bugs dying for a competition. saves all her new stuff for the museum for nighttime because she feels bad waking up blathers 

mia st clair: wants to hack the game so that it’s winter all the time. soon as the winter DIYs dropped she redecorated her entire island and house to be as icy as possible. she’s basically queen elsa at this point. she’s horrible at catching items so her museum is mostly fossils, but even then sometimes she sells fossils before identifying them if she’s short on bells. she visits sable every day in hopes of making her feel happy. she has pretty much every possible clothing wand so that she can carry around one to match each outfit. one time her brothers went on to try and fuck with her island and we don’t speak of what happened following that. fear her 

chrissa maxwell: shares an island with gwen and sonali. she’s the one in charge so she’s working very hard to make it a 5-star island so isabelle will stop bugging her about it. also very into DIY and likes to decorate the island with things she’s built. favorite seasonal event was the wedding anniversary one, she can’t get enough of redesigning and taking photos of those funky lil alpacas. plus, she got a lot of neat stuff out of it. goes to the able sisters every day to see what kinds of new outfits they have, and yet somehow cannot make a good fashion decision to save her life. obsessed with swimming and now leaves all other museum donations to her girlfriends so she can spend all her free time looking for crabs 

gwen thompson: somehow absolutely brutal. will send clashing-colored toilets in the mail to villagers she doesn’t like to fuck with their home design and hit them with butterfly nets. she’s tried to hit them with axes as well. shakes trees constantly in an effort to catch wasps and has not gotten stung once because she’s that quick with a net. her favorite character is celeste and chrissa and sonali have barely any star stuff because whenever celeste is on gwen is hogging the switch. changes her characters’ hairstyle, like, every five minutes. when she sends her friends gifts the letters will say something like “fuck u, love u <3″ it’s so wildly different than how she normally acts in public that it’s a little scary 

sonali matthews: even worse than gwen. has tried to murder villagers she dislikes before. sometimes fucks with parts of the island just to see how people react. would sell her soul to redd just to piss off tom nook. the only thing she takes seriously is gardening, she has a fenced-off area where she breeds flowers and woe befall anyone who messes it up. her house is a hoarder’s nightmare and chrissa and gwen have been begging her to let them redesign it but she refuses. screenshots the worst parts of their island and posts them on twitter with the dreamcode so people can see the graveyard she made to intimidate rodney 

lanie holland: still lives in a tent because she thinks it’s cool, refuses to pay up to nook so she doesn’t have to get a house. somehow has the cutest outfits of everyone. her island design is to die for, half the island is full of flowers arranged in rainbow-order and the other half looks like a faerie forest. has filled out her museum’s bug collection and has half the fossils but keeps forgetting to go fishing. her little sister emily joined her island and keeps trying to get lanie to upgrade to a house or expand other stores but lanie refuses, it’ll mess with the aesthetic. emily basically has a huge mansion in the corner of the island while everything else is practically a glorified campsite. leif is lanie’s favorite and she only collects bells in order to buy things from him 

kanani akina: the most beautiful island design you’ve ever seen. she also takes the best screencaps and posts them just so her friends know what she’s up to but becomes internet famous for how gorgeous everything is. the best designs, very diverse plants, all the houses are arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way. kanani’s house is on the beach so she can easily swim, fish and collect shells, but the inside is the best part. five of the six rooms are just as beautiful as you’d expect, with soft pastel aesthetics and quiet music playing. then her basement is referred to as the “special room” which holds nothing but several candles in a summoning circle and a single tarantula figure in the center. there’s a skeleton in the corner. whenever anyone asks about it she pretends she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. it’s the funniest thing 

mckenna brooks: disastrous. horrible at paying nook back and keeps getting angry letters from the happy home academy. her goal is to find any loopholes in the game and exploit them, no matter that the game is super simple and thus “cheats” aren’t very useful. she found out about island star ratings and now is trying in vain to get a five-star but she can’t get above a three. has been stung by wasps about a million times while shaking trees to try and find loose bells. one time she shook a tree and a toilet fell out and it now has a dedicated podium on her island, and whenever anyone asks she simply tells them that the toilet is the god of the island. hasn’t been able to keep a villager for longer than a few weeks, and also somehow got raymond on accident. still having the time of her life

saige copeland: spends far too much time designing customs and far too little removing weeds. wants to have flowers in rainbow order like lanie but keeps accidentally picking them. has absolutely no rush to do anything, lived in a tent for like three months because she forgot she could pay off loans. only accepts peppy or normal villagers so her island is pretty much all-girl and she refers to it as the amazon island; this is, however, because somehow no horses have shown up on her island yet even though she very much wants them to. likes to dream and go to random islands to get inspiration. she has a room in her house full of rainbow eels because she thinks they’re pretty 

isabelle palmer: will not stop buying things from the able sisters. she visits every day, pretty much buys one of everything, and then mixes and matches costumes instead of fixing her island. lives for the days when label visits because she takes her requests very seriously and comes back in outfits that slay™. almost exclusively gives clothing gifts to her villagers so that they have a better fashion sense. has a lot of flowers but can’t figure out how to get them to mix. the bug section of her museum has butterflies and nothing else simply because she only thinks to try and catch butterflies. hits rocks every day to try and find the daily Money Rock™. keeps trying to get raymond but her sister won’t let her pay anyone actual money for him 

grace thomas: when she visits the nook store she will solely speak to tommy. constantly checking the wiki to find out which DIYs sell well, and thus only collects shells in order to make shell arches to turn around and sell back. insanely good with bells and with figuring out how to make her island palatable, got a five-star fast. the main room of her house is decorated like a restaurant, with two different kitchen rooms and the upstairs decorated to look very french. she made everyone’s catchphrases french, too. is the only person in the world upset you can no longer eat the fish. goes swimming every day just so she can find a scallop and talk to pascal, she thinks he’s cool 

lea clark: there are a lot of plants here. just. far too many plants. of every color too! she’s very proud of it. she has a short attention span though so there’s like fifty different unfinished projects. she is best friends with like three villagers and forgets the names of the rest, but one time she accidentally hit a villager with a butterfly net and cried for an hour. only ever dresses in summer clothes and is awful at saving money so she only has like eight bells at a time. seasonal events are her absolute jam though, she can’t get enough of them. would die for leif. almost got blocked by the animal crossing twitter for constantly begging them to give her the froggy chair (thanks @lesbianleaclark!) 

gabriela mcbride: her island is more important than her social life. she is very serious about making it a functioning island, and is obsessed mainly with filling out her museum. every time she catches a sea bass instead of something new she lets out a series of swears not appropriate for a child audience. she is best friends with all of her villagers and cries whenever one of them thinks about leaving. her favorite kk slider song changes by day and she’ll switch the music around everywhere whenever she feels like it. visits other islands in order to gather materials to sell in order to make her house bigger; she’s got a dance room, a poetry corner, a student council room, and the main room looks like the liberty arts center. whenever anyone (who’s not redd) visits her island she cries and tries to figure out how to give them things for free because she loves them so much. whenever redd comes by without genuine art she tries to hack into the game in order to skin him alive

tenney grant: obsessed with getting every kk slider song. every time he shows up to the island she pulls up the list of available songs and picks one she doesn’t have yet to request. she wants to get a different song playing in every area of the island and every room of every house. shares an island with logan, jaya and holliday but she’s in charge, which sucks because holliday is way better at doing island management. she’ll text holliday with what isabelle wants her to do and then go DIY a guitar. she set up a stage area near the beach so they can give concerts for the villagers and honestly it looks gorgeous. she named her island “nashville” but makes no attempt to actually make it look like tennessee. she released her dream code on her twitter and because she’s technically a celebrity people keep coming by and asking her why everything on the island looks good except logan’s house and she’s like “ask logan idk” 

logan everett: speaking of which, yeah, logan’s house is a disaster. he cares naught for decorating his place and fills it with random things he thinks are “cool.” likes to run through flowers until they explode. the best diver on the island, though, and is responsible for that area of the museum, while tenney gets fishing, jaya gets bugs, and holliday gets fossils. they all work together to buy everything from redd whether it’s real or not because they think the art is pretty, they find out whether or not it’s real after taking it to blathers. he will place random toilets in the middle of the island and wait for someone else to find it, they have no idea he’s the one doing it and it’s driving them crazy. it’s also the funniest thing he’s ever done and he’s very proud of it. whenever kk shows up he requests a song tenney doesn’t have yet and leaves it outside her door. she didn’t ask him to do this he’s just like that 

z yang: the god of all things video games. she’s a streamer now and while she mostly streams mario, zelda or sonic games, on holidays she’ll stream her island and take suggestions for what she should do to it. due to this, her island can be a mess at times, but she somehow keeps getting good ratings. every time there’s an update she loads up a report of what’s new so she can be one of the first to try it out. she named her island something like “zworld” and refuses to change it. every room of her house is a different movie set, and she put cameras everywhere on the island “so the villagers don’t get any ideas.” somehow keeps getting rare villagers on the first try and won’t let them leave 

luciana vega: would die for celeste. her island is incredibly space-themed and well cared-for, because this game soothes her anxiety so she’s on it 24/7. her town flag is an incredibly accurate constellation. she fills out her museum specifically cause it’s run by celeste’s brother and she’d do anything for that owl; her parents got her a celeste plush for her birthday and now she won’t let go of it. she schedules her life around animal crossing updates. her favorite thing to do is go swimming at night and just look at the animation on the waves under the stars. also wisp’s best friend. won’t accept a villager unless they look like they could potentially be an alien, which means she has the coolest villager collection of everyone 

blaire wilson: due to her family’s experience running an inn she knows exactly how to run a village. her island’s almost boring in how well it’s designed and run, but she always has something extra to keep interest, like an island in the middle that’s filled with exotic flowers. went to the wedding picture event every day in order to get every piece of furniture she could and now has a “wedding area” of her island that nobody uses but is great for photos. isabelle is her favorite character and she will do anything for her. somehow able to make the funniest animal crossing memes in the world. once caught a coelacanth without expecting it and screamed and dropped her switch 

joss kendrick: the BEST fisher. has never lost a fish once, nobody knows how she does it. best friends with cj and takes his seasports challenges way too seriously. wishes they were able to surf but swimming is good, too, though sometimes she’ll spend upwards of ten minutes chasing a particularly stubborn crab. she is incredibly patient at terraforming and uses this skill for evil, as every time her cheer squad comes to visit her island she has completely changed it around and then has them all play hide-and-seek. nobody knows how to find anything. the only consistent thing is that the beach will be the coolest-looking beach in the whole game. she named her island “lesbos” and accepts villagers that “pass the gay vibe check.” nobody is sure what the gay vibe check is 

kira bailey: is horrible at saving bells or getting a good rating on her island but she doesn’t care because her main focus is DIYing her own decor to make her island look like her aunts’ conservatory. as such, will only accept animals that could potentially live there, such as koalas or kangaroos. she’s bad at figuring out where to put houses and buildings so her island’s a mess to navigate, however she knows the routes like the back of her hand and gets confused when people ask her how the hell she finds anything. for some reason absolutely terrified of wisp and refuses to wander her island at night in case they show up 

[itwillalwaysbedestiel]

Supernatural Star Jensen Ackles Is Ready for What’s Next. Are You?

