An idea - New GTA vehicles

Image is my own taken from GTA Online



Hello you! The name is Luca, but you can call me Luca. So it's a safe bet knowing how often I talk about GTA Online, I had been thinking long and hard about what to write before this article and that's why I wrote about The Accountant (Along with the fact I wanted to).

As you can tell, I love my cars and as I have spoke at length before, I have favourites. If you remember back to my Top 5 Favourite vehicles in GTA Online, all of them are in the picture you see there along with my five other vehicles in the same garage. Overall, I have calculated how much I spent buying those vehicles before even upgrading them, it's over $10,000,000 in game!

But of course, that is never enough isn't it? I mean, I have six other properties in GTA that can hold up to 10 vehicles. Those being for just vehicles that are either available now or will be in the next few months, but if we look further into the future, what can we expect? This article will be me proposing ideas for new cars either to be introduced in GTA Online or the next online GTA game.

Overall, after my last purely dedicated article talking about my idea for what I would have named the HVY Stealth, based on the Batmobile Tumbler from The Dark Knight trilogy (Link here - https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/an-idea-gta-online-batmobile.html), I wrote it because I wanted to get the idea in the head of Rockstar. I even had a dream the other night that the Stealth was added in a military update and I saw my friend driving it.

But I digress, this article is a pitch for a shit tonne of other vehicles I'd love to see in the game. This includes their real life counterpart, their GTA name, their ideal performance, the class they go in and other details such as design, price, engine sound etc.



Image courtesy of www.moibbik.com

Benefactor Prestige (Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren)

This car has always been a vehicle I'd love to see in GTA. The name Benefactor Prestige comes from the supposed name of the car that later would go on to be the Benefactor Stirling GT, even though that the SLR in real life is a joint effort of both Mercedes and McLaren, so logic would dictate that the Prestige would be a Benefactor and a Progen. I just think Benefactor Prestige sounds better than Progen Prestige or Benefactor Progen Prestige and so on.

The Prestige would be placed in the Supers class and performance wise, it would have the similar sort of statistics to an Overflod Entity XF in that it would have a lot of traction but it would have slightly less power. Price wise, Rockstar do look to get as many people buying Shark Cards so my price for the Prestige would be $1,200,000. If you're not into GTA, I'll put that into perspective, because the Progen T20 is $2,200,000 and even the Pegassi Reaper is $1,595,000.

Last but not least detail, engine sound. Most Benefactor cars in GTA Online have an incredible sounding engine, such as the expanding range for the Schafter - which is a four door executive sedan - has an incredible soundtrack. Unless I say otherwise, most of the vehicles I suggest will share their engine sound with an already existing vehicle in the game, so if any of you who play GTA want to go have an early preview of my concepts, feel free to do so with the Prestige by going to find a Benefactor Schwartzer, which has an amazing engine sound and I feel it will suit the Prestige.

Before I end this off and move onto another vehicle idea, it would probably be a good idea to give the Prestige its own description. For pretty much all vehicles on their respective websites where you can purchase them, they have their own description and some even allude to something worth mocking in relation to the vehicle. You may remember from my HVY Stealth article that I did one for that as well, alluding to the history of its real life counterpart in relation to Batman. So here goes my attempt at a description for the Benefactor Prestige.

"Brits and Germans working together, what could possibly go wrong? With Progen assisting with the development of this car, the Benefactor Prestige is the vehicle of choice if you want to lope from coast to coast multiple times in the fastest and most comfortable way imaginable, and break lap record after lap record on multiple road courses. The ultimate example of a grand tourer and sports car rolled into one incredible machine."

Image courtesy of www.roadandtrack.com

Lampadati Maestro (Alfa Romeo Disco Volante by Touring)
 
I've been falling in love with this car as of recent, the idea of a drop-top Italian sports Grand Tourer with an amazing engine is something that really appeals to me. The Disco Volante is a coach built car made by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, and is based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.

For the in game equivalent, Lampadati (Which is Maserati's GTA equivalent) would be the manufacturer to house what I've dubbed the Maestro, and it would come as a drop top model. The Spyder model of the Disco Volante that you see in this picture, has a roof that you have to put on and remove by getting out the car and clipping it into or out of place. On GTA, a car like that would require you to go to a mod shop and get rid of the roof or get it back, such examples include the Pfister 811.

On the contrary, there are cars that you can just touch a button and the roof folds away and that is the method I would adopt with the Maestro. Oh and before you comment saying "Then how is it based on the Disco Volante if it doesn't include the same roof system?", may I ask how the Progen T20 is a McLaren P1 if the T20 is All-Wheel Drive and the P1 is Rear-Wheel Drive?

