Spyjinx, a collaboration between Epic Games and J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot Entertainment has been revealed after laying dormant for years. It will be going into beta in select markets very soon.
The game was initially revealed back in 2015 and was set for a 2016 release. Spyjinx missed that target and we hadn’t heard much about the project until now, with the game receiving a surprise development update. The Spyjinx game overview goes into more detail about what kind of game this is – first off, it’s a mobile title framed in a “secret world of espionage, thrilling heists, and crazy gadgets.”
As for genre, Spyjinx is referred to as a “mix of action-strategy gameplay, RPG character development, and head-to-head multiplayer.”
The images tease an experience similar to games like Clash of Clans, with mention of “taking down rival bases” as you forge your career as a spy mastermind. You can customize your base to “stop other Mastermind’s agents from stealing what you rightfully stole.”
In doing so you’ll build up a squad of agents including hackers, brawlers and other specialities, equipping them with gadgets and sending them on infiltration missions. It appears Epic has been teasing Spyjinx in plain sight, as the base shown on the new game’s website is identical to The Shark, the Agency base from Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 2.
You can check out the full beta test announcement blog here, which talks about how the game will launch into closed beta in Malaysia and later Australia on iOS. You can sign up to learn when Spyjinx is coming to your region using a link in the blogpost above.
This isn’t the first time J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot have collaborated with a video game developer. You may remember the Super 8 Interactive Teaser that was added to Portal 2 as a piece of promotional bonus content, created by Valve. J.J. Abrams also spoke at DICE in 2013 and announced a partnership of sorts with Gabe Newell to work on movies related to Valve’s intellectual properties, though that seemingly never came to fruition.
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
The corporation revealed that it will be supporting the COVID-19 relief effort in three main areas: “assistance for those individuals engaged in frontline medical and first responder efforts to fight the virus, support for children and educators who must now work remotely, and support for members of the creative community in the entertainment industry.”
$10 million of the fund will be allocated first and foremost to organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, UNICEF and the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Sony is also looking at ways in which it can use its expertise in technology to support the loss of education opportunities around the globe, while schools are closed and teachers and students forced to isolate.
The statement also notes that it is working on means to support the creative community in “music, pictures, games and animation.” Sony Corporation CEO Kenichiro Yoshida rounded off the statement with a message of support for those affected by the virus.
“We will do all we can as a global company to support the individuals on the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19, the children who are our future, and those who have been impacted in creative communities,” his quote reads.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 includes a lot of moments that stick in the memory, for a variety of reasons. The 2009 game’s campaign features a Russian invasion of the U.S., sees your player characters killed not once, but twice, and heralds the return of fan-favorite hero Captain Price. It also puts you in a position to gun down an airport full of civilians and police in the infamous mission, “No Russian.”
The newly released Modern Warfare 2 Remastered campaign updates the game’s visuals and sound, but the gameplay and story are identical to what was originally released. Revisiting the game demonstrates that Modern Warfare 2’s intense first-person shooter moments still stand up to more recent games and remain as powerful as they were more than a decade ago. But the whole game resonates a bit differently when considered in the light of what has happened in the last 11 years. That’s never more apparent than with “No Russian.”
I went into a replay of Modern Warfare 2 with the expectation that “No Russian” and the rest of the game’s story had been misunderstood over the years. After all, if there’s a subversive Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2 is probably it. The bad guy is an American general and the mission in which you have a hand in a massacre puts you in the role of an American CIA operative. I had come to think that Modern Warfare 2 was making a comment about United States foreign policy and militarization, rather than just being shocking for shocking’s sake. Especially after years of rising mass shootings, though, “No Russian” just comes off as callous. There might be interesting underlying ideas in Modern Warfare 2, but the game either fails to commit to them, or tells its story so poorly that they don’t come across.
