title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: UAPA is criticized for its low conviction rate, which is around 2%. According to the data shared by the Union Government, in the period 2016 to 2020, 5,027 cases were registered under the act with 24,134 people accused in those cases. Only 212 of 24,134 people were convicted and 386 were acquitted. This means, in the years 2016-2020, 97.5% of the people arrested under UAPA remain under prison awaiting for trial.


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: In July 2019 while introducing the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 the BJP led Union Government claimed that the bill would give it power to probe terror attacks on India, the Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha termed it draconian. The Opposition claimed that the Bill did not contain any provisions to prevent misuse. Specifically, the power to designate an individual as a terrorist before being proven guilty by trial, was criticised. Critics of the UAPA consider the definitions of "terrorist", "like to threaten" and "likely to strike terror" to be very broad and open to misuse by the police as the burden of proof of innocence is on the accused. The example of Gaur Chakraborty among others is cited wherein he spent 7 years in prison during trial only to be acquitted of all charges, wherein the imprisonment during trial itself amounted to punishment.


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: In 2020, United Nations special rapporteurs stated that the provisions of the UAPA 2019, contravenes several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: Lawyer Rongeet Poddar wrote in the Oxford Human Rights Hub, that UAPA 2019 has made it possible for the Union Government to designate individuals as terrorists without a due process of law. He wrote, "Neither the Amendment Bill nor the parent statute provides a concrete definition of terrorism. This opens a Pandora's box. Categorization as a 'terrorist' by the executive bears serious consequences, such as social boycott or loss of employment." Such labeling by the executive could lead to mob lynching by the vigilante groups in India. Calling it a "colourable legislation which bears the potential for abuse by the executive", he noted that the constitutionality of the act should be contested. He wrote, the UAPA 2019 "echoes laws made under the colonial regime to crush the freedom movement in the garb of ensuring public order."


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: As part of the K. G. Kannabiran Lectures on Law, Justice and Human Rights, Senior Advocate Mihir Desai in a lecture titled, "The Problem Of Preventive Detention in India", delivered on 23 November 2020, stated ""Preventive detention laws and special legislations like UAPA -- anti-terror laws as they are called -- allow the state to carve out exception for its own lawlessness. These are the laws which permit the state to claim that we are governed by the rule of law and on the other hand pass such legislations which violate the rule of law altogether. These are the laws which go against the basic tenets of the constitution, such as freedom, equality, right to life, liberty etc. It therefore becomes important to look at these laws which gives an exceptional power to the state over citizens -- to arrest them, to detain them, to charge them with offences which otherwise they may not be able to charge them with, keep them behind bars for years together, and also for ensuring that dissent in all forms is crushed.""On 25 July 2021, Justice Aftab Alam, former Supreme Court judge spoke on a webinar titled "Discussion On Democracy, Dissent and Draconian Law – Should UAPA & Sedition Have A Place In Our Statute Books?". In the discussion, he called UAPA a "draconian law" and said that it was the UAPA that caused the death of Father Stan Swamy without a trial. Stan Swamy was an activist that was charged with UAPA for his alleged role in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and links to the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and later died in prison due to COVID-19. Alam further stated that UAPA has a realistic conviction rate of 2%. He further stated that this law can lead to situations where case may fail but the accused would have been incarcerated for 8 to 12 years. He said in such cases, the case may have no legs to stand on but the accused has suffered and he concluded that in such cases the process becomes the punishment.


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: While the misuse of the law has been constantly debated, Police was also criticized for not invoking UAPA in some cases like the Haridwar hate speech case.


title: Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

text: On 20 January 2022, "BBC" called the UAPA a draconian anti-terror law and reported that many protestors and journalists were arrested detained or charged with UAPA. UAPA had made it harder for the accused to get bail. PM Narendra Modi led BJP Union Government has been accused of misusing UAPA to stifle dissent and target minorities in India.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Latin phonology continually evolved over the centuries, making it difficult for speakers in one era to know how Latin was spoken before then. A given phoneme may be represented by different letters in different periods. This article deals primarily with modern scholarship's best reconstruction of Classical Latin's phonemes (phonology) and the pronunciation and spelling used by educated people in the late Roman Republic. This article then touches upon later changes and other variants. Knowledge of how Latin was pronounced comes from Roman grammar books, common misspellings by Romans, transcriptions into other ancient languages, and from how pronunciation has evolved in derived Romance languages.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Latin orthography is the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. All scripts use the Latin alphabet, but conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase. The Latin alphabet was adapted from the Old Italic script to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Old Italic script had in turn been borrowed from the Greek alphabet, itself adapted from the Phoenician alphabet. The Latin alphabet most resembles the Greek alphabet around 540 BC, as it appears on the black-figure pottery of the time.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The forms of the Latin alphabet used during the Classical period did not distinguish between upper case and lower case. Roman inscriptions typically use Roman square capitals, which resemble modern capitals, and handwritten text often uses old Roman cursive, which includes letterforms similar to modern lowercase.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In ancient Latin spelling, individual letters mostly corresponded to individual phonemes, with three main exceptions:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In the tables below, Latin letters and digraphs are paired with the phonemes that they usually represent in the International Phonetic Alphabet.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: This is a table of the consonant phonemes of Classical Latin. Those in parentheses have a debatable status as phonemes, and those marked with an asterisk are only found in Greek loanwords in educated pronunciation, except for some instances of /kʰ/. See below for further details.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Latin has ten native vowels, spelled "a", "e", "i", "o", "u". In Classical Latin, each vowel had short and long versions: and . The long versions of the close and mid vowels "e", "i", "o", "u" had a different vowel quality from the short versions, so that long were similar to short (see following section). Some loanwords from Greek had the vowel "y", which was pronounced as by educated speakers but approximated with the native vowels "u" and "i" by less educated speakers.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Each vowel letter (with the possible exception of "y") represents at least two phonemes. "a" can represent either short or long , "e" represents either or , etc.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Short mid vowels and close vowels were pronounced with a different quality from their long counterparts, being also more open: , , and . This opening made the short vowels "i, u" similar in quality to long "ē ō" respectively. "i, ē" and "u, ō" were often written in place of each other in inscriptions:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Short and were probably pronounced closer when they occurred before another vowel. was written as in inscriptions. Short before another vowel is often written with , as in , indicating that its quality was similar to that of long and is almost never confused with "e" in this position.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: "y" was used in Greek loanwords with upsilon Υ. This letter represented the close front rounded vowel, both short and long: . Latin did not have this sound as a distinctive phoneme, and speakers tended to pronounce such loanwords with in Old Latin and in Classical and Late Latin if they were unable to produce .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: An intermediate vowel sound (likely a close central vowel or possibly its rounded counterpart ), called , can be reconstructed for the classical period. Such a vowel is found in , , (also spelled , , ) and other words. It developed out of a historical short , later fronted by vowel reduction. In the vicinity of labial consonants, this sound was not as fronted and may have retained some rounding, thus being more similar if not identical to the unreduced short . It was sometimes spelled by the Claudian letter Ⱶ ⱶ.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Vowels followed by a nasal consonant were allophonically realised as long nasal vowels in two environments:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Those long nasal vowels had the same quality as ordinary long vowels. In Vulgar Latin, the vowels lost their nasalisation, and they merged with the long vowels (which were themselves shortened by that time). This is shown by many forms in the Romance languages, such as Spanish from Vulgar Latin (originally ) and Italian from Vulgar Latin (Classical Latin ). On the other hand, the short vowel and were restored, for example, in French and from and ("e" is the normal development of Latin short "i"), likely by analogy with other forms beginning in the prefix "in-".


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: When a final "-m" occurred before a plosive or nasal in the next word, however, it was pronounced as a nasal at the place of articulation of the following consonant. For instance, was written for in inscriptions, and was a double entendre, possibly for .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: "ae", "oe", "au", "ei", "eu" could represent diphthongs: "ae" represented , "oe" represented , "au" represented , "ei" represented , and "eu" represented . "ui" sometimes represented the diphthong , as in and . The diphthong "ei" mostly had changed to "ī" by the classical epoch; "ei" remained only in a few words such as the interjection .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: If there is a tréma above the second vowel, both vowels are pronounced separately: "aë" , "aü" , "eü" and "oë" . However, disyllabic "eu" in morpheme borders is traditionally written without the tréma: 'my'.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In Old Latin, "ae", "oe" were written as "ai", "oi" and probably pronounced as , with a fully closed second element, similar to the final syllable in French . In the late Old Latin period, the last element of the diphthongs was lowered to , so that the diphthongs were pronounced and in Classical Latin. They were then monophthongized to and respectively, starting in rural areas at the end of the Republican period. The process, however, does not seem to have been completed before the 3rd century AD, and some scholars say that it may have been regular by the 5th century.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Vowel and consonant length were more significant and more clearly defined in Latin than in modern English. Length is the duration of time that a particular sound is held before proceeding to the next sound in a word. In the modern spelling of Latin, especially in dictionaries and academic work, macrons are frequently used to mark long vowels: , while the breve is sometimes used to indicate that a vowel is short: .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Long consonants were usually indicated through doubling, but ancient Latin orthography did not distinguish between the vocalic and consonantal uses of "i" and "v". Vowel length was indicated only intermittently in classical sources and even then through a variety of means. Later medieval and modern usage tended to omit vowel length altogether. A short-lived convention of spelling long vowels by doubling the vowel letter is associated with the poet Lucius Accius. Later spelling conventions marked long vowels with an apex (a diacritic similar to an acute accent) or, in the case of long i, by increasing the height of the letter (long i); in the second century AD, those were given apices as well. The Classical vowel length system faded in later Latin and ceased to be phonemic in Romance, having been replaced by contrasts in vowel quality. Consonant length, however, remains contrastive in much of Italo-Romance, cf. Italian "ninth" versus "grandfather".