I was inspired by the McLaren 650S Spider's folding roof mechanism, which I felt that after seeing the Disco Volante Spyder's rear end, that same system would work beautifully on the Maestro. I know that when a fictional vehicle is brought into GTA that is based on a real world car, they have to borrow elements from other cars so they don't get sued.

An example of this is the Vapid FMJ which is for the most part is a 2017 Ford GT, but with the front end that borrows heavily from the Aston Martin Vulcan. I ask that keep the rear end of the Disco Volante Spyder for the Maestro, gently rework the front to keep as much of it as possible because this car is visual perfection.

Performance wise, the Maestro would not be particularly sharp and I reckon it would feel quite heavy to drive, not too heavy like a wide body Cadillac but not dart-like and sharp like a Grotti Cheetah. A car like the Maestro would in my opinion, be better off if it handled with a bit of body roll since it is meant to be more of a consistent ground eloper and not a sporty machine.

Relatively powerful, but its party piece is the noise, which I have decided that it will be the same as the Invetero Coquette BlackFin. Which if you read my Top 5 Favourite Vehicles in GTA Online article, you will note that I said that the BlackFin has one of the best engine sounds in the game, and when you lift the throttle off in that thing, it sounds incredible.

Final few things before the description on the in-game website, I am thinking that the Maestro would either go in the Sports or Coupe class, leaning more towards Sports and it would probably join the Ocelot Lynx as an overpriced and uncompetitive car within the class. I say that because the Lynx is based on the Jaguar F-Type and for some reason, costs $1,735,000 and honestly, as contradictory as it may be considering the price I have in mind for the Maestro, the Lynx is not worth that.

However the price I have in mind for the Maestro, I have it higher than that because the car within the context of the GTA world is also a coach building company's exclusive and very rare car, so its cost would be incredible. I would price the Lampadati Maestro at an incredible $2,375,000, which does make it quite expensive of course but it wouldn't be a car you would get for the speed of it, more the desirability of a vehicle like this would make you think about buying it.

Now for the description of the Lampadati Maestro.

"Purpose built by leading coach builders in Italy, the Maestro is priced just right for the kind of person who spends all their energy with underwear models in a pool and needs a quick but relaxing ride home before their wife gets suspicious. Complete with a roof that will fold up and down at will, so the ladies can have a glance at your unappealing fupa. One of only three in the world; you, the Sultan of Brunei and some drug guy."

Before you write in to complain, just log onto GTA and have a look at the descriptions for some of the cars, they're even more in depth than that!



Image courtesy of www.newsautospeed.com

Truffade Python (Bugatti 16C Galibier)

Here we have the cousin of the Veyron, or the Adder in GTA. Of course we know the Adder to be one of the more well known vehicles in GTA, since how popular the Veyron is among car enthusiasts. After a year of GTA Online, the Adder was ranked third in most bought vehicles in the game and only ranked behind the two big DLC cars of 2014, the Grotti Turismo R and the Pegassi Zentorno, which considering the Adder's lack of exposure since it was available from day one of the game, speaks volumes as to how popular the car really is.

Performance wise though, the Adder is only good in races if you're in a race with mainly long straights. It is quite heavy in the corners and as a result, not on the pace of the top level peers of the Supers class. Yet still despite all this as I have already said, the Adder is still one of the most popular cars in the game and I feel having a four door version would be something that a lot of people would want.

Ideas I have had for introducing the Python has been mainly through a possible update that would open up the casino in GTA that many people have been wanting to see for a long time. The Python would only be able to be bought there, for the equivalent of $1,500,000 or 750,000 Casino chips, or you could be tempted to win it for free if the odds were in your favour, but knowing Rockstar they'd make the odds of winning less greater than getting a supply drop on Call Of Duty with one of the newer weapons.

I doubt the casino will ever open in GTA but if they do, the Python will be incentive enough for people to at least enter the building. If you want an example of how introducing a vehicle only by doing a particular task really does work, look at the most recent example with the Shotaro motorcycle that was inspired by Tron, the only way you can unlock that is by playing Deadline and it's fun as hell! I probably would not have bothered with Deadline had the Shotaro been available to buy without the need to play it.

Getting back on topic, we are talking about the Python and as far as performance goes, pretty much the same as the Adder. Only a tiny bit behind with top speed and the same characteristics in the corners only a tiny bit heavier, and shares the same engine sound since it pretty much in many ways, is the same car.

That being said, I am very disappointed with the Adder's colour scheme since the primary colour takes up all of the car except two stripes and the spoiler. So if the Python had to differ in any way from the Adder other than the fact that it has four doors and its engine in front rather than behind the driver, it would be how much of the car the secondary colour takes up, hopefully it is a lot more like the Veyron and Galibier in real life.