When it was announced that beloved CW series Supernatural was ending after 15 years, fans were crushed. But there's plenty to look forward to before saying goodbye. Here the show's star opens up about the “beautiful” final episodes, his next move, and how he finally got his hands on Baby.

By Emily Tannenbaum

October 14, 2020

Jensen Ackles’s Supernatural journey began and ended with a road trip.

Fifteen years ago Sam and Dean Winchester (played by Jared Padalecki and Ackles, respectively) began their drive across the country in a jet-black 1967 Chevy Impala, hunting monsters, demons, and, eventually, God himself. Ackles was 26 years old at the time (the same age as the James Dean–like figure he portrays on the CW series), single, and coming off a steady career on TV, including a popular role on Days of Our Lives.

The actor is now 42 years old and just finished filming the 15th and final season of Supernatural after the coronavirus pandemic shut down production for several months. To mark the occasion, he did what Dean would do: He took a road trip. But this time things looked a little different and not just because he lacked monster-killing weapons and the iconic Impala.

“It was a sprinter van,” he tells me, back at home in Austin, after driving to the East Coast with his wife, One Tree Hill actor Danneel Harris Ackles, and their three young children. And instead of fighting the forces of evil along the way, he questioned what life might look like without the show that's been a vital part of his identity for a decade and a half.

“I needed to get back home and start figuring things out and start unpacking my life that's been in Vancouver for 15 years,” he says. “What's the next move? Where am I headed next? What interviews am I going to do? Luckily, my wife was like, ‘Stop. Can you just take a breath for a minute and play with your kids on the beach?’”

So he did. But now he’s back, talking to me over Zoom with his new, prized commissioned drawing of Winchester brothers’ smashed-up Impala behind him (a gift from his wife by artist Alessandro Paglia), trying to put into words what it feels like to leave behind a 15-year legacy.

“How have you changed in the last 15 years?” he asks me. Well, I've watched a lot of Supernatural, to be honest.

Existentialism aside, Ackles is clearly ready for his next act, even if the show's massive, fervent fandom—known as the SPN Family—may not be. Back in March 2019, Ackles, Padalecki, and their costar Misha Collins devastated diehards when they announced they'd be ending the series on their own terms after more than 300 episodes. A bit of good news is that fans will still have the conventions that honor the show and cast meet-ups that take place all over the world. Eventually.

“I love how big it's gotten and how we feel like a traveling circus going from town to town,” Ackles says. “Obviously, we'll have to wait until we're all allowed to gather in large crowds again, but I think as soon as we can start going to concerts and festivals and movie theaters, we'll start those back.”

For now Ackles is preparing for his life beyond Dean Winchester, which includes his anticipated role as the first-ever superhero in season three of Amazon Prime Video's The Boys, as well as a new production company he's starting with his wife. He filled me in on all that, how the Supernatural finale changed due to COVID-19 restrictions, and, of course, how he got his hands on the iconic 1967 Chevy Impala—which he drove to Starbucks the morning of our call.

Glamour: I almost don’t know how to ask you how it feels to end a life-changing, 15-year project like Supernatural.

Jensen Ackles: I understand how rare it is and that it's a bit of a unicorn to have a show that runs this long and to be as intensely part of it as I have. I mean, you've got procedural dramas—you know, Law & Order and stuff—but a lot of those casts come and go. To have the same two leads in every single episode for 15 years, I think, is a pretty rare feat. So I'm proud that we did it. That was really the overwhelming feeling when we filmed our last day and our last scene. It wasn't a mourning process; it was more of a proud moment of “Look at what we've done.”

The finale of Supernatural was already planned before COVID hit. Did anything in the last two episodes have to change because of filming restrictions?

We had to drop some ideas we had for the final episode, but it didn't change the story. We were supposed to have a lot of familiar faces come back, and we were going to try to filter them into a montage. It was going to be almost a break from the story and a look at how far we've come—a little tip of the hat to the fans—and we would all be able to celebrate together. Obviously, we couldn't do that. So that part of the finale episode got nixed. But the story and how it ends up, that stayed the same.

You’ve been talking about wanting Dean’s Chevy Impala, Baby, for literally years now. Did you get it?

I've wanted it since the second episode. I was like, “Wait a second. What's going to happen to this car when it's over?” I've been angling to get that car since literally season one. I was thinking, Why wouldn't they give me the car?

Then as the years went on, I thought, Oh, I'm gonna have to fight for this now. So I kept seeing if I could put it in my contract, like for years and years, and the studio, the producers were like, “Don't worry, don't worry about it.” Wink. I was like, “Yeah, you say that now.” So, in my last contract that we had, I didn’t ask for a bigger trailer; I didn’t ask for more money or more time off or anything. I said, “I want the car.”

That car is sitting about 40 feet from me and my garage. I actually drove it to Starbucks this morning and picked up some coffee.

Your wife, Danneel, has been appearing on Supernatural since season 13. Do you two have any plans to continue acting together?

We've got a company now, Chaos Machine, and we're starting to produce things together. So it'll be a more of a producing team as opposed to an on-camera duo. That’s the thing with this industry...you never know where the roads may lead or what’s just around the corner. But she and I love that. And we certainly love a challenge.

You two already run a brewery, Family Business Beer Company, together while raising a seven-year-old and three-year-old twins. How do you work together as husband and wife versus as business partners?

Very similarly actually. Divide and conquer.

Speaking of behind-the-scenes roles...you’ve directed five episodes of Supernatural. Any plans to direct Jared Padalecki's new show, Walker?

I would absolutely love to, but with my new gig on The Boys, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to. We're trying to figure out scheduling.

They're in the midst right now of building my costume for The Boys, which is a custom-built superhero suit. That is way more intense than I anticipated, which is cool. But I have to literally be in L.A., like, every two weeks for the next three months. I think it's six fittings and they're each like three- to four-hour fittings. They're literally molding things to my body, so it's intense.

What will be on your playlist for you to listen to while they mold things to your body?

Actually, funny enough, that was the first thing they asked me. Laura Jean Shannon, the costume designer, she says this is important because every superhero [she’s worked on] has a type of music. So she was like, “What would Soldier Boy listen to?”

To be fair, the first time we see him, it's World War II. So we're talking the ’40s. So we listened to big band and swing the whole first day.

In addition to your new projects, you’ve also been posting a lot about Black Lives Matter this summer—from handing out supplies at a protest to giving over your social media accounts to Black activists and politicians. What have you learned?

Looking at my kids and being a father, I’m thinking, Wow, what kind of world are they gonna have? So I've started to listen a little more and I've started to want to understand other people's experiences so that I can make a better choice about the actions I take. I've gotten pushback—[in the past] even I've looked at actors using their platform to be political and been like, “You know, nobody needs to hear that. Just do your movies and do your show. You're not a politician.”

But I've now learned that, no, you've been given a platform now with social media. And even before that, when you would give an interview to a publication, there's a voice there that is yours and you get to choose how you use that. And I think that's a responsibility that people need to take seriously. So I’ve tried to do it as inclusively as possible.

Before I let you go, please tell me what fans can expect from the final episodes?

I've said a few times that the second-to-last episode really feels like the season finale and that the final episode feels like a series finale. The series finale, episode 20, is this beautiful throwback to the whole show—to what it was, what it has been, and what it is today.

Okay, one more! What’s the creepiest thing that’s happened to you on set, in honor of spooky season?

Anything that's kind of been paranormal or supernatural? I think that they stay away. If that stuff was to happen, it's not going to happen on our set because we've got too many tools to take them down.

If your lore is correct, that is...

Right? That's true. [Laughs.] Oh, it was pepper, not salt? Damn it!

Supernatural airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. E.T. on the CW. This interview has been edited for clarity.

[waynekelton]

Review: Egypt: Old Kingdom

Ancient Egypt has always been a popular setting for games. It is hardly surprising, as with its distinctive art and lavish customs the Land of the Pharaohs is a rich source for game designers seeking inspiration. However, a quick look at the app store reveals that the most popular Egyptian-themed games devote themselves to matching tiles, playing slots or dressing-up princesses. Thankfully, Egypt: Old Kingdom takes a more scholarly approach. As an incarnation of the god Horus, your task is to work alongside the pharaohs in order to overcome the mighty Seth. Seth is a bit of a pain and as the god of chaos, he is eager to unleash a catalogue of disasters upon the land. We begin our journey in Memphis, but this is Egypt, not Tennessee so the job is to build pyramids rather than Graceland. However, it isn’t wise to attempt to run before we can walk like an Egyptian. The Old Kingdom was around for hundreds of years and before we can even think of building mysterious pyramidical buildings we will need to first establish our tribe.

