1.
Treyarch
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Treyarch is an American video game development company, founded in 1996 by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü, and acquired by Activision in 2001. In 2005, Gray Matter Interactive was merged into Treyarch, as part of the 2007 Leipzig Games Convention, Activision announced that Treyarch would be one of three developers behind their first James Bond based game, Quantum of Solace. The game was released on October 31,2008 in Europe, vicarious Visions developed the DS version and Eurocom developed the PlayStation 2 version. Treyarch is also a developer in the Call of Duty series. They have made Call of Duty 2, Big Red One, Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty, World at War, Call of Duty, Black Ops, Call of Duty, Black Ops II and Call of Duty, Black Ops III. Sales from the game worldwide reached US$650 million within five days after its release, Treyarch worked on the Wii U version of Call of Duty, Ghosts, in order to optimize it for the console. Treyarchs most recently released game is Call of Duty, Black Ops III
2.
Beenox
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Beenox is a video game developer, established in Quebec City, Quebec. Founded in 2000 by Dominique Brown, the became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision on May 25,2005. Between 2002 and 2006, the developer was essentially a porting house and they completed approximately 30 projects for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, based on popular franchises such as X-Men, Spider-Man and Shrek. In 2006, they returned to game development, with Bee Movie Game. Beenox employs about 440 employees who are developing games for such as PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. They released the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii and PC versions of Monsters vs. Aliens, beenox later created the Spider-Man games Spider-Man, Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Man, Edge of Time, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2
3.
Vicarious Visions
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Vicarious Visions, Inc. is an American video game developer. Vicarious Visions games accounted for over $2.5 billion in retail sales, the headquarters of Vicarious Visions is located in Menands, New York. It was announced in December 2016 by Activision that Vicarious Visions will be working on Destiny, the studio was founded by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala in 1990 while both were in high school. Under their leadership, a sale of the company was negotiated to Activision, in January 2005, Vicarious Visions was acquired by publisher Activision. On April 5,2016, the Bala brothers announced that they had left the company, terminus, an online multiplayer space trading and combat simulation game, won two Independent Games Festival Awards in 1999. They developed the first three Crash Bandicoot GBA games and they are also well known for many games including Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, Crash Nitro Kart, Jedi Knight II, Jedi Academy, and Doom 3 for the Xbox. Vicarious Visions developed for the Guitar Hero series on the Nintendo DS, for Guitar Hero, On Tour, Vicarious Visions created the Guitar Grip peripheral for the Nintendo DS, which emulates the guitar controller for the portable system. It was revealed on June 10,2011, that Vicarious Visions was working on the 3DS version of Skylanders, on December 8,2016, Vicarious Visions announced that they are partnering with Bungie to work on the Destiny franchise
4.
Activision
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Activision Publishing, Inc. also known as Activision, is an American video game publisher. It was founded on October 1,1979 and was the worlds first independent developer and its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market. As of January 2017, Activision is one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2016 in the United States, before Activision, third-party developers did not exist. Software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed, for example, Atari was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600. This was particularly galling to the developers, as they received financial rewards nor credit for games that sold well. Kaplan, who called the others the best designers for the in the world, recalled that Kassar called the four men towel designers and that anyone can do a cartridge. Crane, Miller, and Whitehead left Atari and founded Activision in October 1979 with former music industry executive Jim Levy and venture capitalist Richard Muchmore, David Crane has said the name Activision was based on Jim Levys idea to combine active and television. The original name proposed for the company was VSync, Inc, unlike Atari, the company credited and promoted game creators along with the games themselves. The steps taken for this included devoting a page to the developer in their instruction manuals and these approaches helped the newly formed company attract experienced talent. In recognition of this step, Kaplan, Levy, Miller, the departure of the four programmers, whose titles made up more than half of Ataris cartridge sales at the time, caused legal action between the two companies not settled until 1982. As the market for game consoles started to decline, Activision branched out, producing titles for home computers. In 1982, Activision released Pitfall. on the Atari 2600, designed and developed by David Crane, it was a huge success. Many clones of the game were introduced, including arcade games. On June 13,1986, Activision purchased struggling text adventure pioneer Infocom, Jim Levy was a big fan of Infocoms titles and wanted the company to remain solvent. About six months after the InfoWedding, Bruce Davis took over as CEO of Activision, Davis was against the merger from the start and was heavy-handed in its management. Five of them accepted this offer, in 1988, Activision began involvement in software besides video games, such as business applications. As a result, Activision changed its name to Mediagenic to better represent all of its activities. After taking over the company, the new management filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization, in the reorganization, Mediagenic merged with The Disc Company with Mediagenic being the surviving company
5.
Video game music
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Video game music is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was limited to simple melodies of early sound synthesizer technology. With advances in technology, video game music has now grown to include the same breadth and complexity associated with television and film scores, while simple synthesizer pieces are still common, game music now includes full orchestral pieces and popular music. Music in video games can be heard over a title screen, options menu. Today’s soundtracks can also change depending on a player’s actions or situation, Video game music can be one of two options, original or licensed. In order to create or collect this music, teams of composers, music directors, today, original composition has included the work of film composers Harry Gregson-Williams, Trent Reznor, Hans Zimmer, Josh Mancell, Steve Jablonsky, and Michael Giacchino. The popularity of game music has expanded education and job opportunities, generated awards. At the time video games had emerged as a form of entertainment in the late 1970s, music was stored on physical medium in analog waveforms such as compact cassettes. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use making them less ideal for use in an arcade cabinet, though in rare cases. Sound effects for the games were also generated in this fashion, an early example of such an approach to video game music was the opening chiptune in Tomohiro Nishikados Gun Fight. The first game to use a background soundtrack was Tomohiro Nishikados Space Invaders. It had four descending chromatic bass notes repeating in a loop, though it was dynamic and interacted with the player, the first video game to feature continuous, melodic background music was Rally-X, released by Namco in 1980, featuring a simple tune that repeats continuously during gameplay. The decision to any music into a video game meant that at some point it would have to be transcribed into computer code by a programmer, whether or not the programmer had musical experience. Some music was original, some was public domain music such as folk songs, Sound capabilities were limited, the popular Atari 2600 home system, for example, was capable of generating only two tones, or notes, at a time. As advances were made in technology and costs fell, a definitively new generation of arcade machines. This was further improved upon by Namcos 1982 arcade game Dig Dug, Dig Dug was composed by Yuriko Keino, who also composed the music for other Namco games such as Xevious and Phozon. Home console systems also had an upgrade in sound ability beginning with the ColecoVision in 1982 capable of four channels. However, more notable was the Japanese release of the Famicom in 1983 which was released in the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985
6.
James Bond in video games
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The James Bond video game franchise is a series of shooter games and games of other genres spun off from the James Bond film series developed and published by a variety of companies. The games centre on Ian Flemings fictional British MI6 agent, James Bond, the first official James Bond video game, Shaken but not Stirred, was released by Richard Shepherd Software for the ZX Spectrum in 1982, in the United Kingdom. A year later, Parker Brothers released James Bond 007 for multiple consoles, since 1983, there have been numerous video games based on the official films, Ian Flemings novels, and original scripts created by the developer or publisher of the game. The video games were somewhat profitable in the 1980s and early 1990s, featuring a mixture of styles including side-scrolling action, the popularity of the James Bond video game series did not rise quickly, however, until 1997s GoldenEye 007 by Rare for the Nintendo 64. GoldenEye 007 expanded on the plot of the film, and is a shooter with a multiplayer mode. The game received positive reviews and sold over eight million copies. In 1998, Nintendo released James Bond 007 for the Game Boy developed by Saffire, the game features a story including characters from multiple James Bond films, such as Oddjob and Jaws. It also incorporates gambling minigames, such as Baccarat and Blackjack, the next Bond game, 1999s Tomorrow Never Dies, based on the film released two years prior, was the first released by Electronic Arts. Developed by Black Ops, unlike GoldenEye 007, it was a third-person shooter, despite the games success, it received mixed reviews. The next titles,007, The World Is Not Enough and 007, The World Is Not Enough, both versions were critical and commercial successes. A Game Boy Color game developed by 2n Productions, also titled 007, the game is played from a top-down perspective, and contains seven levels. The game includes a password feature, allGame praised the game for its diverse level designs and its soundtrack, but noted the games difficulty. In 2001, EA released Agent Under Fire for Xbox, PlayStation 2, the game took risks by adding the new elements of rail shooting and driving segments to a first-person shooter. The game has sold nearly 5 million copies since its release, making it the second-most successful game in the franchise, there are no differences between the console versions. It was developed by Eurocom for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox consoles, with a PC port by Gearbox Software, the computer versions are substantially different from the console versions, featuring different missions, a modified story line, and online play. In 2003, the also had a Game Boy Advance version by JV Games. In 2004, EA released Everything or Nothing, developed by EA Redwood, for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. It was written by the scriptwriter of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, screenwriter Bruce Feirstein and it was released to mostly positive reviews, the game also had a Game Boy Advance version by JV Games, which differs from the console versions
7.