At the point you hit “No Russian,” you play as PFC Joseph Allen, an Army Ranger who has been recruited for a secret mission by General Shepherd, the guy in command of your characters throughout the game. After a couple of levels as Allen in which you fight the bad guys alongside a bunch of other Rangers, you’re sent undercover to Russia to infiltrate the organization of a terrorist named Makarov. As the game notes, you take on the name Alexei Bodorin for the mission, but you’re not primed for what comes next.
When “No Russian” loads up, you’re armed with a massive machine gun and start in an elevator with Makarov and a few other guys. Makarov tells the group, “Remember: no Russian,” reminding them to speak only English, then steps out of the elevator into a crowded airport. With no warning, Makarov and his men start firing into the crowd of unarmed civilians, who scream, run in panic, writhe in pain on the ground, and, on several occasions, try to crawl to safety, only to be executed by the terrorists at point-blank range.
Essentially, “No Russian” is a mass shooting scenario, and you’re the one with the gun. You can choose not to participate, of course. No one forces you to pull the trigger, and refusing to do so relegates you to the role of watching your digital comrades commit murder after murder. At the same time, though, you’re also unable to stop the carnage; you can’t turn on Makarov and are forced to watch things play out. Eventually, you do have to do some shooting, as Russian police and FSB officers arrive to stop the attack. These guys are armed and fight back, though, making them more in line with your usual Call of Duty enemies–but they’re still security guards and police, not the soldiers, militia members, or terrorists you’re usually fighting.
On the surface level, “No Russian” is still shocking today, if not more so than when it was released in 2009. Mass shootings in the U.S. have increased significantly in the last 10 years, and here a game has you participating in one. A rundown of mass shooting incidents in the U.S. from Vox logs some 2,412 incidents since 2013, resulting in 2,730 people killed and another 10,057 wounded. Regardless of how you feel about games depicting real-world ideas, events, and tragedies, “No Russian” is a troubling thing to play through when you think about these real events and how they affect real people. (It should be noted that you don’t have to play through it. Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, like the original game, warns you about “Offensive Content” and asks you if you’d prefer to skip “No Russian.”)
At the same time, you can attempt to read “No Russian” as Call of Duty at its most subversive and artistically expressive. The franchise markets itself on realism–usually in its visual fidelity and the attention paid to creating digital versions of real-world guns–and mostly depicts soldiers as fraught good guys, willing to put their lives on the line to protect freedom and save lives. Dying in Modern Warfare 2 brings up a screen that usually includes a quote from a famous leader, war hero, or philosopher, either praising soldiers or decrying the horrors of war. Call of Duty usually comes off as pro-gun and pro-military at the very least, and even jingoistic.
“No Russian,” on the other hand, could be seen as Infinity Ward subverting its own genre by twisting how you feel about pulling the virtual trigger, changing you from heroic warrior to indiscriminate murderer (or at least, bystander to tragedy). It’s a level that’s meant to make you recoil, evoking empathy in players by doing the thing video games do best: putting you in a role you wouldn’t normally experience. That the role is a horrific one should make the moment all the more impactful, and maybe get you thinking about what you enjoy about the idea of shooting even digital depictions of humans, or what consequences gun violence has in the real world.
You might also see the mission as Infinity Ward calling out the U.S.’s cavalier foreign policy. After all, you play a deep-cover CIA operative tasked with getting close to a terrorist–but you don’t stop the terrorist attack, you participate in it. Whatever the goal the CIA or Shepherd have in infiltrating Makarov’s group, they’re willing to allow a massacre to proceed in order to achieve it. Given the real history of CIA intervention around the world and its aftermath, it’s pretty bold for Call of Duty, a franchise usually about brave soldiers fighting off hordes of enemy combatants, to suggest that maybe the U.S. and its institutions aren’t always on the side of right.
That’s amplified further when you see how the story campaign all plays out. At the end of the massacre, undercover agent Allen is killed by Makarov; apparently, the terrorist knew the agent’s true identity the whole time. Allen’s body is left behind as evidence that the massacre was carried out not by Russians, but by Americans, resulting in a full-on world war. Russian troops invade the U.S. in response to the attack, and you and the other Army Rangers repel parachuting soldiers in American suburbs and the literal White House in later missions.