Although I did dream up the idea of the Python having the same rear seat interior as a Swift Deluxe or other Yacht exclusive helicopters, with a TV in the middle on the divider between the front and rear seats with champagne and some glasses as well. In hindsight, I am not sure if I would insist on this part, the divider from the Enus Cognoscenti would do just fine.

So the main selling point of this car, it would be the first car in the Supers class that would be able to ferry around four people. It unfortunately won't be the quickest lap time wise since the fastest four seater in GTA is the Benefactor Schafter V12, which is actually quicker around Broughy1322's testing track than the Adder and the Python will already be slower than the Adder.

How did I come to getting the name Python? Well you've obviously noticed a link between the fact that Adder and Python are both snakes so that makes sense. Initially, a friend of mine who funnily enough used to go by the online name Carbon Viper, suggested Python and I liked it at first but I did some more digging, and I found out that the Python is the second largest snake on the planet. The first is the Anaconda, but that name has become tainted for me after Nicki Minge ruined it.

So Python I feel is a very suitable name considering the Truffade Python is bigger than the Truffade Adder and the Python being one of the biggest snakes in existence, means it really is very appropriate. I might be factually wrong so if anyone can correct me, please do so.

Now is where I would put the description for the vehicle, but whether we would see this would depend on if the car would be sold on an in-game website or if they would put a model in the casino. So here goes nothing.

"Truffade are expanding their range to now cater for the type of people who need to get to places in a hurry but don't have the time to drive. Now you can ferry around three unfortunate peasants and flash your metaphorical wiener for them to see, all the while beating the environment into submission with every mile a minute you cover".



Image courtesy of www.bobpetersenengineering.co.uk

Buckingham Merlin (Petersen Meteor 27 litre)

Anyone remember that car from the 'Before shit' Top Gear that has the engine from a Spitfire? Before I do go on, I want to thank Bob Petersen Engineering for getting back to me, telling me the official name of this wonderful creation.

Ever since seeing this on Top Gear, I have been thinking that this would be a car that would turn some heads in the GTA world. For so long I had the Buckingham Merlin down as an Enus (Which is the GTA world's Rolls Royce, Bentley and Maybach) since the Spitfire and Meteor engine used in this vehicle was developed by Rolls Royce and the car itself is based off of a Blower Bentley.

So what made me decide to make into a Buckingham? A brand in GTA that specialises in air vehicles like the Luxor and the Swift. Well if you head to the Bob Mulét barber shop, you'll find a car showroom nearby that has the Pegassi, Pfister, Enus and Grotti logos on their windows but you will also find Buckingham, what?! Why would an air vehicle company have their name and logo on a dealership and be sharing them with highly prestigious car brands? So I thought it would be appropriate that an air vehicle brand would have their first car be very much related to air vehicles.

As for the Merlin part, that comes from the fact that engines from the Spitfire and Meteor are Rolls Royce Merlin engines. I even considered the Buckingham Chap at some point since chap is both a term to refer to someone in old England, and is also a synonym for penis.

It would keep those links to the RAF with a few livery options such as the kind that we see on this Morgan 3-Wheeler (Link to image here - http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/800x450/format/jpg/quality/85/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2011/03/morgan-threewheeler-geneva.jpg). Whilst we are on the subject of the Morgan 3-Wheeler, I'd also bring over some design elements from that with the chrome bars on the back and the exposed intercooler like on the Petersen Meteor.

The Buckingham Merlin would be on the Sports Classics class and have a very high top speed, but would be very heavy and cumbersome when going round corners, mainly understeering when entering the corner. Another characteristic it would have is that when you hit the pedal, it will be prone to spin its wheels a lot and oversteer on the exit of corners, making it a tricky bugger to drive so it would be by no means, the fastest in the Sports Classics around a track but one that will be very rewarding to drive. As for engine sound, I am leaning more towards it sharing its engine sound with the Dewbauchee JB 700, though I am considering also the Stirling GT, Z-Type and Casco engine sounds as well.

So how much for the Buckingham Merlin? After careful consideration, I decided that this vehicle would cost $1,050,000 since I don't expect many people will go out of their way to buy it like they would a typical high end Supers or Sports vehicle. Now for the description of the Buckingham Merlin.

"The powerful image of aerial combat and seeing the blue flames from your fighter bomber's engine in the twilight above Dover, you can now conjure that with this limited edition special vehicle, based off of the 1920's Enus endurance grand prix cars that rocketed the brand to early success. Buckingham commissioned this vehicle with the same engine that took young chaps over the skies of the channel."