Game engine
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A game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and development of video games. Developers use them to games for consoles, mobile devices. The process of development is often economized, in large part, by reusing/adapting the same game engine to create different games. In many cases game engines provide a suite of development tools in addition to reusable software components. These tools are provided in an integrated development environment to enable simplified. Game engine developers attempt to pre-invent the wheel by developing robust software suites which include many elements a game developer may need to build a game, most game engine suites provide facilities that ease development, such as graphics, sound, physics and AI functions. Gamebryo, JMonkey Engine and RenderWare are such widely used middleware programs, however extensibility is achieved, it remains a high priority for game engines due to the wide variety of uses for which they are applied. Some game engines only provide real-time 3D rendering capabilities instead of the range of functionality needed by games. These engines rely upon the developer to implement the rest of this functionality or assemble it from other game middleware components. These types of engines are referred to as a graphics engine, rendering engine. This terminology is used as many full-featured 3D game engines are referred to simply as 3D engines. A few examples of engines are, Crystal Space, Genesis3D, Irrlicht, OGRE, RealmForge, Truevision3D. As technology ages, the components of an engine may become outdated or insufficient for the requirements of a given project. Since the complexity of programming a new engine may result in unwanted delays. Such a framework is composed of a multitude of different components. The actual game logic has to be implemented by some algorithms and it is distinct from any rendering, sound or input work. The rendering engine generates 3D animated graphics by the chosen method, before hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, software renderers had been used. Game engines can be written in any programming language like C++, C or Java, though language is structurally different
8.
IW engine
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The IW engine is a game engine developed by Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games for the Call of Duty series. The engine was based on id Tech 3 as its core. It has been used by Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven Software, the engine has been distinct from the id Tech 3 engine on which it is based since Call of Duty 2 in 2005. The engines name was not publicized until IGN was told at the E32009 by the studio that Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2 would run on the IW4.0 engine. Development of the engine and the Call of Duty games has resulted in inclusion of advanced graphical features while maintaining an average of 60 frames per second on the consoles, Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare was released using version 3.0 of the engine. This game included features such as penetration, improved AI, lighting engine upgrades, particle system enhancements. Treyarch began using a version of the IW3.0 engine for Call of Duty. Improvements were made to the model and dismemberment was added. Environments also featured more destructibility and could be set using the flamethrower. The flamethrower featured propagating fire and it was able to burn skin, Treyarch modified the engine for their James Bond title,007, Quantum of Solace. Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2 was released using the IW4.0 engine, the IW4.0 engine featured texture streaming technology to create much higher environmental detail without sacrificing performance. Call of Duty, Black Ops was not based on IW4.0, rather and this version of the engine also featured streaming technology, lighting enhancements, and support for 3D imaging. Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 utilizes an improved version of the IW4.0 engine, improvements on the engine allow better streaming technology which allows larger regions for the game while running at a minimum of 60 frames per second. Further improvements to the audio and lighting engines have made in this version. Call of Duty, Black Ops II was developed using a further iteration of the IW engine, texture blending has been improved due to a new technology called reveal mapping which compares tones between two textures and then blends them together. Also, there have been upgrades to the engine which include HDR lighting, bounce lighting, self-shadowing, intersecting shadows. Call of Duty, Black Ops II takes advantage of DirectX11 video cards on the Windows version of the game, the zombie mode has been moved to the multiplayer portion of the engine which will allow for much more variety within this part of the game. Black Ops II was released on November 13,2012, Call of Duty, Ghosts features an upgraded version of the IW5.0 seen in Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3
9.
Computing platform
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Computing platform means in general sense, where any piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the system, even a web browser or other application. The term computing platform can refer to different abstraction levels, including a hardware architecture, an operating system. In total it can be said to be the stage on which programs can run. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware, platforms may also include, Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS, this is referred to as running on bare metal, a browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser. An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in a scripting language. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform, software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality. Cloud computing and Platform as a Service, the social networking sites Twitter and facebook are also considered development platforms. A virtual machine such as the Java virtual machine, applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM. A virtualized version of a system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac, some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it, however, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS
10.
Microsoft Windows
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Microsoft Windows is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone, defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985, Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system, however, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold and this comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones, the most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console, Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the time and share the same kernel. Windows, The operating system for personal computers, tablets. The latest version is Windows 10, the main competitor of this family is macOS by Apple Inc. for personal computers and Android for mobile devices. Windows Server, The operating system for server computers, the latest version is Windows Server 2016. Unlike its clients sibling, it has adopted a strong naming scheme, the main competitor of this family is Linux. Windows PE, A lightweight version of its Windows sibling meant to operate as an operating system, used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers. The latest version is Windows PE10.0.10586.0, Windows Embedded, Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general-purpose operating system for every device that was too resource-limited to be called a full-fledged computer. The following Windows families are no longer being developed, Windows 9x, Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile, The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile operating system
11.
Nintendo DS
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The Nintendo DS or simply, DS, is a 32-bit dual-screen handheld game console developed and released by Nintendo. The device went on sale in North America on November 21,2004, both screens are encompassed within a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP. The Nintendo DS also features the ability for multiple DS consoles to directly interact with each other over Wi-Fi within a short range without the need to connect to a wireless network. Alternatively, they could interact online using the now-closed Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service and its main competitor was Sonys PlayStation Portable as part of the seventh generation era. Prior to its release, the Nintendo DS was marketed as an experimental, third pillar in Nintendos console lineup, meant to complement the Game Boy Advance and GameCube. However, backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance titles and strong sales ultimately established it as the successor to the Game Boy series, on March 2,2006, Nintendo launched the Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer and lighter redesign of the original Nintendo DS with brighter screens. On November 1,2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi, another redesign with several hardware improvements and new features. All Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units, making it the best selling game console to date. The Nintendo DS line was succeeded by the Nintendo 3DS line in 2011, on November 13,2003, Nintendo announced that it would be releasing a new game product in 2004. The company did not provide details, but stated it would not succeed the Game Boy Advance or GameCube. On January 20,2004, the console was announced under the codename Nintendo DS. Nintendo released only a few details at that time, saying that the console would have two separate, 3-inch TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and up to 1 gigabit of semiconductor memory. He also expressed optimism that the DS would help put Nintendo back at the forefront of innovation, in March 2004, a document containing most of the consoles technical specifications was leaked, also revealing its internal development name, Nitro. In May 2004, the console was shown in prototype form at E32004, on July 28,2004, Nintendo revealed a new design that was described as sleeker and more elegant than the one shown at E3 and announced Nintendo DS as the devices official name. On September 20,2004, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo DS would be released in North America on November 21,2004 for US$149.99. It was set to release on December 2,2004 in Japan, on February 24,2005 in Australia, the console was released in North America with a midnight launch event at Universal CityWalk EB Games in Los Angeles, California. The console was launched quietly in Japan compared to the North America launch, the Nintendo DS was seen by many analysts to be in the same market as Sonys PlayStation Portable, although representatives from both companies have said that each system targets a different audience. At one point, Time magazine awarded the DS a Gadget of the Week award, at the time of its release in the United States, the Nintendo DS retailed for US $149.99
12.
PlayStation 2
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The PlayStation 2 is a home video game console that was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the successor to the PlayStation, and is the installment in the PlayStation lineup of consoles. It was released on March 4,2000 in Japan, October 26,2000 in North America, November 24,2000 in Europe and it competed with Segas Dreamcast, Microsofts Xbox, and Nintendos GameCube in the sixth generation of video game consoles. Announced in 1999, the PlayStation 2 was the first PlayStation console to offer backwards compatibility for its predecessors DualShock controller, the PlayStation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all time, selling over 155 million units, with 150 million confirmed by Sony in 2011. More than 3,874 game titles have been released for the PS2 since launch, Sony later manufactured several smaller, lighter revisions of the console known as Slimline models in 2004 and well on, and in 2006, announced and launched its successor, the PlayStation 3. Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 console the following month on February 20,2013, Sony announced the PlayStation 2 on March 1,1999. The Dreamcast itself launched very successfully in North America later that year, soon after the Dreamcasts North American launch, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 2 at the Tokyo Game Show on September 20,1999. Sony showed fully playable demos of upcoming PlayStation 2 games including Gran Turismo 2000 and Tekken Tag Tournament – which showed the consoles graphic abilities, the PS2 was launched in March 2000 in Japan, October in North America and November in Europe. Sales of the console, games and accessories pulled in $250 million on the first day, directly after its release, it was difficult to find PS2 units on retailer shelves due to manufacturing delays. Another option was purchasing the console online through websites such as eBay. This allowed the PS2 to tap the large install base established by the PlayStation – another major selling point over the competition, later, Sony added new development kits for game developers and more PS2 units for consumers. The PS2s built-in functionality also expanded its audience beyond the gamer and this made the console a low cost entry into the home theater market. The PS2 remained as the only active sixth generation console for over 6 months, before it would face competition from rivals, Nintendos GameCube and Microsofts Xbox. While the PlayStation 2 theoretically had the weakest specification of the three, it had a start due to its installed base plus strong developer commitment. Sony also countered the Xbox by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty. Sony cut the price of the console in May 2002 from US$299 to $199 in North America, making it the price as the GameCube. It also planned to cut the price in Japan around that time and it cut the price twice in Japan in 2003. In 2006, Sony cut the cost of the console in anticipation of the release of the PlayStation 3, Sony, unlike Sega with its Dreamcast, originally placed little emphasis on online gaming during its first few years, although that changed upon the launch of the online-capable Xbox
13.
