Monthly Archives: July 2023

Horror is typically a very lucrative genre for movie studios. Compared to sweeping dramas and big-budget action movies, horror movies are relatively cheap to make. They tend to do well at the box office, too, as fans of horror seem to be a dedicated bunch. Directors like Wes Craven, Ari Aster, John Carpenter, and M. Night Shyamalan have made names for themselves by almost exclusively doing various types of horror movies.

Like all movies, horror movies are prone to the almighty dollar. Once in a while, a horror movie is so bad that the only scares it provides are scaring people away from the theaters. Whether it's due to a nonsensical plot or bad acting (or both), horror movie flops certainly have the potential to bomb at the box office too. These horror movies from the 2000s couldn't find any traction with audiences and ended up doing some truly frightful numbers.

Kim Basinger stars in Paramount Pictures' 2000 supernatural horror movie Bless the Child. The movie is based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Cathy Cash Spellman. Kim Basinger plays a woman who is raising her adopted niece, but she soon learns that the child has supernatural powers. Her niece is being sought out by a Satanic cult and displays unusual telekinetic abilities.

Bless the Child was shot in Toronto, Ontario Canada which doubles for New York City. Despite a powerhouse cast that also includes Rufus Sewell, Jimmy Smits, and Christina Ricci, the film simply couldn't get off the ground. Bless the Child received considerable negative reviews and lost about $15 million ($24.7 million today) at the box office.

Ice Cube has taken on some interesting acting roles throughout his career, but 2001's Ghosts of Mars might be his most unusual. When Earth's resources become depleted, humans establish a colony on Mars. Over 600,000 people live, work, and raise their families there while using the planet's natural resources. The only interesting part is that Ice Cube plays a convicted felon named James "Desolation" Williams, who is apparently killed in the warriors' attack.

Miners soon discover a hidden colony deep underground that has been dormant. The group is made of evil warriors who are set on taking over the bodies of their human counterparts. Ghosts of Mars is as ridiculous as it sounds. The movie only made $14 million in theaters ($22.3 million adjusted for inflation), a number that is truly out of this world. You'd be better off checking out some of Ice Cube's best movies instead.

No, FeardotCom isn't about Elon Musk's recent attempts to derail Twitter. It's about a New York City detective named Mike Reilly (Stephen Dorff) who's tasked with uncovering who is behind a series of murders linked to a mysterious website. Reilly wonders if the murders could be linked to a notorious serial killer named Alistair Pratt (Stephen Rea), a man known for abducting and torturing his victims.

One could argue that FeardotCom was doomed to fail as it opened alongside the smash hits Signs and My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002. FeardotCom debuted at #5 in the United States and pulled in a measly $18.9 million ($29.7 million today) worldwide against a $40 million ($62.9 million today) budget. With a painful 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it's safe to call FeardotCom one of Hollywood's biggest 404 errors.

Another horror box office bomb starring Stephen Dorff is 2003's Cold Creek Manor. When Copper Tilson (Dennis Quaid) moves to the countryside with his wife Leah (Sharon Stone), he's approached by a repairer named Dale (Dorff) who is looking for a job. Dale was recently released from prison but insists he's worked on the manor for several years and deserves to stay.

Tilson soon discovers that Dale is an enemy with a secret past. He knows the history of the manor and its supernatural occurrences. It's revealed that Dale killed his family, and he intends to murder Copper, Leah, and their kids as well, and drop them down a well on the farm called the Devil's Throat. Cold Creek Manor followed a ton of horror movie clichs and scored poor reviews as a result. Roger Ebert gave the movie a paltry 1.5 stars and said the movie only works if we "abandon all common sense."

RELATED: Best Dennis Quaid Performances, Ranked

By all measures, 2003's Dreamcatcher should have been a hit. The film is based on Stephen King's popular novel, and it features an all-star cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Timothy Olyphant, and Billions star Damian Lewis. When a group of friends goes hunting in the remote wilderness, they discover a mysterious force deep in the woods. They soon realize they're dealing with aliens who are trying to use telepathy to stir up old memories and manipulate the men.