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: A minimal set showing both long and short vowels and long and short consonants is ('anus'), ('year'), ('old woman').


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The letters "b", "d", "f", "h", "m", "n" are always pronounced as in English , , , , , respectively, and they do not usually cause any difficulties. The exceptions are mentioned below:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In Old Latin, as in Proto-Italic, stress normally fell on the first syllable of a word. During this period, the word-initial stress triggered changes in the vowels of non-initial syllables, the effects of which are still visible in classical Latin. Compare for example:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In the earliest Latin writings, the original unreduced vowels are still visible. Study of this vowel reduction, as well as syncopation (dropping of short unaccented syllables) in Greek loan words, indicates that the stress remained word-initial until around the time of Plautus, in the 3rd century BC. The placement of the stress then shifted to become the pattern found in classical Latin.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In Classical Latin, stress changed. It moved from the first syllable to one of the last three syllables, called the antepenult, the penult, and the ultima (short for 'before almost last', 'almost last', and 'last syllable'). Its position is determined by the syllable weight of the penult. If the penult is heavy, it is accented; if the penult is light and there are more than two syllables, the antepenult is accented. In a few words originally accented on the penult, accent is on the ultima because the two last syllables have been contracted, or the last syllable has been lost.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: To determine stress, syllable weight of the penult must be determined. To determine syllable weight, words must be broken up into syllables. In the following examples, syllable structure is represented using these symbols: C (a consonant), K (a stop), R (a liquid), and V (a short vowel), VV (a long vowel or diphthong).


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Every short vowel, long vowel, or diphthong belongs to a single syllable. This vowel forms the syllable nucleus. Thus has four syllables, one for every vowel (a i ā u: V V VV V), has three (ae e u: VV V V), has two (u ō: V VV), and has one (ui: VV).


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: A consonant before a vowel or a consonant cluster at the beginning of a word is placed in the same syllable as the following vowel. This consonant or consonant cluster forms the syllable onset.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: After this, if there is an additional consonant inside the word, it is placed at the end of the syllable. This consonant is the syllable coda. Thus if a consonant cluster of two consonants occurs between vowels, they are broken up between syllables: one goes with the syllable before, the other with the syllable after.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: There are two exceptions. A consonant cluster of a stop "p t c b d g" followed by a liquid "l r" between vowels usually goes to the syllable after it, although it is also sometimes broken up like other consonant clusters.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: As shown in the examples above, Latin syllables have a variety of possible structures. Here are some of them. The first four examples are light syllables, and the last six are heavy. All syllables have at least one V (vowel). A syllable is heavy if it has another V or C (or both) after the first V. In the table below, the extra V or VC is bolded, indicating that it makes the syllable heavy.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Thus, a syllable is heavy if it ends in a long vowel or diphthong, a short vowel and a consonant, a long vowel and a consonant, or a diphthong and a consonant. Syllables ending in a diphthong and consonant are rare in Classical Latin.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The syllable onset has no relationship to syllable weight; both heavy and light syllables can have no onset or an onset of one, two, or three consonants.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In Latin a syllable that is heavy because it ends in a long vowel or diphthong is traditionally called ('syllable long by nature'), and a syllable that is heavy because it ends in a consonant is called ('long by position'). These terms are translations of Greek ("syllabḕ makrá phýsei" = 'syllable long by nature') and ("makrà thései" = 'long by proposition'), respectively; therefore should not be mistaken for implying a syllable "is long because of its position/place in a word" but rather "is treated as 'long' by convention". This article uses the words "heavy" and "light" for syllables, and "long" and "short" for vowels since the two are not the same.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In a word of three or more syllables, the weight of the penult determines where the accent is placed. If the penult is light, accent is placed on the antepenult; if it is heavy, accent is placed on the penult. Below, stress is marked by placing the stress mark before the stressed syllable.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Iambic shortening or is vowel shortening that occurs in words of the type "light–heavy", where the light syllable is stressed. By this sound change, words like , , , with long final vowel change to , , , with short final vowel.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The term also refers to shortening of closed syllables following a short syllable, for example and so on. This type of shortening is found in early Latin, for example in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, but not in poetry of the classical period.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Where one word ended with a vowel (including the nasalized vowels written "am em im um~(om)" and the diphthong "ae") and the next word began with a vowel, the former vowel, at least in verse, was regularly elided; that is, it was omitted altogether, or possibly (in the case of and ) pronounced like the corresponding semivowel. When the second word was or , and possibly when the second word was , a different form of elision sometimes occurred (prodelision): the vowel of the preceding word was retained, and the "e" was elided instead. Elision also occurred in Ancient Greek, but in that language, it is shown in writing by the vowel in question being replaced by an apostrophe, whereas in Latin elision is not indicated at all in the orthography, but can be deduced from the verse form. Only occasionally is it found in inscriptions, as in for .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Modern usage, even for classical Latin texts, varies in respect of "I" and "V". During the Renaissance, the printing convention was to use "I" (upper case) and "i" (lower case) for both vocalic and consonantal , to use "V" in the upper case and in the lower case to use "v" at the start of words and "u" subsequently within the word regardless of whether and was represented.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Many publishers (such as Oxford University Press) have adopted the convention of using "I" (upper case) and "i" (lower case) for both and , and "V" (upper case) and "u" (lower case) for both and .


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: An alternative approach, less common today, is to use "i" and "u" only for the vowels and "j" and "v" for the approximants.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Most modern editions, however, adopt an intermediate position, distinguishing between "u" and "v" but not between "i" and "j". Usually, the non-vocalic "v" after "q" or "g" is still printed as "u" rather than "v", probably because in this position it did not change from to in post-classical times.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Textbooks and dictionaries usually indicate the length of vowels by putting a macron or horizontal bar above the long vowel, but it is not generally done in regular texts. Occasionally, mainly in early printed texts up to the 18th century, one may see a circumflex used to indicate a long vowel where this makes a difference to the sense, for instance, ('from Rome' ablative) compared to ('Rome' nominative).


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Sometimes, for instance in Roman Catholic service books, an acute accent over a vowel is used to indicate the stressed syllable. It would be redundant for one who knew the classical rules of accentuation and made the correct distinction between long and short vowels, but most Latin speakers since the 3rd century have not made any distinction between long and short vowels, but they have kept the accents in the same places; thus, the use of accent marks allows speakers to read a word aloud correctly even if they have never heard it spoken aloud.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Since around the beginning of the Renaissance period onwards, with the language being used as an international language among intellectuals, pronunciation of Latin in Europe came to be dominated by the phonology of local languages, resulting in a variety of different pronunciation systems. See the article "Latin regional pronunciation" for more details on those (with the exception of the Italian one, which is described in the section on "Ecclesiastical pronunciation" below).


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: When Latin words are used as loanwords in a modern language, there is ordinarily little or no attempt to pronounce them as the Romans did; in most cases, a pronunciation suiting the phonology of the receiving language is employed.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Latin words in common use in English are generally fully assimilated into the English sound system, with little to mark them as foreign, for example, "cranium", "saliva". Other words have a stronger Latin feel to them, usually because of spelling features such as the digraphs "ae" and "oe" (occasionally written as ligatures: "æ" and "œ", respectively), which both denote in English. The digraph "ae" or ligature "æ" in some words tend to be given an pronunciation, for example, "curriculum vitae".


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: However, using loan words in the context of the language borrowing them is a markedly different situation from the study of Latin itself. In this classroom setting, instructors and students attempt to recreate at least some sense of the original pronunciation. What is taught to native anglophones is suggested by the sounds of today's Romance languages, the direct descendants of Latin. Instructors who take this approach rationalize that Romance vowels probably come closer to the original pronunciation than those of any other modern language (see also the section below on "Derivative languages").