PlayStation 3
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The PlayStation 3 is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the successor to PlayStation 2, and is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles and it was first released on November 11,2006, in Japan, November 17,2006, in North America, and March 23,2007, in Europe and Australia. The PlayStation 3 mainly competes against consoles such as Microsofts Xbox 360, the console was first officially announced at E32005, and was released at the end of 2006. It was the first console to use Blu-ray Disc as its storage medium. In September 2009, the Slim model of the PlayStation 3 was released and it no longer provided the hardware ability to run PS2 games. It was lighter and thinner than the version, and featured a redesigned logo and marketing design. A Super Slim variation was released in late 2012, further refining and redesigning the console. The system had a start in the market but managed to recover. As of March 2016, PlayStation 3 has sold 85 million units worldwide, putting it about on par with Xbox 360 and its successor, the PlayStation 4, was released later in November 2013. On September 29,2015, Sony confirmed that sales of the PlayStation 3 were to be discontinued in New Zealand, in March 2017, the official site for PlayStation 3 in Japan was updated to state that it would be discontinued soon. Sony officially unveiled PlayStation 3 to the public on May 16,2005, at E32005, Video footage based on the predicted PlayStation 3 specifications was also shown. Two hardware configurations were also announced for the console, a 20 GB model, the 60 GB model was to be the only configuration to feature an HDMI port, Wi-Fi internet, flash card readers and a chrome trim with the logo in silver. Both models were announced for a worldwide release, November 11,2006, for Japan and November 17,2006, for North America. On September 6,2006, Sony announced that PAL region PlayStation 3 launch would be delayed until March 2007, because of a shortage of materials used in the Blu-ray drive. Also, the price of the Japanese 20 GB model was reduced by over 20%. During the event, Sony showed 27 playable PS3 games running on final hardware, PlayStation 3 was first released in Japan on November 11,2006, at 07,00. According to Media Create,81,639 PS3 systems were sold within 24 hours of its introduction in Japan, soon after its release in Japan, PS3 was released in North America on November 17,2006. Reports of violence surrounded the release of PS3, a customer was shot, campers were robbed at gunpoint, customers were shot in a drive-by shooting with BB guns, and 60 campers fought over 10 systems
14.
Wii
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The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19,2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii competed with Microsofts Xbox 360, Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others. The Wii introduced the Wii Remote controller, which can be used as a pointing device. Another notable feature of the console is the now defunct WiiConnect24, like other seventh-generation consoles, it features a game download service, called Virtual Console, which features emulated games from past systems. It succeeded the GameCube, and early models are fully backward-compatible with all GameCube games, Nintendo first spoke of the console at the E32004 press conference and later unveiled it at E32005. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed a prototype of the controller at the September 2005 Tokyo Game Show, at E32006, the console won the first of several awards. By December 8,2006, it had completed its launch in the four key markets, in late 2011, Nintendo released a reconfigured model, the Wii Family Edition, which lacks Nintendo GameCube compatibility, this model was not released in Japan. The Wii Mini, Nintendos first major redesign since the compact SNES. The Wii Mini can only play Wii optical discs, as it omits GameCube compatibility and all networking capabilities, the Wiis successor, the Wii U, was released on November 18,2012. On October 20,2013, Nintendo confirmed it had discontinued production of the Wii in Japan and Europe, although the Wii Mini is still in production, the console was conceived in 2001, as the Nintendo GameCube was first released. According to an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction, the consensus was that power isnt everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles cant coexist and its like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction, in 2003, game engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005 the controller interface had taken form, but a showing at that years Electronic Entertainment Expo was canceled. Miyamoto stated that the company had some troubleshooting to do, so we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show, the Nintendo DS is said to have influenced the Wiis design. Designer Kenichiro Ashida noted, We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii and we thought about copying the DSs touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype. The idea was rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical
15.
Xbox 360
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The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the console in the Xbox series. The Xbox 360 competed with Sonys PlayStation 3 and Nintendos Wii as part of the generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12,2005, with detailed launch, the Xbox 360 features an online service, Xbox Live, which was expanded from its previous iteration on the original Xbox and received regular updates during the consoles lifetime. In addition to multimedia features, the Xbox 360 allows users to stream media from local PCs. Several peripherals have been released, including controllers, expanded hard drive storage. The release of additional services and peripherals helped the Xbox brand grow from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia. Launched worldwide across 2005–2006, the Xbox 360 was initially in short supply in many regions, including North America, the earliest versions of the console suffered from a high failure rate, indicated by the so-called Red Ring of Death, necessitating an extension of the devices warranty period. Microsoft released two redesigned models of the console, the Xbox 360 S in 2010, and the Xbox 360 E in 2013. As of June 2014,84 million Xbox 360 consoles have sold worldwide, making it the sixth-highest-selling video game console in history. The Xbox 360s successor, the Xbox One, was released on November 22,2013, on April 20,2016, Microsoft announced that it would end the production of new Xbox 360 hardware, although the company will continue to support the platform. Known during development as Xbox Next, Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS or NextBox, in February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsofts Vice President J Allard. That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12,2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, before the launch of the Xbox 360, several Alpha development kits were spotted using Apples Power Mac G5 hardware. This was because the systems PowerPC970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBMs Xenon processor, the cores of the Xenon processor were developed using a slightly modified version of the PlayStation 3s Cell Processor PPE architecture. According to David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, the IBM employees were hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba, jeff Minter created the music visualization program Neon which is included with the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was released on November 22,2005, in the United States and Canada, December 2,2005, in Europe and December 10,2005, in Japan. It was later launched in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Russia
16.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
17.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
18.
Australasia
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Australasia, a region of Oceania, comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. Charles de Brosses coined the term in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes and he derived it from the Latin for south of Asia and differentiated the area from Polynesia and the southeast Pacific. The bulk of Australasia sits on the Indo-Australian Plate, together with India, physiographically, Australasia includes New Zealand, Australia, and Melanesia, New Guinea and neighbouring islands north and east of Australia in the Pacific Ocean. The designation is applied to all the lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean lying between the equator and latitude 47° south. Most of Australasia lies on the portion of the Indo-Australian Plate, flanked by the Indian Ocean to the west. Sometimes the term encompasses the island of New Guinea. Many organisations whose names include the prefix Australasian Society of, limit their scope of operation to just Australia and New Zealand. In the past, Australasia has been used as a name for combined Australia/New Zealand sporting teams, examples include tennis between 1905 and 1915, when New Zealand and Australia combined to compete in the Davis Cup international tournament, and at the Olympic Games of 1908 and 1912. From an ecological perspective the Australasia ecozone forms a region with a common geologic and evolutionary history. In this context, Australasia is limited to Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Wallace Line marks the biological divide from the Indomalaya ecozone of tropical Asia – Borneo and Bali lie on the western, Asian side. These three land masses have been separated from other continents, and from one another, for millions of years, all of Australasia shares the Antarctic flora, although the northern, tropical islands also share many plants with Southeast Asia. Mainland Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania are separated from one another by shallow continental shelves and they share a similar fauna which includes marsupial and monotreme mammals and ratite birds. Eucalypts are the predominant trees in much of Australia and New Guinea, New Zealand has no extant native land mammals aside from bats, but also had ratite birds, including the kiwi and the extinct moa. Media related to Australasia at Wikimedia Commons
19.