Dreamcatcher opened to largely negative reviews and only ended up making back about half of its production budget. The movie is directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who managed to make a comeback as a screenwriter after the film's box office failure. Kasdan co-wrote the Star Wars films Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story. Needless to say, Dreamcatcher is not one of the best Stephen King movies.

Exorcist: The Beginning is a psychological horror movie that was released by Warner Bros. Pictures in 2004. In it, Stellan Skarsgard plays a former priest named Father Lankester Merrin who was forced to commit murders by Nazi Germany during WWII. He's haunted by his past and ends up renouncing his faith to try to live a peaceful life.

Exorcist: The Beginning overcame bad reviews to make a net profit of $28.1 million ($42 million today) at the box office. However, by 2004, it was clear that moviegoers were tired of The Exorcist and its various reboots and spinoffs. Exorcist: The Beginning was released in theatres in 2004 but didn't even get a proper Blu-ray release until 2015. There are currently no talks of another Exorcist remake.

In the mid-2000s, horror director M. Night Shyamalan was at the height of his game. He was on a roll with movies like The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Village, and there was a ton of hype around his 2006 movie Lady in the Water. The movie focuses on a man named Cleveland Heap (Paul Giamatti) who rescues a young woman (Bryce Dallas Howard), only to find that she's a character from a fairytale-like world with a hidden secret.

Lady in the Water underperformed at the box office and currently holds a brutal 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was considered to be Shyamalan's first flop, and he hasn't really recovered with a big hit since then. Critics panned the film's convoluted and silly plot and thought it was corny that Shyamalan gave himself a pretty big role in the movie.

RELATED: Every M. Night Shyamalan Movie, Ranked

In the mid-2000s, Hollywood superstar Nicolas Cage found himself in debt, and he was forced to make some questionable acting choices to get out of it. 2006's The Wicker Man was certainly one of those choices. The movie is a remake of the 1873 British film of the same name. Cage plays police officer Edward Mallus who investigates the case of a missing child. He travels to a remote island only to find that a Satanic cult lives there. The cult performs rituals similar to the Salem witch trials and Mallus infiltrates them to find out where the missing child is.

The Wicker Man didn't quite make back its production budget at the box office. Richard Roeper and guest host Aisha Tyler gave the movie two thumbs down, stating that the film was "entertainingly bad."' Oddly, there's a Wicker Man reboot coming to Netflix that will attempt to correct the failures of the disastrous movie.

Quentin Tarantino's 2007 movie Grindhouse is a lot of things. It's a horror film, an action movie, and a pulp serial favorite, all mixed together. Grindhouse is literally two movies blended into one, with an intermission between them. The first movie is called Planet Terror, and it's the more straight-up horror movie of the two. The second is called Death Proof, and it stars Kurt Russell as a guy who drives around killing people with his car.

Compared to Tarantino's previous movies, Grindhouse was a bit of a letdown. The film was very high-concept and many viewers probably didn't understand that Tarantino was trying to create a movie reminiscent of the old exploitation double features of the 1950s. Grindhouse lost upwards of $40 million ($56.2 million today) at the box office, and Tarantino himself has some theories about why the movie failed.

In I Know Who Killed Me, Lindsay Lohan stars as a girl named Aubrey Fleming who goes missing in a suburb called New Salem. She's kidnapped by a sadistic killer and placed bound and gagged on an operating table. A parallel story involves a motorist finding a young woman on the side of the road who bears a striking resemblance to Aubrey. The audience soon learns that Aubrey's version of the events may not be exactly as it happened.

I Know Who Killed Me fell flat on its face upon its release in 2007, making less than $10 million ($14 adjusted for inflation). Critics found Lohan's performance to be boring and uninspired, especially compared to her earlier comedy films. The movie was short on thrills, jump scares, and twists, making it one of the more forgettable entries in Lohan's lengthy film career.

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The Biggest Horror Movie Flops of the 2000s - MovieWeb

Prologue:

Space exploration has always captivated humanitys imagination, and in recent years, advancements in technology have brought us closer to exploring the cosmos like never before. From ambitious missions to distant celestial bodies to breakthroughs in space technologies, the future of space exploration is filled with excitement and potential. In this blog post, we will delve into the upcoming missions, cutting-edge technologies, and the possibility of human colonization of other planets.