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: However, other languages—including Romance family members—all have their own interpretations of the Latin phonological system, applied both to loan words and formal study of Latin. But English, Romance, or other teachers do not always point out that the particular accent their students learn is not actually the way ancient Romans spoke.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Because of the central position of Rome within the Catholic Church, an Italian pronunciation of Latin became commonly accepted, but this was not the case until the latter part of the 19th century. This pronunciation corresponds to that of the Latin-derived words in Italian. Before then, the pronunciation of Latin in church was the same as the pronunciation as Latin in other fields and tended to reflect the sound values associated with the nationality of the speaker. Other ecclesiastical variations are still in use (e.g. Germanic pronunciations), especially outside the Catholic Church.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The following are the main points that distinguish modern Italianate ecclesiastical pronunciation from Classical Latin pronunciation:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The letters "b", "d", "f", "m", "n" are always pronounced as in English , , , , respectively, and they do not usually cause any difficulties. The exceptions are mentioned below:


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: In his "Vox Latina: A guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin", William Sidney Allen remarked that this pronunciation, used by the Catholic Church in Rome and elsewhere, and whose adoption Pope Pius X recommended in a 1912 letter to the Archbishop of Bourges, "is probably less far removed from classical Latin than any other 'national' pronunciation"; but, as can be seen from the table above, there are, nevertheless, very significant differences. The introduction to the "Liber Usualis" indicates that Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation should be used at Church liturgies. The Pontifical Academy for Latin is the pontifical academy in the Vatican that is charged with the dissemination and education of Catholics in the Latin language.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Outside of Austria, Germany, Czechia and Slovakia, it is the most widely used standard in choral singing which, with a few exceptions like Stravinsky's , is concerned with liturgical texts. Anglican choirs adopted it when classicists abandoned traditional English pronunciation after World War II. The rise of historically informed performance and the availability of guides such as Copeman's "Singing in Latin" has led to the recent revival of regional pronunciations.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Because it gave rise to many modern languages, Latin did not "die"; it merely evolved over the centuries in different regions in diverse ways. The local dialects of Vulgar Latin that emerged eventually became modern Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese, Catalan, Romansh, Dalmatian, Sardinian, and many others.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: The following examples are both in verse, which demonstrates several features more clearly than prose.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Virgil's , Book 1, verses 1–4. Quantitative metre (dactylic hexameter). Translation: "I sing of arms and the man, who, driven by fate, came first from the borders of Troy to Italy and the Lavinian shores; he [was] much afflicted both on lands and on the deep by the power of the gods, because of fierce Juno's vindictive wrath."


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Note the elisions in and in the third line. For a fuller discussion of the prosodic features of this passage, see Dactylic hexameter.


title: Latin phonology and orthography

text: Beginning of by Thomas Aquinas (13th century). Rhymed accentual metre. Translation: "Extol, [my] tongue, the mystery of the glorious body and the precious blood, which the fruit of a noble womb, the king of nations, poured out as the price of the world."


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is a role-playing video game developed and published by Jam City under license from Portkey Games. The game is set in the Wizarding World and based on the "Harry Potter" novels written by J.K. Rowling. "Hogwarts Mystery" follows a player character entering the fictional school of Hogwarts and is set before the events of the novels. The game released on 25 April 2018 for Android and iOS devices. Many of the actors from the "Harry Potter" film series provided their voices for the game.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: The game received generally negative reviews from critics. Reviewers noted the game's use of the Wizarding World to be a positive, but many were highly critical of the microtransactions present. These transactions, especially those used to regain the in-game energy system, were near-universally panned. The game has grossed an estimated $110 million as of March 2019.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery" is a role-playing video game set in the "Harry Potter" universe established by J. K. Rowling's series of novels. The game is set between Harry Potter's birth and his enrollment at Hogwarts. The game revolves around the player character's journey through life at the school. They can attend magic classes, learn spells, battle rivals, and embark on quests. Through the game's encounter system, players make choices that affect the game's narrative, though sometimes these choices are locked if the player's statistics are not high enough. Players can interact with characters from the series, such as Albus Dumbledore, Rubeus Hagrid and Severus Snape.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: "Energy" is used to perform tasks throughout the game, which regenerate over time. Players tap on the screen to move the character between places. The player also gains different levels of courage, empathy, and knowledge by making choices in game, with higher levels of a particular attribute allowing the player to choose some different dialogue options in game and change interactions with other students and staff.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: The player is a young witch or wizard who is set to attend Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The player-character meets Rowan Khanna who teaches the player about the wizarding world. A conversation with Ollivander reveals that the player's brother, Jacob, was expelled from Hogwarts for attempting to open the "Cursed Vaults", hidden areas rumoured to have existed at the school. During a potions lesson, the player character is reprimanded after a student named Merula Snyde sabotages the character's cauldron. Merula leads the player into a room with Devil's Snare, a large maneating plant, where they escape. Finding a vault surrounded by ice, along with companions, they get trapped in ice but escape to find this was one of cursed vaults, but was unable to open.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: During the school's second year, Rowan and Bill Weasley are attacked by the ice, ending up in the hospital wing. The trio recover, open the cursed vault and defeat an ice knight protecting the vault. in the vault, there is a broken wand and a book, both of which belong to Jacob. This gives them information on additional vaults on the grounds.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: Using the tools, they find a door to a room in which Jacob used to hide secrets. This gave the location of the second Cursed Vault, located within the Restricted Section of the library. In the vault, they defeat boggarts taking the form of Lord Voldemort. Using the broken wand found in the first Vault, the player opens the second to find a broken arrow and a map of the Forbidden Forest.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: With two vaults opened, school staff bring in help from professional curse-breaker, Patricia Rakepick, to find and open the remaining vaults. Some students are found sleepwalking toward the third vault, a curse given by the vault. After the player enters the third vault, they find a small sweater and a portrait of a dragon.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: The fourth curse is unleashed the following year with students being found trapped inside portraits starting with the younger sister of Penny Haywood, one of the player character's closest friends. This makes the player character especially determined to break the curse and accepted, along with their friends, mentorship under Rakepick to learn the spells they would need to use. During this year, the player character is told during a meeting with Professors Dumbledore and Snape that they are a legilimens and learns to control and harness this power along with occlumency. After recovering a portrait portkey, the player character along with three friends, Merula and Rakepick are transported into an underground vault where they battle a Hungarian Horntail dragon. After opening the door using the player character's legilimency, Rakepick betrays the students threatening to kill them before the player character stops her using garroting gas making her flee by disapparating. In the room beyond, the player character finds Jacob trapped in a portrait who is freed, along with the trapped students at Hogwarts, upon breaking the curse. Jacob disapparates to go after Rakepick and the group returns to Hogwarts using another portrait portkey they found in the vault along with a Merperson trident.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: In the sixth year, the curse of the final vault is unleashed turning several students and Madam Pomfrey to stone with the same texture as the Merperson trident. After being lured into the Forbidden Forest by a letter claiming to be giving information to a secret meeting with Jacob, Rakepick battles them then fires a killing curse which hits Rowan who protects Ben. The player character along with friends and allies forms the Circle of Khanna, named in honour of Rowan, to help bring R, a criminal organisation Rakepick is part of, to justice and break the petrification curse. Suspecting the final vault of being in the lake, the group makes a peace offering to the Merpeople who then show them the entrance to the vault where upon touching the casket the player character relives their worst moments in an endless circle until they are freed by their friends. They are then confronted by Rakepick who duels the player character. Upon defeating her, the player is given the choice between turning Rakepick to the authorities or sealing her in the vault where she relives her worst moments under the curse. On their return to Hogwarts, they find the petrification curse is broken and they celebrate. However, Merula who has served as an ally within the Circle of Khanna is seen joining R.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: In the seventh year, the students are given work experience placements in the Ministry of Magic and St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Meanwhile a series of incidents, suspected of being committed by R as distractions, are neutralised by the player character which earns them favour by both the Ministry and St Mungo's. Merula starts to secretly turn against R after her friend Ismelda is hurt by an unleashed wampus cat. After Corey Hayden discovers the identity of R's director, Merula kidnaps Corey to lure Jacob's sibling. Upon touching a portkey while searching the Forbidden Forest with Aurors Jacob's sibling is transported to the Shrieking Shack where they find Merula and Corey along with the Director who is revealed to be Merula's aunt Verucca Buckthorn. Jacob's sibling also meets the leader of R who is revealed to their long-lost father Peregrine. Perigrene claims that R's real aim is to rid the Ministry of Magic of corruption, insisting that Rakepick went rogue and acted for her own gain and hopes that Jacob's sibling will work for R eventually. Peregrine tries to make amends with his children but Jacob is angry about R leaving him trapped in a portrait although Peregrine continues meeting Jacob's sibling.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery" was developed and published by Los Angeles-based mobile video game company Jam City. The game was licensed to Portkey Games, a publishing label established by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to create games based on "Harry Potter", with "Hogwarts Mystery" being the label's debut game. Actors from the "Harry Potter" film series such as Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Gemma Jones, Sally Mortemore, Warwick Davis, and Zoë Wanamaker voice their respective characters from the films.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: The game was first announced on 18 January 2018 with a scheduled release on Android and iOS mobile devices on 25 April 2018. The game's release featured many components found in freemium games, such as microtransactions. Following backlash from fans, many of these microtransactions were reduced in price.


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: According to review aggregator website Metacritic "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery" was reviewed "generally unfavourable", receiving an average score of 43 out of 100 based on reviews of 14 critics. Marc Hewitt from GameZebo praised the concept of a "Harry Potter" mobile game and stated that "Hogwarts Mystery" "largely lives up to the hype". Christine Chan from App Advice commented that "Hogwarts Mystery" is a "nice representation" of the world set out in "Harry Potter" and commended the game for letting her "live out [her] Hogwarts dreams".


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: However, the frequent enticements to pay real-world money for microtransactions in the game was widely criticised. One notable example highlighted by critics was an early scene in which the player is subject to being strangled by a Devil's Snare, during which their energy is immediately depleted; the player must then either wait around half an hour for energy to replenish or spend real-world money to receive immediate energy instead. The developers later defended the scene in an interview and disregarded suggestions of its controversial nature. "GameZebo" commented that the "[r]estrictive energy system rears its head early" and commented that game needed greater pacing. Chan from App Advice said the timers and energy system "left a sour taste in [her] mouth." Emily Sowden from "Pocket Gamer" called the use of free-to-play mechanics "maddening" and described the experience as being "behind a paywall".