But it turns out that Shepherd was actually behind the whole thing, somehow. Shepherd placed Allen undercover, and it seems likely he leaked the agent’s true identity to Makarov. He later betrays and kills another player character in order to intercept intelligence that links him to Makarov and to instigating the war. The entire story of Modern Warfare 2 is a false flag operation carried out by an American general to create a new war for, seemingly, personal gain. Again, that’s a pretty subversive point of a view for a franchise that’s consistently pro-military.
The trouble is, the game does so little to get any of these ideas across in its story (or any other ideas) that it’s not clear Modern Warfare 2 actually has any. “No Russian” doesn’t put any emphasis on the fact that you’re a CIA operative in a very compromised position; the rest of the characters move on after Allen is killed, cursing Makarov’s name, never acknowledging the fact that the gambit of blaming the U.S. for the massacre was possible because you were there, helping him–or at least, not stopping him. Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t use any dialogue or context to suggest what point “No Russian,” or any other part of its story, is trying to make, and so it’s hard to guess at what the scene is meant to convey. It’s easy, then, to chalk “No Russian” up as nothing more than cheap and tasteless, an example of Call of Duty trying to be edgy for edgy’s sake.
If Modern Warfare 2 were better at storytelling, a challenging point of view on violence, militarism, or war would be easier to accept. But Shepherd’s betrayal comes abruptly and out of nowhere toward the end of the game, and it’s tough to parse his motivations. (He seems mostly mad that a lot of soldiers died in the first Modern Warfare, and he’s trying to engineer himself as a war hero, although even this much explanation is being generous with how he’s portrayed in the game.) And while there are American military bad guys to fight, there are just as many American good guys (as well as allies from the UK, Australia, and Russia), fighting the good fight for freedom. The game doesn’t stray too far from lionizing the military, especially by portraying it fending off a massive surprise attack on home soil.
And Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t slow down in parading digital humans before you to kill, so it’s tough to buy that the inclusion of “No Russian” is meant to make you stop and consider the damage guns can inflict on real people. Mixed in among the enemy soldiers are the occasional teammate or civilian who might stray into your line of fire. Shoot too many of them and the game will fail you, but a little collateral damage goes by without remark.
So Modern Warfare 2 maintains its shock value and controversy, but if it’s an attempt to make a comment about the American fetishization of guns, the U.S.’s foreign policies, the willingness of the greedy and powerful to sacrifice civilians and soldiers for their own ends, or the military industrial complex’s need to self-perpetuate through warfare, those things are muddled at best.
Modern Warfare 2 Remastered is an impressive visual update of what is inarguably a classic shooter, and its big moments–like retaking the White House or going house-to-house through an American neighborhood–are just as exciting and impactful as they were in 2009. But age and distance haven’t improved the questionable parts of Modern Warfare 2, and they’re even tougher to overlook in the modern climate. It might be exciting to defend the Burger Town and chase down Shepherd in a Zodiac, but Modern Warfare 2’s weaknesses make moments like “No Russian” feel exploitative more than informative to the story or an important part of the experience–especially in 2020.
Netflix‘s latest docuseries The Tiger King has taken the world by storm. The seven-episode show follows Joe Exotic, an exotic pets park owner; Carole Baskin, an animal activist; Doc Antle, another exotic pets park owner; and everyone that surrounds them. It is an unbelievable story that starts with petting tigers and ends with assassination attempts.
What makes this show so mind-blowing is the cast of characters. Aside from the three previously mentioned folks, there is a plethora of other people interviewed for the show that are incredibly interesting. However, many of these people aren’t really good, law-abiding citizens, or they had a rough past that led to some tragic moments. All that being said, sometimes you feel guilty about liking some of the characters on this show.