Image courtesy of www.autosport.com

Grotti X1 (Formula One car)

I got the idea for an F1 car in GTA after I saw that there was one in Just Cause 3 called the Mugello Farina Duo. It would be one you would buy and store in your garage as appose to calling up Pegasus in order to use it, and you can upgrade it both looks and performance wise.

It would have a default primary and secondary colour so you can have a colour scheme of whatever you wanted, if you for example wanted to drive with the colour scheme of an in-game brand and make your crew logo the same as the in-game brand you want to drive for. I say all of this knowing this will hit a chord with both Broughy1322's Nonchalant Dominance community and GuN1t123's Sweatbuckets community, as they will want to take advantage of this and have their own F1 championships. Sweatbuckets did have a sort of F1 championship but they used the Grotti Turismo R, so really it isn't F1 and should have been called the Grotti Turismo R Challenge.

Back on topic here, another element about this car would be it would introduce a new class system to the game. When the July 2016 Cunning Stunts update was released, three new Supers class cars were introduced which were the Annis RE-7B, the Progen Tyrus and the Emperor ETR-1, which were incredibly overpowered. Broughy1322's tests showed that with the aftermarket spoilers around his Cutting Coroners GP track, the RE-7B lapped it in 57.7 seconds, the ETR-1 did it in 59.1 and the Tyrus did it in 59.3.

In comparison to the majority of the other Supers, the Grotti X80 Proto did 1:01.2 and the Progen T20 did 1:01.9 so the gaps were huge even on Broughy's small city test track. Another prominent GTA racer PeeCarNoo did some tests on a much larger track with a mountain road on the track and the RE-7B was seven seconds quicker than the T20, and this was a huge unbalance in the Supers class and as a result, the Bikers update nerfed the Cunning Stunts Supers and as a result, they are more on the pace of the other Supers.

To prevent the need for doing that with the X1, it will be placed in a new class called Formula which I believe would not be too difficult to implement. The reason why the RE-7B, Tyrus and ETR-1 were so OP to begin with was because unlike pretty much all the other cars in the game, the spoilers didn't add traction but instead the cars had something called a Downforce Multiplier, I won't explain what it is, but it would be necessary on the X1. It would also be the second car in the game after the Karin Sultan RS to have Super Transmission for an upgrade, which I've noticed makes the shifts from gear to gear seamless.

The tyres on the X1 would have writing on the side saying 'Atomic' and 'Corsa', with lines running on the side of the wheels inbetween, and you can change the colours of the writing and lines by having a selection of 'Accent Colours' like you have on the X80 Proto. You wouldn't be able to have any other kind of wheel on the X1, and the wheel options would only have bulletproof enhancements and the tyre smoke option.

Another customisable option could be a race number to have on it, and you can pick numbers that appear on the front of the car among other places which will appear in the primary colour if the number itself is on a part of the car where its the secondary colour, and the other way round as well but if both primary and secondary colours are the same colour, the number would come up in black. As for the number itself, it would be any one between 1 and 99, you can pick when in the mod shop.

What about also a feature that could be quite cool, your own name on the back of the rear wing? Same colouring technique as used on the number and it would be either your Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Social Club name depending obviously on what platform you're on. This being a feature that was used back when FIA Formula Two still raced. Either this or the name on the sidepods of the car, which was used last in F1 when the HRT team utilised this back in 2010.

Does anyone remember the Kinetic Energy Recovery System that was popularised by F1 and was brought into GTA via the Principe Lectro and Dinka Vindicator? Or 'NOS' as morons who don't want to know any better call it. I plan on the X1 also having KERS, and since Rockstar implemented the content creator so now race creations can now allow vehicles with boost systems such as KERS, and since the X1 will be the sole vehicle in its class, it could make for some interesting racing.

What about price? I have the X1 at $2,850,000 which would make it the most expensive non-weaponised car in the game beating out the X80 Proto by $150,000 but it would make sense considering the money that is thrown around in F1. Oh and as far as engine sound goes, the X1 will have a unique engine sound. Now for the description for the Grotti X1.

"For the inner Middle Eastern oil billionaire in all of us, exclusively for our best (Well.. richest) drivers. Whilst not exactly road legal, we know it won't stop any of you, since nobody who has the money to purchase one of these has a clean criminal record or a clear conscience. Exactly the same as the car that took Claude Speed, Jr. to ten victories this season including on the streets of Los Santos in the LS Grand Prix."

Image courtesy of www.motorstown.com

Ubermacht Morpheus (Veritas RS III)

The 'Caterham that is alright to be seen in' according to Richard Hammond, there's no doubting that the Veritas is striking to look at. The image you see, the Veritas' second seat is folded away but the Morpheus will have two seats, with butterfly doors, encompassing a sleek speedster and roofless design.