First-person shooter
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The first-person shooter shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn fall under the heading action game. From the genres inception, advanced 3D or pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, the first-person shooter has since been traced as far back as Maze War, development of which began in 1973, and 1974s Spasim. 1998s Half-Life—along with its 2004 sequel Half-Life 2—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements, in 1999, Half-Lifes mod Counter-Strike was released and, together with Doom, is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. GoldenEye 007 was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the Halo series heightened the consoles commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well, first-person shooters are a type of three-dimensional shooter game, featuring a first-person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. They are unlike third-person shooters, in which the player can see the character they are controlling, the primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms. A more important key difference is that first-person light-gun shooters like Virtua Cop often feature on-rails movement, the first-person shooter may be considered a distinct genre in itself, or a type of shooter game, in turn a subgenre of the wider action game genre. Following the release of Doom in 1993, games in this style were commonly termed Doom clones, in time this term has largely been replaced by first-person shooter. Wolfenstein 3D, released in 1992, the year before Doom, has credited with inventing the genre. There are occasional disagreements regarding the design elements which constitute a first-person shooter. For example, Deus Ex or BioShock may be considered as first-person shooters, some commentators extend the definition to include combat flight simulators where the cockpit or vehicle takes place of the hands and weapons. Like most shooter games, first-person shooters involve an avatar, one or more ranged weapons, and a varying number of enemies. Because they take place in a 3D environment, these tend to be somewhat more realistic than 2D shooter games. First-person shooters played on computers are most often controlled with a combination of a keyboard. This system has claimed as superior to that found in console games. It is common to display the characters hands and weaponry in the view, with a head-up display showing health. Often, it is possible to overlay a map of the surrounding area, first-person shooters often focus on action gameplay, with fast-paced and bloody firefights, though some place a greater emphasis on narrative, problem-solving and logic puzzles
20.
Third-person shooter
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Third-person shooter is a subgenre of 3D shooter games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting. A third-person shooter is a game structured around shooting, and in which the player can see the avatar on-screen in a third-person view, a 3D game type that has grown to prominence in recent years, especially on consoles. It combines the elements of the first-person shooter with the jumping and climbing puzzles of a 3D platformer. Third-person shooter games almost always incorporate an aim-assist feature, since aiming from a camera is difficult. Most also have a view, which allows precise shooting and looking around at environment features that are otherwise hidden from the default camera. These games are related to first-person shooters, which also tie the perspective of the player to an avatar. Thus, the third-person perspective allows the designer to create a more strongly characterized avatar. In contrast, a first-person perspective provides the player with greater immersion into the game universe and this difference in perspective also affects gameplay. Third-person shooters allow players to see the surrounding the avatar more clearly. This viewpoint facilitates more interaction between the character and their environment, such as the use of tactical cover in Gears of War. As such, the perspective is better for interacting with objects in the game world, such as jumping on platforms, engaging in close combat. However, the perspective can interfere with tasks that require fine aiming. Third-person shooters sometimes compensate for their distinct perspective by designing larger, the boundaries between third-person and first-person shooters are not always clear. For example, many third-person shooters allow the player to use a first-person viewpoint for challenges that require precise aiming, the first-person shooter Halo, Combat Evolved was actually designed as a third-person shooter, but added a first-person perspective to improve the interface for aiming and shooting. The game switches to a third-person viewpoint when the avatar is piloting a vehicle, metroid Prime is another first-person shooter that switches to a third-person perspective when rolling around the environment using the morph ball. Alexander R. Galloway writes that the real-time, over-the-shoulder tracking shots of Gus Van Sants Elephant evoke third-person shooter games like Max Payne, silpheed, a forward-scrolling third-person space combat game by Game Arts, was an early example of a fully 3D polygonal shooter. Konamis run and gun shooter Contra featured several third-person shooter levels where the player trudges through indoor enemy bases, devastators also featured various obstacles that could be used to take cover from enemy fire, as well as two-player cooperative gameplay. A similar shooter released that year was Cabal, which inspired many of its own Cabal clones, such as NAM-1975
21.
Action-adventure game
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The action-adventure video game genre includes video games that combine core elements from the action and adventure genres. With the decline of the game genre from mainstream popularity. It is not uncommon for gamers to apply the term adventure or action adventure to describe the genre of fiction to which a game belongs, typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve, with very little or no action. If there is action, it is confined to isolated minigames. Pure action games have gameplay based on real-time interactions that challenge the reflexes, therefore, action-adventure games engage both reflexes and problem-solving, in both violent and non-violent situations. An action-adventure game can be defined as a game with a mix of elements from an action game and an adventure game, especially crucial elements like puzzles. Action-adventures require many of the physical skills as action games, but also offer a storyline, numerous characters, an inventory system, dialogue. They are faster-paced than pure adventure games, because they include both physical and conceptual challenges, action-adventure games normally include a combination of complex story elements, which are displayed for players using audio and video. The story is heavily reliant upon the characters movement, which triggers story events. Some examples of games include The Legend of Zelda, God of War. Exactly when a game stops being a game and becomes an action game is a matter of interpretation. There are quite a few disagreements in the community and in the media over what constitutes an action-adventure game. In some cases a game with puzzles will be classified as an action-adventure game. Others see action games as a genre, while an action-adventure is an action game that includes situational problem-solving. Adventure gamers may also be purists, rejecting any game that makes use of physical challenges or time pressure, regardless, the action-adventure label is prominent in articles over the internet and media. The term action-adventure is usually substituted for a particular subgenre due to its wide scope, although action-adventure games are diverse and difficult to classify, there are some distinct subgenres. These are sometimes called Real-Time Adventure games or RTAs for short, notable examples of this include Metroid Prime, Half-Life 2, Dishonored, and Far Cry 3. Third-person action-adventure, in gameplay is in the third-person
22.
Video game
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A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game referred to a raster display device. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial, the electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices, the input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, joysticks, mouse devices, keyboards, the touchscreens of mobile devices, and buttons, or even, with the Kinect sensor, a persons hands and body. Players typically view the game on a screen or television or computer monitor, or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are often game sound effects, music and, in the 2010s, some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the game industry is of increasing commercial importance, with growth driven particularly by the emerging Asian markets and mobile games. As of 2015, video games generated sales of USD74 billion annually worldwide, early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a Cathode ray tube Amusement Device was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S. Written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanens on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961, and the hit ping pong-style Pong, used the DEC PDP-1s vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold and it used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the Brown Box and these were followed by two versions of Ataris Pong, an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores. The game also became the subject of articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first killer app, the term platform refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term system is commonly used
23.
Casino Royale (2006 film)
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Casino Royale is the 21st film in the Eon Productions James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell and written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis, Casino Royale is set at the beginning of Bonds career as Agent 007, just as he is earning his licence to kill. The story arc continues in the following Bond film Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre also feature explicit references to characters and events in this film. Additionally, the character Miss Moneypenny is, for the first time in the series, casting the film involved a widespread search for a new actor to portray James Bond, and significant controversy surrounded Craig when he was selected to succeed Pierce Brosnan in October 2005. Location filming took place in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy, although part of the storyline is set in Montenegro, no filming took place there. Casino Royale was produced by Eon Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures, Casino Royale premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 14 November 2006. It received positive response, with reviewers highlighting Craigs reinvention of the character. It earned almost $600 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing James Bond film until the release of Skyfall in 2012. In Prague, James Bond assassinates turncoat MI6 section chief Dryden in his office as well as his terrorist contact in a bathroom in Lahore, earning him a licence to kill and status as a 00 agent. In Uganda, the mysterious liaison Mr. White introduces warlord Steven Obanno of the Lords Resistance Army to Le Chiffre, a terrorist financier. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with a sum of money, which the former uses to short-sell stock in the aerospace company Skyfleet. In turn, the funds will be used to establish an account for Obanno. In Madagascar, Bond pursues bomb maker Mollaka to an African embassy, shooting him dead, in London, MI6 chief M admonishes Bond for his rashness in violating diplomatic immunity, and advises him to rethink his future as an agent. Clues from Mollaka point to corrupt Greek official Alex Dimitrios, Bond finds Dimitrios in the Bahamas and after seducing his wife Solange, pursues him to Miami. Bond kills Dimitrios and follows his henchman to the airport and he thwarts the destruction of Skyfleets airliner, costing Le Chiffre his investment. To recoup the money, Le Chiffre sets up a high-stakes Texas hold em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government, on the train to Montenegro, Bond meets Vesper Lynd, a British Treasury agent there to protect the governments $10 million buy-in. In Montenegro, Bond and Vesper meet their MI6 contact, René Mathis, Bond gains the upper hand at the start of the game until a break, where Obanno, infuriated over the loss of his money, ambushes Le Chiffre in his suite
24.
