News

As always, David Jaffe, the director of the original God of War games, finds himself embroiled in controversy once more due to some rather provocative statements about current games. In an interview, he discussed how writers for new characters draw on their own experiences, allowing these influences to heavily shape the characters.

Jaffe condemns this practice because it alters the character’s personality to an unrecognizable degree. However, he believes both of the new God of War games are excellent work with an amazing story.

David Jaffe, the Original Creator of God of War, Disagrees With the Writing of Current Video Game Characters David Jaffe has an opinion on how the current God of War games are written. Image via Santa Monica

Having created the first three God of War games, where the characters’ personalities and combat styles were entirely different, David Jaffe talks about how the process was to create Kratos back then.

The creator of God of War, one of the most iconic video games, is very active on social media and streaming platforms in general. David Jaffe, director of the first three God of War games, is often active on X. In a recent stream, he talked about a game he found very fun and recommended it to his followers.

The game is Echo Generation, which the director described as a mix of Stranger Things and Costume Quest. Jaffe highly recommends this game, describing it as a comfort title for a more relaxed experience.

The Creator of God of War Recommends a Game to His Fans David Jaffe, creator of God of War recommends Echo Generation. Image via David Jaffe on YouTube.

After being involved in the first three God of War games, David Jaffe, the original director, focused much more on social media. He is now quite an active personality who streams regularly,...

With 2020 being a disastrous year all around and next-gen consoles releasing in less than a month, you’d be forgiven for acting extra frugal when it comes to purchasing new games. Luckily, there’s usually a handful of free titles available at any given moment – provided you know where to look for them – and this weekend, look you’ll certainly want to, as there are quite a few worthwhile games to pick up right now across multiple platforms.

If you’re subscribed to Xbox Live, you can download this month’s poorly-received Games with Gold titles for your Xbox One, which include Costume Quest, Maid of Sker and Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut. There are also some offerings that are temporarily free to play on the console until October 18th – Warface: Breakout, Ao Tennis 2 and The Escapists 2 – while the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta will be running until October 20th.

Microsoft has beaten Sony to the punch this month in revealing its lineup of free offerings for the Xbox Games With Gold promotion throughout October and yes, once again, it’s a pretty awful selection and very, very underwhelming.

All owners of the soon-to-be-retired Xbox One family of consoles will have full access to the usual four titles for the next 30 days just by being subscribed to the platform’s premium online service, all of which will remain yours once November rolls around. Whether you’ll choose to keep them in your library is another matter entirely, however, as while those selected certainly aren’t bad games by any stretch of the imagination, there’s little here that will excite you. Not to mention that you can already pick these up for pretty cheap elsewhere.

The four titles and their respective dates of availability can be found down below:

Slayaway...

Harriet the Spy is once again set to gather friendship-damaging intelligence, this time in the animated arena, thanks to Apple TV+’s green light for a new series.

Apple TV+ has announced its pickup for a Harriet the Spy animated series, which will directly adapt the iconic 1964 children’s novel of the same name written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh. The series, hailing from The Jim Henson Company and Rehab Entertainment, will have Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) voice the titular role of young Harriet M. Welsch, joined by Jane Lynch (Glee) as no-nonsense nanny Ole Golly. Notably, it will take shape creatively under Will McRobb (creator of The Adventures of Pete & Pete), who serves as the show’s primary visionary as writer and executive producer. Titmouse Animation Studios will handle animation duties.

Apple’s Harriet the Spy won’t stray from the source material, since it will be similarly set in 1960s New York,...

U.S. production, finance and management firm The Cartel has appointed Apa’s former head of motion picture literary Ryan Saul as manager/producer and has promoted Bradford Bricken to partner.

The Cartel’s co-ceo Stan Spry said Saul had a “penchant for discovering young talent,” and added “his ability to nurture that talent is something we pride ourselves in.”

Saul began his career as an executive assistant at the Walt Disney Company and went on to become head of motion picture literary at Apa. Most recently, he was a motion picture literary agent at Paradigm Talent Agency.

According to a statement, “He has garnered the reputation of being able to develop clients from unknown writers or young short film directors to become some of the leading creatives in Hollywood, working on some of the biggest studio films in production.”

His clients included Tim Reckart, who is directing “High in the Clouds” for Netflix,...

Amazon is making a host of kids' and family programs available for free to all its customers as millions of children are unable to go to school due to coronavirus quarantines.

The tech behemoth has lifted the paywall for original and acquired children's series on its Prime Video platform, so that all Amazon users can view them with or without a Prime membership.

Among the titles now available for free are original shows including Pete the Cat, Just Add Magic, Costume Quest, Peg + Cat and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and acquired shows including PBS Kids staples Daniel ...

Exclusive: Frederator Studios, the Wow! Unlimited Media entity behind the animated hit Adventure Time, is developing a new series based on Catbug, a property with demonstrated appeal in the Gen Z realms of TikTok and animated GIFs.

The company has begun shopping a Catbug series to streaming and linear networks, planning to supplement it with a social networking plan, short-form animated videos, e-books and web comics. Pendleton Ward, who created the long-running Adventure Time, is also the creator of Catbug.