So the Morpheus would be in the Supers class and be very pointy and agile like the Grotti Cheetah and Grotti Turismo R, but it would not have plenty of power so it has some balance, and would make up the bottom pile of the competitive group of Supers alongside cars like the Reaper. It would also share its engine sound with the Bravado Verlierer, which has a very crisp and yet also rough sounding engine.

I am struggling with what to say about the Morpheus but I guess I should talk about why I decided on its brand and the reason why it got called what it is. So Ubermacht is the in-game equivalent of BMW, and the Veritas in real life uses BMW engines, I say plural because the concept had a 6.0-litre V12 that BMW supplied, then the models that were released apparently included the 4.0-litre V8 from an M3 and the 5.0-litre V10 from an M5.

The Morpheus part, well we know him to be the Ancient Greek god of dreams (Thanks Wikipedia!) but the idea to name this car Morpheus came from the VIP Work mission Sightseer, where you have to hack into something in order to find some packages. One of the three times you have to hack, you have to line up letters to make an eight letter word and one of those words is Morpheus, another example is Sentinel which funnily enough is also an Ubermacht vehicle in the game.

As far as price goes, I am thinking $845,000 since it isn't a traditional supercar. I can't think of a good description and I realise I have been going on with the amount of cars on this list, sorry if I haven't made this interesting. I do try, believe me.

Image courtesy of www.topspeed.com

Progen Tomahawk (Ariel Atom V8)

A very popular choice I reckon. The Atom is very well known because of the test on Top Gear in which Jeremy Clarkson's face, well that Atom had the engine from a Honda Civic whereas this one is a V8. To be more specific, two 1.5-litre 4 cylinder engines from a Honda motorcycle, welded together which produces an incredible power output of 500 horsepower, which in a car that weighs nearly half a tonne, means it has twice the horsepower per kilogram as a Bugatti Veyron.

So how did I come to the idea of naming it the Progen Tomahawk? Well Progen is McLaren in GTA as we already know, which since Ariel doesn't have a GTA version, I feel there is a lot of links with Progen that would make it appropriate. McLaren and Ariel are both British car brands, which whilst they don't directly involve themselves with each other, we see cars in GTA that are meant to be Fiat and Smart, fall under the Grotti (Ferrari) and Benefactor (Mercedes-Benz) brands, because of the fact those real life brands have a link. So whilst Ariel doesn't have any direct ties with McLaren, the fact they're both high performance British brands is enough.

Another link would be the fact that the Atom has a Honda engine, and in real life, McLaren and Honda are in partnership with the McLaren F1 team using Honda power units, so Progen could be said to use an engine from a Dinka (Honda's GTA equivalent) motorcycle for the Tomahawk. Now I should probably say why I have named it the Tomahawk.

If anyone plays Gran Turismo 6, the Vision GT concept that SRT introduced called the Tomahawk, a car which unfortunately, I never got to play because my PS3 would not update GT6.. oh well. But the Tomahawk took over the mantle of most OP car in Gran Turismo from the Red Bull X cars, with a power output of 2,590 horsepower and a top speed of over 400 miles per hour! Utterly incredible. After hearing that, I decided that Tomahawk was a bad arse name plus it's fitting considering how the actual axe tomahawk is a very light weight but effective weapon.

Visual customisation would be kept to a minimum since the Atom has very little in the way of bodywork, the Progen Tomahawk would have an option to put on its front wing that you see on the V8 Atom but not on the other Atom we saw on Top Gear. The same would go for the spoiler, which will add traction like the vast majority of other spoilers in the game. Colour scheme would be kept to a minimum, with the primary colour where you see the black on the Atom in the picture I have presented, and secondary colour where the red is. The rest of the body will be in typical alloy colour where the gold is in the picture.

I am not sure whether to put the Progen Tomahawk in the Supers or Sports class, leaning more towards Supers but either way, I am thinking pricing it at a very hefty $750,000. A mere bargain compared to its peers though, which would make sense considering these lightweight British sports cars do cost a lot less than the big budget supercars. Since it is Rockstar though, they will probably price this in the million dollar area, I'd hope not though. Now for the description of the car on the website.

"Built in a shed by a man whose wife will leave him once the bank asks him to sell the house in order to pay for further investments. Progen took the concept and in partnership with Dinka's motorcycle engine development, the Tomahawk will turn your face inside out with its incredible power and lack of a windscreen. Probably best to put a helmet on, or at the very least, some goggles."

If I have some more, I will make another article later on down the line. I want to wrap this up right now because it's my birthday tomorrow (27th November) and I want to see what people think of the vehicles I have on this list. These ones are pretty much the necessities, and for you GTA heads out there, tell me what you think and what you would change.