Quantum of Solace
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It stars Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright and Judi Dench. In the film, Bond seeks revenge for the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd, and is assisted by Camille Montes, who is plotting revenge for the murder of her family. The trail eventually leads them to wealthy businessman Dominic Greene, a member of the Quantum organisation, producer Michael G. Wilson developed the films plot while the previous film in the series, Casino Royale, was being shot. Purvis, Wade, and Haggis contributed to the script, Craig and Forster had to write some sections themselves due to the Writers Strike, though they were not given the screenwriter credit in the final cut. The title was chosen from a 1959 short story in Ian Flemings For Your Eyes Only, location filming took place in Mexico, Panama, Chile, Italy, Austria, and Wales, while interior sets were built and filmed at Pinewood Studios. The film was marked by its frequent depictions of violence. As of September 2016, it is the fourth-highest-grossing James Bond film, without adjusting for inflation, James Bond is driving from Lake Garda to Siena, Italy, with the captured Mr. White in the boot of his car. After evading pursuers, Bond delivers White to M, who interrogates him regarding his organisation, Ms bodyguard, Craig Mitchell, is a double agent, he attacks M, enabling White to escape. Bond chases Mitchell and kills him, Bond and M return to London and search Mitchells flat, discovering Mitchell had a contact in Haiti, Edmund Slate. Bond learns Slate is a hitman sent to kill Camille Montes at the behest of her lover, after rescuing Camille from Medrano, Bond follows Greene to a performance of Tosca in Bregenz, Austria. Meanwhile, the head of the CIAs South American section, Gregg Beam, Bond infiltrates Quantums meeting at the opera, identifying members of Quantums executive board, and a gunfight ensues. A Special Branch bodyguard working for Quantum member Guy Haines, is killed by antagonists after Bond throws him off a roof, M assumes Bond killed him, and has Bonds passports and credit cards revoked. Bond heads to Italy and convinces his old ally René Mathis to accompany him to Bolivia and they are greeted by Strawberry Fields, a consular employee who demands Bond return to the UK immediately. Bond seduces her and they attend a fundraising party Greene holds that night, at the party, Bond again rescues Camille from Greene. Leaving, Bond and Camille are pulled over by Bolivian police working for Medrano and they had earlier attacked Mathis and put him in the boot of Bonds car to frame Bond. In the ensuing struggle, Mathis and the cops are killed, the following day, Bond and Camille survey Quantums intended land acquisition by air, their plane is shot down by a Bolivian fighter aircraft. They skydive into a sinkhole, and discover Quantum is damming Bolivias supply of water to create a monopoly. Back in La Paz, Bond meets M and learns Quantum killed Fields by drowning her in crude oil, Bond meets CIA Agent Felix Leiter, who discloses Greene and Medrano will meet in the Atacama Desert to finalise their agreement
25.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
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Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The fourth installment in the Call of Duty series, it was released in 2007 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, the game breaks away from the World War II setting of previous entries in the series and is instead set in modern times. Developed for over two years, the uses a proprietary game engine. The story takes place in the year 2011, where a leader has executed the president of an unnamed country in the Middle East. The conflicts are seen from the perspectives of a U. S, Force Reconnaissance Marine and a British SAS commando, and are set in various locales, such as the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Ukraine. Critically acclaimed, the received an aggregated score of 94% from both GameRankings and Metacritic. The gameplay and story received particular praise, while criticism targeted the failure of the game to substantially innovate the first-person shooter genre, the game won numerous awards from gaming websites, including IGNs Best Xbox 360 Game. It was the game worldwide for 2007, selling around seven million copies by January 2008. A character can be positioned in one of three stances, standing, crouching, or prone, each affecting the rate of movement, accuracy. Using cover helps the player avoid enemy fire or recover health after taking significant damage, as such, there are no armor or health power ups. When the character has taken damage, the edges of the screen glow red, if the character stays out of fire, the character can recover. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, the player takes on the role of various characters during a single-player campaign. The characters involvement in the plot occurs simultaneously and overlaps the events in the game, as such, the players perspective changes from one character to another between missions. Each mission features a series of objectives, the player is led to each objective with the heads up display, after the credits, a special epilogue mission is unlocked for play, featuring a four-man squad retrieving a VIP from terrorists who have hijacked an airliner. The SAS rescue the VIP and escape before the plane is destroyed, Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare features team-based and deathmatch-based multiplayer modes on various maps. Each mode has an objective that requires unique strategies to complete, players can call in UAV reconnaissance scans, air strikes, and attack helicopters, when they achieve three-, five-, and seven-enemy kill streaks respectively. A game ends when either a team or player has reached a number of points. If the player is in either of the two matches, then there is an Overtime match, in which the team to win is rewarded the victory
26.
Daniel Craig
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Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991 and his film debut was in the drama The Power of One. Cast as the fictional British secret agent James Bond in October 2005, his first film in the role, Casino Royale, was released internationally in November 2006. Craig achieved international fame when chosen as the actor to play the role of Ian Flemings James Bond in the official film series. Quantum of Solace followed two years later, Craigs fourth Bond film, Spectre, premiered in 2015. In 2006, he joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, Craig also made a guest appearance as Bond in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, alongside Queen Elizabeth II. As of 20 February 2017, Craig is the second longest serving James Bond, Craig was born in Chester, Cheshire. Craig has distant French Huguenot ancestry, Huguenot minister Daniel Chamier is among his ancestors, as is Sir William Burnaby, 1st Baronet. Craigs middle name, Wroughton, comes from his great-great-grandmother, Grace Matilda Wroughton, raised on the Wirral Peninsula, Craig attended primary school in Frodsham and Hoylake, Merseyside. Later, he attended Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Merseyside, along with his older sister Lea, when his parents divorced, Craig and his sister lived with their mother, moving to Liverpool, Merseyside. Upon finishing his secondary school education at the age of 16. He played rugby union for Hoylake RFC, Craig began acting in school plays at the age of six, and was introduced to serious acting by attending the Everyman Theatre in nearby Liverpool City Centre with his mother. At the age of 16, Craig was accepted into the National Youth Theatre, leaving school and moving to London, in Craigs first screen role, he played an Afrikaner in The Power of One in 1992. He then appeared as Joe in the Royal National Theatres production of Tony Kushners Angels in America in November 1993, also in 1993, Craig was featured in an episode of Yorkshire Televisions Heartbeat, which aired 31 October 1993. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences extended an invitation to Craig in 2006. In 2005, Craig was contacted by Eon Productions to portray James Bond and he stated he was aware of the challenges of the Bond franchise which he considered a big machine that makes a lot of money. He aimed at bringing more depth to the character. Born in 1968, Craig is the first actor to portray James Bond to have been born after the Bond series started, and after the death of Ian Fleming, significant controversy followed the decision, as it was doubted if the producers had made the right choice
27.
Eva Green
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Eva Gaëlle Green is a French actress and model. She started her career in theatre before making her debut in 2003 in Bernardo Bertoluccis film The Dreamers. In 2006, Green was awarded the BAFTA Rising Star Award, since 2006, Green has starred in independent films Cracks, Womb, and Perfect Sense. She has also appeared in the television series Camelot, and played Angelique Bouchard in Tim Burtons big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows. In 2014, she played Artemisia in the 300 sequel,300, Rise of an Empire and she also starred as Vanessa Ives in Showtimes horror drama Penny Dreadful. Her performance in the series earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, in 2016, she played the titular character in Tim Burtons fantasy film Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. Green was born in Paris, France, two earlier than her fraternal twin sister, Joy. She is the daughter of Marlène Jobert, an actress, and Walter Green and her father has acted in film, appearing in Robert Bressons film Au Hasard Balthazar. Her father is of Swedish, French, and Bretons descent and her mother, a native of French Algeria, later moved to Metropolitan France. Green is Jewish, as is her mother, eva has described herself as “a secular Jew who never attended synagogue as a girl”, she has said I feel like a citizen of the world. Life and cinema dont have borders, Green has described her family as bourgeois, and has said that her sister is very different from her. Green is naturally dark blonde, she has dyed her hair black since she was 15 years old, the French-Swedish actress Marika Green is her aunt. The 1980s pop-star Elsa Lunghini is her first cousin, through their mothers, as is actress Joséphine Jobert, through her father and her paternal surname Green is Swedish and pronounced grain/greyne, it does not originate from the English word green, which is grön in Swedish. Green is derived from the Swedish word gren, which means branch, Green was raised in France and attended the American University of Paris, an English-speaking institution. She also spent time between Ramsgate, London and Ireland growing up, Green was quiet in school, and developed an interest in Egyptology when she visited the Louvre at age seven. At age 14, after seeing Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adele H. Green decided to become an actress and her mother initially feared that an acting career would be too much for her sensitive daughter, but later came to support young Evas ambitions. Green continued her studies at St. Paul Drama School in Paris, around this time, Green returned to Paris, where she performed in several plays. Green stated that in school, I always picked the really evil roles
28.
Judi Dench
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Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA, known as Judi Dench, is an English actress and author. Dench made her debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she performed in several of Shakespeares plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she branched into film work. She drew strong reviews for her role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She achieved success in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and she has also received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Special Olivier Award. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute, Dench is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dench was born in Heworth, North Riding of Yorkshire and her mother, Eleanora Olive, was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset, England, and later moved to Dublin and he met Denchs mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Dench attended The Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York and her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Tyldesley, Lancashire. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a Roman historian and professor previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University. In Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the period, primarily through her work in theatre. She has more than once been named one in polls for Britains best actor. Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre and her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household, during these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. In 1957, in one of the last productions in which she appeared during this period, she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech
29.