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: "Kotaku" Gita Jackson also commented on the game's use of these mechanics, saying, "where the game falters, is how it implements its free-to-play elements". Jackson interviewed one user that even took up writing "Harry Potter" fanfiction because they were unable to play the game as often as they wanted. David Jagnaeux from IGN Africa called it "awful," describing the microtransactions as "gratuitous" and stating that they "actively prevented" him from enjoying the game. Keza MacDonald of "The Guardian" called "Hogwarts Mystery" "a dull game with a great concept, made unplayable by its hyper-aggressive monetisation."


title: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

text: The game was awarded Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game during the 2018 Dragon Awards. The game was nominated for Best Breakthrough Game during the 2019 Google Play Awards but lost to "Marvel Strike Force". By August 2018, the game had grossed . It has grossed an estimated US$110 million as of March 2019.


title: Red rice

text: Red rice is a variety of rice that is colored red by its anthocyanin content. It is usually eaten unpolished or partially polished, and has a red bran layer, rather than the more common pale brown. Red rice has a nutty flavor. It has the highest nutritional value among rices eaten with the bran intact.. Some red rice has a low glycemic index. The rice will be slowly digested and energy will be slowly released. This will cause a slower increase in blood sugar levels. Red rice contains high antioxidant levels that reduce free radicals in the organism. It is also a richer source of iron, magnesium, calcium and zinc than white rice.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: "Bad Girls" is a song by British recording artist M.I.A. for her fourth studio album, "Matangi" (2013). The song is written by Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam, Marcella Araica and Floyd Nathaniel "Danja" Hills, and produced by Danja. The song, Arulpragasam's first release following her departure from the UK's XL Recordings in 2011, was self-released worldwide under exclusive license to Interscope Records in the US on 31 January 2012. A shorter version of the song appeared on "Vicki Leekx" (2010), a free online mixtape on 31 December 2010. "Bad Girls" was released as a digital download a day after its world premiere on radio and online.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: The track is a midtempo hip-hop song with Middle Eastern influences and exhibiting elements of worldbeat, dancehall and syncopated drums in its instrumentation. Its lyrics revolve around sexual prowess and female empowerment, while its chorus features the refrain "Live fast die young, bad girls do it well" sung in a haughty rap-sung delivery. The song received positive reviews from contemporary critics, who lauded it as a highlight from the mixtape and commended its hook and lyrics on its final version as containing hallmarks of her previous songs including "Paper Planes" (2007) and "XXXO" (2010). In 2019, "Pitchfork" ranked "Bad Girls" as the 27th best song of the 2010s decade.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: An accompanying music video for the song was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco in solidarity with the women to drive movement, premiering on 3 February 2012. Directed by Romain Gavras, the video garnered universal acclaim and accolades. The song charted in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Korea, Switzerland, the UK and the US, solely on downloads, and was distributed in physical format on 12 March 2012.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: "Bad Girls" first appeared on M.I.A.'s self-released mixtape "Vicki Leekx" (2010), shortly following the release of her third studio album "Maya" earlier that year. Recording sessions for the song transpired in Miami, Florida; M.I.A worked with Danja, a producer who previously collaborated with recording artists such as Madonna and Nelly Furtado. The artwork for "Bad Girls" was released on 25 January 2012, while photos taken by Bernard Coulter of M.I.A. with cowriters Danja and Marcella, who were listening to the record's main mix in a Jeep, were revealed on the rapper's official website and her Twitter page.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Preceding its release, "Bad Girls" was premiered on audio sharing site SoundCloud on 30 January 2012; the song premiered live on worldwide radio the same day on BBC Radio 1. The single was chosen as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Record in the World" alongside Jack White's "Love Interruption" (2012). Lowe opined that despite her typically "energetic" tracks, the rapper was "finding a new voice on [her] forthcoming album", which perhaps explained "the lack of showing off displayed" on the record. "Bad Girls" became readily available for digital download on the iTunes and Amazon on the following day. The song reached the A-List on BBC Radio 6 rotation, and reached the top of the playlist on Italian radio station Radio DeeJay for the week dated 10 March. The single was released in physical format in the United Kingdom on 12 March 2012.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: "Bad Girls" contains three remixes: the N.A.R.S Remix featuring rappers Missy Elliott and Azealia Banks; the Switch Remix, which still features Missy Elliott but also features Rye Rye; and the Leo Justi remix.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: "Bad Girls" is a midtempo hip hop song with elements of Middle Eastern and Indian hooks with influences of dancehall and worldbeat music. The song's structure is focused on careening beats, synths inspired by Eastern sounds and syncopated drums and an SOS signal rhythm. Nick Levine of "NME" commented that the song's chorus was one of those "boffo pop choruses" that M.I.A. could toss off when she wanted to, while commending the chorus as being in the same vein as that of "XXXO", a track from M.I.A.'s third studio album "Maya" (2010). "Rolling Stone" thought that "Bad Girls" was the catchiest song the singer had released since "Paper Planes" from "Kala" (2007). The song's instrumentation consists of background bleeps and blorps mixed down, and the percussion turned up from, but still recalling, the original mixtape version. Because of these, the song exhibits what David Marchese of "Spin" describes as a "vaguely sinister" rhythm slither.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Lyrically, the song explores themes of sexual empowerment. M.I.A. professes "Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well" and "My chain hits my chest when I'm banging on the radio" in a nonchalant mannered chant. Marchese describes the lyric as "irresistibly sassy," a view shared by Robert Copsey of Digital Spy, who wrote that it was a line M.I.A. pulled off spectacularly. M.I.A. adopts a "nicely haughty" rapping-singing vocalization that bears resemblance to her previous work. The first verse consists of M.I.A. declaring in many references to cars "My chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the dashboard / My chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the radio / Yeah back it, back it, yeah pull up to the bumper game / With a signal, cover me, cause I’m changing lanes / Had a handle on it, my life, but I broke it / When I get to where I’m going, gonna have you saying it." She continues with the line "I had a handle on it / My life, but I broke it" in an emotionally key delivery, a view shared by Will Hermes of "Rolling Stone" who notes that in an anthem to recklessly empowered car sex, is "surprisingly" melancholy.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: "Bad Girls" was lauded by music critics. "Billboard" columnist Jason Lipshutz complimented the song's "hypnotic" hook; synonymous sentiments were echoed by Marchese, who ascertained the hook of "Bad Girls" as an "irresistibly sassy lyric". Jeff Klingman of "L Magazine" felt that "Bad Girls" was relatively subtle compared to her previous work. Although he enjoyed the "bright and clean" rhythms of the track, Klingman reprimanded its lyrical content. "There's no eye-rolling political agit-prop," he remarked, "but there's nothing taking up its void either. It's about being a bad girl, and driving a car. It acts like 'get down' rhymes with 'you can hang'. It's just sort of filling space." Robert Copsey of Digital Spy wrote that the song served as a "timely reminder" that the musician could make a chart-friendly hit when and if she so chooses. He appreciated its hook as a line "loaded with the kind of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll fluff that most of today's chart hoggers are spouting" and probably the "last thing we expected to hear from the minded Sri Lankan" adding that it was also a line that few could pull off so spectacularly. Bill Lamb of About.com rated the song three and a half stars (out of five), praising its chorus and composition and writing that "this may be just be the kind of curveball that the artist M.I.A. might want to throw at the moment." Molly Lambert of Pitchfork Media commented that "Bad Girls" shows that the "pop instincts and talents" of M.I.A. "remain as sharp as ever." Priya Elan of the "NME" praised the song, writing "With his help this is MIA as you've never heard her before, taking her pan-global pop smarts and injecting them with a huge growth hormone... Damn straight, MIA, damn straight."