Upcoming Missions:

Mars Missions: Multiple space agencies, including NASA and SpaceX, have been actively planning missions to Mars. These missions aim to study the Red Planets geology, climate, and potential for past or present life. Some upcoming missions will include the Perseverance rovers successor, which could pave the way for human exploration.

Lunar Exploration: Several countries and private companies have plans to return to the Moon in the coming years. NASAs Artemis program aims to send astronauts back to the Moon, this time with a focus on sustainable lunar exploration, establishing a lunar gateway, and preparing for future Mars missions.

Asteroid and Comet Missions: Space agencies are also planning missions to study asteroids and comets up close. NASAs OSIRIS-REx mission and Japans Hayabusa2 mission are already providing valuable data, and future missions are likely to follow.

Outer Planet Exploration: Space probes are expected to continue their exploration of the outer planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These missions could reveal more about these gas giants and their intriguing moons.

Cutting-edge Technologies:

Reusable Rockets: The development of reusable rockets, as pioneered by SpaceXs Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, is revolutionizing space travel by significantly reducing costs and increasing launch frequency.

Nuclear Propulsion: Nuclear propulsion is being explored for deep-space missions, potentially enabling faster travel times and more ambitious exploration of distant planets and celestial bodies.

Space Tourism: Commercial space travel is becoming a reality, with companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic working on taking civilians to the edge of space and beyond.

Artificial Intelligence in Space Exploration: AI is playing an increasingly vital role in space missions, from autonomous spacecraft navigation to assisting astronauts in their tasks.

Potential for Human Colonization:

Mars Colonization: Establishing a human settlement on Mars has been a long-standing goal of space agencies and private companies. The challenges are immense, but recent advancements are making the idea of a self-sustaining Martian colony more plausible.

Lunar Bases: The Moon could serve as a stepping stone for deeper space exploration. Plans for lunar bases are being explored, where astronauts could live and conduct research for extended periods.

Space Habitats: Beyond Mars and the Moon, there are discussions about creating space habitats using resources from asteroids or other celestial bodies. These habitats could support long-term human presence in space.

Conclusion: The future of space exploration is filled with promise, as upcoming missions to various celestial bodies will expand our understanding of the universe. Advanced technologies are making space travel more accessible and economical. Additionally, the dream of human colonization of other planets is inching closer to reality, with Mars being the primary target for ambitious plans. As we continue our journey into the cosmos, the possibilities for discoveries and innovations are endless, opening new chapters in the history of human exploration

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The Future of Space Exploration: Upcoming Missions, Technologies ... - Medium

Welcome to a new week. Feeling fresh? Ready to take on the world? Or would you rather ease the pain of a Monday morning by downloading a bunch of free games from Steam? Yeah? Understandable, lets get into it.

Here at GAMINGbible, we cover plenty of Steam freebies all the time - you can find a load more here, here, and even here. Today, weve got 12 more free titles to jump into. Will you have heard of any of them? Probably not! But that doesnt mean that theyre not worth a shot. Lets get into it.

Take a look at the trailer for the free Pokmon-like battle simulator, Temtem Showdown, below.

First up is the prologue for Citizens: On Mars. The turn-based colony building game, as you might have guessed, challenges players to build a thriving Martian settlement, juggling the impact of random events, and maintaining harmony within the colony. The full game is set to release later this year, but thanks to the prologue, you can try it out right now.

Try Again is a unique indie platformer which puts players into the shoes of Benny - a test character trapped in an unfinished game. You must help Benny navigate through the final day of game testing with the hopes of ending up as the main character.

Shattered Legacy is an adventure puzzle game set in a mystical world. With 50 levels to complete over seven different areas, boasting increasingly complex puzzles, players will have to put their problem-solving heads on if they want to uncover all the mysteries of this world.

Mini Golf Aeons is a golfing game. Whod have thought? More specifically, however, its a VR golfing game - a VR headset is required to play it. If you do own a headset, you can get ready to experience both multiplayer and single-player golf action across four exciting locations, including a prehistoric jungle and a frozen wonderland.