Mads Mikkelsen
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Mads Dittmann Mikkelsen is a Danish actor. Originally a gymnast and dancer, he began his career as an actor in 1996, in 2012, he was voted the Danish American Societys Person of the Year. He starred in the critically acclaimed TV series Hannibal as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in 2016, Mikkelsen portrayed Kaecilius in Marvels film Doctor Strange and Galen Erso in Lucasfilms Rogue One, A Star Wars Story. He is set to star in Hideo Kojimas video game Death Stranding, a. O. Mikkelsen was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, the second son of Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a bank teller and trade union official. He and his brother, Lars Mikkelsen, who is also an actor, were raised in Nørrebro. In his youth, he trained as a gymnast, wanting to pursue athletics, during his dancing career, Mikkelsen met choreographer Hanne Jacobsen, whom he married in 2000. He was a dancer for almost a decade until he left it behind to study drama at the Århus Theatre School in 1996. He made his debut in Nicolas Winding Refns internationally successful film Pusher which would later spawn two sequels, in which he played a drug dealer. He went on to play marginalized, often comic roles in popular Danish movies, in 1999, Mikkelsen had a leading role as Lenny, a shy film expert who suffers from avoidant personality disorder, opposite Kim Bodnia in Refns Bleeder. In 2000, Mikkelsen played a gangster opposite Søren Pilmark, Ulrich Thomsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas in Anders Thomas Jensens Copenhagen gangster movie, the following year, he gained wider popularity when he starred in the gay comedy Shake It All About. He also won best actor for this performance at the Rouen Nordic Film Festival in 2003, in 2003, Mikkelsen had a leading role as a man who leaves his wife and child in the short picture Nu. He starred opposite Kaas in The Green Butchers, playing an orphaned butchers assistant in a small provincial Danish town and he won the Fantasporto Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the butcher. Although a critical success in Spain, the film was received in Scandinavian countries. In 2004, he returned to his role as drug dealer Tonny in the Pusher sequel and his performance was acclaimed, garnering him the Bodil Award for Best Actor, Zulu Award for Best Actor and Robert Festival Award for Best Actor. One writer likened his pose in the mirror in the film to Robert De Niro in Martin Scorseses Taxi Driver, in 2005, Mikkelsen portrayed an unorthodox country vicar named Ivan who challenges a neo-Nazi to bake an apple pie in Adams Apples. dk. The series 32 episodes stretched over four years and he became more widely known internationally for his role as Tristan in Jerry Bruckheimers production of the movie King Arthur, which was a commercial success despite negative reviews. In 2006, Mikkelsen starred opposite Stine Stengade and Jana Plodková in Ole Christian Madsens award-winning film Prag and his role as Christoffer earned him the Zulu Award for Best Actor and Bodil and Robert Festival nominations for Best Actor. Eddie Cockrell of Variety noted his rigid countenance in an outstanding performance, the same year, Mikkelsen achieved his first widely acclaimed international success as Le Chiffre in the twenty-first James Bond film, Casino Royale
30.
Olga Kurylenko
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Olga Kostantinovna Kurylenko is a French actress and model. She was discovered as a model in Moscow at the age of 13 and she moved to Paris to pursue a modeling career at the age of 16. Kurylenko started her career in 2005. More recently she starred in Stephen S. Campanellis Momentum, and Terrence Malicks To the Wonder, Kurylenko was born in Berdiansk, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. Her father, Konstantin, is Ukrainian, and her mother, Marina Alyabysheva, who art, was born in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. Her parents divorced when she was three and she was raised by her mother, Kurylenko rarely had contact with her father, meeting him for the first time after the split when she was eight, and later when she was thirteen. Kurylenko was discovered by a model scout while on holiday in Moscow at the age of 13. Aged 15 she moved from Ukraine to Moscow, at the age of 16 she moved to Paris. In 1996, she signed a contract with the Paris-based Madison modelling agency, the following year, by the age of 18, she had appeared on the covers of Vogue and Elle magazines. While working as a model in Paris, Kurylenko supported her mother in Ukraine and she also appeared on the covers of Madame Figaro and Marie Claire magazines. She became the face of brands Bebe, Clarins, and Helena Rubinstein and she has also modeled for Roberto Cavalli and Kenzo and appeared in the Victorias Secret catalogue. One of her first acting appearances was in Seals music video, Loves Divine in 2003 and that same year, she was selected to be the face of Kenzos new fragrance, Kenzo Amour. She has appeared in all subsequent Kenzo Amour advertisements, in 2007, she starred in Hitman alongside Timothy Olyphant. She had a role in Max Payne as Natasha. She played Bond girl Camille Montes in the 2008 James Bond film, in the film she plays the role of a Bolivian Secret Service agent named Camille, who teams up with James Bond to avenge the death of her parents. She was featured on the cover of the December 2008 issue of the U. S. edition of Maxim magazine and on the cover of the February 2009 issue of the Ukrainian edition of Maxim. In Ukraine the mayor of Berdyansk suggested naming a street after her in early 2008, Kurylenko appeared in Terrence Malicks To the Wonder, shot in fall 2010 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. She also appeared in Oblivion, a fiction film starring Tom Cruise
31.
Mathieu Amalric
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Mathieu Amalric is a French actor and filmmaker. He has also won the César Award and the Lumières Award, amalrics father is French while his mother was born in Poland, to Jewish parents, and moved to France at the outbreak of World War II. Amalric first gained fame in the film Ma Vie Sexuelle, for which he won a César Award and he was selected to play the James Bond villain Dominic Greene alongside Daniel Craig in the 2008 film Quantum of Solace. In 2007, he starred in the acclaimed movie Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. His 2010 film, On Tour, premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, the 2014 film The Blue Room, which he directed and starred in, was selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Amalric has three sons, two with his ex-wife Jeanne Balibar, and one with his girlfriend, a writer, with whom he lives in the Belleville neighbourhood of Paris. Mathieu Amalric at the Internet Movie Database
32.
James Bond
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The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015, additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The character has also adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games. As of 2017, there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series, the most recent Bond film, Spectre, stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond, he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also two independent productions of Bond films, Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. In 2015, the franchise was estimated to be worth $19.9 billion, the Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bonds cars, his guns, the films are also noted for Bonds relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as Bond girls. Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond as the central figure for his works. Bond is an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is known by his number,007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway. Aside from Flemings brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bonds make up, including Conrad OBrien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill Biffy Dunderdale. The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. He further explained that, When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be a dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, is the dullest name I ever heard. On another occasion, Fleming said, I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, James Bond was much better than something more interesting, like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is certainly good-looking. Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way and that black hair falling down over the right eyebrow
33.
Secret Intelligence Service
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The Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence agency of the British government. The SIS Chief is held accountable to the Foreign Secretary, SIS is bound by the Intelligence Services Act 1994. The name MI6 was used as a flag of convenience during the First World War when it was known by many names, the existence of the SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1994. It forms a part of the UKs intelligence machinery alongside GCHQ, MI5, in late 2010, the head of SIS delivered what he said was the first public address by a serving chief of the agency in its then 101-year history. The remarks of Sir John Sawers primarily focused on the relationship between the need for secrecy and the goal of maintaining security within the UK and his remarks acknowledged the tensions caused by secrecy in an era of leaks and pressure for ever-greater disclosure. Since 1995, the SIS headquarters have been at Vauxhall Cross on the South Bank of the River Thames, the service derived from the Secret Service Bureau, which was founded in 1909. The bureau was split into naval and army sections which, over time, specialised in foreign espionage and internal counter-espionage activities and this specialisation was because the Admiralty wanted to know the maritime strength of the Imperial German Navy. This specialisation was formalised before 1914 and its first director was Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who often dropped the Smith in routine communication. He typically signed correspondence with his initial C in green ink and this usage evolved as a code name, and has been adhered to by all subsequent directors of SIS when signing documents to retain anonymity. The services performance during the First World War was mixed, because it was unable to establish a network in Germany itself, most of its results came from military and commercial intelligence collected through networks in neutral countries, occupied territories, and Russia. After the war, resources were reduced but during the 1920s. In August 1919, Cumming created the new passport control department, the post of Passport Control Officer provided operatives with diplomatic immunity. Circulating Sections established intelligence requirements and passed the intelligence back to its consumer departments, mainly the War Office, the debate over the future structure of British Intelligence continued at length after the end of hostilities but Cumming managed to engineer the return of the Service to Foreign Office control. In the immediate post-war years under Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming and throughout most of the 1920s, SIS was focused on Communism, in particular, Russian Bolshevism. Smith-Cumming died suddenly at his home on 14 June 1923, shortly before he was due to retire, an economic intelligence section, Section VII, to deal with trade, industrial and contraband. A clandestine radio communications organisation, Section VIII, to communicate with operatives, Section N to exploit the contents of foreign diplomatic bags Section D to conduct political covert actions and paramilitary operations in time of war. Section D would organise the Home Defence Scheme resistance organisation in the UK, with the emergence of Germany as a threat following the ascendence of the Nazis, in the early 1930s attention was shifted in that direction. Sinclair died in 1939, after an illness, and was replaced as C by Lt Col. Stewart Menzies, the extensive double-cross system run by MI5 to feed misleading intelligence to the Germans Imagery intelligence activities conducted by the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
34.