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: In his 3.5 out of five star review, Will Hermes of "Rolling Stone" concluded: "This repolished highlight from M.I.A.'s "Vicki Leekx" mixtape still rides a slinky, Bollywood-style Danja beat, and the key line flips the emotional script: 'I had a handle on it/My life, but I broke it.' As anthems to recklessly empowered car sex go, surprisingly melancholy." Scott Shetler from PopCrush asserted that the track blended hip-hop with more "exotic" sounds, in this case a "hypnotic" Indian-sounding vibe. Likewise, in his review of the mixtape, Mike Schiller of "PopMatters" described "Bad Girls" as the most "obvious call back" to the sound that brought M.I.A. her fame. In consumer guide for MSN Music, critic Robert Christgau named "Bad Girls" as one of three highlights from the "Vicki Leekx" mixtape.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Without being released as a single, "Bad Girls" debuted at number 62 on the UK Singles Chart, and at number 17 on the UK R&B Chart on 11 February 2012. It climbed to position 43 on the former and peaked at 14 on the latter for the week ending 11 March 2012. Selling on digital downloads, the song opened at number 52 on the South Korea Gaon International Singles Download Chart for the week ending 4 February 2012, and at number 58 overall on the South Korea Gaon International Singles Chart. "Bad Girls" also charted on the US "Billboard" Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart at number 10 for the week ending 11 February 2012, before peaking at number 5 on this chart. The song debuted at 81 on the Belgium Ultratip Flanders chart in the first week of digital release, before climbing to 38 before physical format distribution. Similarly, it charted on the Canadian Hot 100 at number 92 and the Australian ARIA Singles chart at number 86. On 19 February 2012, the song entered the Swiss Singles Chart at number 61. Within a week on solely downloads, "Bad Girls" charted at number 83 on the French Singles Chart, before climbing to number 61 on the week ending 11 March 2012. "Bad Girls" was voted #99 on Triple J Hottest 100 of 2012.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: M.I.A. announced via Twitter that she had shot an accompanying music video for the song, directed by Romain Gavras. This is the second time the two have collaborated, following the 2010 video to "Born Free". Two photos from the set of the video were uploaded by the artist onto M.I.A.'s official website in February 2012. The video for "Bad Girls" premiered on Noisey, "Vice"'s new music channel on YouTube, on 2 February 2012 at a total length of four minutes and twelve seconds. Principal photography for the video was done in Ouarzazate, Morocco over a period of four days.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: The setting of the music video features crumbled architecture, sustained over years of attack; smouldering oil tankers; young men in kaffiyeh, standing around bored; mysterious women covered from head to toe, with only their kohl-lined eyes flashing out. M.I.A. joked to Noisey in a YouTube comment response interview that she shot the video in Morocco because she "didn't want to go to jail!". M.I.A. deadpans to the camera about having sex in cars while vamping in front of those tanker fires. M.I.A. rides atop a drifting car, filing her nails, and in a see through glow-in-the-dark car custom-made for the shoot. Her idea for the vehicle was inspired by the scene of actor Prabhu Deva dancing atop a see-through bus in the song "Urvasi Urvasi" from "Kadhalan" (1994). Having initially planned to fund the perspex car's construction in India, M.I.A. and Gavras funded the car's manufacture in Morocco after being told it would take five months to complete. Women are depicted gyrating while wearing designs in cheetah patterns, polka dots and gold. M.I.A. described the design and creation of the video's props, from the clothes designs to the car's upholstery, as an "accumulated process". M.I.A. leads a crowd of women decked in traditional Middle-Eastern garb with a hipster twist, in a modern-day "Rebel-Without-A-Cause"-esque drag race. It's a dusty evening, where the musician is wearing aviator sunglasses and bling; the women are watched by cheering men as they drive, spin, skid and whoop across the desert plain. Channelling male angst, futility and anger, old family sedans and BMWs are grabbed and turned into drifting, skiing racing stunt rides. A rearing, galloping horse is picturised, being ridden alongside the cars. Critics note this resonates whether on Crenshaw, Eight Mile or a bullet-scarred road running parallel with an oil pipe line. The video evokes a Persian Gulf landscape – dusty, baked, semi-apocalyptic and in the hands of M.I.A. and Gavras, "utterly hard-core". Dan Busheikin of CHARTattack described the outfits in the video as "ostentatious" and the driving "risky", calling the video "pretty badass". He welcomed M.I.A.'s "ditching of the gaudy GIF imagery and digital weirdo phase" of her early work, while feeling the singer remained "as flashy" and confident as ever.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Contemporary critics universally commended the music video for its themes and production values. The video was both heralded and criticised for confronting women's rights in Saudi Arabia; the portrayal of women wearing the niqāb driving cars is strictly prohibited in Saudi Arabia, while some media outlets accused the video of propagating Arab stereotypes. Claire Suddath of "Time" agreed that at first glance, the video appeared to be a political statement on women drivers in Saudi Arabia and a stylish, aesthetically pleasing piece, stating that the video was fun either way and that audiences could all agree that women and men should be able to "drag race, pop wheelies and drive their cars on two wheels" equally. Dina Dabbous of Jordanian publication "Al Bawaba" praised M.I.A. for presenting an accurate picture of male customs in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, continuing "if she's being accused of stereotyping, then she’s turning the oriental fantasy on its head when she has Arabian women dressed in khaki styled, though still Arabian, dress or gear, toting guns and strutting their stuff with a swagger unknown to the conservative female society that has women closed off or 'haremed' from the male gaze. M.I.A's girls are a far-cry from the harem-veiled subversive mysterious women of the oriental fantasy in their floaty feminine veils, if we're accusing her of feeding stereotypes. She's toying with the militarized West infiltrating Arabia. Sexing it up a notch to have her 'bad girls' taking male guns and aggro".


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Comfort Clinton of PopMatters hailed the video as "certainly" echoing the lyrics of the song "live fast, die young", with death-defying stunts and cars driving "more dramatic circles than M.I.A.'s hip gyrations", described M.I.A.'s concerns about the video as being "just part of" the daily grind for a true "Bad Girl". Elizabeth Broomhall, writing in "Arabian Business", appreciated M.I.A. for "pushing boundaries" to get the world to pay attention to women's right to drive in the kingdom, and for being a female artist who "finally" did something different. Margaret Wappler of the "Los Angeles Times" noted the video as a "lady gangsta" fantasy but one that "played off" very real ingredients from life in the Middle East while a writer for "The Huffington Post" noted the video's similarities to previous videos by M.I.A. in bringing "real" swagger to a place seldom identified as a hotbed of youthful recklessness, adjudging the video to bring an overhaul to the song through its cinematic nature. "Rap-Up" described the visuals as "gritty" and "action-packed", which demanded viewers "made way for the pop-crusader". Lucy Jones of "The Daily Telegraph" described the video as sassy, energetic and dangerous, and noted the ginger child at the end of the video as a reference to "Born Free". A writer for "Spin" declared that thematically, the video "belonged in the same wheelhouse" as Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)" video, in its feminism and desert setting, but beyond their "surface similarities (big explosions, big emphasis on the girls)", the two clips veered off in different directions. The writer continued "Maya may be rapping about ladies' sexual dominance over men, but her clip is chaste – we're oohing and ahhing over car tricks, not hard bodies. Her girls are getting it done with skill rather than sexy." Elizabeth Flock writing in "The Washington Post" noted that the video was made at a time when Saudi women began fighting against the ban outside of court and online, while following the release of the video, two Saudi female activistsManal al-Sharif and Samar Badawifiled lawsuits against the government for refusing to give them a driver's licence, the first high-profile legal challenge to the country's ban on female drivers.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Naomi Zeichner of "The Fader" noted the video to be audacious, while Hua Hsu, writing for Grantland.com, praised Gavras as "strikingly" talented, making "scenes of faraway desperation look like the most beautiful, mysterious cologne advertisements ever" and the artistic vision of M.I.A. for delivering the audience "somewhere else". He noted that for some, the video would be further confirmation that "ornate scarves, wind-carved deserts, and Arabic script" were cool, while for others, it will "no doubt inspire a deeper investigation into globalism and globalization, feminism, the politics of oil, the West's influence in the Middle East, a career as a graduate student etc.". He concluded that the video was further example of what made M.I.A.'s "protest-in-the-name-of-what-exactly? so riveting, "important,"" and almost prophetic, saying "She flatters our desire for authenticity, for a real spokesperson who apprehends the full circumference of the planet, and then she goes and makes a bright, gaudy T-shirt of it all. If she has sold out – if she represented anything in the first place – then she's shown us exactly what our dollar can buy: an absolutely stunning video starring some of the Middle East's finest stunt drivers." Writing in "Seattle Weekly", Todd Hamm described it as the best music video of the year so far.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: The video won Best Direction, and Best Cinematography at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. It was also nominated for Video of the Year but lost out to Rihanna's "We Found Love". It was nominated for a 2013 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video where it lost to Rihanna's "We Found Love" again. In 2019, "Stereogum" ranked it number one on their list of the best music videos of the 2010s.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: Singer Gwen Stefani soundtracked her Fall/Winter L.A.M.B. fashion line presentation with a remix of the song during New York Fashion Week in February 2012. To celebrate their 60th anniversary, French clothing company Moncler commissioned 150 ice skaters to perform a routine to "Bad Girls" in Central Park for their 2012 New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter finale. The song was used to soundtrack several shows during London Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week the same month.


title: Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

text: The song is also heard in the trailers for "The Heat", "Spring Breakers", "For a Good Time, Call...", "Bad Girls Club" and "Vampire Academy". In addition, the song was used in the films "Identity Thief", "Son of a Gun", "The Bling Ring" and "Vampire Academy". In 2014, "Bad Girls" was featured on the soundtrack of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions of "Grand Theft Auto V".