Considering all of that, we’ve decided to rank every person interviewed on Tiger King, and there were a lot of people on this show. So here are the 45 people from Tiger King, ranked from least favorite to favorite.
Note: We are basing our opinions on everyone involved in the show on how they are presented in the Tiger King. While supplemental sources are also provided–giving an update to where some of them now–it’s been made clear by some parties that they don’t feel they were represented on the Netflix docuseries in an accurate light.
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45. Doc Antle
Founder of Myrtle Beach Safari
Antle is an interesting character, to say the least. The Netflix documentary sets him up as the leader of a group that almost borders on sex cult. Tiger King does not paint him in a good light.
Additionally, Antle recently tweeted about the doc and said, “We are very disappointed that our facility was mentioned in the new Netflix series. We can only assume it is because Doc Antle has been such a high profile wildlife personality for so many…” The confusing tweet was originally connected to an Intagram account. The post no longer exists.
There’s nothing redeeming about this guy.
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44. Tim Stark
Founder of Wildlife in Need
There is something going on with Tim Stark. He’s a dark character, and completely unlikable, as he’s presented in Tiger King. He runs an Indiana exotic pet park, which recently lost its license from the USDA after claims of animal abuse. Stark and Lowe were working together on the new GW Zoo but have parted ways since. He’s not a likeable guy.
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43. Kody Antle
Doc Antle’s son
We don’t know much about Kody, but it’s a “guilty by association” situation for him. He’s Doc’s son, so he’s just not likable.
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42. Jeff Lowe
Businessman
Worked with the feds to bring down Joe Exotic, and took over the GW Zoo. Jeff Lowe is a guy who is willing to take advantage of others in order to get ahead, and he does not seem trustworthy. Sure, he helped stop the assassination of Carole Baskin by having Allen Glover turn over evidence to the feds, but Lowe did so in order to get Joe out of his hair while he took over GW Zoo.
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41. Anne McQueen
Don Lewis’ executive assistant
McQueen has an interesting shirt, and she’s wrapped up in Lewis’ story. We don’t learn a lot about her to form a real opinion.
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40. Brittany Peet
An employee at PETA who had been investigating Joe Exotic and his treatment of animals.
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39. Chealsi Putman
Joe Exotic’s niece
That’s an interesting way to spell that name, isn’t it? Again, this is a character we don’t know a whole lot about.
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38. Debra Sandlin
Former volunteer at Big Cat Rescue
It’s apparent that she likes cats and all things cats.
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37. Jeff Johnson
Former reptile dealer
Jeff has a pretty cool tractor. He seems like a guy that would appear on History’s American Pickers.
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36. Joseph Fritz
Don Lewis’ attorney
Joseph has to deal with a lot, as his client has disappeared and Lewis’ estate was pretty large.
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35. Kenny Farr
Don Lewis’ handyman
Out of the vast majority of people involved with Lewis, Carole Baskin actually likes Kenny Farr. She said that she “loved him like a son” in a Big Cat Rescue blog post.
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34. Mark McCarthy
Former employ of Mario Tabraue
McCarthy detailed some of Tabraue’s exploits while he worked for him. He’s a middle-of-the-road guy, and we have no real opinion of him.
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33. Marsha David
GW Zoo employee
David appears briefly. She also has a shamrock tattoo with a confederate flag in it. That’s what we know about her.
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32. Marc Thompson
Joe Exotic’s security guard
When animal rights activists are on your heels, you’re going to need some security. And Joe Exotic hired Marc Thompson, who is pretty forgettable.
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31. Susan Bass
Big Cat Rescue PR
Bass hangs out in the Big Cat Rescue gift shop during her time being interviewed.
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30. Moksha Bybee
Doc Antle’s partner
We learn a little about Moksha through Barbara Fisher, and she is briefly interviewed. Based on how Antle is presented, you do feel bad that she’s caught up in all of this.
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29. Jamie Murdock
Carole Baskin’s daughter, works at Big Cat Rescue.