The title character was created by Breehn Burns and featured in the Frederator digital series Bravest Warriors (run by Burns), which has drawn 25 million views and more than 400,000 likes on videos starring Catbug. On TikTok, the character has garnered 135 million views, while GIFs on Giphy.com featuring Catbug have recorded 200 million loops.

In addition to Adventure Time for Cartoon Network, Frederator’s credits include Castlevania for Netflix and Bee & Puppycat for YouTube channel Cartoon Hangover.

Exclusive: Netflix has ordered eight episodes of Heaven’s Forest, a Ramayana-inspired epic animated action drama series from Castlevania creator Warren Ellis, executive producers Adi Shankar and Kevin Kolde, and Powerhouse Animation.

Written by Ellis, Heaven’s Forest is set in an Indo-futuristic world, with storyline and characters inspired by the Indian mythology of the Ramayana.

Ellis executive produces with Shankar and Kolde. Powerhouse Animation will produce as the animation studio.

“I am delighted to be partnering again with Netflix, my Castlevania comrades, and the Indian creative community, to create this surreal, mythic narrative filled with life and heart,” said Ellis.

The Ramayana, one of the largest ancient epics in world literature, follows Prince Rama’s quest to rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of Ravana with the help of an army of monkeys. It is traditionally attributed to the authorship...

Bob Ezrin, the legendary rock producer who helped shape the sound of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, is partnering with Wow! Unlimited Media to create a slate of music-infused kids programming, including a series inspired by the ingenuity and music of Les Paul, the fret-master whose namesake electric guitar has been a beloved brand in the music world since the Truman administration.

Ezrin is famed for his envelope-pushing studio work alongside the likes of Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails, U2, Peter Gabriel, Jane’s Addiction, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Rod Stewart, and Kiss, to name just a few from a career discography that dates back to 1970 and his earliest work with Cooper. That pedigree make the Canadian music maven a unique creative asset as a partner, according to Wow Unlimited CEO Michael Hirsh.

“Wow! Unlimited Media aims to be one of the world’s leading producers of entertaining and educationally empowering kids programming,...

Now's the time to get on board Costume Quest, the latest animated series from Frederator Studios. Folks who have been fans of the cult hit video game since its arrival in 2010 know what viewers around the world are in store for when the show arrives on Amazon Prime tomorrow, Friday, March 8th, but we have an extra little tease for the show to share with you today. The original game concept for Costume Quest was created by staffers at Double Fine Productions in one of their sessions they call “Amnesia Fortnights,” where small …...

With an impressive list of highly successful original shows to its name, Amazon Prime Video is ringing in March with even more original content for fans. This month will mark the debut of series such as “The Widow,” a British show which follows the story of a woman (Kate Beckinsale) whose husband has just died in the Congo, and “Costume Quest,” a new animated show adapted from the popular video game of the same name which follows three characters who fight against nougat-eating monsters on Halloween.

But fans can also look forward to continuations of their favorite Prime Originals, including the fourth and final season of “Catastrophe” and the second season of “Tin Star.” And despite all its new shows, Amazon is also giving love to classic favorites, adding titles such as “Double Jeopardy,” “Tapeheads,” and “Black Sheep” to its ever-growing roster.

See the full list of titles below. They...

For many kids, there’s something special about Halloween. There’s a magical property to picking out a costume, dressing up, and going door-to-door asking for candy. Halloween lets children express themselves and be whomever they want to be, whether that’s a superhero, a unicorn, or Abe Lincoln. That magic fades as puberty and teenagerhood beckon, but there’s a lot of nostalgia associated with the spooky holiday.

The spirit of Halloween is perfectly captured in the 2010 video game “Costume Quest,” developed by San Francisco-based studio Double Fine Productions and published by the now-defunct Thq. The role-playing game used cutesy graphics and a classic turn-based combat system to tell a story about becoming something different on Halloween, with kids quite literally becoming their costumes to fight monsters.

“Costume Quest” is a bite-sized adventure that can be completed in a few hours, but its legacy lives on through a sequel,...

Exclusive: Mark Taylor, a veteran of DreamWorks Television Animation and Nickelodeon, has been tapped by animation company Wow! Unlimited Media to steer studio partnerships.

Taylor will have the title of Consulting Executive Producer, Wow principals Michael Hirsh and Fred Siebert said in the announcement. He will leverage his relationships to benefit Wow’s animation outfits, Vancouver-based Rainmaker/Mainframe and Burbank-based Frederator Studios.

From his base at Frederator, Taylor will focus on identifying and implementing new animation development technologies and attracting top talent and projects. At DreamWorks, Taylor was the founding Evp and spearheaded the company’s expansion of its TV series production pipeline.

Prior to Dreamworks Animation, Taylor was the first General Manager and Svp of Nickelodeon Animation Studios, where he oversaw the production of several hit series. Among the shows he shepherded were Spongebob Squarepants, Nick Jr.’s Go Diego Go, Dora the Explorer, Ni Hao Kai-Lan, and Frederator productions The Fairly OddParents,...