SeaFeud is an underwater racing game, in which players jump on the backs of various fish and swim around the colourful courses. You can swap fish as you race, which adds a really interesting strategic element to the game.

Mystery Society 2: Hidden Puzzles is, as you might expect, a puzzle game which tasks players with spotting objects hidden around different locations. Basically, it sounds a bit like a collection of find the difference puzzles with a detective story behind it.

Gangster Coin Pusher is, unsurprisingly, a coin pusher game. Players must earn as many prizes from the machine as possible. Sounds simple enough.

Soul Detective is an action-adventure game which follows the adventures of a detective trying to get to the bottom of why pure souls are being trapped in limbo. Using his spectral powers, the detective must fight against demons and work his way though three realms to work out whats going on.

Calamity Creatures is 2D action game which sees players take on giant mecha enemies in a chaotic boss rush format, using gadgets and weaponry to overcome them.

War For Galaxy is a real-time strategy game set in space. Players must explore the galaxy, form colonies, design spaceships, and build their own fleet to both attack other players and defend themselves with.

Tay Son Dynasty is a multiplayer action game set in Vietnam, in the period of Dai Viet under the rule of the Tay Son dynasty. Players can fight solo or team up together. Currently, the game only has servers in the Southeast Asia region, so others will have to watch this space for now.

Finally, Tales of: Sena is a story-focused exploration game set in an 8-bit world. Based on the games description, it sounds like it has some heavy Undertale vibes, which in itself is tantalising.

Are you still with me? Again, all of those games are totally free to download and keep, so get stuck in.

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Steam free games: download and keep 12 titles right now - GAMINGbible

Elon Musk has recently claimed the title of the richest person in the world. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has seen a remarkable growth in his wealth, surpassing other prominent billionaires.

Musks rise to the top can be attributed to the success of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer, has experienced substantial growth in recent years. The companys stock value has risen exponentially, making Musk one of the largest shareholders. SpaceX, the private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, has also contributed to his wealth. The company has achieved numerous milestones, including the successful launch and landing of reusable rockets.

In addition to his automotive and aerospace ventures, Musk has also benefited from other business interests. He co-founded PayPal, an online payment platform, which generated significant wealth for him. Additionally, he has invested in various companies and startups, further expanding his financial holdings.

Musks innovative vision and entrepreneurial spirit have propelled him to the forefront of the business world. He is known for his ambitious goals, such as establishing a colony on Mars, revolutionizing transportation with the Hyperloop concept, and developing neuralink technology.

With his newfound title as the worlds richest individual, Musks influence and impact are expected to continue growing. His ventures not only aim to revolutionize industries but also address pressing global issues like climate change and sustainable energy.

As an influential figure, Musks actions and decisions hold significant weight. His wealth allows him the resources to fund further research and development in areas that could shape the future of humanity.

It remains to be seen how Musk will utilize his immense wealth and influence in the years to come. However, his achievements and financial success have solidified his position as a trailblazer in the technological and business realms.

Continued here:

Elon Musk Emerges as the Wealthiest Individual on Earth - Clayton County Register

The Banished Vault begins in a bad place. Theres no hope-filled moment where you load up and secure your wagon and family for the long road towards a new life in the Pacific Northwest. Theres no peons ready to cheerfully till dark soil into bountiful farmland or raise the infrastructure of a city. There are no grandiose dreams of the future, of settlement, colonization and expansion. When The Banished Vault generates its first solar system for you, its not expecting you to create civilization, expand an empire, or negotiate trade relations. That part of your life is over. You tried it, and it went bad. Really bad. You went to the inky edge of the cosmos, found a nightmare that even your God crumpled upon witnessing, and now youre scrambling to survive long enough to tell your story.

The first game from director Nic Tringali at Bithell Games new Lunar Division, The Banished Vault has been described by me as what if a Euro board game was squeezed through an indie journaling bookmark game, a brutal tutorial in logistics wrapped in a cruel test of executive function, and a minimal approach to a maximalist mobile game exclusively for a self-hating god. But, mostly, Ive been referring to my 30+ hours spent reviewing The Banished Vault as the worst time four guys can have in a boat.