Jamie seems alright, but she does work with her mother.
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28. Sylvia Corkill
News 9 reporter
Corkill has all the facts, and the News 9 set looks nice.
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27. Vernon Yates
Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation
Yates cares for animals and tries his best at it. He seems like a good guy.
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26. Wendell Williams
Don Lewis’ business associate
Wendell has some nice frames for his portraits.
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25. Amanda Green
Federal prosecutor against Joe Exotic
Green did her job at taking down someone who broke the law, and she has a nice blazer.
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24. Bruce David
GW Zoo contractor.
He has a snake on his arm and a parrot on his shoulder during the interview. What’s not to love?
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23. Howard Baskin
Carole Baskin’s husband
While he comes off as a lackey for Carole, there’s something about Howard that’s likable. It’s probably his wedding photos with Carole. They are wild, as he’s on a leash, in a caveman costume. However, he came off really smug in some of the interviews, which made him a bit less likable.
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22. Travis Maldonado
Joe Exotic’s husband
Was fed drugs by Exotic during his time at GW Zoo as Exotic’s husband–even though it was reported he wasn’t gay. Maldonado liked to pull weapons on people, and at one time, fired a weapon on himself that he thought was empty. It wasn’t, and it ultimately killed him.
Maldonado comes off as a rural person with a charming personality, even if jokingly pulling guns on the people around you is doesn’t make you the nicest person. However, it’s apparent early on that something tragic happens to him because he’s never interviewed. Obviously, it’s one of the saddest story on the series.
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21. Carole Baskin
Founder of Big Cat Rescue
Hello all you cool cats and kittens, Baskin wants privatized ownership of exotic animals like the GW Zoo and Myrtle Beach Safari made illegal. She runs Big Cat Rescue–a large cat sanctuary that is seemingly very similar to what she opposes–run entirely by volunteers working for free in a color-tiered system which takes years to move up in.
She’s also been accused by her opponents of feeding her missing husband, Don Lewis, to her cats. Lewis’ body has never been found. Baskin also sued Joe Exotic’s parents in order to get money owed to her by the Tiger King himself.
Baskin may seemingly have her heart in the right place at first, but Tiger King presents a real dark underbelly for her story, and by the end, you will not like her.
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20. Cheryl Maldonado
Travis Maldanado’s mother
Cheryl has a tough go as her story unfolded on Tiger King. Her son accidentally killed himself, she was duped into a photo-op with Joe Exotic’s new husband to make everything seem “okay,” and during her interviews, you can feel she is crushed. You only want the best for her, and for her to get back on her feet. She’s one of the more tragic tales from the show.
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19. Sheriff Rhodes
County sheriff that presides over GW Zoo
Rhodes is a smalltown sheriff that wants the best for his community but fears the day a tiger escapes and the public has to deal with it. He’s just trying to do his job, and you feel so bad for him, as the sheriff is stuck in the middle of this story, which is just bonkers.
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18. Lauren Lowe
Jeff Lowe’s wife
Her husband may not come off very well on Tiger King, but Lauren does in the couple of times she shows up on the show. One of the last times you see her is before she’s about to give birth, and both she and Jeff seem excited and very happy.
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17. Gladys Lewis Cross
Don Lewis’ ex-wife
We truly hope she gets some answers about what happened to her ex-husband, who disappeared years ago after marrying Carole Baskin.
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16. Lynda Sanchez and Gale Rathbone
Don Lewis’ daughters
Much like their mother, Gale and Lynda just want answers about their father’s disappearance. You can’t help but feel bad for them. They’re all wrapped up in a story they had nothing to do with.
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15. Dillon Passage
Joe Exotic’s current husband
Dillon seems like a nice enough guy, and even though his husband is currently in jail, Dillon is still married to him and talking to him. This might be the first gay man Exotic married as well.
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14. John Finlay
Joe Exotic’s ex-husband
Rarely seen wearing a shirt, Finlay was married to Exotic for years, and use methamphetamines during that time.