Initially, Egypt: Old Kingdom seems rather complex and intimidating; it feels like a crash course in ancient Egyptology. However, settle into the game’s steady flow, and it soon becomes clear that the game isn’t actually that daunting at all. The tutorial introduces you to the bare basics and then leaves you to discover the rest as you play, but that’s OK because the range of available options never becomes too intimidating. It turns out to be a Civilization-style game that does away with a lot of the micromanagement aspects and instead focuses on the deployment of your workers. At the beginning of the game, the map is shrouded in fog and you will want to send out workers to explore new areas. When a worker is sent to a new region their choice of actions will be limited by geographical constraints. Hills are great for constructing barracks, new homes and numerous other types of buildings. Fertile floodplains will yield a choice of extra crops. Some areas will already have resources that you can gather or packs of wild beasts that you can either hunt or worship.

Success depends on efficiently acquiring and managing supplies of the game’s six resources. Food enables you to feed and increase the size of your population; spend ten food and you will be able to place a new worker. The chief sources of food are cultivated fields and fish from regions near the Nile. Production points are mainly used for constructing new buildings; workshops will help you increase your production. Luxuries are usually acquired through trade; they keep your population happy and help pacify angry neighbours. The game’s abstract approach extends to military strength, which just like any other resource is represented by a single number. An effective way of improving your army is by building barracks. Culture points can be used to make new discoveries, with advancements following the usual technology tree approach. For instance, once you have established the local cults advancement, your people can then discover tomb building, which is a great way of improving favour with the gods. Favour points allow you to worship the various gods, each of whom will provide you with a time-limited bonus. After a few turns, your people will stumble across other tribes. Now you will have the option to forge new friendships or make new enemies. Peaceful options include setting up a simple trade agreement and maybe greasing a few palms. Once relationships get really good you will be able to assimilate the people into your society. Aggressive options include subjugating a tribe in battle or launching a raid but remember that enemies have long memories and they can unite against you. Combat is very simple, just challenge a tribe and wait for five turns, then the army levels are compared. There are no differing units or tactics, but you can call upon the favours of some gods to enhance your combat abilities.

It is odd that the version of the game available depends on your device. On Android, you can download the game for free. This lite version gives you the opportunity to dip your toe into the Nile by playing through the first 50 turns. If you want to see more then you will need to pay to open up the rest of the game. On iOS the lite version seems to have been replaced by a full version that requires a one-off payment.

In the full game, the number of options available is very impressive. Games can be set up that follow the course of history, or you can create your own history in the appropriately named sandbox mode. You can add more micromanagement elements, reduce the influence of the gods in various ways and make things even tougher by limiting your options to save progress. Conspiracy theorists may like to try a game in which the human race is enslaved by aliens, whilst B-movie buffs can create a game in which evil mummies are invading the world. The later options sound like fun additions, but they do cheapen the authenticity of the game. Otherwise, you have to admire the amount of background research that the developers have incorporated. The end result is a richly thematic game that is also educational in an entertaining way. There are even optional quizzes that test your new-found knowledge of all things Egyptian.

Egypt: Old Kingdom has simple but still very thematic graphics. The easily identifiable icons ensure that the screen remains uncluttered whilst the neat animations show at a glance what each of your workers is up to. The full game lasts 300 turns, this seems like a lot, but as there isn’t that much micromanagement to worry about, you can often burn through turns at a rapid rate. Events drive the narrative forward; some of these will be small random incidents like an attack from a pack of hyenas. Others are based on specific historical happenings and the fallout of not dealing with these can be very harsh. Some may feel that the way that these scripted events push you in a certain direction make progress feel too linear. Others may find that the random events are too frustrating; an unexpected famine can really set your plans back. Sometimes these events can be mitigated, for instance, if you have the resources, you may be able to build damns before a flood hits and so avoid the loss of key buildings. Of course, you can always use the options to play a more open-ended game at the expense of historical flavour. If you have even a passing interest in Egyptology then Egypt: Old Kingdom comes highly recommended. The streamlined civilisation building works well, although Civ veterans may find the range of control too limiting. The main choice appears to be between focusing on using military strength or diplomacy to bring the other tribes under Horus’s wing. With only six resources to worry about, it is easy to quickly assess how much you are producing and spending without the need for complicated menus. Furthermore, since the options in each region are limited by geographical constraints, the range of choices never becomes overwhelming. In fact, the exhaustive historical setting can make the game seem deeper and more complex than it actually is.

Review: Egypt: Old Kingdom published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[technifliers]

5 most important features that Professional Logo Designers Entail in their Logo Designs

With an upsurge of new businesses in the market every day, it is exasperating yet crucial to keep an effective communication with their potential customers. Marketers work on strategies and policies to make sure people can engage with their business in numerous ways. Therefore, almost every business is spending a lot of money and time on generating visual tools so that the audience can connect and relate to them.

A logo does not only serve as a symbol of your identity, but also reflects the core message and idea behind your company. A professionally designed logo will go a long way in creating brand trust, admiration and loyalty. However, it is not as easy as it may seem. “Anyone can design a logo, but not everyone can design the right logo”, says David Airey in his book Logo Design Love. And I’m sure you all agree to this.

While logo design can be incredibly intricate and demanding, it is important to have experts assisting you from the beginning to its execution. Don’t fret if you have no clue who to consult for the perfect logo design! After so much of research and probing, we have come up with a handy guide that will teach you everything you need to know before you start designing your logo.

Here are 5 professional tips to help you along.

1)   Proper Research!

Before you get to work, ask yourself if you know enough about the brand? Whether you are designing a logo for yourself or another company has hired you for it, it is imperative to have every detail from the history to their future products. You don’t want to redesign it every time you learn something new about the client or the company. Changing it every now and then not also shows you are confused about your own business, but also creates a sense of distrust among your customers. To avid such situations, make sure all details are ready beforehand.

Once you have gathered enough information about the business, start brainstorming and ask yourself if you have any ambiguities or second thoughts. Research is not an overnight process that will give you the perfect logo the next morning. You need to give it enough time and efforts. Arrange as many meetings as you can with the client so no information is left behind. Move to the next step only when you are confident that you know your client and their brand as much as they do.

2)   Keep it Simple!

This will sound a little odd, but every designer or expert will lend you this advice of keeping it simple as possible. Now you would ask what could possibly be a simple logo? It surely implies that the use of colors and fonts should be simple, but it also asks one to deliver the thought behind your work in a precisely effective way. By simple I am not at all suggesting you to go with whatever comes in your mind, regardless of it defining every bit of information you want the public to know about your brand.

You might notice that most of the successful businesses have kept their logos very simple and easy to remember. For instance, look at the logo of Nike. It is just a simple swoosh. Or, let’s take Apple. Both these business giants have made sure their logos are memorable enough, yet depict their ideologies and vision completely.

There is no such thing as a second chance or impression, and trust me nobody even has time for that. No one will make an extra effort trying to figure out the meaning of your logo. Thus, keep in mind they are able to understand, recognize and connect to it on the very first glimpse.

 3)   Originality!

Keeping it original will not only show how creative you are to look for something that makes you stand out in the market, but also shows how much you value the ethics of your work. Remember that your competitors have struggled as much as you have, and stealing their work only portrays your incompetence and ineptitude. You might also be punished for this act, so it is better you avoid such a thing in the first place.

Yes, you can always take inspiration and borrow ideas, and for that you will have to do ample research on your competitors. Do not just go for a color, symbol or fond because some successful brand has used it for their logo design. Instead, that will set you apart from that competition.

4)   Be Careful with the Colors!

From large billboards and banners to something small like business cards, brochures, blogs and websites, a logo will literally be put everywhere to represent your business. It is therefore important that every element is carefully thought of and distinctively premeditated. Choosing the perfect color for the logo design contributes largely to the brand’s image and identity. Ask yourself if you need a color in the first place? Maybe it is better off without it.

Before you decide which color might best suit your business, ask yourself whether you want an animated logo, an iconic logo or a typographic one.  The type of logo will make it much easier and clearer for you to go for what color and size.

5)   Hire the best Designer!

Trends are tempting and a thorough research on them will certainly get your job done in an effective way. But, is that all? Just by knowing your brand or its competitors will not get you your dream logo. You will also have to find the perfect person or company for that.

I know what you are thinking! Too scared to spend more on the logo than the brand itself? We thought so, and therefore, have hunted out the right place for it.

UpTown Logo Design will assist at every step to get your customized logo design in the best of prices. They make sure the nub and essence of your brand is imitated through your logo while enhancing its overall look.

They are not just the best in town for their award-winning work, and you about to have the best experience of your life!

