Was hinter dem Cadillac-Beben steckt - und warum gerade jetzt

First reported by Empire on X, "The Everything App," Simpsons creator Matt Groening may have let slip the existence of some upcoming return for The Simpsons: Hit & Run⁠—though this was immediately disputed by another grandee of the Simpsons Industrial Complex.

"I think the original game is coming back in some form," Groening said in response to a question about the series at a Simpsons panel discussion, part of the ongoing D23 Disney fan event. Current showrunner Matt Selman immediately poured cold water on the idea, declaring "Or not," in response to Groening's statement. afrikasportnews.co.za

Groening seems to firmly operate in an "emperor emeritus" role when it comes to day-to-day operations of The Simpsons, and it's perfectly plausible that his supposition was based on out-of-date information, and Selman, who's more hands on with things, is correct.

But I'm inclined to think this was a "It's a secret⁠—Ssshut uuuuuup" sort of interaction. We're living in a time of endless remakes and remasters⁠—Spongebob Squarepants: Battle For Bikini Bottom Rehydrated from a few years ago feels like it rhymes with Hit & Run, for example. Most persuasive of all, Selman himself, who wrote the original game, said "never say never" about the possibility of the series coming back just this year.

Groening's choice of words, "the original game is coming back in some form," seems to preclude a sequel and imply a remake or remaster to my eye. But if it turns out he was talking about an art book or retrospective documentary or something, well that'd just be poor form on his part I think.

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The reason for all the hubbub was a clever little cult classic of a tie-in game from 2003, a PS2-era, GTA-lite sort of deal where you drove or ran around Springfield getting up to hijinks. I never played it myself, but some of my friends swear by Hit & Run. I think, for a certain band of zoomers and late millennials, it was a way of getting in on the GTA craze if your parents wouldn't let you touch the real deal, leading to lifelong loyalty and nostalgia. Jak 2 ticked that box for me.

Lanterns co-creators Damon Lindelof and Tom King say they made sure to depict Hal Jordan and John Stewart's comic book origins in a way that honors various Green Lantern comic book writers, rather than one that relies on fan service.

"It transcends the idea of doing fan service to say that there's certain aspects of the canon that are essential," Lindelof tells GamesRadar+, when it comes to deciding how to work Hal Jordan and John Stewart's various comic book origin stories into the new show. "And you have to kinda throw them in the blender when you're making your smoothie. But at the same time, when you drink the smoothie, you can add one flavor too many, and it becomes overwhelming, or two flavors aren't necessarily combining in a good way."

"So I think that you put everything out on the table and you say these are the things that make John Stewart a legacy character. These are the things that make Hal Jordan a legacy character," adds Lindelof. "These are different stories about how they got the ring. These are different stories about adventures that they went on as Green Lanterns. And, and then you educate yourself, and then you know it all. And then you kind of, like, have to put all of that stuff away and start over and say, 'What's the story that we wanna tell?'"

Lanterns is a True Detective-esque take on Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), who find themselves embroiled in a mystery set in rural Rushville, Nebraska. In the show, Hal is Earth's first Green Lantern (though technically Alan Scott was the first human to wear the Green Lantern moniker in the comics), though he wasn't chosen first (and we'll let you watch the show to learn more about that lest we spoil it). John Stewart is his trainee, and the two have a mutual respect but otherwise resentment toward one another. John's backstory has been retconned a few times throughout DC comic history, though the show honors his later origin story as a US Marine.

The series also works backwards, giving us Hal and Jordan's present-day dilemmas before going into how their partnership came to be, and effectively adapting the Green Lantern comic Beware My Power which introduced John to the world back in 1972.

"From a comic book nerd, which I say proudly, point of view, you know...two different characters have very different sort of comic book histories," King says. "Hal has been very consistent in his origin stories over, over the years since, like, the early '60s when he was born. Um, John has not been consistent, and sort of rewritten and redone and not just in this medium. You know, a lot of John's origin story comes from what Dwayne McDuffie did in the Justice League, in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon."