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio is a city and the county seat of Val Verde County in southwestern Texas, United States. The city is 152 miles west of San Antonio. As of 2020, Del Rio had a population of 34,673.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Spanish established a small settlement south of the Rio Grande in present-day Mexico, and some Spaniards settled on what became the United States side of the Rio Grande as early as the 18th century. Paula Losoya Taylor built the first "hacienda "in the area in 1862. U.S. development on the north shore of the Rio Grande did not begin until after the American Civil War.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The San Felipe Springs, about east of the Rio Grande on the U.S. side of the border, produces of water a day. Developers acquired several thousand acres of land adjacent to the springs, and to San Felipe Creek formed by the springs, from the state of Texas in exchange for building a canal system to irrigate the area. The developers sold tracts of land surrounding the canals to recover their investment and show a profit. The initial investors (William C. Adams, Joseph M. Hudson, John P. Grove, Donald Jackson, John Perry, Joseph Ney, Randolph Pafford, A. O. Strickland, and James H Taylor) formed the San Felipe Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Irrigation Company in 1868. The organization completed construction of a network of irrigation canals in 1871. Residents referred to the slowly developing town as San Felipe Del Rio because local lore said the name came from early Spanish explorers who offered a mass at the site on St. Philip's Day, 1635.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In 1883, local residents requested a post office be established. The United States Postal Department shortened "San Felipe del Rio" to "Del Rio" to avoid confusion with San Felipe de Austin. In 1885, Val Verde County was organized and Del Rio became the county seat. The City of Del Rio was incorporated on November 15, 1911.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The San Felipe community was started by the Arteaga family. Arteaga Street and Arteaga Park are named after them.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Many historical artifacts from Del Rio, particularly from the 19th century, are preserved at the Whitehead Memorial Museum downtown.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: During September 2021, as part of the ongoing Mexico–United States border crisis, approximately 30,000 Haitians migrants illegally entered the United States at Del Rio. The United States Border Patrol moved many into a camp underneath the Del Río–Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. The squalid conditions in the camp attracted widespread national attention. A photo of a Haitian grabbing the reigns of a horse-mounted Border Patrol agent was incorrectly alleged to show the agent whipping the Haitian.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and , or 0.24%, is covered by water.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio lies on the northwestern edges of the Tamaulipan mezquital, also called the South Texas brush country. It is also near the southwestern corner of the Edwards Plateau, which is the western fringe of the famous, oak savanna-covered Texas Hill Country; that area is dotted with numerous small springs; one of these is the San Felipe Springs, which provides a constant flow of water to San Felipe Creek. The creek supplied fresh water for drinking and irrigation to early settlers of Del Rio, and the springs are still the town's water supply.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Del Rio region, west to about the Pecos River, has a mix of desert shrub and steppe vegetation, depending on soil type, with the gray-leafed cenizo ("Leucophyllum" spp.), several different acacias, cactuses, and grama grasses dominant members of local flora. The terrain is mostly level, but some areas are dissected with substantial canyons and drainages, though none of the upland areas is high or large enough to be considered a mountain.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio experiences a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen "BSh") with mild winters and hot summers. During the spring season, as well occasionally during the fall season, severe thunderstorms often build on the Serranías del Burro to the distant west of Del Rio. This is believed to occur due to the uplift of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico which is channeled along the Rio Grande.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 34,673 people, 12,300 households, and 8,898 families residing in the city.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: As of the census of 2000, 33,867 people, 10,778 households, and 8,514 families resided in the city. The population density was 2,194.0 people per square mile (846.9/km). The 11,895 housing units averaged a density of 770.6 per square mile (297.5/km). The racial makeup of the city was 73.05% White American, 7.21% African American, 0.70% Native American, 0.49% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 17.79% from other races, and 2.68% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 81.04% of the population.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Of the 10,778 households, 42.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.3% were married couples living together, 15.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 21.0% were not families. About 18.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.09 and the average family size was 3.56.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In the city, the population was distributed as 31.7% under the age of 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 27.6% from 25 to 44, 20.2% from 45 to 64, and 11.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.6 males.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The median income for a household in the city was $27,387, and for a family was $30,788. Males had a median income of $27,255 versus $17,460 for females. The per capita income for the city was $12,199. About 22.9% of families and 27.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 35.8% of those under age 18 and 26.4% of those age 65 or over.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio is the principal city of the Del Rio micropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Val Verde County; the micropolitan area had an estimated population over 50,000 in 2007. Located across from Del Rio, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, is the city of Ciudad Acuña, with a city population of 201,161.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In 1942, the Army Air Corps opened Laughlin Field east of Del Rio, as a training base for the Martin B-26, but the base was deactivated in 1945. As the Cold War pressures built, along with new border-control issues, Laughlin Field was rebuilt and renamed Laughlin Air Force Base and was again used as a home for flight training. Laughlin plays a large part in the Del Rio community as the area's largest employer.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The GEO Group, a private correctional facility corporation based in Boca Raton, Florida, manages the Val Verde Correctional Facility in Del Rio. It has a contract to house offenders for the county, for the U.S. Marshals Service (male/female) prisoners, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection detainees. The facility opened in 2001 with 688 beds. In 2007, the facility was expanded to its current capacity of 1,400 beds. It is one of the major employers in the Del Rio area and meets standards required by state and federal guidelines.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Some of the earliest surviving cultural artefacts in the region are various pictographs found in local caverns in and near the town. Some of these pictographs date as far back as 4,200 years when the Seminole first reached the region and created pictographs in the caverns of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands Archeological District, a proposed National Historic Landmark. The pictographs are preserved in part by the Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center, a local group which documents the pictographs, and creates educational material about them.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Whitehead Memorial Museum carries on the history of the culture created in Del Rio brought by mementos of Judge Roy Bean.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Laughlin Heritage Museum Foundation educates the public about the importance of air power in sustaining the national security of the United States, and to preserve the heritage of Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio is home to the oldest continuously running winery in Texas, the Val Verde Winery. The winery was established in 1883 by Italian immigrant Frank Qualia, who brought with him the family tradition of winemaking. Today, the winery is operated by third-generation vintner Thomas Qualia. A cultural melting pot, Del Rio is home to a mix of ethnic and racial backgrounds including Hispanic, African American Seminole, Mestizo, and Tejano. Del Rio offers a variety of Southwestern cuisine including: Tex-Mex, Steakhouses, Barbecue, Authentic Mexican food and "Pan Dulce" or Mexican pastries.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Casa de la Cultura is a non-profit organization that provides community focused outlets for the youth and adults in Del Rio for over 40 years. It offers a revolving variety of classes based on the educational and cultural needs of the community, such as: Ballet Folklorico, Guitar, Singing, Knitting, Pottery, Art Camps, Latino Aerobics and Literacy classes. In the early 2000s, the Casa de la Cultura began Noches Musicales, a live summer music festival with food vendors and live music. The Casa de la Cultura celebrated their 14th annual Live Music Festival in June 2021.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The Del Rio Council for the Arts provides affordable arts and education and entertainment to the community and its surrounding areas.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio is home to the George Paul Memorial Bullriding, which is the oldest stand-alone bull-riding event in the world.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Some of the most notable celebrations in the community include: the Independence Day City-Wide Celebration, Cinco de Mayo, 16 de Septiembre, Fiesta de Amistad, and the Fiesta of Flight Air Show. Del Rio held its first ever Pride event in June 2019.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The area is home to various religious profiles including: Christian, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical, Lutheran, Methodist, Non-Denominational, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Spirit-Filled, Judaism, Seventh Day Adventist, and many more.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The city is served by the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District. About 10,450 students are enrolled and 637 teachers are employed at 14 campuses throughout the district. Del Rio is also home to Del Rio Heritage Academy High School, and Premier High School, two charter schools.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The "Del Rio News-Herald" was a daily newspaper published in Del Rio, covering Val Verde County, was owned by Southern Newspapers Inc. The newspaper had a daily circulation of 10,400 and a Sunday circulation of 13,500. The newspaper closed in November 2020.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In 2020, The 830 Times, a local news sit covering Del Río and the wider region of southwest Texas is published weekly, launched its print and online newspaper.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: There are multiple radio stations licensed to the area in and around Del Rio including, KDLK-FM, KTDR, KVFE, KWMC, KDRN, KTPD, KDLI.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In 2014, KVFE, a Christian station owned by Inspiracom, was launched to fill one of the ministry's remaining gaps on the US–Mexico border.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In 2020, The 830 Times, a local news site covering Del Rio and the wider region of southwest Texas, launched.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio International Airport (FlyDRT) serves the city and surrounding area. American Airlines operates flights twice daily between Del Rio and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The route is currently served by regional affiliate SkyWest Airlines on their 65-seat Canadair CRJ 700 series aircraft.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Transportation services to the citizens of Del Rio is provided by the City of Del Río Transportation Department.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Amtrak provides passenger rail service to Del Rio station through its combined "Sunset Limited"/"Texas Eagle" service. Trains serve the station thrice-weekly in each direction, with direct service to Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Orleans, Chicago, and points in between.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: In the episode "The Young Gun" (February 7, 1958) of the CBS Western television series "Trackdown", starring Robert Culp as the Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, the Ranger travels to Del Rio to investigate a bank robbery and goes undercover to gain inside information to solve the case. He tricks one of the robbers into leading him to the other gang members.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: The 1994 motion picture "Texas", based on the James A. Michener novel "Texas", was partly filmed in Del Rio. The movie, which took place in the beginning of the 19th century, as many Anglo-Americans were settling in the Mexican province of Texas, featured Randy Travis and Anthony Michael Hall.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Del Rio features prominently (though scenes were shot elsewhere) in "No Country for Old Men", the 2007 neo-Western thriller film directed, written, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Barrio Chihuahua: In the southern part of the city, this neighborhood, named after the Chihuahua Soccer Field, is located between West Gibbs to the north, Texas State Spur 29 to the west, Garfield Ave., West Garfield to the southeast, and S. Ave F to the far east.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Buena Vista: Located near Buena Vista Park. Lake Amistad and North Del Rio are located past the Buena Vista area.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Cienegas Terraces: Outside the city limits, it is home to the "Duck Pond" and various ranches, on the west side of the city.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Eastside: Named by locals after the school on the corner of Bedell & 7th Street, the neighborhood is also home to Star Park. Surrounded by Veterans Boulevard to the west and E. Gibbs to the south, the neighborhood is home to the Val Verde Regional Medical Center.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: San Felipe: The original neighborhood in Del Rio, the city originally got its name from it as in "San Felipe del rio", south of Barrio Chihuahua and the Northside. Home of the San Felipe Creek.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Qualia: Home to Val Verde Winery, the oldest operating winery in Texas. Next door to the San Felipe neighborhood. Residents living within the Qualia area reference the neighborhood as "the one by the Winery," Many historical markers are located within the vicinity.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Westside: Home to Del Rio International Airport, the neighborhood is surrounded to the north by W. 15th, 18th, and 17th Streets, to the east by Veterans Blvd., and to the south by W. Gibbs bordering Chihuahua.