For more information visit our website: https://www.uptownlogodesign.com

[topicprinter]

Why I startedI love building new things and sharing them. When I do, my excitement often turns to despair as my betas rarely catch on.Though I’m ok with this (and I usually learn a ton along the way) I often lament over how much time I had put into building a web app just to test the value prop. Sometimes the prospect of it all going to waste can even be a huge demotivating force during the build.Regardless, I had always considered it a necessary evil to test my idea. Without really thinking about it, I hadn’t considered that anything less would be a fair test of an idea. Perhaps it was the engineer in me that thought about the technical considerations before what it really took to test a business.What I builtMy latest beau is Catsnatcher — a tool that gives profitability and competitive metrics on 40,000+ highly-specific Amazon categories so that sellers can find the perfect niche.Having spent months developing the necessary scripts to gather and analyse the info, I finally completed the data stage three weeks ago. I then started to break ground on the web app that would present this data to users.“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” — Reid Hoffman As a lone wolf, I quickly found myself frustrated when dealing with the mundanity of non-value add pieces (pretty much everything on the frontend). I had the data ready, wasn’t that enough for people? The medium wasn’t going to affect people‘s success on Amazon. ‘People don’t pay for buttons’, I told myself after three hours of trying to fix the damn buttons.Thinking about myself and all the time I had wasted on the presentation of previous betas — I put myself in the shoes of the customer and realised that if I was them, I wouldn’t care how this was given to me. My purchase would depend on the data available and if it serviced my need to be the best Amazon seller. In fact, part of me would probably trust data from a file more than a typical web app.Following research on the specs and planning what adjustments I’d have to make (more on these below), Google Sheets quickly became the favourite. After all, it includes:Data presentation — the well-known tabular format first made famous by excel is easy to navigate and isn’t much worse looking than a custom frame that would have taken days to tweakSorting — viewing metrics from highest-to-lowest and vice-versa is very important for analysing Amazon data Filtering — as with the above, people will be searching criteria based on parameters (e.g. rating < 4.2)Copy protection — data is my product, so if I didn’t use Google Sheets I would have had to install CloudFlare to prevent illicit scraping of my dataSharing/auth of users — its so easy to add new emails and adjust permissions of existing ones, I can even add people who provide a non-Google email!All of this could have taken me weeks or even months to build myself, not to mention maintenance. As I closed my IDE (for what was hopefully the last time), I asked around to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind:Running MVP on Google SheetsWhat I learnedThe new stack would be a Google Sheet that I added people to once they had paid me through my simple static HTML landing page. As I could export directly from PostgreSQL to CSV getting the data in would be as simple as drag and drop; however the remainder of the setup wasn’t all plain sailing.Although Google Sheets was handling huge chunks of my app stack (data frames, authentication, frontend protection from copy/paste) there were several limitations that simply wouldn’t have been an issue if I had taken those extra weeks to code an app instead:The maximum allowed cells possible in Sheets is 2M. I needed two sheets — one for the Categories and another for their constituent Item listings. Considering I started out with 40,000 Categories and over 500,000 Items and about 10–15 columns of metrics for each; keeping this many rows would have meant a lot fewer metrics on each to be compliant (no fewer than four for Items, in fact). Instead, I filtered some protected categories and ones I thought were useless to bring it down to 28,000 and instead of showing the top 20 Items for each Category for beta I decided to show just the top five (for a total row count of just over 100,000). This meant I could show off most of the important analyses (columns) I had made for both. I think my final tally of cells was about 1.8M.User permissions were probably my biggest challenge. I wanted people to be able to explore the data but not make edits, copy or download the data, which meant a regular Edit user option was off limits. View-only ended up being a decent option only because of filter views, which allow viewer users to use Sheets’ sort and filter options without affecting anyone else’s view. I did mess up whilst adding one of my first users and left him as an Edit user for three hours. Thankfully he’s a nice dude and opted not to steal my data or blow shit up. Unfortunately these view-only users do see each other’s Google icons if they use at the same time which is a bit weird, but for now this isn’t a big issue.Ease of use was definitely not as polished as it would have been in a regular app. The most memorable example I have is that I wasn’t able to link from a niche that a user had shortlisted to jump to the next tab and filter the constituent items that were within that — this would have been possible with a Google Script but there aren’t accessible to view-only users. Instead, I added a tutorial in the welcome email on how to do this manually. I gave users more detail into what each datapoint meant using the notes feature, where if you hover over a cell you can get more insight.As expected, performance is touchy when you’re at 90% capacity presenting hundreds of megabytes of data to your users. From testing myself, I noticed most of the lag was when initially opening the sheets, particularly the 500,000 row list of Items. I made a note in my email tutorial to give it some time to load initially before using. Although I expected the lag to get worse and worse as I added more users, filter-only views actually helped here, my understanding of how they work suggest that they defer a lot of the work to the user’s computer rather than Google’s compute/memory allocated to a sheet, thus not affecting others’ experience. I’d assume more overhead in scaling Edit users as the changes are seen and saved on everyone’s version of the sheet.Pricing wasn’t a limitation per se but it was clear that it needed to be more attractive to beta users due to all of the above. I’ll also be gathering feedback from them as I tweak the final draft of v1 in the coming weeks — so its only fair that its a bit cheaper. As it stands I’m charging $60 for two months access to the list ($30/month) and for the full app the fee will be closer to $40-$50/month for access — billed quarterly. I know this won’t suit everyone but I’m looking to build up a cache of serious Amazon Sellers, regardless of their stage in the journey.Usage and event analytics are super important for a new product —not only for informing the features in the full build but also for ensuring people use it and keep using it long enough to give meaningful feedback. Unfortunately there really is no way to track this in Sheets. I’ve overcome this by reaching out a little bit more to my users than is necessary to check that everything is going ok or if they have any issues.My product has no free trial, so people have to make their judgement to sign up based on what I say and show on my landing page. I figured this might be troublesome as I’d just be showing them a screenshot of a Google Sheet alongside a promise that it could help them be more successful. Part of me expected laughter when people saw a $60 price tag on a Google Sheet. Thankfully they saw past the wallpaper (see below). On balance, I feel it was still worth it — anything major outlined above was either overcome or just wasn’t as important to the end users or getting access to the data.LaunchThough nervous about the my light stack I decided that data was worth it so I’d charge $60 for two month’s beta access. Last week I launched on Product Hunt and I got several paying users within hours, and many more newsletter signups! I followed this up with a BetaList launch and have more targeted stuff scheduled for the coming week. The plan is to continue adding users to the Sheet and get their feedback as I build out the full app on the side.Despite being only part of the way through, I can say with confidence that its by far the best launch I’ve ever had (in far less time)!I am almost certain this is a result of outsourcing the app to Google Sheets and thus having more time to focus on messaging, sharing and nurturing new customers. This is important. Use your newly-freed time wisely. In my previous launches, I had put all my energy into the app, pasted the link and hoped for the best. As much as it pains the engineer in me to say it, this stuff is the life and soul of a business.Feel free to reach out on Twitter if you’re thinking of running a product beta on Sheets. Also (shameless plug), if you are an Amazon seller or considering becoming one, check out the Catsnatcher beta file to find your perfect high-profit, low competition niche!

[talabib]

Learn About How Your Daily Habits Are Rooted In Human History.

For millennia, humans’ basic habits have remained unchanged: we get out of bed in the morning, go to the toilet and wash our bodies. Then we grab some food for breakfast, choose our clothes for the day and start communicating with our loved ones and friends. Later in the day, we prepare food and eat and drink together. When the day is over, we brush our teeth, set an alarm and get into bed again.

You’ll be guided through a day like any other to learn the surprising cultural history of our day-to-day routines, and the many seemingly insignificant actions that can be traced back to our early ancestors.

Timekeeping and the toilet date back as far as the Stone Age.

It’s 9:30 on a Sunday morning and your alarm clock rouses you from your sleep. You’d rather snooze a little longer but your clock gives off another annoying buzz, and you reluctantly get out of bed.

Today, clocks certainly govern the pulse of our lives; but the act of keeping time is actually something that dates back all the way to the Stone Age.

In fact, the world’s oldest calendar is 30,000 years old. It was found in Le Placard in the Dordogne region and is made out of eagle bone. Along its surface are scratched a series of notches that chart the waxing of the moon, from new to full.

This relatively crude timekeeping is nothing compared to what the ancient Egyptians developed. With their sundials, they could use the shadow of a rod to indicate the approximate hour. And at night, they could track and chart the movement of the Decan stars that appear over the eastern horizon just before dawn, and move from east to west by one degree each day. This allowed the Egyptians to determine the day of the week as well as an approximate hour of the night.

Returning to our morning routine: it’s 9:45 a.m., and having dragged ourselves out of the bed, we make a morning trip to the toilet. But how old are toilets after all?

Toilets date as far back as the Stone Age, too – just not toilets as we might imagine them. Stone Age urban sanitation wasn’t especially sophisticated. In Çatalhöyük in Turkey, archaeologists have found evidence that, 9,500 years ago, sanitation basically meant piling human waste in a courtyard. But about 4,500 years ago, advanced sanitation systems appeared in the cities of the Harappan societies, in modern-day Pakistan. They had sewers, wiping material, water to flush and even a seat.

Now that we’ve finished our toilet stop, it’s time to have breakfast. Next, we’ll move into the kitchen and consider the history of breakfast.

Our breakfast ingredients have a long-standing history, but our morning hygiene has changed a lot over time.

It’s now approaching 10 a.m. and you’re probably getting a little hungry. Time for breakfast! But what are you in the mood for? Cereal, bread, or maybe a full English breakfast with ham, beans, potato and egg?

While your choose you favorite ingredients, you might spare a thought for their long and important history.

Let’s look at that bowl of cereal to start. Breakfast cereal was born in 1894, when Will Kellogg was boiling wheat in an attempt to create a substitute for bread. But instead of becoming bread, the wheat softened into a watery goop.

Kellogg didn’t want to waste the wheat, so tried to squeeze out the water by squishing it through large rollers. To his surprise, the result was a more-than-edible wheat flake, which was the beginning of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

In contrast, bread is a much older invention. Between 10,000 and 2000 BC, during the Neolithic era, humans were already baking primitive forms of bread.

And those sunny-side-up fried eggs? While not as old as bread, the earliest proof of egg farming dates back to about 1400 BC in Egypt. There’s evidence that ancient Egyptians ate them with bread in many of the modern forms: fried, poached, hard-boiled or soft-boiled.

Now that you’re done with breakfast, it’s time to return to the bathroom for a quick wash. Unlike the history of your breakfast, human hygiene has a far more complicated evolution.

Back in antiquity, the Greeks and Romans took pride in their hygiene, exemplified by their public baths where everyone was welcome. But in seventeenth-century Europe, the ancient appreciation for hygiene suffered an unfortunate demise.

