There have undoubtedly cases where Nintendo has been a bit old fashioned and overprotective at times. But deriding Nintendo for being parochial and conservative and supposedly not wanting to allow “lesbian love” into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is to fundamentally miss the point. It’s seemingly to push an agenda which is unlikely to even be there. Are games in The Legend of Zelda series really even about love? Eiji Aonuma’s comments (which could be somewhat lost in translation) about “balance in the Triforce” and choosing the “simpler” option of retaining the traditional gameplay roles of the male Link and the female Zelda does not seem unreasonable, given the size and scope of the new Zelda game, the storyline of series, and the nature of the games themselves. They’re about fun, adventure, exploring dungeons and solving puzzles. They are games to be played and enjoyed. Escapism. Where ...

E3 2016 and Nintendo’s major gambit, the new The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild appears to be paying off. Set to be released in 2017 simultaneously on the Wii U and Nintendo’s next console still-in-codename-phase the NX, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma indicated The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be the “same experience” on both consoles. He didn’t elaborate any further on whether the NX version could see exclusive elements or features. What Nintendo has been conveying since 2014, was that this next big Zelda game would challenge what had become stables, and arguably stale conventions, in the game series. Amongst this has been moving to a more open-world and nonlinear style of RPG for Breath of the Wild, as opposed to the far more on-rails (and often repetitive) Skyward Sword. Aonuma has said that in this new Zelda game, “the world is the main ...

Resurrected from the depths and brought back to life, it has all the makings of a horror movie plot. But this is science, not fiction, and the subject is beer and yeast to be more specific. The story of what might be the world’s oldest beer originally set sail in the year 1796. Taking a fateful turn back in 1797, on 9 February, when en route from Calcutta to Port Jackson, one of the first trading ships to the new colony, the Sydney Cove, ran aground on Preservation Island in Bass Straight. Down with the beached and waterlogged ship went some cargo, beer amongst it. Head forward to 1990, when the shipwreck was salvaged by marine archaeologist Mike Nash for the purposes of historic shipwreck preservation. The maritime relics of yesteryear recovered from the Sydney Cove (Australia’s oldest merchant shipwreck) continue to be displayed at the Queen Victoria Museum and ...

The kelpie named Kasey has had a rough stint. What at first appeared to be an open wound from an infected tooth, turned out to be a gunshot upon vet examination. The results of which showed the dog had been shot in the head. Breaking her jaw. Shattering her teeth. Leaving behind shrapnel and a burst abscess. Kasey was initially found by a council ranger, after she was dumped near Tamworth, in regional NSW, Australia. Things have started to improve for Kasey the kelpie since then. She was taken in as a rescue dog by Australian Working Dog Rescue (AWDRI). An Australian non-profit charitable institution which aims to save working dog breeds from being euthanased in council pounds and shelters, and find new homes for them. As for the story of Kasey the shot kelpie, she weighed in at only 13kg upon rescue, and is now a more healthy 21kg. ...

At E3 2016, Todd Howard, head of Bethesda Game Studios officially confirmed that The Elder Scrolls VI (that’s The Elder Scrolls 6 for the non-purists) is being worked on. Gamers can expect that much, but they may not expect the game any time sign. Howard confirmed Bethesda is working on three new projects, and TES VI is likely the last to be completed amongst them. With the head of Bethesda calling it “kind of like the elephant in the room” and that “it’s a very long way off”. Further elaborating: “I could sit here and explain the game to you, and you would say: ‘That sounds like you don’t even have the technology. How long is that going to take?’ So it is something that’s going to take a lot of time, what he have in mind for that game, and we actually have two other large projects we’re also ...

Rumours from leaks sprung last week have turned out to be true, Skyrim is getting a remaster. In Bethesda’s E3 conference, Todd Howard announced that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition will be headed to PC and both the PS4 and Xbox One consoles come 28 October 2016. It may not be quite the Skyrim II some wishful-thinking fans were hoping for. Nor is it the highly anticipated and still mysterious Akaviri Elder Scrolls VI, which has been rumoured to be set in locations across Tamriel as different as Black Marsh, Hammerfell, and Elsweyr. Take all of those speculations with a grain of moonsugar though. It might even make Khajiiti lore somewhat comprehensible. Bad news out of the way, the good news is it’s more Skyrim and more Skyrim. With the game to feature beefed up graphics based on technical buzzwords such as “new snow shaders” and “volumetric god ...

As the adage goes, never work with animals or children. However, for the stage production Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, there’s little avoiding either of these. The animals and children have a sprinkling of magic as well. It’s not the children that are cursed though, but the owls. The play, in its preview stage, was using live owls. One owl took flight into the auditorium, it then failed to return to its handler. (It’s most likely the owl didn’t deliver the mail either.) Not exactly a seamless production and some teething problems to deal with. The show’s producers offered a statement that the “owls’ welfare and enrichment needs” were of the “utmost importance to the production” and that the purpose of the preview was “designed to allow the creative team time to rehearse the changes or explore specific scenes further before the play’s official opening.” Which ultimately has meant ...

It turns out that actor Jude Law was approached by DC Comics for a possible starring role as the Man of Steel for the Superman Returns (2006) film reboot. Hindsight of that how that movie panned out probably suggests it was for the best. While Jude Law wasn’t that prescient, his problem was with wearing the costume. It takes a special kind of man to wear spandex, and Jude Law just couldn’t see himself amongst the brave and the bold in that regard as he recounted it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “I just didn’t really want to go there,” said Law. Faster than a speeding bullet dodged, because as Superman, Jude Law would’ve had to deal with not only wearing spandex, but also with wearing undies on the outside. It’s claimed that director Bryan Singer sent the Superman costume, complete with an armed guard, for Jude Law ...

It’s reported that the usernames and passwords of nearly 33 million Twitter accounts have been leaked and are being sold online. LeakedSource states that the Twitter credentials are being traded on the dark web, and that the dataset it has acquired consists of 32,888,300 records. Where each record may contain: an email address, username, and sometimes a second email and visible password. LeakedSource claims that your personal information may be searched for and removed from their repository of leaked databases for free. According to LeakedSource: “We have very strong evidence that Twitter was not hacked, rather the consumer was.” Explaining that malware present on users’ devices sent saved usernames and passwords from browsers such as Chrome and Firefox back to the hackers. The explanation offered by LeakedSource appears corroborated by Michael Coates, Twitter’s Trust and Info Security Officer, saying that “we’re confident that our systems have not been breached” and ...

Celebrating 20 years of awarding and honouring the best of British art, the 2016 South Bank Sky Arts Awards were held Sunday, 5th June at the Savoy Hotel. Winners included Eddie Izzard with the Outstanding Achievement Award, and Stormzy who took out the Breakthrough Award. Amongst the nominees though, was another artist whom many were hoping to catch a glimpse of. Known with certainty only as Banksy, the artist’s 2015 Dismaland Bemusement Park artwork was nominated for the Visual Art Award. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye ultimately won the Visual Art Award for her Verses After Dusk, and congratulations are in order. But that hasn’t stopped the wondering about Banksy’s true identity. Banksy is known for having said: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Beyond Banksy’s extensive art works, which include street art and graffiti, often laced with social and political commentary on contemporary issues, little is known about the ...