There is nothing better than men having a bad time in a boat.

Before the game begins, the Auriga Vault was working on some kind of Gene Wolfe by way of Ridley Scott by way of Terry Gilliam colonial religious society with a heaping spoonful of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (and less Games Workshop, though comparisons are expected). Then calamity struck. The Gloom ruined everything. And the monastery-city vessel, the Auriga Vault, became a limping nutmeg of consolation. Suffice to say, the Exiles of the Auriga Vault are having a cosmically fucking bad time.

Much of the game plays out on a map that resembles an Atreides war table one might expect to find in early concept art for David Lynchs Dune. Everything vibrates with a dull warmth. Dimly glittering starfields are inscribed with precise and ritualistic Utopian geometry. The pathways between planets themselves are marked with scalpel-straight alloyed-gold lines that break with efficient angles. At the bottom of every map, a giant throbbing star, and at the top the Auriga Vault, her four Exiles, and their interplanetary transports, which resemble little brass plumb bobs as much as they do spacecraft.

Between maps, Exiles hibernate through an occult ritual with a substance called Stasis, a rare resource that must be produced (not extracted) from more common extracted resources. Each map is its own puzzle to first determine if it is even possible to produce Stasis with the available planetary resources, and then to do so efficiently by navigating your Exiles to build little micro-settlements, ferrying resources between them, while avoiding hazards (narrative crises which play out with skeuomorphic dice rolls based on each Exiles dwindling Faith stat), within the 30 turns allowed. It looks very easy, it sounds very easy, and it is absolutely a fucking nightmare.

Before deciding to give my Exiles a moment of reprieve and putting them in a semi-permanent hibernation to actually write this review, my desk was littered with scraps of paper covered in math. My phone had math in it. My Google Keep had to-do lists with the buildings I needed to still construct, an ever changing accounting of resources on hand vs resources needed. At one point, I just wrote WHERE IS THE FUCKING SILICA, DAVE? at the top of a quartered sheet of printer paper next to a little symbolic drawing of HAL9000.

I have mild dyscalculia and I forget what Im doing when I walk across the room half the time. But here I am in charge of the lives of not only these four Exiles but the God-knows-how-many souls aboard the Auriga Vaults cyclopean space ark. Its a lot of pressure. Space is hard. Thank god the game has a built-in energy calculator. Every time I have to plot a planetary maneuver, I pull it up and think of the scene from Apollo 13 where the NASA nerds whip out their slide rules. I never used one. My grandfather told me it was easier than a calculator once you got used to it. My mother thought they were bullshit, but she also struggled with punch card computing. I half expect the systems that keep my Exiles alive are based on punch cards, to be honest. Where fellow Philadelphian Kevin Bacon assertively defends his calculations with a defiant I can add, I am less certain. Hence, the necessity of the slide rule, the scraps of paper, and my commensurate high failure rate.

Space is hard, and pressure is everywhere in The Banished Vault. While playing, I constantly recalled a Twitter thread discussing just how absurd the idea that Elon Musk (or any rich asshole) could manage travel to and settlement of Mars within our lifetimes. It pointed out the tremendous amounts of global resources needed to keep the ISS functioning in Low Earth Orbit, and all the calamity, technology, and human life that went into getting and maintaining our limited presence in space thus far. Space is hard, space doesnt care, space will absolutely kill you if you make mistakes. Mistakes can be as simple as thinking you have enough iron or water.

Nothing is more important than iron and water. The beautifully illustrated manual drives this point home, while also offering a fully accessible in-game table of resources, structure costs, and what each thing produces. I refer to this constantly. Within the game the page is bookmarked, as though it were permanently open on my giant Atreidean space desk, along with some undoubtedly cool-as-hell, ornate Space Monk shit. While the manual is peppered with little bits of fluff that set an incredible aesthetic tone, youll have to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself if youre hoping for a truly rich narrative experience. Whats here is really good though, the vibes are as impeccable as the scratchy ink drawings that make up the art in the manual, portraits of the Exiles, and narrative interludes.