Some French thinkers claimed that baths were unnecessary, and that there was a cleaner and superior alternative to washing: simply wearing a linen cloth. They also declared that baths would prevent the skin from doing its job, which was to stop dirt from entering the body by blocking the pores – with sweaty secretions.

Fortunately for today’s hygiene, this theory was rejected in the eighteenth century and bathing came back into style.

Next, it’s time to take the dog for a walk. We’ll consider the history of humans’ pets.

Keeping pets and sharing news have also been with us for a long time.

For those of you who have dogs, you’ll know that by the time you’ve finished your breakfast, someone is already tugging at your leg to go for a walk. So when did humans come up with the idea of keeping pets? A long, long time ago.

Dogs were probably humans’ earliest animal companions. In fact, a dog skull dating back nearly 32,000 years was found in Goyet’s Cave in Belgium, which suggests that dogs and human were already friends in the Stone Age. Archaeologists believe that dogs would guard humans and help them hunt. To become domesticated, the very young wolf cubs probably had to have been caught very young to allow them to get accustomed to their human tribes.

Humans have also had a close relationship for millennia with dogs’ mortal enemies: cats. For example, the Egyptians kept and worshipped cats because they believed they were the living symbols of the goddess of warfare, Bastet.

Now the clock strikes 12, and the newspaper has just slipped through the door. Hidden within its pages lies a history dating back to ancient times.

Humans have informed themselves and shared news with friends for ages. The ancient Romans conveyed news from one place to another with a messaging system powered by human couriers. The couriers would deliver brief messages written on wax tablets, which could be wiped clean and re-used to write a reply.

The newspaper, however, is a much more recent invention. It was first printed in 1605 by the German senator Johann Carolus in Strasbourg, and had the enormous title of “Account of All Distinguished and Commemorable News.” Once a week, Carolus printed his collection of handwritten reports that came from the far reaches of the Holy Roman Empire and shared them with his 100-200 readers.

So, you’ve finished your newspaper and you notice that the day is slipping through your fingers; you need to catch some sun but you’re still wearing your pyjamas. Time to pick an outfit! But which one?

Our ancestors began wearing clothes in the Stone Age – but trousers and T-shirts are relatively modern inventions.

Nowadays, clothes serve more than just a practical purpose. Our personal style allows us to subtly express our personality. But when did humans start to wrap themselves in cloth?

Like many other things, clothes first appeared in the Stone Age. The oldest known evidence takes the form of sewing needles dating back as far as 60,000 years. While they might sound insignificant, these slender bone tools likely prevented humans from freezing to death in the last Ice Age by allowing animal furs to be fastened together.

One of the best-preserved examples of actual clothes dates back 5,250 years. In 1991, a mummified body was found in the Ötztal Alps that separate Austria and Italy. Otzi the Iceman’s clothes were preserved in the ice, revealing that his torso and legs were covered in goatskin clothes.

Things were already a bit different thousands of years later in ancient Greece and Rome. Both men and women wore the dress, or tunic, in equal measure. But when did today’s common garments like trousers and T-shirts emerge?

Both are actually relatively modern inventions. Trousers didn’t become common apparel until the beginning of the nineteenth century. American cowboys who loved how the strong, resilient denim protected them during their long rides on uncomfortable saddles drove their popularity. The cowboys’ strong, rugged image then made trousers more popular throughout the United States.

T-Shirts, also modern inventions, were first worn by nineteenth-century sailors in the form of white flannel undershirts, and were made part of the standard outfit of the US Navy in 1913. But T-shirts took a while to enter the public consciousness; while many athletes adopted them in the 1930s as running wear, they long remained nothing more than underwear for most people.

It was only when Marlon Brando showed off his muscles by wearing a tight-fitting shirt in the Hollywood movie A Streetcar Named Desire that T-shirts gained their sex appeal – and became the cultural icon they are today.

It’s 6 p.m. and you’ve just remembered you’re hosting a dinner party for a friend! Let’s consider the history of culinary culture

Eating together and drinking alcohol have been widespread customs throughout history.

It’s your friend’s thirtieth birthday, so it’s only natural to begin with a glass of champagne – which, by the way, was first produced in 1693 by a Benedictine monk by the name of Dom Pierre Perignon. But by now everyone’s stomach is rumbling, so you sit down to eat dinner together.

Eating together has been a widespread custom all throughout history. In the Stone Age, the community gathered around the fireplace, the hub of energy that warmed bodies and cooked the shared meat. And during the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia, the Babylonians made dinner into a vitally important ritual: instead of signing a contract, business partners would eat together, sharing salt and wine as symbols of their newfound partnership.

Even if you weren’t hungry, you couldn't refuse the meal. It wouldn't just be seen as merely impolite – it would be cause for serious suspicion.

Other cultures also recognized the value of eating together. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that a common meal was an ideal way to communicate and establish deep social bonds. This long cultural history could explain why, even today, people prefer to eat with others rather than alone.

Just like eating together, drinking alcohol is also an old and widespread custom. It’s likely that Stone-Age humans got tipsy on the alcoholic sugars found in rotten, fermented fruit. But when did we start producing alcohol ourselves?

The earliest signs of human-made alcohol date back to around 9,000 years ago. Chemical analyses of ancient pottery from Jiahu, in the Henan province in China, have revealed traces of alcoholic drink made from fermented honey, rice and fruit. And the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans are all well known to have been fond of wine.

So, the last guests are heading home, and it’s already 11:45 p.m. We should probably go to bed, or else it’ll be a struggle to get up for work tomorrow. But first let’s brush our teeth – and then set our dreaded alarm.

The story of dental care begins in the Stone Age, and the alarm clock may also be an ancient invention.

Today’s beauty standards push us to buy toothpaste offering an endless list of cleaning and whitening capabilities. But our teeth have always been susceptible to wear and tear, so dental care is far from a modern idea.

In fact, there is considerable evidence of Stone-Age dentistry. The neolithic town of Mehrgarh in modern Pakistan is the location of the world’s first dentist’s cabinet – dating back over 9,000 years. There’s evidence there of tiny 0.5 mm to 3.5 mm holes in teeth that were likely drilled with a flint-tipped bow-drill. And then there’s a 6,500-year-old jawbone found in Slovenia that gives a hint of the world’s first filling, one made from beeswax resin.

The Chinese probably invented it the first toothbrush. Ancient toothbrushes made from pig bristles stitched into bone handles date back to the medieval Tang Dynasty that existed during the seventh and eighth centuries.

So, we’re finished in the bathroom. Can we finally go to bed now? Oh right, we need to set that alarm clock first.

While these days you may set your alarm on a sophisticated smartphone, the first alarm clock may well have been a primitive mechanism invented by none other than the great ancient Greek philosopher Plato. At the same time, the only evidence for this is a claim by the ancient Greek rhetorician Athenaeus that Plato built an alarm clock – and we know how truthful rhetoricians can be.

This hasn’t stopped scholars imagining what it could have looked like. They suggest that it was a sort of water-based mechanism that used water pressure and air dynamics to produced a piercing whistling noise when the time came to wake up.

Well the day has ended, and it’s already 11.59 p.m. Lights out and good night!

We often think that modern life differs greatly from the life of our early ancestors. The truth is that many of our customs and everyday objects date back thousands of years. Be it our love of alcohol, pets or the simple toothbrush, most of the tools and habits we take for granted today can be traced back as far as the Stone Age.

[xottzot]

2018-04(MAR)-Monday-26th---WA NEWS bits --- and my personal comments with them.

2018-04(MAR)-Monday-26th---WA NEWS bits --- and my personal comments with them.

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This story smells like the usual kinds of 'people'.....by their actions.......

You see (according to the "grandmother" (not any mother or father) speaking afterwards), the crowd ONLY went beserk and got aggressive after being told to leave, then the crowd went beserk and pelted Police with rocks and bricks, jumped fences and ran through gardens, and the grandmother BLAMED ALL OF IT ON THE POLICE BECAUSE...."They should have just asked people to leave peacefully, but they came in with their big shields and stuff like that, it scared the kids.”

So the innocent gentle 'kids' simply got "scared" and decided to attack the Police just like......the usual kinds of 'people' who attack Police......

Yep, getting their grandmother to try to paint them all as innocent angels who got innocently 'scared' and so only then launched into violentally attacking Police.....

What a load of shit......

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https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/five-teenagers-arrested-after-riot-squad-break-up-out-of-control-party-in-warnbro-ng-b88757077z

WA NEWS:--------- Five teenagers arrested after riot squad break up out-of-control party in Warnbro

Jordan Cutts -- PerthNow -- February 26, 2018 11:45AM

FIVE teenagers were arrested over the weekend after the riot squad was called in to break up an out-of-control 21st birthday party in Warnbro.

Officers from the Regional Operations Group as well as local police were called to the house in Tucuma Court just after 9.30pm on Saturday after a number of complaints from neighbours.

Just half an hour later the party was declared an out of control gathering as police allege they were pelted with rocks and bricks in their attempt to disperse the crowd.

With several police cars lining the nearby streets officers blocked off the road so there was only one way out for the crowd - thought to be upwards of 100 youths.

Neighbours claim the party-goers got aggressive after being told to leave.

Toni Nicol, a nearby resident, said they jumped fences and ran through gardens to avoid officers.

"When the police turned up and asked them to disperse, that’s when they all got very aggressive,” she said.

“As soon as the police got on the loud speaker it was like rats from a sinking ship. We had some jump on the fence and up over the roof... pelting beer cans and stuff like that at the police.”

The party is thought to have drawn a sizeable crowd after the host advertised the celebrations on Facebook.

Posting on social media, they wrote:

"Everyone come Warnbro party tonight. Like and comment plus ones so I can add use (sic) to the event. Dj and photographer. $5 entry, $10 after 9pm.”

But the host’s grandmother blamed police for the subsequent disorder, alleging they went about dispersing the crowd in the wrong way.