There is an element of sadness throughout the series for Finlay. You like the person who is being interviewed because… well, he’s a shirtless dude with tons of tattoos, and you constantly wonder, “Did a producer ask him to put a shirt on ever?” He was in a rough spot during the filming of this docuseries.
Luckily, Finlay is having better times now. He has new teeth, a new job as a welder, and he seems happy. So there’s a huge upside to this story.
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13. Rick Kirkham
Joe Exotic TV producer
Kirkham is a very weird dude. Early on, you learn he set himself on fire for a new story, before working for Exotic. He spent time upping the production quality of Joe’s show, and filming the Tiger King making various threats to Carole Baskin. All of Kirkman’s footage was lost in the fire at GW Zoo. After leaving GW Zoo, Kirkman’s house burned down, and his dog died.
There’s something oddly likable about this bizarre man, and he has a pretty tragic story after leaving GW Zoo. He’s like the basic cable version of Frank Miller.
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12. Maria Tabraue
Mario Tabraue’s wife
She’s married to a man that you’ll feel exceptionally guilty for liking; however, Maria seems great, and the monkey she has with her has a diaper on which is the cutest thing ever.
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11. Joshua Dial
Joe Exotic’s campaign manager
One of the few seemingly kind-hearted people in Exotic’s stable that wasn’t abusing drugs, Dial was unfortunate to be the witness to Travis Maldanado accidentally shooting himself.
And that’s the only moment on the series where you feel bad for him. He witnessed something horrifying. Additionally, he was involved with Exotic’s wild political campaigns, which were surely stressful–but fun for us to watch.
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10. Dennis Hill
Former exotic animal owner/head hair enthusiast.
Hill had video of Baskin during her younger years teaching people how to raise exotic cats from home, which includes taking the kittens from their mothers. Hill appears briefly, but he’s totally awesome. Look at that screenshot.
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9. Erik Cowie
Head keeper at GW Zoo
While his look may be a bit intimidating, Cowie generally cared about the animals at GW Zoo. He took care of them and wanted them to be safe, above anything else. And that’s why he testified against Exotic–who had been killing mature tigers to make room for newborns. He no longer works at the GW Zoo, but he has a big heart.
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8. JP Wilson
Magician
When Wilson was younger, he taught Joe Exotic some magic tricks. Also, it’s apparent he loves his cat.
He only appears briefly, but Wilson is a delight, holding his cat during the interviews.
Verdict: Okay to Like
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7. Barbara Fisher
Doc’s Apprentice
Fisher was involved with Myrtle Beach Safari, working under Doc for years and becoming one of his many girlfriends. She no longer works for Doc and was very vocal about Doc’s tweet–seen earlier. She RT’d the tweet saying, “Translation: I’m sad someone saw through my bulls***, so I’m going to pretend it was because I was so very famous BEFORE the Netflix show. #TigerKing”
Barbara is awesome, and within the Tiger King doc, she’s the one person who has a truly happy ending: escaping Doc Antle. Her story will make you feel bad for her, but there is a real light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s hope she keeps calling out Doc on Twitter.
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6. Allen Glover
GW Zoo Handyman
Glover was hired by Joe Exotic to murder Carol Baskin. While he never attempted to commit the act, he still took the job. He comes off a bit as a bumbling idiot, but a lovable one at that. Remember when he was interviewed while taking a bath? What was up with that?
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5. John Reinke
Manager of GW Zoo
Many people who took care of the animals at GW Zoo seemed to be good people with tragic backstories. Working there gave them purpose, so when it all fell apart after Lowe took over, many of them moved on. This happened with Reinke, and he moved and became a welder.
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4. James Garretson
Businessman/Jet ski enthusiast
Garretson is all about self-preservation, no matter who is hurts in the end. He’s a person who could very easily be in prison for something awful. He’s also the weird comic relief throughout the show, so you end up liking how silly he is. But really, the shining moment for Garretson is the quick scene of him on a jet ski. Don’t worry, we’re not leaving that part out.