Bolivia
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Bolivia, officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. One-third of the country is the Andean mountain range, with one of its largest cities and principal economic centers, El Alto, Bolivia is one of two landlocked countries that lie outside Afro-Eurasia. Bolivia is geographically the largest landlocked country in the Americas, but remains a small country in economic. Before Spanish colonization, the Andean region of Bolivia was part of the Inca Empire, Spanish conquistadors arriving from Cuzco and Asunción took control of the region in the 16th century. During the Spanish colonial period Bolivia was administered by the Royal Audiencia of Charcas, spain built its empire in great part upon the silver that was extracted from Bolivias mines. After the first call for independence in 1809,16 years of war followed before the establishment of the Republic, named for Simón Bolívar, on 6 August 1825. Since independence, Bolivia has endured periods of political and economic instability, including the loss of peripheral territories to its neighbors, such as Acre. The countrys population, estimated at 11 million, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, the racial and social segregation that arose from Spanish colonialism has continued to the modern era. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guarani, Aymara, modern Bolivia is constitutionally a unitary state, divided into nine departments. Its geography varies from the peaks of the Andes in the West, to the Eastern Lowlands and it is a developing country, with a medium ranking in the Human Development Index and a poverty level of 53 percent. Its main economic activities include agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and manufacturing such as textiles, clothing, refined metals. Bolivia is very wealthy in minerals, especially tin, Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. Sucre opted to create a new nation and, with local support. The original name was Republic of Bolívar, some days later, congressman Manuel Martín Cruz proposed, If from Romulus comes Rome, then from Bolívar comes Bolivia. The name was approved by the Republic on 3 October 1825, the region now known as Bolivia had been occupied for over 2,500 years when the Aymara arrived. However, present-day Aymara associate themselves with the ancient civilization of the Tiwanaku culture which had its capital at Tiwanaku, the capital city of Tiwanaku dates from as early as 1500 BC when it was a small, agriculturally based village. The community grew to urban proportions between AD600 and AD800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes
35.
Camille Montes
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Camille Montes Rivero is a fictional character in the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace portrayed by actress Olga Kurylenko. She first meets Bond in Haiti, where she intends to kill General Medrano and she sleeps with Quantum member Dominic Greene to get to Medrano, but Greene soon grows suspicious of her and plans to kill her. Camille arranges a meeting with a geologist selling classified information that is detrimental to Greenes business, however, Greene has already hired an assassin named Mr. Slate to pose as the geologist and kill Camille. Bond intercepts Slate and takes Slates suitcase without knowing the contents, Camille spots Bond on the street with the suitcase and believes he is the geologist. Bond opens the suitcase and unwittingly reveals Slates gun and documents that show Camille as a target, believing Bond has come to kill her, Camille attempts to shoot him before fleeing. She returns to Greene, intent on being introduced to Medrano, when Greene betrays Camille, Bond rescues her, and they team up to go after Greene and Medrano. Bond leaves Camille for a period of time after she is knocked unconscious during an intense boat chase in Haiti to follow Greene to Austria. Camille soon appears at Greenes formal fundraising party to ruin it, Greene attempts to push her from a balcony but, once again, Bond saves her life. Camille watches Bond as he kills Bolivian police officers in cold blood as revenge for shooting his ally Rene Mathis, Camille and Bond trace Greene and Medrano to a desert eco-hotel. While Bond goes to fight Greene and his men, Camille faces Medrano, Camille gets the upper hand, however, and kills the dictator with a single shot to the head. As the hotel collapses around them, Bond shields Camille from the fire, Bond leaves Greene in the middle of the desert and drives Camille to a train station so she can go back to her home. The two share a kiss, and Camille wishes Bond luck in conquering his personal demons. Barbara Broccoli said that she intended for Camille to return for Skyfall or a future film, the character did not appear in Skyfall, however, or the subsequent Bond film, Spectre
36.
Vesper Lynd
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Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Flemings 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale. She was portrayed by Ursula Andress in the 1967 James Bond parody, which is based on the novel. In the novel, the character explains that she was born on a stormy evening. Fleming created a recipe in the novel that Bond names after her. The Vesper martini became very popular after the publication, and gave rise to the famous shaken. The actual name for the drink was mentioned on screen for the first time in the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale, Vesper works at MI6 headquarters as personal assistant to Head of section S. She is lent to Bond, much to his irritation, to assist him in his mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre and she poses as a radio seller working with Rene Mathis and later as Bonds companion to infiltrate the casino in Royale-les-Eaux, in which Le Chiffre frequently gambles. After Bond takes all of Le Chiffres money in a game of baccarat, Vesper is abducted by Le Chiffres thugs. Both are rescued after Le Chiffre is murdered by a SMERSH agent, but only after Bond has been tortured. Vesper visits Bond every day in the hospital, and the two very close, much to his own surprise, Bond develops genuine feelings for her. After he is released from the hospital, they go on a holiday together, Vesper has a terrible secret, however, She is a double agent working for MVD and only worked with Bond because she was under orders to see that he did not escape Le Chiffre. Before she met Bond, she had been involved with a Polish RAF operative. This man had captured by SMERSH, and revealed information about Vesper under torture. Hence, SMERSH was using this operative to blackmail Vesper into helping them, consumed with guilt and certain that SMERSH will find and kill both of them, she commits suicide, leaving a note admitting her treachery and pledging her love to Bond. Bond copes with the loss by renouncing her as a traitor and he phones his superiors and informs them of Vespers treason and death, coldly saying The bitch is dead. Bonds feelings for Vesper are not totally extinguished, Flemings tenth novel, On Her Majestys Secret Service, reveals that he makes an annual pilgrimage to Royale-les-Eaux to visit her grave. In Diamonds Are Forever, Bond skips the song La Vie En Rose in Tiffany Cases hotel room because it has memories for him, this is a song closely associated with Vesper in Casino Royale. Vesper Lynd, in the 1967 version of Casino Royale, was portrayed by Ursula Andress, who portrayed another Bond girl, Honey Ryder, in the 1962 film version of Dr. No
37.
M (James Bond)
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M is a fictional character in Ian Flemings James Bond book and film series, the character is the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service—also known as MI6—and is Bonds superior. Fleming based the character on a number of people he knew who commanded sections of British intelligence, M has appeared in the novels by Fleming and seven continuation authors, as well as appearing in twenty-four films. Fleming based much of Ms character on Rear Admiral John Godfrey, after Flemings death, Godfrey complained He turned me into that unsavoury character, M. A further inspiration for M was Maxwell Knight, the head of MI5, who signed his memos as M, the tradition of the head of MI6 signing their name with a single letter came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who would sign his initial C with green ink. Melville recruited Sidney Reilly into government service and foiled a plot against Queen Victoria on her 1887 Golden Jubilee. A naval theme runs throughout Flemings description of M and his surroundings, and his character was described by journalist and Bond scholar Ben Macintyre as every inch the naval martinet. Macintyre also notes that in his study of Flemings work, Kingsley Amis outlined the way Fleming had described Ms voice, being, angry, brutal, cold, curt, dry, gruff, stern, testy. Over the course of twelve novels and two collections of stories, Fleming provided a number of details relating to Ms background. In On Her Majestys Secret Service it is revealed that Ms pay as head of the Secret Service is £6,500 a year, Blades has a restricted membership of only 200 gentlemen and all must be able to show £100,000 in cash or gilt-edged securities. Kingsley Amis noted in his study, The James Bond Dossier, as a personal favour to M, the staff at Blades keeps a supply of cheap red wine from Algeria on hand but does not include it on the wine list. M refers to it as Infuriator and tends only to drink it in moderate quantities unless he is in a bad mood. In the first post-Fleming book, Colonel Sun, M is kidnapped from Quarterdeck, his home, in Gardners final novel, COLD, M is kidnapped and rescued by Bond and finishes the book by retiring from MI6. Continuation Bond author Raymond Bensons 1998 novel The Facts of Death continued Messervys retirement, the book also introduces a new M, Barbara Mawdsley. M was played by Bernard Lee from the first Bond film, Dr. No, in Dr. No, M refers to his record of reducing the number of operative casualties since taking the job, implying someone else held the job recently before him. The film also saw M refer to himself as head of MI7, Lee had originally said MI6, earlier in the film, the department had been referred to as MI6 by a radio operator. Smith and Lavington, meanwhile, remarked that Lee was the incarnation of Flemings crusty admiral. Lee died of cancer in January 1981, four months into the filming of For Your Eyes Only, later films referred to Lees tenure as head of the service, with a painting of him as M in MI6s Scottish headquarters during the 1999 instalment The World Is Not Enough. Featured in The likeness of Lee was used in the 2005 James Bond video game adaptation of James Bond 007, after Lees death in 1981, the producers hired actor Robert Brown to play M in Octopussy
38.