"They didn’t handle it properly,” she said.

“They should have just asked people to leave peacefully, but they came in with their big shields and stuff like that, it scared the kids.”

The five teens arrested, three men and two women aged 17 and 18, will face court at a later date charged with disorderly behaviour, street drinking and giving false details to police.

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In this WA NEWS item below, they talk about the statue as if it was the REAL PERSON.......

Because obviously a real person just (NOT) sits forever on a horse in the ocean......

The bronze statue of C.Y O'Connor on a horse in the surf is in very bad taste right from the start because it certainly doesn't commemorate the man and his life's great achievements at all but only celebrates and brings unwanted attention to the poor mans suicide in the very early 20th century.

But the facile artist who made the statue and plunked it in the ocean surf is so very proud of his work and wants to fix it all up and get it back to how it all was.........yeah, as if that could bring C.Y O'Connor back to life.....

Instead of focussing on the statue subjects terrible misery which lead him to suicide, try instead reading about the man and his great achievements and his fights in getting so many things achieved which still stand to this day at---- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Y._O%27Connor

And the wikipedia page info states as a reason for the suicide death in 1902......., "It is claimed that local Noongar Aboriginal people, unhappy with his destruction of the limestone bar across the Swan River at Point Walter, placed a curse on O'Connor. and that "... they sang him to make him crazy", and his suicide was the end result. O'Connor took his own life on 10 March 1902, less than a year before Forrest officially commissioned the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, by shooting himself while riding his horse into the water at Robb Jetty, south of Fremantle"

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WA NEWS:------- 'It's gut-wrenching': Iconic C.Y O'Connor statue vandalised off the coast of Coogee Beach

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/iconic-cy-oconnor-statue-vandalised-off-the-coast-of-coogee-beach-20180226-h0wog8.html

by Hannah Barry

February 26 2018 - 2:54PM

https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/w/o/g/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.h0wog8.png/1519628049934.jpg

The hunt is on for a vandal believed to have cut the torso off the iconic C.Y. O'Connor statue off the coast of Coogee.

The City of Cockburn called for help solving the suspected crime on Monday afternoon, after they received reports about damage done to the statue.

"The City is investigating how Tony Jones' famous bronze sculpture of celebrated 1800s engineer C Y O'Connor at North Coogee Beach came to be damaged over the weekend," the city said in a social media post.

"We have received numerous reports of the damage which has left the 19-year-old statue cut-off at the torso with the rider's hips and the horse still in place, 30 metres offshore."

Irish engineer Charles Yelverton O'Connor was responsible for the design and construction of the Fremantle Harbour, and the Goldfields Water Supply from Mundaring to Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

The North Coogee monument commemorates the moment O'Connor shot himself at the beach while he rode his horse out to sea in 1902.

It was first erected in 1999, and was created by local sculptor Toby Jones.

Mr Jones spoke to 6PR's Simon Beaumont following the revelations, and said it was "pretty gut-wrenching" to see his work so damaged.

"I wish I knew more," he said.

"I suppose anything's fixable but it's so sad.

"One potential positive is that maybe the piece is in the water, but I don't know if that's the case.

"If it's in the water and can be retrieved then it can be welded back into place without too much drama.

"But if someone has done it on purpose that'd be horrific.

"It doesn't get any worse than that for me, or for anyone who values how we do things.

"It's pretty low stuff if that's whats happened. It would have to be rebuilt. We could do it, we'd have to get the rest of it off and return it to the studio and rebuild it from that section up.

"But it's pretty gut-wrenching,. I don't want to get overdramatic about it but its offensive and disappointing.

"When you do a bit of work like that... it doesn't make sense and needs to be explained."

Anyone with information relating to the vandalism has been asked to contact the city at customer@cockburn.wa.gov.au.

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BTW, on a personal note, as a teenager on a long weekend holiday, I once camped with work friends for several days in a tent on vacant bush ground by the old Mandurah wooden bridge which was later replaced by this modern concrete one much later on that is in this NEWS story below.

I would only tell dear Fliss the story of that weekend......if she and I were together again....but I suspect I will take it to my grave. - How apt. - And applicable to this NEWS story below......

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WA NEWS:-------- Woman injured in shock Mandurah bridge jump

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/woman-injured-in-shock-mandurah-bridge-jump-ng-b88757621z

WA NEWS:-------- Woman injured in shock Mandurah bridge jump

The West Australian -- Monday, 26 February 2018 4:09PM

https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/B88757621Z/1519632955456_GFJ1G5BKD.1-0.jpg?imwidth=800&impolicy=.auto

A woman has shocked onlookers in Mandurah by parking her car on a busy road and jumping off the Estuary Bridge on Monday.

According to witnesses, the woman stopped her car on Mandurah Road and climbed over the railing around 1.40pm before jumping into the water below.

Traffic on the bridge, which has a 6.6m clearance height, according to Department of Transport documents, was brought to a standstill as emergency crews were called in.

The woman, who is aged in her 30s, made her way to land in Erskine where she was assessed by paramedics.

The woman sustained only minor injuries in the jump and was taken to Peel Health Campus for assessment.

If you or anyone you know needs assistance, call Lifeline on 131 114.

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I love you dear Fliss and so very much want to be with you. - And so many good things of the past in my life that you will NEVER know of when I'm dead unless I told you in person. Nobody else knows about them. And I promised to keep them secret....which I did. So I expect I will take them to my grave.

[jamiekturner]

Best iPhone Action Games To Pass Time

Sometimes you just want to play cool iPhone action games.

These are games that are keeping your reflexes while fighting the evil forces.

When you play one of these top free action games, you can be whatever you want. Even a hero!

Still, for the action game apps to be considered as really good, you need to feel the console-quality graphics and also the controls. Take a look at the best action game list.

Implosion: Never Lose Hope

Fight for humanity’s future in Rayark’s sci-fi hack-and-slasher Implosion: Never Lose Hope. Piloting an agile Warmech, players do battle against the alien XADA, engaging in intense melee combat and gunplay.

Implosion’s slick graphics, responsive controls and adrenaline-pumping combat are all wonderfully satisfying, evoking the spirit of console greats in a remarkably nimble mobile title.

Super Mario Run

Mario’s mobile debut is an endless running delight. Super Mario Run is a delightfully colorful game with precise controls that give it the feel of a true Mario experience. Nintendo also offers a lot of replayability in Super Mario Run, with hidden coins on each of the 24 courses and hidden characters you can unlock.

The standard World Tour mode is complemented by the multiplayer Toad Rally and Kingdom Builder, in which you can decorate your very own Mushroom Kingdom.

Unkilled

Blast away at the zombie hordes overrunning New York City in Unkilled, Madfinger’s latest zombie hunting shooter. As a soldier of Wolfpack, it’s up to you to take down undead and human threats as you get to the bottom of the outbreak. The game features 300 story missions and a variety of weapons and enemies to encounter and unlock across the campaign.

In addition to story mode, the game also includes multiplayer where you shoot it out against other human players, and an asynchronous multiplayer mode where you and your opponent design custom zombie hordes and unleash them on each other.

Vector 2

Parkour sidescroller Vector 2 drops the Mirror’s Edge-esque near future stylings for a more solidly science fiction feel. Vector 2 sees players race through a high-tech research installation, but now, instead of being chased by guards and enemies, players must dodge traps, mines, guns and energy barriers through the skillful use of a variety of parkour moves.

Procedurally generated levels make gameplay more about reaction and reading the flow of the map, rather than memorizing each level’s layout, adding a lot of replayability.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Explore the crime-ridden cities of San Andreas in the mobile port of Rockstar Games’ open world shooting classic. Players step into the shoes of Carl Johnson, a man framed for murder and forced into an odyssey through the underworld of the cities of Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas.

Along the way, you’ll engage in a lot of crazy driving, gunplay, and open world exploration. The mobile port remaps things to a virtual buttons scheme, but there’s support for physical controllers as well.

Lost in Harmony

Another one of these iPhone action games is a fast-paced blend of obstacle running and rhythm gaming. Lost in Harmony has players guiding friends Kaito and Aya through a series of dream-like obstacle courses that mirror their relationship as Aya deals with illness.

Players slide left and right across lanes to gather stardust and avoid obstacles, while tapping the screen to score points, all timed to the rhythm of the game’s soundtrack.

In addition to the game’s built-in story levels, users can take advantage of a built-in level designer, allowing you to build your own custom levels keyed to a track of your choosing, which you can share to other players worldwide.

Don’t Starve

An action-survival game that’s made its way over to iOS, Don’t Starve challenges you to…well…not starve. Stranded in the wilderness and armed only with your wits and what you can gather and craft, Don’t Starve owes much to games like Minecraft, but refines it all and combines it with a creepy aesthetic.

Starting with next to nothing, you’ll soon be carving out a home for yourself in the wilderness while evading wild animals and other stranger threats.

Alto’s Adventure

A relaxing infinite runner in the vein of Canabalt, Velocity and Ski Free, Alto’s Adventure has you chasing down escaped llamas by snowboarding through the mountainside. Along the way, you have to avoid perils like rocks, fires, and chasms, while picking up coins and scoring points for tricks.

While it’s standard infinite runner fare, the game’s clean, simple design and low stress presentation that makes it so endearing and almost oxymoronic: a relaxing action game.

Transistor

Supergiant Games returns to prove that Bastion wasn’t just a one-off success with its latest game: Transistor. Dive into an Art Deco cyberpunk metropolis gone mad as you untangle the mystery of a girl named Red, her sword the Transistor, and the strange cataclysm that has befallen the two of them.

Players can configure the Transistor with an incredible variety of combat functions, providing diverse ways to play. The game mixes classic top-down beat ’em up gameplay with a “planning mode” that allows you to plot out a set of moves that Red executes once you unpause the game.