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4.5. James Garretson on a Jet Ski
Never forget this weird, weird moment.
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3. Mario Tabraue
President and founder of Zoological Wildlife Foundation
Tabraue ran a drug ring during the ’80s and was sentenced to 100 years. However, he was released after serving 12 years after he was an informant. An ATF agent was murdered by one of his henchmen, but he was not charged with being connected to that.
He was a criminal and done some heinous things, but Mario is extremely likable in Tiger King. He seems to have a love for animals–even though he was accused of filling snakes with cocaine. And out of all the park owners on the show, you’ll probably feel the most conflicted about liking him.
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2. Kelci “Saff” Saffery
Animal keeper at GW Zoo
The animal keeper–who officially goes by Saff since transitioning–lost his arm while dealing with a tiger at the zoo, and then went back to work five days later like a champion. Saff truly cares about the animals and the park, and he wasn’t involved in the shady aspects surrounding Joe Exotic and company.
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1. Joe Exotic
Founder of GW Zoo, gun enthusiast, country music singer
Joe spent a lot of time on Joe Exotic TV threatening Carole Baskin. He also hired Allen Glover to kill her. Exotic fed drugs to his husbands, and his music is actually written by Clinton Johnson Band and Exotic softly sang over the tracks.
Exotic is extremely charismatic, funny–both intentionally and unintentionally–and a wild, wild person. So while we’re all posting gifs of him and giggling at his music videos, it’s easy to forget the constant threats of violence from Joe Exotic TV to Carole Baskin, including hiring Allen Glover to murder her.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
Own Fallout 76 on PC already but wish you could play the game through Steam? You’ll be able to do so starting on April 14, the same day that the new Wastelanders expansion launches
Anyone who purchases Fallout 76 through Bethesda.net before April 13 and links their Steam and Bethesda accounts will get the game for free on Steam. Atoms and Fallout 1st memberships will not transfer between the platforms, but any items purchased through the shop will be available across both Bethesda.net and Steam.
This offer only applies to the PC version. Xbox One and PS4 players will have to purchase the Steam version separately in order to access it, and the game doesn’t support cross-platform play.
From April 14-28, anyone who purchases the game from Steam will also receive the Fallout Classic Collection with the original two games and Fallout Tactics for free. This applies to those who claim the free Steam version via their Bethesda.net account, as well.
The Wastelanders expansion is free to all players, and it was delayed slightly from its original April 7 release date because of COVID-19. The expansion will add much-requested NPC humans. It contains a new quest in the Appalachian Mountains, and two events called Riding Shotgun and Radiation Rumble will go live at the same time it launches. These aren’t designed for newcomers, so you’ll want to gear up and increase your level before attempting them.
Bethesda previously said it would keep Fallout 76 off Steam in order to maintain a “direct relationship” with players. However, the vast majority of other Bethesda games are on the platform already.
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Joe Exotic, the central figure in the wildly popular Netflix docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, has apparently revealed that he would like either Brad Pitt or David Spade to portray him in a potential scripted movie or TV show about his life.
“He would like Brad Pitt or David Spade to play him,” Chaiklin claimed. “He doesn’t refer to David Spade as David Spade — he refers to him as ‘Joe Dirt.'”
At least one of these suggestions already has some support behind it, as several Tiger King fans have already identified the visual comparisons between Joe Exotic, the former G.W. Zoo owner who is currently serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison, and David Spade’s cinematic alter ego, Joe Dirt, the janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream. Artist BossLogic even created a parody poster of a Tiger King and Joe Dirt mash-up.
The original Tiger King documentary consists of seven episodes running 40-50 minutes each and was released on March 20 on Netflix. In our review of Tiger King, we called it “a fascinating and depressing look inside a community of big cat fanatics,” which would make a worthy addition to the watchlists of “true crime fans hungry for something different.”