title: Del Rio, Texas

text: Comalia: A neighborhood isolated by the Woodlawn cemetery and a bridge that leads to the U.S.-Mexico border crossing, it can be found by traveling down W. 2nd Street.


title: 1979–80 European Cup

text: The 1979–80 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won by holders Nottingham Forest in the final against Hamburg. The winning goal was scored by John Robertson, who drilled the ball into the corner of the Hamburg net from outside the penalty area. Nottingham Forest remain the only side to have won the European Cup more times than their domestic top flight.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the Great Basin region. The northern extension of the Wasatch Range, the Bear River Mountains, extends just into Idaho, constituting all of the Wasatch Range in that state.


title: Wasatch Range

text: In the language of the native Ute people, Wasatch means "mountain pass" or "low pass over high range." According to William Bright, the mountains were named for a Shoshoni leader who was named with the Shoshoni term "wasattsi", meaning "blue heron". In 1926, Cecil Alter quoted Henry Gannett from 1902, who said that the word meant "land of many waters," then posited, "the word is a common one among the Shoshones, and is given to a berry basket" carried by women.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Since the earliest days of European settlement, most of Utah's population has chosen to settle along the range's western front, where numerous rivers exit the mountains. For early settlers, the mountains were a vital water source, timber, and granite. Today, 85% of Utah's population lives within of the Wasatch Range, mainly in the valleys just to the west. This westside concentration is known as the Wasatch Front and has a population of just over 2,000,000. Salt Lake City lies between the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The range's highest point — — is Mount Nebo, a triple peak rising above Nephi, at the southern end of the range. In some places the mountains rise steeply from the valley's base elevation of to over . Other notable peaks include Mount Timpanogos, a massive peak that looms over northern Utah County and is especially prominent from Pleasant Grove and Orem; Lone Peak, the Twin Peaks, and Mount Olympus, which overlooks the Salt Lake Valley; Francis Peak overlooking both Morgan and Davis counties; and Ben Lomond and Mount Ogden, both near Ogden.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Topping out below , Wasatch peaks are not especially high compared to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado or even the Uinta Mountains (the other main portion of the Rocky Mountains in Utah). However, they are sculpted by glaciers, yielding notably rugged, sweeping upland scenery. They also receive heavy falls of snow: more than per year in some places. This great snowfall, with its runoff, made possible a prosperous urban strip of some 25 cities along nearly of mountain frontage. The Wasatch Range is home to a high concentration of ski areas, with 11 stretching from Sundance in northeastern Utah County to Powder Mountain and Wolf Mountain northeast of Ogden. There is also one ski resort in the Bear River Mountains (Beaver Mountain). Park City alone is bordered by two ski resorts. Due to the low relative humidity in wintertime, along with the added lake-effect from the Great Salt Lake, the snow has a dry, powdery texture which most of the local ski resorts market as "the Greatest Snow on Earth". The snow and nearby ski resorts helped Salt Lake City gain the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Several of the canyons in the Lone Peak area, most notably Little Cottonwood Canyon, have several high-quality granite outcroppings, and make up a popular climbing area such as the Pfeifferhorn. Farther north, Big Cottonwood Canyon features tricky climbing on quartzite.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The densely vegetated narrow canyons of the Wasatch Range, such as Big Cottonwood Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon, are heavily visited; on September 25, 2005, 1,200 automobiles entered Little Cottonwood in an hour. The canyons sit within of downtown Salt Lake City and the year-round paved roadways can reach higher in elevation above the city within a short distance. Dirt roads readily drivable in passenger cars with moderate clearance stretch up from Park City, Heber, and Big Cottonwood Canyon. These reach about above sea level and provide long-range high country views.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Mount Nebo, the highest peak of the Wasatch, is at the southern edge of the range. The Colorado Plateau comes to its northwest corner as it meets the southern end of the Rocky Mountains. Immediately west of these two, the Great Basin, which is the northern region of the Basin and Range Province, begins and stretches westward across western Utah and Nevada until it reaches the Sierra Nevada near the Nevada/California border. Geologic faults punctuate the range, chief among them the Wasatch Fault. These faults also formed the Timpanogos Cave.


title: Wasatch Range

text: A series of mountain valleys punctuate the northern Wasatch Range. While the western side of the range drops sharply to the floors of the Wasatch Front valleys, the eastern side of the range is gentler, allowing for the construction of several ski resorts. The Cottonwoods, a particularly rugged and dense area just east of the Salt Lake Valley, shelters small mountain coves that harbor four world-famous ski resorts (Alta, Brighton, Solitude, and Snowbird). The eastern slopes of the Cottonwoods drop to the Snyderville Basin, which contains Park City and its two ski resorts (Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley). Much of the eastern side of the range, from north of Salt Lake City to the Bear River Mountains, is especially gentle compared to the rest of the range. The range widens east of Ogden, sheltering a high mountain valley known as the Ogden Valley. Three more ski resorts lie here, as well as several small towns (such as Huntsville, Liberty, and Eden).


title: Wasatch Range

text: North of this, the Wellsville Mountains branch off from the northwest of the range, continuing a line of mountains paralleling the I-15 corridor. This range is exceptionally thin and steep. However, US-89/US-91 is maintained as a four-lane highway through the range at Wellsville Canyon east of Brigham City. Cache Valley, created by the Bear River, is flanked on the west by the Wellsville Mountains and on the east by the much denser and higher Bear River Mountains. The northwestern border of Cache Valley is flanked by the Bannock Range in Idaho. The two highest peaks in this area are Mount Naomi and Mount Logan, each just under .


title: Wasatch Range

text: The southeastern portion of the range across Wasatch County transforms into the relatively flat, windswept Wasatch Plateau at an elevation of about to . At its southeastern edge, just north of Helper, it runs into the Book Cliffs. Further north, the Heber Valley and Weber River Valley separate the Wasatch Range from the Uinta Mountains, while the Bear River Valley and Bear Lake Valley separate it from lower mountain ranges that mark the western edge of the Green River Basin.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The Wasatch Range is traversed by just seven highways, along with several rugged mountain roads and unpaved trails. The most prominent are I-80 through Parley's Canyon east of Salt Lake City and I-84 through Weber Canyon southeast of Ogden. They meet near the ghost town of Echo on the eastern slopes of the range and continue northeast as I‑80. Other highways through the range include US-6/US-89 through Spanish Fork Canyon, US-189 through Provo Canyon, Utah State Route 39 extending east from Huntsville (a route which is closed in winter), US‑89/US-91 through Logan Canyon, and along Idaho State Highway 36 near the northern end of the range.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad had a line through the Wasatch Range via Soldier Summit Pass and Spanish Fork Canyon. Now operated by the Union Pacific Railroad, the line is used by freight trains and Amtrak's "California Zephyr".


title: Wasatch Range

text: The Wasatch Range is part of the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains Level 3 Ecoregion, a temperate coniferous forest. Common trees include Douglas fir ("Pseudotsuga menziesii"), subalpine fir ("Abies bifolia"), Engelmann spruce ("Picea engelmannii"), Colorado blue spruce ("Picea pungens"), and quaking aspen ("Populus tremuloides"). Gambel oak ("Quercus gambelii") is common on the foothills of the range from just south of Brigham City in the north, to the southern extension of the Wasatch Range. It is not found in the northern portion of the Range. Ponderosa pine ("Pinus ponderosa"), while abundant elsewhere in Utah is not common in this mountain range, except in plantations in Big Cottonwood Canyon southeast of Salt Lake City and in Logan Canyon, east of Logan. Some individual trees have been found in remote areas of the Wasatch Range that appear to be relic individuals from past populations.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Subspecies of big sagebrush ("Artemisia tridentata") dominate drier portions of the landscapes. Most of the sagebrush that occurs in the Wasatch Range is mountain big sagebrush ("Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana"). Many of the valley bottoms at one time were occupied by basin big sagebrush ("Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata"). Most of this subspecies has been removed, however, because it occurred on what constitutes prime agricultural lands. In upper elevations, and on slightly more mesic sites than that of mountain big sagebrush, one can find subalpine big sagebrush ("Artemisia tridenta ssp. spiciformis"). This subspecies occupies productive sites and often has a lush understory of wildflowers and grasses. Wyoming big sagebrush ("Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis") occurs at the lowest and driest elevations, although much of the Wasatch Range is above the elevation where this subspecies occurs. All sagebrush species, combined, provide critical habitat to greater sage grouse, a species under consideration for listing by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.