Alright! That will do everyone. Hope you enjoyed what I had to say, hopefully these ideas do get to Rockstar. Doubt they will but I did once tweet out after watching the episode of Top Gear with the Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG 6x6 something along the lines of "They need to put that car in GTA" and what happened? The I Am Not A Hipster update introduced the Benefactor Dubsta 6x6. It can happen, and hopefully all of these will.

If you haven't already, look for the 'Follow By Email' option if you're on the desktop version of this site. Put your email in there if you want my articles sent directly to you when they're published, or you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. Thank you for reading and I'll see you all soon!

Until we meet again,
Luca.

The Accountant - Potential franchise

Image courtesy of www.rottentomatoes.com

Hello you! The name is Luca, but you can call me Luca and welcome back to my blog, Red's One-Shot. So when I started this blog, my aim was to review movies and I did try at first but never got to a level that I was happy with, so I've never really reviewed a film on here.

 

I have a list of movies that I have seen this year, so far with 27 films and only one that I didn't like (I won't get into what it was just yet, because then people will think I am a hater of said property), but I've liked certain movies more than others and overall, three movies have stood out as my main favourites. One of them is The Accountant.

 

In this film - which is in theatres right now - we have Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff who is a highly-functioning autistic, small town certified accountant who makes his living uncooking the books of dangerous criminal organisations that are experiencing internal embesselment. That's what Wikipedia tells you, but what it doesn't immediately say is that he's also a badass who knows his way around guns and heavy combat.

 

So immediately, the fact that Affleck's character is on the autism spectrum immediately had me intrigued because if you were not already aware, I am also autistic. This however was not something that made me completely bias towards this movie, so if you want to take my opinion with a pinch of salt then feel free. I do have some personal favourite stories about autism, like X+Y and Curious Incident.

 

What sets The Accountant apart is the story as it is one that would be a very typical popcorn blockbuster, but it's a lot more intelligent than that as it does focus a lot on Wolff as a character, not just because he has autism but a biproduct of his autistic traits leading to him being such a reserved and different character when interacting with others, but also just seeing him work with numbers so easily just leaves you in such utter admiration of Wolff. That making him a character that you do gravitate towards, despite the fact he is so softly spoken and has such few words to say.

 

Just for the sake of this, I am going to talk about two Matt Damon characters since both Damon and Affleck have been associated with each other since near the start of their careers. We have seen many Will Hunting characters on screen, those who are very great with numbers and they earn your respect from their intellect, and then we see many Jason Bourne characters who are a lot more physical and in that sense, you are in awe of their ability to fight. Christian Wolff is a rare combination of both, I don't think I have seen a character who combines both of these.

 

As for the film itself, there is something about The Accountant and another amazing film I love, Hanna - directed by Joe Wright and starring Saoirse Ronan as the titular character - is that it elicits some kind of feel to it that it was adapted from a novel. I appreciate the very low key and in the pocket, personal type of stories with lower stakes and very intricate telling of the plot, lore and characters, that's why I loved The Martian so much. This film does scream something like Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels but like Hanna amazingly, it's an original script. I would not be surprised at all if The Accountant was nominated for best original screenplay.

 

I am not going into the details of the plot because I think all of you should go see the film and I don't want to spoil it. There are a few little references that I want to talk about, because there are more than a few links to Batman and I'll just mention them now because I think they're all really cool pieces of trivia. Of course we know that Ben Affleck portrays Batman, being the current caped crusader in the DC movie universe alongside Superman and Wonder Woman.

 

Other interesting links though, we have J.K. Simmons as a treasury agent in The Accountant, and it was confirmed earlier this year that Simmons would hop back on the superhero movie train by portraying Commissioner James Gordon alongside Ben Affleck's Batman. There's also the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy that Wolff sings to himself quite frequently in this movie, and if you're a very big fan of Batman and the lore surrounding it, you'll know that there is a villain character called Solomon Grundy.

 

There's even a shot in this film where Anna Kendrick's character is looking through a chest of drawers and finds some old school Action Comics books, which is what DC Comics used to be named back in the day. Oh and whilst not actual fact, a lot of people want to see Anna Kendrick be cast as Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Jim Gordon and also Batgirl. I personally do love Anna Kendrick but I've always wanted Molly C. Quinn to be cast as Barbara Gordon, though I would not complain one bit if Anna Kendrick was indeed cast.

 

Putting aside all the probably unintentional Batman links, The Accountant thrives as a movie on its own but I want to see more. This film has been compared to the likes of John Wick in terms of action, whilst I haven't seen John Wick (I know I should), I believe I am right in saying that it is very action heavy and has a simple plot, which by the way isn't a criticism.