A new update for Borderlands 3 will introduce not one but two new events, as the legendary vending machine limited-time event rotates out of play. That event, which made legendary loot available in vending machines, will end and be replaced by Slot Machine Mania and Trials Take-All.
According to hotfix notes, Slot Machine Mania will increase your chance to win legendaries from slot machines, but also increases the chances for grenades to spawn instead. Less valuable loot still might appear, but those odds have been greatly reduced. The other event, Trials Take-All, boosts the chances of rewards during Proving Ground trials, and bosses will always drop loot from their pools. Both events start today and will last until April 9 at 9 AM PT.
This follows closely after the release of Guns, Love, and Tentacles, the second major expansion for the game. That introduces a Lovecraftian threat in the midst of a happy wedding ceremony, though it doesn’t really explore some of Lovecraft’s problematic aspects. The patch that introduced the DLC also raised the level cap to 57, which Gearbox says will greatly increase the end-game power level by allowing players to use two capstone skills instead of just one.
If you don’t happen to have Borderlands 3 yet, it’s part of the big PSN sale going on now. That will let you grab it for $30, while the Xbox One version is $20 at Amazon. Meanwhile, both Target and Amazon are hosting buy two, get one free sales, which should let you catch up on any games you may have missed recently.
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The first trailer for the sequel to South Korean zombie blockbuster Train to Busan is here. The movie is titled Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula and is directed once more by Yeon Sang-ho.
The trailer reveals that Peninsula is set four years after the first movie. Infected zombies have overrun the world, and the cities are now desolate and dangerous places. The trailer doesn’t really reveal many plot details beyond that, but it certainly delivers the action. While Train to Busan was set almost entirely on a train, the sequel has a much bigger scale, and it looks as influenced by post-apocalyptic action classics such as Mad Max and Escape from New York as by other zombie movies. Check it out below.
In a recent interview with ScreenDaily, Yeon Sang-ho provided a few more details about the movie. “It takes place four years after Train To Busan, in the same universe, but it doesn’t continue the story and has different characters,” he said. “Government authority has been decimated after the zombie outbreak in Korea, and there is nothing left except the geographical traits of the location–which is why the film is called Peninsula.”
“The scale of Peninsula can’t compare to Train To Busan, it makes it look like an independent film,” he continued. “Train To Busan was a high-concept film shot in narrow spaces whereas Peninsula has a much wider scope of movement.”
Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula doesn’t have a US release date yet. However, this is a US trailer, and with the movie set to hit Korean theaters in August, a release later this year here seems likely. The first movie stands as one of the most successful movies ever released in South Korea, and it grossed more than $1.2 million at the US box office.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) concerns could throw a wrench in its plans, but Microsoft is hoping to launch Xbox Series X in all regions at the same time.
Speaking to IGN during an episode of Podcast Unlocked, head of Xbox Phil Spencer said his team hasn’t worked out a “plan B” if the pandemic forces Microsoft to stagger the system’s launch. However, he understands why launching consoles in different regions at different times no longer works in the age of social media.
“I will say, having lived through the Xbox One launch, I know that significant delays in region launches hurt us,” Spencer said. “It hurts us with the sentiment of the fans and every time I go to Japan I remind that we were, what was it, nine months late in launching there with Xbox One?”
Spencer also said that the issues Microsoft still has to work through are primarily software-based, so launching the system itself at a different point would not solve them.
The current planned launch window for Xbox Series X is still “holiday 2020,” and Halo Infinite will release alongside the system. Though developer 343 Infinite is working remotely and Spencer said his teams are stretched in order to accommodate the new setup, there hasn’t been a change in the game’s release date yet. Wasteland 3 and Minecraft Dungeons, which are both also Microsoft-published games, have already been delayed as a result of the pandemic.
We’ll likely learn the final release date for Xbox Series X this summer. Though E3 2020 was canceled, Microsoft will be hosting its own digital event as a replacement for its press conference.
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