While I did inevitably play through several hour-long journeys listening to podcasts (something I regularly do with MMOs or now Diablo IV), my desire to catch up on my listening backlog didnt click with The Banished Vault. For some this game may be an ideal podcasts in bed sort of game, but for me the soundtrack and sound design are simply too good to skip out on. Decisions are made with satisfying mechanical clunks. The soft, dull thud of pragmatic switches and buttons chirrup with the electrical chime of bells held by dampening gloved hands. Sounds are received at a distance, through aether, in the haze of interstellar space; they have depth and weight of gloomy portends and doomed electromechanics. Every sound has a pleasing tactile sensation that drills and vibrates at the base of the skull, exhilarating like trepanation. The space monks who built these systems were clearly never lacking in a fastidious devotion to their occult aesthetics. The soundtrack by nervous_testpilot and DREAMTRAK only serves to bolster the vibe heavy atmosphere of The Banished Vault. Everything works in concert to create a piece that is so singularly focused on its particular harmonic grooveeven if that groove is one of the horrifying indifference of the cosmos echoing back at your pleas.

Space is hard. Space is unfeeling. But perhaps it is in our nature to aspire towards overcoming it.

I havent completed a chronicle yet. Every instance of my journeys as the abstracted arbiter of the Auriga Vault has ended in doom. Presently all three of my save slots are filled, an approach I picked up from Alexis Ongfriend, colleague, and during our time simultaneously reviewing The Banished Vault, my RMS Carpathia. All but one journey is destined to be imminently deleted and restarted. One is entirely out of fuel and iron (I foolishly built a Titanium extractor over a now-necessary Water resource). In another timeline only one exile remains and is carrying out his religious orders with grim, ordained purpose. The last one dances on a knifes edge, keeping just ahead of the Gloom, just ahead of resource depletion. It is a logistical, spiritual, and mathematical high-wire act. Eventually theyll run out of resources, time, or lives.

I might just delete them all to spare myself the anxiety.

It wouldnt be the first time.

Before these three, there were more. Ive hit countless dead ends. Whole micro-settlements lost, timelines where the Auriga Vault is consumed by the Gloom after its Exiles died in Halo: Reach-like succession. There are always losses with this kind of thing. Buzz Aldrin doesnt get to sit at a table wearing three watches and eating as many eggs without someone having to remember that Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee were incinerated in the Apollo 1 plug-out test. Eventually a very rich man will die in space on a rocket with a giant X pasted to the side. Maybe hell take out a half dozen or more other rich men with him along with his delusions of being a prince of Mars. Even with all the lessons learned, space remains hard.

I have littered the cosmos with men whose names I dont remember, ones I didnt make space for amidst my notations. Men who truly had bad times. Many never even managed to establish a colony to be lost. Never got to inscribe their first desperate Croatoan on some barren rock. Their exile ended abruptly and then in one click, any evidence of it ever existing vanished. Space is so hard it seems cruel. Both the Carpathia and I took to calling the game The Punished Vault because of this in our signals to one another.

There is a part of me that is desperate for an undo button. Just one move. Thats all I want. Something to drop me back one step, a half-step really. For those times when Im not paying attention and Ive misclicked, forgotten to carry a digit. Misread part of an equation and ended my little Exiles lives far too soon on a mishap. When I thought I was too good for the Energy Calculator and could just eyeball it.

But this isnt that kind of game.

Im sure everyone on the Titanic wanted an undo button too. Im sure the billionaires on the OceanGate Titan would have loved one. Bligh, Christian, and all the rest of the crew of HMS Bounty. Shackleton. The Challenger crew. Theres not a boat in this world real or imagined where someone didnt have a bad time they wanted to take even just one step back from. Thats the kind of game The Banished Vault is.

Before I decided it was time to break from playing and settle in for the long process of writing my chronicle of the Auriga Vault, I sent a signal to my Carpathia, far away in another ocean entirely. It read: I was wrong. Its not the men having a bad time. Its me. And Im loving every horrible minute of it.

The Banished Vault is developed by and published by Lunar Division and Bithell Games. Its available for Steam and Steam Deck.

Dia Lacina is a queer indigenous writer and photographer. She tweets too much at @dialacina.

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I'm Hooked on The Banished Vault's Bad Times Generation - Paste Magazine