Continues King: "But if you look at it, look at it closely and go back to those origins, you see, like, John's first appearance with Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, there is that idea that he is chosen, and He will not accept the Lantern world that's given to him, and Hal is a little resentful of that and is rebellious against that. That's all in his first issue. And then if you look at what Dwayne did in the cartoon, that idea of sort of a military guy who's been under such pressure his whole life and has so much emotion that he has to sort of suppress, that's all in there. So it was bringing out the visions of those creators and bringing them into this world."

Lanterns is streaming now on HBO Max. For more, check out our Lanterns review, or stay up to date with our Lanterns release schedule. For more, check out our list of upcoming DC movies and shows.

When I first played Half-Life at the tender age of 11, I found it a terrifying experience. Admittedly, I was scared of pretty much everything at 11. Wasps, heights, loud noises, football (or more specifically, everyone finding out how bad I was at football). I was an anxious child all around. Hence, playing an interactive disaster movie filled with weird aliens was an intense experience and lashings of violence was an intense experience.

Now I'm rapidly approaching 40, the idea of Half-Life being in any way scary seems ridiculous, especially when you compare it to modern horror games and actual real-life terrors like tax returns. But there is one part of Half-Life that still frightens me, and it appears right at the start of the game. Midway through the introductory tram ride, five words and a number appear on the screen:

SUBJECT: Gordon Freeman. Male, Age 27.

Every time I see this caption, it seems wrong, like it must be a typo. Surely Gordon Freeman is older than 27. I mean look at this man. That’s a fella in his mid-thirties at the youngest.

To be clear, this isn't a notion I've developed recently. I've always believed this. I must have seen the caption countless times, but it never really sank in, because I was busy watching all the scenery and cool scripted sequences that you get during that tram ride.

Basically, Freeman's youthfulness weirds me out. It also led me to wonder: how old are all the other '90s FPS protagonists? Is DoomGuy actually DoomBoy? Is B.J. Blazkowicz short for 'Baby Junior Blazkowicz?'. Is Duke Nukem even allowed to enter a strip club?

Riddled with doubt, I decided to try to find out the age of as many '90s shooter heroes as I could. The answers proved pretty surprising, and in some cases, instructive about game design.

B.J Blazkowicz (Wolfenstein 3-D)

Let's start with an easy one. William Joseph Blazkowicz has surprisingly extensive lore for a video game character created in the eighties. According to the Wolfenstein Wiki, Blazkowicz was born on August 11, 1911. Canonically, the events of Wolfenstein 3-D take place in 1943, meaning that Blazkowicz is 32-33 when he takes down MechaHitler.

The Wiki also states that B.J. is canonically the grandfather of Commander Keen and an ancestor of DoomGuy, which is a fun bit of trivia.

Kyle Katarn (Star Wars: Dark Forces)

I'm gonna skip Doom and Duke for the moment and deal with another straightforward case. Kyle Katarn is the protagonist of Star Wars: Dark Forces and Star Wars: Jedi Knight—Dark Forces 2. (And also Jedi Outcast and, in a secondary role, Jedi Academy, but those are noughties games). Because Katarn is a Star Wars character, and because Star Wars fans are, shall we say, fastidious, it's straightforward enough to find out Katarn's age.

According to Wookiepedia, Katarn was born in 23 BBY (That's before the Battle of Yavin—the concluding act of the OG Star Wars—for non-Star Wars heads). Before Rogue One changed the canon, Katarn was the original thief of the Death Star plans which occurred in the same year as the Battle of Yavin. That makes him 23 at the outset of Dark Forces. He was 28 in Jedi Knight, and 35 in Jedi Outcast. Each of these facts is like a needle being pushed into my ageing body.

Cate Archer (The Operative: No One Lives Forever)

Strictly speaking, No One Lives Forever is a noughties shooter, releasing in 2000. But spiritually it is 100% a nineties FPS, and for that reason I'm going to include it.

Like Katarn, finding out Archer's age is easy enough, as Monolith gave her a detailed backstory. The NOLF Fandom Wiki says she was born in 1942. The events of the original NOLF take place in 1967, making her 25 when she becomes a superspy for UNITY. Like James Bond, Archer is apparently also natively Scottish, born in Glasgow.