RunGunJumpGun

Gambitious’s RunGunJumpGun is a simple but fiendishly difficult post-apocaliptic science fiction platformer. RunGunJumpGun has only two controls: one button fires your weapon forward, and the other fires it downward, sending your avatar flying in a blast of energy.

Players must carefully navigate trap-filled platformer mazes while dodging energy blasts and enemies, all while trying to collect as many “atomiks” as possible in each level. Simple-to-learn but hard-to-master gameplay and fiendish level design make RunGunJumpGun an entertaining addition to for platformer fans.

Crashlands

The latest product from wacky mobile game developer ButterScotch Shenanigans, Crashlands is perhaps best described as a friendlier and funnier take on crafting action RPGs like Don’t Starve. As the stranded galactic trucker Flux Dabes, you’ve got to piece together parts to fix your crashed ship, and that’ll require some crafting.

And dodging monsters. And dealing with the locals. Featuring some neat, pattern-based action RPG combat, tons of crafting, base construction, pets and exploration, Crashlands has a ton of content for you to blast through.

Marvel: Contest of Champions

Marvel: Contest of Champions allows you to unleash your inner comic geek and collect and battle your favorite Marvel Comics superheroes and villains in a simplified touch-screen brawler. Swipe and tap controls make for a responsive 1-v-1 fighting game battler, with players needing to keep a good rhythm and a combination of basic attacks and super moves to win.

Players can engage in a lengthy campaign mode or engage in multiplayer battles against others, with your play time limited by a stamina system. Users can unlock heroes by completing in-game quests, winning matches or in-app purchases.

Pinout

This is not your parents’ pinball machine. Instead of racking up points, PinOut wants you to go the distance, trying to advance the ball further and further through a Tron-like landscape as the clock ticks down. You can pick up pellets that add precious time and a few handy power-ups can also keep your ball in play.

PinOut also makes great use of your iPhone’s touch interface, letting you control different flippers by which side of the screen you press. You can download the game for free, but a $2.99 purchase lets you restart at the last checkpoint you’ve cleared instead of starting from the beginning.

Injustice: Gods Among Us

A mobile version of the hit console fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us lets players take control of DC Comics’ most iconic superheroes as they battle it out in a dark, alternate universe. With its fusion of fighting and collectible card-game mechanics, Injustice has you forming teams of three superheroes pitted against rival teams of heroes and villains.

Tap-and-swipe touch-screen battles ensue as your heroes duke it out, with the tempo broken up by substitutions and special abilities. As you advance, you can use earned credits to unlock new hero cards or upgrade your existing roster of heroes and villains.

Badland

Badland is a beautiful physics platformer with one-touch controls. Usually, it’s game over as soon as you hit anything in a standard platformer game, but that’s not the case here. In Badland, you control this odd little creature trying to flap its way through a treacherous forest.

Debris falls in your path, and odd machinery peaks through the brush and occasionally knocks you around, but when you throw in the multiple power ups available throughout the game things get really interesting.

You can play local multiplayer and try to nudge opponents off the edge of the screen, which moves gradually forward as you progress. The art style is certainly dark, but a little whimsical too.

Dumb Ways to Die

In Dumb Ways to Die, players have to successfully get through a gauntlet of simple mini-games for as long as possible, though they become progressively more difficult the longer you go. These can range from shooing piranhas away from your crotch, swatting bugs, and holding on to balloons so you don’t dive onto the train tracks.

The art style fantastically morbid – cute little characters are constantly getting maimed in new and exciting ways. As you play, you unlock more of them for your collection.

Fruit Ninja

There’s an indescribable sense of satisfaction from slicing open juicy fruit with ninja-like precision – a satisfaction that has stood the test of time and remains highly accessible. Halfbrick has remained extremely diligent in keeping their original fruit-slicing game up-to-date with new content.

Yes, in-app purchases have been implemented for certain power ups, but the starfruit you earn through normal gameplay can be also used to buy these bomb deflectors, bonus fruit, and new blades.

Icycle

At its core, Icycle is a simple platform game with a series of unlockables earned by gathering currency scattered throughout each stage. You earn up to four stars depending on how much of that currency you collect, how many times you die, and meeting other specific challenge goals for each stage.

That’s all pretty standard. What makes Icycle truly amazing is its absolutely bizarre premise and art style. With only an umbrella and a miniature bicycle, players must guide the hapless (and nude) Denis through a frozen nightmare in order to find a lost love.

Infinity Blade 3

Infinity Blade 3 follows closely in the footsteps of its predecessors: players face off against imposing opponents in fantastic one-on-one duels in a lush fantasy world. Swipes, taps, and gestures translate to slashes, thrusts, dodges, and supernatural abilities.

As players meander from encounter to encounter, they uncover more and more of an evolving storyline that spans back into the previous games.

Into the Dead

If you ever needed a good reason to run, it’s zombies. Into the Dead currently ranks among the top endless runners out there right now. Players adopt a first-person perspective of someone dodging the undead while running at breakneck speeds through fields, forests, and even more treacherous terrain.

Along the way you’ll occasionally have a firearm or a canine companion to help you out, but ultimately, the zombies always get too thick, and drag you kicking and screaming to an untimely end.

Osmos

At first blush, Osmos might seem a little too slow and ponderous to be called an “action” game, but its unique physics gameplay demands a lot of intuition. Players control a small cell that drifts through organic soup, absorbing other, smaller cells.

The catch is that propelling yourself in a given direction ejects mass in the process. Also, if you make contact with larger cells, they’ll absorb you instead. Things get particularly interesting when you try your hand at multiplayer mode.

Spaceteam

Spaceteam is a decidedly unique local multiplayer game. Players gather together with their various iOS devices and connect over either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. They’re then presented with ridiculously-labeled spaceship consoles, replete with all manner of sliders, knobs, switches, and buttons.

Each player then has a message flashing telling them which control needs to be tweaked in order to save their ship from exploding. The thing is, that control could be on anybody’s device, so what ends up happening is everybody starts barking ludicrous orders at one another with straight-faced urgency.

Super Hexagon

Super Hexagon is an insanely difficult, abstract twitch game where players have to navigate through a maze that’s continually collapsing in on a central shape. The pulsing rhythm and constant spinning of the play area make Super Hexagon really, really hard, plus the fast-paced soundtrack isn’t likely to calm your nerves.

There are three difficulties to start, and as you beat each stage, a new version of the level unlocks that has the same track go at what feels like twice the regular speed. It doesn’t take long before things get a little ridiculous.

Tiny Wings

Tiny Wings remains one of the most charming iPhone action games on mobile. With simple one-touch controls, players dive bomb a hapless little bird into gulleys so that he may slingshot out the opposing ridge and fling him further into the skies than his own little wings could possibly allow.

Players are racing against the clock, trying get as far as possible before daylight runs out – keep up a good pace, and you can out-fly the sun.

Metal Gear Solid Touch

When Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released on the PS3 last year it was as if Hideo Kojima wanted to give something back to the perennially loyal MGS fan base. It was a gift-wrapped present of epic storylines, surprise cameos and behemoth, film-like cutscenes that quickly placed it for many as a favourite in the series.

Car Jack Streets

It’s hard to look at screenshots of Car Jack Streets (CJS) and not draw comparisons with the original Grand Theft Auto title. Thankfully, rather than just selling CJS as ‘GTA for the iPhone’, developer TAG has incorporated a real-time game mechanic that does a fine job of propelling CJS far enough away from the unrelenting GTA gravity well and sets it apart as one of the most individual titles for Apple’s handheld to date.

Zenonia 5

Long ago, a great war was fought to restore peace and harmony to mankind. But as the years passed, greed and selfishness corrupted the hearts of man. The elite rich began to exploit the poor and great darkness came over the kingdom.

Immerse yourself once again in the best action RPG for mobile. Defeat impossible bosses and unravel the mysteries in stunning HD!

Wipeout

It is a crazy 3D Physics based game. However, you don’t need to implement tough formula or even consult your Old books but still, this Game needs a very intelligent mind.

In Wipeout, your player is tasked for weaving your character through three platform-based obstacle courses under a certain time limit. You need to go ahead very wisely. Each and every course is having weird, rubber-y machines which are meant to knock you off.

Looking for more iPhone action games?

Read on.

Modern Combat 5

Gameloft’s Modern Combat 5: Blackout is a realistic version in the first person shooter iOS series. Although it may have striking similarities to Call of Duty, it vastly contains novel ideas that can contribute great entertainment to the users.

This installment of Modern Combat has splendid graphics, a thrilling plot along with multiplayer mode. Designed with a new class system that comes with highly customizable options, the Modern Combat 5 is one of the best first-person shooter iPhone action games.

Zombieville USA 2

Zombieville USA 2 is a shooter game containing 2-D level graphics and a good share of animated blood that’s vivid, but not violent. You have to combat hordes of zombies to terminate them using an astounding armory at your disposal. Due to this reason it is better if you don’t allow children at your house to play this game.

You can buy most of the weapons with the in-game cash as you advance. But, there is no option within the app to buy cash within the game in exchange for the real money. It is integrated with the game center to share your high scores.

Brothers in Arms 3: Sons of War

Of the various settings for shooting genre video games, the World War II is always a popular one. With a simple premise set during the 1940s, Brothers in Arms 3: Sons of War involves shooting, stabbing and exploding your way against large numbers of Nazis and destroying the Axis powers.

You will find many familiar settings and characters in the game with top-notch graphics. Brothers in Arms 3 is an entertaining game which will take you to the times of World War II.

BattleLore: Command

BattleLore: Command by Fantasy Flight Games is a turn-based strategy game. The game is staged upon a battlefield laid out in grid structure. The turns are divided into three parts with which you need to accomplish your objectives. Taking turns you must tactically assemble troops, plan their movements, align them into battle positions and finally attack.

You must either destroy the rival force or meet the map’s objective to win. If you don’t achieve any one of the above-mentioned tasks, then the victory is your enemy’s.