 

The Accountant does end with a possibility for a sequel, and the director Gavin O'Connor (Who also directed the incredible Warrior with Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte) has said that his plans for a sequel will involve Wolff helping out some children who are involved in child slavery, or something along those lines. I say this needs to happen.

 

Of course again, I have bias but we see so many films based around an autistic character or a genius with any kind of something that holds them back socially. We see them develop through the story and we are fascinated by them, but most of these stories are just standalone stories, but The Accountant has so much interesting lore surrounding it that we need to see more of it.

 

That being said, if this does become a franchise then there will be a lot of duties for Ben Affleck, who is also handling the standalone Batman films as a writer and director as well as obviously starring as the character. He'll also have the occasional movie he will want to do as well, he will be certainly busy if he continues as Bruce Wayne and Christian Wolff.

 

Actually can we just take a moment to talk about Ben Affleck? He was a joke in Hollywood for so long; J.Lo's boyfriend and paparazzi frequent, with Razzie awards for piles of shit like Gigli to now being acclaimed as one of the best directors working today, with an Academy Award to his name for Argo as a director, and proving people wrong when he was cast as Batman by completely owning the role and has set himself up for further greatness. Whilst it isn't such a rise from a fall like what Robert Downey, Jr. experienced, it is great to see Affleck honestly solidify himself as a great from what he used to be seen as by everyone.

 

As someone who is a film fan, this was an incredible movie that I plan on watching many more times. Also, as someone with autism, I don't think I'd plan on writing off to Marvel and have them create an autistic superhero (As cool that would be), but having an assassin and mathematician in a grounded and real world that you can believe, The Accountant is - and forgive me for the Batman quote - the hero autistic people need, and deserves. You know normally, when I am talking to my friends online I sometimes take the piss out of that quote and I'm like, "I am the hero this city... has".

 

So this is my rather deluded plea to Gavin O'Connor, please make a sequel. I know Warner Bros will be happy to see that already this movie has reportedly already made $130 million already worldwide on a budget of $44 million even with its R-Rating, having made 60% of its Box Office in the US, so that would be incentive enough for a sequel to be green lit.

 

Because in this world where the Jack Reacher films are a bit naff, John Wick is amazing with its hard hitting action heavy ways among an array of others, having a franchise with such rich possibilities could lead to some incredible films. Talking earlier about how it felt like it was an adaptation from a novel, I would buy a novelisation of this in a heartbeat despite the fact I know the story. It lends itself so well to a novel, I'd love to see novels of this character either the same as the movie just before the movie version is released or maybe even break off into standalone stories that the films could cherry pick from in the future.

 

I know I've spoken a bit about my intentions to write novels, I could not trust myself with something like this without worrying too much that it wouldn't be any good. I'd trust a much more celebrated and even acknowledged author to write The Accountant novels.

 

In conclusion, I cannot sing enough high praise about The Accountant. I hope you do consider seeing it, and just to put into perspective about how great I consider this film, the only other two favourite films of mine this year (As far as 2016 releases go), Eddie The Eagle and Captain America: Civil War.

 

Alright! That will be it from me today. If you're an avid viewer (First off, why? I'm shit), you'll know what is coming up next, me shamelessly plugging my Twitter or giving you a method to continue tracking my blog. I should copy and paste the last parts of my posts since they're always the same. So my Twitter is @TheLucaFormat, follow me if you think seeing links to my Instagram is worthy of a place on your feed, and if you're on desktop then type in your email into 'Follow By Email'. Or, be a slimy bastard and type in someone's email and they'll start to get my posts randomly.

 

Don't actually do that last part please, I couldn't live with myself! I don't even know if that shit is possible.

 

So with all that being said, thank you so much for reading I truly appreciate it. Hope to see you back here soon, so until we meet again.

 

Luca.

Corresponding with car makers

Image courtesy of myself

Hello you. The name is Luca, but you can call me Luca and today, I wanted to talk about my efforts in the past to send letters to car companies. Not to perhaps flaunt off "HOW BRILLIANT I AM", more because I'm happy that I have suggested the concept and it may be considered.

I started writing off to car companies when I was still in primary school, and it was after I had seen a Mercedes-Benz SLK55 AMG that had been fitted with the 5.4-litre supercharged V8 from a Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR, and it had managed to beat a Ferrari Enzo in a drag race. I saw that and thought to myself, "The SLK55 pretty much already uses a detuned and non-supercharged version of the SLR's engine, surely it wouldn't be difficult to mass-produce that", or whatever I would say at the time with my limited vocabulary since I was barely 10 years old.