Mii
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A Mii is a customizable avatar used on several Nintendo video game consoles. Miis were first introduced on the Wii, and later extended to the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Miis can be shared and transferred between consoles, either manually or automatically with other users over the internet and local wireless communications. On the 3DS and Wii U, user accounts are associated with a Mii as their avatar, on the Nintendo Switch, a Mii can still be used as an account avatar, but static display pictures are also available. Nintendos first public debut of free-form personal avatar software was at the Game Developers Conference in 1997, there, Shigeru Miyamoto said that the personal avatar concept had originally been intended as a Famicom game, where a user could draw a face onto an avatar. Miyamoto commented that the concept could not be turned into a game, in 1999, the 64DD, was launched in Japan. Nintendo had produced a film using the 64DDs Mario Artist, Talent Studios avatar maker, which includes clothes. The player can utilize the Game Boy Camera and the 64DDs Capture Cassette to put their own face upon the avatar. The next avatar implementation was for the Nintendo e-Reader and GameCube, along with the Game Boy Camera, it can build an avatar maker. Miyamoto showed another short film made with this software, which was shown at E32002 with the name Stage Debut. This software, renamed to Manebito, was discontinued prior to release, Mii characters are created and stored in the Mii Channel or the Mii Maker, which are pre-installed on the Wii and the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U consoles respectively. Most of the features can be further adjusted, including their size, position, color. Accessories such as hats and glasses are available to add. The features can then be fine-tuned by the user and these versions also have more options then their Wii counterpart. Because the selection of features is considered by some to be limited. Nintendo periodically releases special Miis, usually during E3 or to commemorate game, for a limited time between March 13 and March 29,2007, Wii owners in Japan were sent Mii versions of comedian Sanma Akashiya and tennis player Shuzo Matsuoka. The duo had been featured in Japanese promotions for the Wii, Miis of Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime were released on the 3DS for the 1st anniversary of the handheld console. During 2013, Nintendo released special Miis of Shigeru Miyamoto and Kensuke Tanabe, and during E32013, also released special Miis for Takashi Tezuka, Koichi Hayashida, Eiji Aonuma, and Hideki Konno. Their Miis feature gold pants, as opposed to a gray pair, if owners transfer them to another Wii or Wii Remote, they will be removed from their original location, instead of traditionally making another copy
39.
Virtual camera system
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In 3D video games, a virtual camera system aims at controlling a camera or a set of cameras to display a view of a 3D virtual world. Camera systems are used in videogames where their purpose is to show the action at the best possible angle, more generally, as opposed to film makers, virtual camera system creators have to deal with a world that is interactive and unpredictable. It is not possible to know where the character is going to be in the next few seconds, therefore. To solve this issue, the system relies on certain rules or artificial intelligence to select the most appropriate shots, there are mainly three types of camera systems. In fixed camera systems, the camera does not move at all, tracking cameras, on the other hand, follow the characters movements. Finally, interactive camera systems are automated and allow the player to directly change the view. To implement camera systems, video game developers use techniques such as constraint solvers, artificial intelligence scripts, in video games, third-person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from a fixed distance behind and slightly above the player character. This viewpoint allows players to see a more strongly characterized avatar, games with this perspective often make use of positional audio, where the volume of ambient sounds varies depending on the position of the avatar. In this kind of system, the set the properties of the camera, such as its position, orientation or field of view. The camera views will not change dynamically, so the place will always be shown under the same set of views. An early example of this kind of system can be seen in Alone in the Dark. While the characters are in 3D, the background on which they evolve has been pre-rendered, the early Resident Evil games are notable examples of games that use fixed cameras. The God of War series of games is also known for this technique. One advantage of camera system is that it allows the game designers to use the language of film. Indeed, like filmmakers, they have the possibility to create a mood through camerawork, games that use this kind of technique are often praised for their cinematic qualities. As the name says, a camera follows the characters from behind. The player does not control the camera in any way - he/she cannot for example rotate it or move it to a different position and this type of camera system was very common in early 3D games such as Crash Bandicoot or Tomb Raider since it is very simple to implement. However, there are a number of issues with it, in particular, if the current view is not suitable, it cannot be changed since the player does not control the camera
40.
James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing
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James Bond 007, Everything or Nothing is a third-person shooter video game, in which the player controls James Bond. Bond is modeled after and voiced by the former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, developed by EA Redwood Shores and published by Electronic Arts, it was released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox consoles. The Game Boy Advance version was developed by Griptonite Games and when linked to the GameCube version via the Nintendo GameCube–Game Boy Advance link cable allowed unique premium content. Although the game achieved Platinum Hits status on the Xbox, it is one of the few games that achieved this status that has not been made compatible with the Xbox 360. Written by Bruce Feirstein, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo and it is the second Bond game played in third-person after Tomorrow Never Dies, and is the first Bond game to both feature a two-player cooperative mode and lack deathmatch multiplayer mode. The game features returning actors John Cleese and Judi Dench, as Q and M respectively, the gameplay is a mix of third-person shooting/action sequences and vehicle sequences. Opening in Tajikistan, Bond infiltrates a stronghold where an organization sells a stolen Soviet suitcase bomb, opening fire and causing conflict, Bond uses the confusion to steal the device and escape. Rescuing its inventor, Dr. Katya Nadanova, Bond dispatches his captors, unbeknownst to Bond, Nadanova then gives a vial of her nanobots to Nikolai Diavolo, a former KGB agent with ties to Max Zorin. Some time later, Bond is sent to investigate a Peruvian platinum mine, destroying the laboratory, Bond finds a tanker of nanobots which is being driven by Jaws to the levees with the intent of flooding New Orleans. Bond destroys the truck before it can reach the levees, winning a race Diavolo holds, Bond finds he has captured Serena, allowing Diavolo to escape to the mines. After saving Serena, Bond reaches the mines, but is captured by Nadanova, tied in the path of a mining drill, Bond escapes his shackles and flees the mines in a helicopter piloted by Serena. Following Diavolo to Moscow, Bond steals one of Diavolos platinum tanks and uses it to prevent the release of the nanobots in Red Square, deactivating the nanotech missiles, Bond then shoots down a Soviet jet containing Diavolo and Nadanova, killing the latter. Ejecting from the jet, Diavolo reaches a control tower, Bond detonates it, Bond then destroys the missile as it launches, before kissing Serena outside the Kremlin. Recurring characters, James Bond - M - Q - Jaws - Other characters, Willem Dafoe as Nikolai Diavolo, the primary antagonist. Heidi Klum as Katya Nadanova, Ph. D. an Oxford nano-technology scientist who is revealed to have affiliations with Diavolo. Shannon Elizabeth as Serena St. Germaine, an American geologist, Mýa as Mýa Starling, an NSA double agent who aids Bond. James Arnold Taylor as Jack Mason,003 Misaki Ito as Miss Nagai, Everything or Nothings game engine evolved from the engine used in Agent Under Fire. Like its predecessor, the sections were developed using a separate engine by EA Canada
41.
Glock
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It entered Austrian military and police service by 1982 after it was the top performer on an exhaustive series of reliability and safety tests. Glocks are also popular firearms among civilians for recreational and competition shooting, home and self-defense, the companys founder, engineer Gaston Glock, had no experience with firearms design or manufacture at the time their first pistol, the Glock 17, was being prototyped. Glock introduced ferritic nitrocarburizing into the industry as an anticorrosion surface treatment for metal gun parts. In 1980, the Austrian military announced that it would seek tenders for a new, the Austrian Ministry of Defence formulated a list of 17 criteria for the new generation service pistol, The design was to be self loading. The pistol was to fire the NATO-standard 9×19 mm Parabellum round, the magazines were not to require any means of assistance for loading. The magazines were to have a capacity of eight rounds. It was to be possible to all actions one handed which are necessary to prepare the pistol for firing. The pistol was to be secure against accidental discharge from shock, strike. Disassembly of the parts for maintenance and reassembling was to be possible without the use of any tools. Maintenance and cleaning of the pistol was to be accomplished without the use of tools, the pistols construction was not to exceed 58 individual parts. Gauges, measurement tools, and precise testing devices were not to be necessary for the maintenance of the pistol. The manufacturer was to be required to provide the ministry of defence with a set of engineering drawings. These were to be supplied all the relevant details for the production of the pistol. All components were to be interchangeable between pistols. No more than 20 malfunctions were to be permitted during the first 10,000 rounds fired, after firing 15, 000-rounds of standard ammunition, the pistol was to be inspected for wear. The pistol was to then be used to fire an overpressure test cartridge generating 5,000 bar, the critical components were to continue to function properly and be up to specifications, otherwise the pistol was to be disqualified. When handled properly, under no circumstances was the user to be endangered by case ejection, the muzzle energy was to be at least 441.5 J when firing a 9×19 mm S-round/P-08 by Hirtenberger AG. Pistols scoring less than 70% of the available points were not to be considered for military use