Prisoner 426 (Unreal)

Another easy one, albeit for different reasons. Unreal's nameless protagonist is also an ageless protagonist. Since Unreal's player character can be customised both in character model and gender, Epic never specified an age for them either. In short, Prisoner 426 is as old as you want them to be (so for me, 57).

Caleb (Blood, Blood 2: The Chosen)

The age of Blood's revenant protagonist is somewhat dependent on perspective. According to the Blood wiki, Caleb was born in 1847 (in Texas, apparently). Since the events of Blood take place in 1928, this would make him a sprightly 81 years old by chronology.

However, Caleb is murdered by his demonic master Tchernobog at some point between 1871 and 1928, so biologically he's likely significantly younger than his chronological age. Amusingly, Blood 2 takes place in 2028, which means Caleb would be 181 years old during the events of that game.

DoomGuy: (Doom)

Here's where things start to get tricky. Unlike his (alleged) ancestor B.J. Blazkowicz, DoomGuy does not have a specified age. It's generally assumed he's somewhere in his mid-thirties—mainly because the face at the bottom of the screen looks like it's seen some shit.

But I took a punt and reached out to John Romero, Doom's co-creator, and asked him whether, either publicly or privately, id Software ever determined a specific age for DoomGuy?

Romero quickly got back to me with a reply. Unfortunately, it appears id never officially pinned it down. "No, we didn’t invent Doomguy’s age, or Ranger’s," Romero wrote in response. "I think it’s assumed they are mid-to-late 20s."

If you're wondering who the hell Ranger is, well, spoilers for the next entry.

Ranger (Quake, Quake 3)

As Romero mentions above, id Software never specified an age for Quake's protagonist as they didn't with Doom. That would seem to be the end of that rabbit hole. However, Ranger also appears in 1999's Quake 3 and 2022's Quake Champions.

Quake 3 isn't all that helpful in determining Ranger's age. But Quake Champions is. According to the lore added by QC, Ranger is actually a Vietnam veteran, having served in the US military up to 1975.

According to the Quake timeline, the events of Quake are concurrent with the game's release—1996, which means 21 years elapse between Ranger's return from Vietnam and the events of Quake.

Unfortunately, the timeline doesn't specify when Ranger signed up to fight, or how old he was when he did. But the youngest he could (legally) have been to sign up was 17. The US began active combat operations in 1965, so it's unlikely that he would have served before then, and the implication seems to be that Ranger did his tour(s) of 'Nam in the early '70s. Quake Champions also includes a photograph of Ranger and his family taken in 1978, in which he looks to be in his mid-to-late twenties—though he could be older.

All of which suggests that Ranger is either a mid fortysomething or an early fiftysomething during the events of Quake, which would make him the oldest still-living protagonist on this list.

Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem 3D)

I've saved the most interesting case until last. There are a couple of ages banded about for Duke Nukem online. But most of those are for Duke Nukem Forever, and they suggest he's somewhere between 45 and 47 during the events of that game. The source for those isn't clear, however, and in any case, we really want the age Duke was during the events of Duke Nukem 3D.

To try to pin it down, I sent an email to Scott Miller, the founder of Apogee Software (later 3D Realms) the developer of Duke Nukem's 3D. He quickly responded with this:

"When I and Todd Replogle first came up with the Duke Nukem character, there were two things I decided to never reveal: what year the game took place in, and how old Duke was," Miller wrote. "I never wanted to say, for example, that the game took place in 2004, because whenever you nail down a date it often comes back to haunt you when you pass that calendar date in real life (eg. 2001: A Space Odyssey).

"So never in the Duke storyverse is a date mentioned. As for his age it was the same thinking—if we had mentioned his age in a game, would we need to keep aging him for every succeeding game? So, I just wanted to fully avoid these issues. But, in my mind, Duke was in his mid-30s".

In short, Duke is forever a man in his prime, which is only fitting for the character.