So I wrote off to Merc and they sent back a letter thanking me for my enthusiasm along with a 1:43 scale model of a McMerc SLR, and it was wonderful to know they at least acknowledged me. They never got round to making the car which in hindsight, I can understand because at the time of course, I had no concept of a best thing overall. Think about it, why would anyone buy an SLR when they can get an SLK which is much faster and most likely a fraction of the price?

Either way, it solidified a confidence in me and now we lead onto the story of how I got the image you're seeing up above. This one is a rather detailed story so here it goes; at some point back in probably 2007-08, we went to Bruntingthorpe where Fifth Gear used to film and I was driven around in a stripped out Ferrari F355, an Ariel Atom and funnily enough, an SLR that had been repossessed from a footballer.

It was an amazing experience there. I reached 155 miles per hour in the Ferrari, I was unable to get a helmet on for our drive in the Atom so I asked that we didn't go so quick so we went about 40 (Laugh at me all you want) and in the SLR, we reached 165 miles per hour, but not before I surprised the guy who drove me in the SLR by flicking up the switch on the gear lever and starting the engine. Not only that but I met someone, who was introduced to me as the next Lewis Hamilton, and whilst I don't unfortunately remember that much about him back then, my mum remembered him, he went on to become an F1 driver by making his debut at the British Grand Prix in 2011 (Which was only my second visit to a Grand Prix after the previous year's British GP) and now drives for Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo.

The reason all of this feeds into this story, my mum fell in love with a Jaguar XJ220 that was being held there. I never really liked the XJ220 because when Jaguar were making it, they were promising big things with it when Jaguar announced they were making it. These included a 6.2-litre V12 powertrain, an all-wheel drive layout with scissor doors (Which open upwards), however the actual car had rear-wheel drive, regular opening doors but worst of all, the same 3.5-litre twin turbocharged V6 powertrain from a Austin Metro rally version.

That last bit was the main thing that bugged me, I don't really like V6 engines for big supercars but overall, the XJ220 was an ambitious project by Jaguar and my 9 years old nearly 10 self wanted 'redemption', even though really the world was not asking for it. So I wrote off to Jaguar and I remember the things I asked.

Because I did not know anything about variables and assumed all cars could be made with the best of everything, I asked for preposterous things like giving the 'New XJ220' things like racing suspension, a massive racing splitter on the front and semi-slick tyres. This being along with a V12 engine, an all-wheel drive system and scissor doors, and so many other huge details that whilst some were possible, others were not and whilst none of them were 'Machine guns', they were not things that would have been within Jaguar's grasp at the time or indeed now. Bare in mind, Jaguar were in the middle of a deep financial crisis and it was before their sale from Ford to the Indian car company Tata.

Nevertheless, if you didn't recognise the signature on the image that I have displayed above, it is that of Jaguar design director, Ian Callum. He is responsible for the design of such incredible cars as the Ford RS200, Ford Escort Cosworth, Aston Martin DB7, Nissan R390, Aston Martin Vanquish, Aston Martin DB9, and Jaguar's most incredible looking modern cars; the XK, XF, XJ, the F-Type and the C-X75 concept car that I do wish was put into production. Just a side note, the C-X75 was the car that Dave Bautista's character in the most recent Bond film used to chase Bond.

So in Callum's first letter to me which also included that design, he thanked me for the ideas and did tell me that it was in Jaguar's plan to do something of the sort in the future. This being in the months before Jaguar announced that their top line models would start using a brand new 5.0-litre V8 as appose to their 4.2-litre V8 that they had used in so many models the proceeding years.

Being the now 11-year old over-enthusiastic kid that I was, I reckon I became the thorn in Ian Callum's side because I sent back so many ideas that were so unrealistic and if I was him, I would have probably been annoyed as well. Back in that period, following my reply from Ian Callum, I saw a magazine from Auto Express with this image on it. By the way, this image isn't the actual car.

Image courtesy of www.autoexpress.co.uk

I was obviously delighted, thinking that this will get made and it was going to have all the things I had suggested to Ian Callum, but I read it and was like "NO! They're not going to give it a V12!" and instead it was going to have the same 5.0-litre Supercharged V8 powertrain that was going to be in their XK-R and XF-R. Now 11-year old me was gutted because the whole point of putting this together was to redeem what the XJ220 promised and never delivered.

 

Fast forward though to 2014, I've had many years to become a reasonable (ish) human being. I started thinking about the possibilities and I wrote back to Ian Callum, apologising for being a hyperactive child who couldn't see past what I could conjure. I then requested that as soon as Jaguar planned to make a mid-engine sports car that could compete with the likes of the Ferrari 458 Italia, the McLaren MP4-12C and Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 (Which now would be the Ferrari 488 GTB, the McLaren 650S and the Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4), to let me know so I could give them some grounded and realistic aims.

 

Mr. