A meeting was held in Colombo where Ali Kebriazadeh, Cultural Attaché of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Kehan De Silva, President of the National Television Corporation of Sri Lanka, discussed opportunities to deepen media and cultural interaction between the two countries.
Discussions focused on presenting contemporary Iranian culture through formats such as documentaries, feature films, animation projects, children's programs, and educational content. According to the Islamic Organization for Culture and Relations, both sides agreed to take practical steps to implement future joint projects through designated representatives.
During the meeting, De Silva emphasized the long-standing and friendly relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Sri Lanka, recalling the historical foundations of friendship between the peoples of these states. He characterized the Iranian film industry as highly developed, technically advanced, and distinguished by strong ethical and humanistic values, noting that these qualities contributed to the popularity of Iranian films among Sri Lankan audiences.
De Silva also stated that national television had valuable and productive experience cooperating with the Cultural Consulate of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and expressed a desire to continue and strengthen this partnership.
For his part, Kebriazadeh praised the hospitality, kindness, and warm attitude of the Sri Lankan people towards the Iranian people. He pointed to significant potential for expanding cultural and media cooperation and noted the growing interest among scholars and the general public of Sri Lanka in a deeper study of Iranian history, culture, scientific achievements, and civilization.
He reported that in response to this interest, the Cultural Consulate is ready to provide the National Television Corporation of Sri Lanka with a wide range of audiovisual materials, including documentaries introducing modern Iranian social life, culture, science, technology, and innovation. Kebriazadeh also mentioned the possibility of joint work on showcasing traditional and classical Iranian music, as well as screening Iranian feature films, animated works, and educational programs for children and youth.
At the conclusion of the meeting, both sides stressed the need to move from general discussions to practical and effective cooperation. It was decided that representatives from both sides would maintain regular contact and monitor the implementation of agreed initiatives for the timely development of future joint media and cultural projects.
The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is anticipated as a major entertainment event, despite controversies related to high cost and the distribution of physical versions containing only codes. However, what truly captures attention is the evolution of the franchise's premise, transforming what was once revolutionary into a consolidated genre.
Today, it is common to have the freedom to drive a virtual vehicle, traffic on sidewalks, evade the police, and cause destruction in a three-dimensional metropolis. Nevertheless, in the late 90s, the idea of driving like an unstoppable individual in an open virtual environment was unprecedented and generated great debate among young people.
The path that led to the billion-dollar phenomenon of GTA VI did not begin with a major Rockstar production, but rather on the virtual streets of Chicago, in a lesser-known PC title released in 1999: Midtown Madness.
During that period, for many PlayStation players, the peak of virtual racing was represented by Sony's Gran Turismo. This title was considered the pinnacle of light simulation (or simcade), offering a technical balance with mass transfer and the need to choose the ideal route, without being excessively punitive for those using only a joystick.
This perception was challenged by a cousin who showed him a game called Midtown, played on a friend's computer. The description was fantastic: there were no defined tracks or invisible barriers; it was possible to explore the entire city, invade sidewalks watching pedestrians jump to escape, and accelerate in a fast vehicle, like the Panoz Roadster, nicknamed 'little buggy.'
Although it is fun today to notice the difference between Gran Turismo and Midtown Madness—a closed-circuit racing game with advanced physics versus a more relaxed arcade sandbox—for young people of that time, both were seen as mere 'car games.' The prospect of an unrestricted open city seemed like a significant advance in terms of immersion.
Years later, it was confirmed that the cousin's account was true: the game was revolutionary and contained the technology capable of permanently altering the history of video games.
To understand this transformation, it is useful to define what a game engine is. It can be thought of as the chassis, engine, and electrical system of a car, while the game itself represents the bodywork and paint. The engine is the set of fundamental tools that manage aspects invisible to the player, such as gravity, collision physics, lighting calculation, and artificial intelligence.
It was this modular structure that allowed Angel Studios to achieve something remarkable at the time: using the same base technology, called ARTS (Angel Real Time Simulation) and later AGE (Angel Game Engine), to develop titles of opposite natures. In 1998, Angel Studios released the acclaimed Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr. for the Nintendo 64, and a year later, in 1999, released Midtown Madness for PC.
The ability of a single engine to support a baseball game on the N64 and an urban racing game on PC lay in the engine's core mathematics: the calculation of three-dimensional trajectories, real-time impact physics (whether a bat hitting a ball or a truck hitting a traffic light), and 3D scene rendering. Angel Studios specialized in real-time simulation, and AGE possessed the necessary flexibility to be applied to both batters in the stadium and the busy traffic of Chicago.
Released in May 1999 by Angel Studios and distributed by Microsoft, Midtown Madness presented a 3D representation of Chicago, including landmarks such as the Willis Tower (then known as Sears Tower), Wrigley Field and Soldier Field stadiums, and the elevated subway. The striking difference was the destructive physics: elements such as parking meters, trash cans, fire hydrants, mailboxes, and traffic lights were thrown upon every collision.
The game offered four distinct modes: Cruise, for free exploration without time limits or opponents; Blitz, a timed race to pass through checkpoints; Circuit, the traditional format with barriers isolating sections of the city; and Checkpoint, the core of the game, where a race from point A to point B was conducted without predefined routes. Although regular traffic obeyed traffic lights, the player could cross sidewalks, parks, and alleys to win.
The garage featured everything from iconic sports cars, such as the Panoz Roadster and Ford Mustang, to unusual vehicles, such as Ford F-350 pickups, Volkswagen New Beetles, Freightliner trucks, and a public transport bus. Driving a huge bus in the middle of urban traffic was the height of arcade chaos. In multiplayer mode, accessible via MSN Gaming Zone, GameSpy, and XFire, the highlight was the Cops and Robbers mode, a 'capture the flag' variant where teams competed for gold bars in the streets.
Upon reaching stores in 1999, Midtown Madness received praise from specialized press. IGN highlighted its accessibility, mentioning that the title 'does not heavily rely on driving realism; it's all about fun,' and praised the simplicity of 'choosing a real car and starting to drive.' GameSpot captured the spirit of the time by stating that it was fantastic 'to drive like a maniac knowing you can't do that in real life.' Computer and Video Games (CVG) magazine celebrated the drivers' humor and the 'carnage unfolding before your windshield,' while PC Gamer considered it the best racing game of 1999 for creating 'a living 3D city and allowing you to destroy it.' Thus, the type of scenery that is basic in GTA today was seen as extraordinary.
The sound aspect was also praised: each vehicle had its own engine sounds (including the characteristic reverse beep of the bus), and drivers and pedestrians uttered insults in real time when overtaken.
However, there were criticisms. Portals like Total Video Games and GameSpot itself pointed out issues with unstable frame rates and jagged visuals on PCs without dedicated graphics cards. The artificial intelligence of the traffic cars was also questioned for being 'too loose,' leading common vehicles to cut corners and collide with the player without showing any reaction.
Despite this, the game sold over 100,000 copies in the United States alone by April 2000, proving the public demand for open urban environments.
The greatest innovation of Midtown Madness, set amidst pedestrian insults and widespread destruction, arose from an internal requirement of Microsoft: players should not run over pedestrians, preventing severe age ratings or controversies about road violence. Instead of removing people from the map, Angel Studios developed 3D pedestrian models equipped with reactive evasion AI.
Next Generation Magazine praised the 'pedestrians shrinking and jumping in panic when you invade the sidewalks.' When a vehicle sped up on the sidewalk, the NPCs calculated the car's trajectory and jumped sideways to protect themselves. This system gave the city an unprecedented sense of life and established the model for how virtual citizens would react in future open-world games.
While Midtown Madness demonstrated the potential of a vibrant 3D city in 1999, the Grand Theft Auto franchise was still in its early 2D top-down phase. Playing GTA 1 or GTA 2 today requires the player to change their mindset, similar to appreciating a classic 2D turn-based RPG (like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI) in the era of photorealistic graphics. Expecting a modern cinematic experience in these old titles can be jarring, but by adjusting expectations to the proposal of the time, one discovers pure, addictive, and extremely fun arcade gameplay.
The big turning point came in 2001, when Rockstar historically migrated to 3D with GTA III. However, contrary to what many assume, the famous RAGE engine did not exist at that time. GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas used a third-party engine called RenderWare, developed by Criterion Games.
The transition from the Angel Game Engine to Rockstar's proprietary engine constitutes one of the most interesting business transactions in gaming history. It all began in 1999, when Rockstar observed the success of Midtown Madness and realized that Angel Studios held the necessary technology to bring urban racing to consoles.
The collaboration was swift: Rockstar hired the studio to create a street racing game for the newly announced PlayStation 2, giving birth to Midnight Club: Street Racing (2000). Using the AGE base from Midtown, Midnight Club served as an ideal laboratory, proving that the engine worked on consoles and mastered high-speed vehicle physics in 3D open metropolises.
Impressed by the success of the Midnight Club franchise and the team's talent, Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar's parent company) invested about $28 million in November 2002 to definitively acquire Angel Studios, renaming the studio Rockstar San Diego.
However, the inflection point that forced the creation of a proprietary engine would occur two years later. In 2004, the giant Electronic Arts (EA), Rockstar's main market rival, acquired Criterion Games. Rockstar found itself in a delicate strategic situation: depending on technology maintained by its biggest competitor to develop its most popular franchise represented an unacceptable risk.
The solution found was to seek technological autonomy internally. Within Rockstar San Diego, the RAGE Technology Group division was established. The goal of this team was ambitious: to take the original source code of the old AGE, which powered the traffic in Midtown Madness and the races in Midnight Club, and completely rewrite it for the PC architecture and the seventh generation of consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3), naming the new tool RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine).
The RAGE engine was presented in May 2006 in the game Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Xbox 360), a table tennis project intentionally used as a controlled test before facing open maps. Subsequently, Rockstar incorporated two auxiliary physics engines into RAGE: Bullet (for collisions) and Euphoria (for biomechanical simulation of characters' muscles and weight).
Lamborghini has launched the Revuelto Miura 60° Homage, a special edition limited to only 99 units, created to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Miura, a vehicle considered the first supercar in history, launched in 1966.
This new model made its world debut at the Lamborghini Lounge Monterey, during the Monterey Car Week held in California. The original Miura became famous for establishing the formula that would define the automotive segment: a V12 engine positioned centrally at the rear, behind the seats.
In its most powerful version, the original Miura generated 385 hp and could exceed 290 km/h, figures remarkable for the time and which greatly influenced subsequent high-performance sports cars.
The homage was conceived by the Ad Personam customization program, in collaboration with Lamborghini Centro Stile. It is important to note that this special series does not feature mechanical modifications; it is an aesthetic application on the Revuelto, the manufacturer's current top-of-the-line V12 model.
A distinctive feature of the Miura was its two-tone design, where the lower section had a contrasting color, and this solution inspires the two available paint options. The Oro Elios configuration combines a gold stripe with Altanero Shiny Gold wheels, while the Grigio Nimbus replaces the gold with silver and uses Altanero Matt Titanium Diamond wheels.
Furthermore, nine shades inspired by the palette used on the Miura during the 1960s are available: Rosso Arancio, Arancio, Giallo, Verde Scandal, Verde Metallic, Blu Tahiti, Blu Notte, Nero Noctis, and Bianco Monocerus. On the side of the vehicle, above the inscription 'Revuelto', the 'Miura 60' emblem is displayed. The brakes and the rear emblem are glossy black, and the exhaust tips feature a matte black finish.
Regarding the interior, the Classica Trim finish recreates the 'cannelloni' pattern present on the 1966 model's upholstery. This pattern is applied to the leather of the center tunnel, the door panels, and the divider separating the cabin from the engine compartment. Each unit features a 'Miura 60' embroidery between the seats and receives a carbon fiber plaque on the driver's side engraved with 'Miura 60° – Serie Speciale 1 di 99'. Customers who own original Mius have the option to contact Ad Personam to replicate the exact color of their vehicles.
In terms of performance, the Revuelto significantly surpasses its predecessor. It combines a 6.5L naturally aspirated V12 engine with three electric motors, totaling 1,015 hp. Acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h is achieved in 2.5 seconds, and the top speed can exceed 350 km/h. The price of this special series has not been disclosed.
For Xbox universe enthusiasts looking to add quality titles to their collection, this moment presents good opportunities. Three game offers available for Xbox One and Xbox Series X have been gathered, ranging from traditional adventures to established franchises.
Among the highlights is Halo Infinite for Xbox One and Xbox Series X, from Microsoft, which offers a grand campaign, a solid multiplayer mode, and compatibility with both platforms. This package also comes with an exclusive themed deck, making it ideal for both series admirers and collectors.
Other options include Lego Movie The Videogame, based on the animated film released in 2014. This game appealed to audiences of all ages due to its fun and humorous gameplay, making it perfect for family sessions on Xbox One.
Additionally, the Lego Harry Potter Collection consolidates the two games from the series—Years 1 to 4 and Years 5 to 7—into a single package for Xbox One. It allows players to go through the entire saga of the world's most famous wizard in Lego style, making it recommended for those who appreciate puzzles and the world of Hogwarts.
Due to the current promotions, stock of these games may decrease rapidly. It is recommended to secure the titles of interest before they run out, by checking availability directly on Amazon through the provided links.