Infinity Field

Infinity Field is one of those common iPhone action games where you need to survive the attacks from your enemies to make high scores, except, it comes with a slight twist. As the name of the game suggests, your primary goal is to stay alive without succumbing to an incoming onslaught from an infinite number of enemies.

The entire action takes place in a small space bordered by a neon fence. You must dodge the attacks and fire back using the virtual, dual-sticks to survive long enough. As long as you keep surviving you will reach higher scores and unlock various upgrades and weapons.

Wars and Battles

A turn-based strategy game, Wars and Battles depicts the historic World War II. You get to choose to be alongside either with the Axis powers or the Allies. You need to pick your side, play and finish an extensive campaign that will involve bloodshed and sacrifices, just like in a real war.

Wars and Battles offers sophisticated graphics and an insightful gameplay that can engage you for longer hours. It is a game with intense plot and rich details that will entertain all the war, strategy and military game lovers.

VainGlory

If you are a fan of multiplayer online battle arena, then Super Evil Megacorp’s Vainglory should not skip your attention. It is a beautifully designed multiplayer strategy game with heaps of lively characters to play with.

It consists of eye-catching graphics and presents a brilliant gameplay. You must confront your enemy in a 3-on-3 battle, working through war horses, miserable cronies and tanks to destroy their center of operations.

Blue Defense: Second Wave

In this game, players try to protect a planet from circling invaders. There are endless modes for obtaining high scores: fixed individual levels can be played either for high scores or as starting points for the endless mode. In Gauntlet mode players try to survive fixed waves of enemies.

During each stage, players work toward medals that add replay value to the game. Tailor the controls to work better on both the iPhone (where you can use tilt controls for firing) and the iPad (where you can employ multitouch for firing multiple waves of bullets)

Super Mega Worm

Most games sympathize with the human, especially when ancient creatures are trying to eat that human. Not this one. Players control a giant worm that eats animals for sustenance, spits acid and a deploys a screen-clearing EMP bomb.

Armies of soldiers and tanks try to stop the giant worm’s rampage, so be careful. Bonus: in an additional set of levels, players try to devour Santa Claus.

League of Evil

Players rush through devious traps, devilishly-placed platforms and dangerous enemies, struggling toward the end – where they get to punch an evil scientist in the face. The game awards stars for completing levels quickly, and for picking up an out-of-the-way briefcase. Over 160 levels require lightning-fast reflexes. One level includes a set inspired by The Blocks Cometh.

Robot Wants Kitty

Fans of Metroid will like this game, in which players control a robot trying to rescue his beloved kitty. Throughout the levels, collect powerups for jumping, shooting and other enhanced abilities, which makes each level progress like a full-fledged game, only in shorter bursts.

Six levels are available by default, but in-app purchase opens five additional levels and a level creation community.

Army of Darkness Defense

In this game, based on the classic Evil Dead series, players control Ash Williams as he tries to protect the Necronomicon from invading Deadite hordes. Players summon troops and use special attacks to help fend off advancing enemies.

Gold collected during the levels goes toward Ash’s upgrades and castle improvements, like archers and a death pit to trap enemies. The game is very easy to control, allowing players to get into the rhythm they need to succeed.

Zombie Gunship

Many zombie survival games rely on scrapping by with one’s wits and limited weapons. Not this game. Players control an airborn gunship that takes out incoming zombies with heavy ordinance. The goal is to keep zombies at bay while survivors make their way to the bunker.

There’s something very satisfying about firing huge bullets from the sky that take out entire groups of zombies at once, though the best weapons can only be purchased with gold earned or bought in-game.

Walking Dead: The Game

Like the popular AMC television series, there’s only one word to describe Walking Dead: The Game. Awesome. The game brings the survival horror and psychological thriller theme of the series into the game in an all new story told in five separate episodes. If you love the TV series — or just love zombie games — you’ll love this one.

Punch Quest

What do you get when you combine a side-scrolling game like Golden Axe with an endless runner like Temple Run? Punch Quest.

It takes the endless running action and flips it on its side as you run and punch your way through the game, collecting currency and buying new abilities along the way. A great buy for anyone who loves the endless runner genre but thinks the last few games have just repeated the same old-same old.

LEGO Harry Potter

This one could really be LEGO Whatever. All of the Lego games are worth having, so it is really up to you to choose which one matches your interest. If you aren’t a Harry Potter fan, you can go with the Star Warssaga or go fantasy with the Lord of the Rings.

You can even be a superhero in LEGO Batman. No matter your choice, it’s hard to go wrong with one of these games.  What are the Best LEGO Games on the iPad? Find Out!

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

The Grand Theft Auto series breathed new life into the sandbox game. While the game isn’t without a story, the beauty of the Grand Theft Auto series is how much freedom you have to go out and do whatever you want in the game.

Vice City is one of the better ports for the iPad, which has recently seen a lot of big name games like Baldur’s Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ported to the platform.

Unfortunately, this can have a negative impact as well, such as when you have a long drive back when failing a mission. If you like some freedom in your games, or you just want to take a trip down memory lane, Grand Theft Auto is a good choice.

Wild Blood

If you like your iPhone action games to have a bit more RPG element to them, Gameloft’s Wild Blood might be more to your liking. As Lancelot, you had a hand in the danger facing the land. After betraying King Arthur, Morgana was able to open a Hell Gate while Arthur is too distraught to care.

It’s up to you to beat back the demon hordes. Not exactly a spellbinding story, but enough of one to get you started. A beautiful game weighed down at times by not-always-smooth controls, this is still one of the better action adventure games on iOS.

Temple Run

Temple Run is the perfect throwback to old-fashioned arcade games. As a 3D platformer, it is simple to pick up and play, and yet it has an addictive factor that keeps you coming back for more. It’s easy to learn, difficult to master, and it really pushes you to beat your highest score each time you play.

Best of all, you can unlock power-ups in the store and they stay unlocked for future games. It’s no wonder the game has been downloaded so many times since it’s release in mid-2011.

Death Rally

The type of game that is easy to pick up and hard to put down, Death Rally is for everyone that has ever wished Twisted Metal would come to the iPad.  A vehicular combat game, Death Rally will have you racing around tracks and firing off missiles, machine guns and laying down mines in order to blow your way to the top of the race.

And in between races, you’ll use your hard-earned dough to purchase new cars, customize your ride and slap on some new weaponry.

Monster Dash

Meet Barry Steakfires. He likes to run. He doesn’t like monsters. And therein likes the making for a great survival-horror-platformer action game from Halfbrick Studios, who also brought us Fruit Ninja. If you liked Pitfall Harry, but you wish it had a lot less swinging over swamp pits and a lot more shooting mummies with a shotgun, Monster Dash is the game for you.

Pizza VS Skeletons

Easily one of the funniest (and most unique) ideas on the App Store, Pizza vs Skeletons puts you in the shoes (if it had any shoes) of (you guessed it) a pizza. You’ll go up against all kinds of skeletons as you battle through multiple mini games, customizing your pizza along the way with different types of toppings.

Rage HD

Having brought us such names as Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake, iD Software is something of a legend in the gaming world. Their upcoming game, Rage, is a console game with FPS and RPG elements.

But we don’t have to wait for its release to get a feel for the Rage world. Rage HD is an on-rails shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic game show where blowing away members of the mutant horde is a great way to rack up points. One of the most beautiful iPhone action games, Rage also has a non-HD version available.

Pinball HD

Pinball HD has just the right mix of cool tables, smooth design and nice controls to make you think you are playing a real pinball game.

Sure, you can’t pick up your iPad and shake it a little to get the ball to do what you want — maybe they’ll add that as a feature in the future — but you can rack up a cool score on a very pinball-like scoreboard and then post it to online leaderboards for all  your friends to see.

The game comes with three different pinball tables with a Slayer-branded (yes, Slayer the heavy metal band) table available as downloadable content.

Rayman Jungle Run

Do you love platformers? While not quite as famous as Mario, the Rayman series is one of the most iconic series in gaming history. And Ubisoft has done a great job making the transition to the touch screen.

Rayman Jungle Run features smaller levels strung together in a way that allows you to consume the content at a brisk pace, but for those who love to post perfect scores for each level, there is a ton of challenge hiding under the surface.

MetalStorm: Online

MetalStorm: Online puts you in the cockpit of your very own (and quite customizable) aircraft. And once in the skies, you’ll go up against the best opponent a computer can offer: another player.

As the name suggests, MetalStorm: Online features online play, which means you can go into a co-op survival mode with your friends or simply challenge them to a duel and shoot them out of the air. The game has intuitive controls and good graphics, and best of all, it is a free-to-play game, so you can test it out before investing in it through microtransactions.

Stupid Zombies

For the casual game fan, there are Stupid Zombies. A puzzle game passed out in bite-sized chunks, you’ll be facing off against the zombie apocalypse by gunning down the undead hordes.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of obstacles that want to get in your way, so you’ll need to use that noggin on the top of your head to ricochet those bullets into undead flesh.  Let’s just hope you are smarter than the zombies coming after you.

BlocksClassic

If your early-80s were spent playing Breakout on your Atari 2600, you’ll get a real kick out of BlocksClassic. A re-imagining of the Breakout style of play, BlocksClassic lets you smash through blocks and unlock multiple balls and bonuses in the form of bananas and stars.

The game includes a lot of variety in level design, and for those who like to try before you buy, you can give it a test run on the free version.

Conclusion on iPhone action games

Are you ready to test your reflexes on your iPhone? These great iPhone action games will see just how well you can dodge, fire, pivot, and twitch.

If you liked this article with iPhone action games, you should check out these as well:

Best Sports Apps for iPhone

Best Arcade Games for iPhone and iPad

Best News Apps for iPhone and iPad

Best iPhone apps of the year

Health & Fitness Apps for iPhone and iPad

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