title: Wasatch Range

text: The Wasatch Range is home to several plants that occur nowhere other than in this area. Several of these are rare and restricted to narrow geological formations, while others are more widely distributed throughout the area. Some of the less rare endemics include five-petal cliffbush ("Jamesia americana" var. "macrocalyx"), Sierra fumewort ("Corydalis caseana" ssp. "brachycarpa"), and Utah angelica ("Angelica wheeleri").


title: Wasatch Range

text: In addition to ski resorts, there are hundreds of miles of mountain biking and hiking trails winding through the canyons and alpine valleys of the Wasatch Range. These offer backcountry access close to a large metropolitan area. There is rock climbing and mountaineering on the towering limestone, granite, and quartzite peaks and in many of the surrounding canyons.


title: Wasatch Range

text: Alpine lakes and streams offer somewhat overworked fishing opportunities. The Wasatch Mountain Club has regular activities. The Utah Native Plant Society conducts regular walks from spring until fall along the foothills of the central Wasatch Front and in adjoining canyons as the season progress. Many wildflowers bloom in the late summer in Albion Basin at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon.


title: Console game

text: A console game is a type of video game consisting of images and often sounds generated by a video game console, which are displayed on a television or similar audio-video system, and that can be manipulated by a player. This manipulation usually takes place using a handheld device connected to the console, called a controller. The controller generally contains several buttons and directional controls such as analogue joysticks, each of which has been assigned a purpose for interacting with and controlling the images on the screen. The display, speakers, console, and controls of a console can also be incorporated into one small object known as a handheld game.


title: Console game

text: Console games usually come in the form of an optical disc, ROM cartridge, digital download or, in the case of dedicated consoles, stored on internal memory. The global console games market was valued at about $26.8 billion in 2018.


title: Console game

text: The differences between consoles create additional challenges and opportunities for game developers, as the console manufacturers (e.g. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Sega) may provide extra incentives, support and marketing for console exclusive games. To aid development of games for consoles, manufacturers often create game development kits that developers can use for their work.


title: Console game

text: The first console games were for the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, and consisted of simple games made of three white dots and a vertical line. These hardware limitations, such as the lack of any audio capability, meant that developers didn't have freedom in the type of games they could create. Some games came packaged with accessories such as cards and dice to enhance the experience and make up for the shortcomings of the hardware.


title: Console game

text: The second generation of consoles introduced more powerful capabilities, less hardware limitations than the first generation, and coincided with the golden age of arcade video games. Developers had access to the console's basic graphical capabilities, allowing them to create sprites of their choosing and more advanced sound capabilities. Controllers were beginning to include more buttons giving developers more freedom in the type of interactions they could provide to the player.


title: Console game

text: Due to the success of arcades, several games were adapted and released on consoles. In many cases, the quality had to be reduced because of the hardware limitations of consoles, but their popularity persisted: Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, a port of the original arcade game of the same name, was the best selling game for the console.


title: Console game

text: The second generation of games introduced a number of notable gaming concepts for the first time. Adventure for the Atari 2600 introduced the concept of a virtual space bigger than the screen for the first time, with the game consisting of multiple rooms the player could visit as opposed to a single static screen. Video Olympics was one of the first console games to have a computer controlled opponent in its "Robot Pong" game mode and genres such as platforming and graphical adventure games emerged.


title: Console game

text: By the end of 1983, consoles had become cheaper to develop and produce, causing a saturation of consoles which in turn led to their libraries becoming saturated too. Due to this saturation of the market, the prices of games were low and, despite good sales figures, developers weren't making enough profit from sales to justify staying in the market.


title: Console game

text: Despite heavy marketing, the quality of the games could not back up their claims, causing many companies to go out of business. The effects of the crash were primarily felt in the North American market but it still had an impact, albeit smaller, on the Asian and European markets.


title: Console game

text: In the years following the crash, console development was significantly reduced in the North American and European markets. Personal computers rose in popularity and began to fill the gap in the market that consoles had left. They had become affordable, were technologically superior, and had multiple other functions beyond gaming.


title: Console game

text: The release of new consoles from Nintendo, Sega and Atari signified the start of the third (and fourth) generations, which also saw the introduction of notable franchises such as The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Metroid.


title: Console game

text: The console manufacturers took back control of third-party development and regulated the market. Measures were introduced to ensure saturation did not happen again, including limiting the number of games a developer could release a year, controlling the manufacture of game cartridges, demanding payment for cartridges upfront, and ensuring newly developed games adhered to a set of rules set by console manufacturers. This put pressure on publishers and added a risk to development. It meant developers were forced to concentrate on the quality of their games more so than the quantity and speed at which they could be made.


title: Console game

text: Atari and Sega incorporated backward compatibility in the Atari 7800 and Master System respectively, elongating the lifespan of their early console games. Both companies never released another backward compatible console, with the partial exception that Master System games can be played on the Sega Genesis using a separately sold peripheral.


title: Console game

text: During this time, "Metroid" became notable for its open world the player could traverse in all directions, while most similar games were still primarily side-scrolling in a single direction. It also featured a strong female protagonist who is often credited for improving the portrayal of women in gaming. "Star Fox" was Nintendo's first use of polygonal graphics and "Sonic the Hedgehog" introduced a rival to Nintendo's mascot, Mario, who became a long-standing character for Sega in a number of different types of media.


title: Console game

text: The fifth generation of consoles saw the move from 2D to 3D graphics and the change in storage media from cartridges to optical discs. Analogue controllers became popular, allowing for a finer and smoother movement control scheme compared to the directional pad. The use of full motion video became popular for cutscenes as optical discs allowed for the storage of high quality video with pre-rendered graphics that a game couldn't render in real time.


title: Console game

text: Games released during the fifth generation took advantage of the new 3D technology with a number of notable franchises moving from 2D, such as "Metal Gear", "Final Fantasy", "Mario" and "The Legend of Zelda", the latter being considered influential not only to its genre but to video games as a whole. Other games that were released during this generation, such as Crash Bandicoot, GoldenEye 007, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and FIFA International Soccer"," were influential in their own genres and started their own franchises that would span multiple generations and consoles. "Resident Evil" founded the genre of survival horror, while "Metal Gear Solid" popularised the stealth genre as well as storytelling through cinematic cutscenes rendered in game. "Gran Turismo" and "Sega Rally Championship" popularised realism in the racing genre with different surfaces and realistic features such as tire grip.


title: Console game

text: While earlier consoles did provide online capabilities, it wasn't until the sixth generation that online services became popular. Games introduced online features such as downloadable content, social features, and online multiplayer. Online networks were created by console developers such as PlayStation Network and Xbox Live providing a platform for games to utilise. Online multiplayer allowed players to play together from almost anywhere in the world, the social features of the platforms giving players the means to organise over these long distances.


title: Console game

text: Downloadable content became more prominent, allowing developers to release updates after a game was launched and include new content or fixes to existing issues.


title: Console game

text: Console games receive commands from the player through the use of an input device, commonly called a "controller". Unlike a PC which uses a keyboard and mouse or a mobile device that uses a touch interface, console games are limited in their control schemes by the hardware available for the console. They usually include a method to move the player character (joystick, d-pad or analogue stick) and a variation of buttons to perform other in-game actions such as jumping or interacting with the game world. The type of controller available to a game can fundamentally change the style of how a console game will or can be played.


title: Console game

text: The limitation of the amount of buttons compared to a PC keyboard or a custom arcade cabinet means that controller buttons will commonly perform multiple different actions. For example, Xbox One controls uses the same button, the "A" button, to interact with the world when pressed and sprint when held, whereas the PC control scheme can separate these functions into separate buttons. The limitation of input keys can allow developers to create a more refined and succinct control scheme that can be learned by the player more easily. Different games in the same genre tend to use similar control schemes, allowing players to easily adapt to new games.


title: Console game

text: There are games that require additional accessories to act as alternative ways to control the game and to bypass the limitations of a standard game controller. Such items can include light guns, electronic instruments or racing wheels.


title: Console game

text: Consoles commonly use a television as their visual output device: optimal for viewing at a greater distance by a larger audience. As a result, many video games are designed for local multiplayer play, with all players viewing the same TV set, with the screen divided into several sections and each player using a different controller.


title: Console game

text: Console games have generally had access to less computing power, less flexible computing power, and lower resolution displays, than games played on a PC. However, dedicated consoles were advanced graphically, especially in animation, as video game consoles had dedicated graphics hardware, were able to load data instantly from ROM, and had a low resolution output which would look better on a television, due to it naturally blurring the pixels.


title: Console game

text: Storage mediums play an important role in the development of a console game as it creates a fixed limit on the amount and quality of content that a game can have. Unlike arcade games but similar to PC and handheld games, console games are generally distributed separately from their platforms and require a form of storage to hold their data. There are 3 primary types of storage medium for consoles – cartridges, optical discs, and hard disk drives, all of which have considerably improved over time and provide more storage space to developers with each improvement.


title: Console game

text: Early cartridges had storage limitations which grew in size as the technology developed. They provided more security against third-party developers and the illegal copying of games. Some could be partially re-writable allowing for games to save their data to the cartridge itself meaning no extra saving media was required.


title: Console game

text: While cartridges became less popular with the introduction of disc based media, they are still popular to use for handheld consoles and are still in use on consoles in later generations such as the Nintendo Switch.