Geek Culture
All the New Cameos and References from Ready Player One (That I Noticed)
Warner Brothers’ upcoming movie Ready Player One is every geek’s dream come true. It’s got cameos and references coming out the wazoo, from Deathstroke to the titular Iron Giant from, well, The Iron Giant. Trailers are the best way to show off these cameos, and the latest video is full of them, many of which are in blink and miss them moments. Here are all the references I found:
Ryu
The main character of Capcom’s flagship Street Fighter series has a history of punching cars, but something tells me he’s here to drive one instead. He might be walking away from the audience, but I’d recognize that sleeveless gi anywhere.
Mach 5
How much do you want to bet Ryu’s gonna drive that thing? He is right next to it, and how fitting would it be for Japan’s most popular fighting game character to drive Japan’s most popular anime race car? Even if Ryu isn’t driving the Mach 5, it’s still a neat reference.
Batmobile
Sure, it’s not the Tim Burton movie batmobile, but it’s still a classic. Since the loss of Adam West is still fresh in our minds, I more than welcome any reference to one of if not the most memorable incarnation of the caped crusader.
Blanka
He’s a little hard to see, but he’s the big guy with the big hair in the middle of the screen. Also, who’s that he’s talking to? Is it…
Chun-Li
Yep, Blanka’s talking to Chun-Li. That’s a cute detail, placing one Street Fighter character with another Street Fighter character. I’m going to keep scanning Ready Player One trailers for character like Ken, Guile, Cammy, and M.Bison/Vega.
King Kong
The first Ready Player One trailer featured the Iron Giant, a character who will apparently fill the roll of Ultraman from the original book (I personally would have preferred Ultraman, because I’m a sucker for Japanese spandex-suited heroes). The Iron Giant won’t be the only giant-sized character/reference in the film, though, as good old King Kong is here to cause some chaos. But, now I can’t help but wonder what other giant characters might be in Ready Player One. I’m crossing my fingers for Godzilla and Talos from Jason and the Argonauts.
Battletoads
Whoo boy, big fight scene time. Let’s look at all the characters the animators crammed into this part of the film. First up, the three big anthropomorphic amphibians front and center. They’re clearly Rash, Zitz, and Pimple from Rare’s (in)famous game Battletoads. These characters haven’t had a game since 1994, but they’ve lived on through constant cameos, most recently in Iron Galaxy’s Killer Instinct and Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight. It’s good to see some people still fondly remember these fighting frogs.
El Dragon
You see the luchador with the giant, golden arms on the far left of the scene? That’s El Dragon from Battleborn. Yea, I’m as surprised as you are; I thought everyone forgot this game even existed, but apparently one of the animators of Ready Player One wants to immortalize that game in the movie. While this cameo probably won’t be enough to breathe new life into what remains of Battleborn, we can always hope.
Joker and Harley Quinn
Of course these two characters would make it into a Warner Bros. movie, since, you know, they’re only the most popular villains in all of DC comics. Joker’s looking a tad weird here. I can’t completely place the costume, but it looks similar to his iconic The Killing Joke clothes, or at least the hat does. As for Harley, she’s apparently combined her costumes from the Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City games. Good games, but anyone here miss when she used to dress like a harlequin? That was only the entire point of her name, after all.
Tracer
Am I the only person here who finds it odd that Tracer from Overwatch is also in a movie that features a cameo from her game’s would-be rival Battleborn? No? Just me? Well, anyway, yea, the cavalry’s here, and alongside Chun-Li to boot. I’m pretty sure we’ll see other Overwatch characters in Ready Player One. My money’s on Widowmaker.
Lara Croft
If you look closely behind that rat creature (it’s either a Warhammer Skaven, Everquest Ratonga, or Guild Wars 2 Skritt, but I don’t which), you can clearly see Lara Croft rocking her 2013 Tomb Raider look. Fans have already pointed out a cameo by Lara in what is her original 1996 appearance, and I can’t help but love that both versions of the character are in this movie.
Uruk blade
Wow, isn’t this random? One of the not-Jason and the Arognauts skeletons is clearly wielding one of the iconic uruk blades from the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. We can now safely assume that references won’t just be limited to cars and characters but will also include weapons. C’mon, animators, put the Master Sword and Buster Sword in the movie; you know you want to.
RX-78-2 Gundam
This ain’t no regular Gundam; it’s THE Gundam, the one that started it all: the RX-78-2 Gundam from 1979’s Mobile Suit Gundam. Some people prefer the XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero or the GF13-017NJ Shining Gundam, but if it weren’t for the RX-78-2, Gundam might never have become the household name it is today. This mobile suit is a classic for a reason, which is why it’s in Ready Player One. I only hope this Gundam’s not the only mecha in the film; I’m going to be disappointed if audiences aren’t treated to an entire army of giant anime robots, or at the very least other popular mecha like GaoGaiGar or Gurren Lagann.
Chucky
Last but certainly not least of the new references, Chucky from Child’s Play. And judging by who he’s fighting, he might be a good guy. I have mixed feelings about that, but now I want him to fight another slasher movie reference in Ready Player One.
And those are all the new references I found in the new Ready Player One trailer, at least all the ones I recognized. I’m sure the video has a few that went over my head. Which ones did you see that I missed? Comment below.
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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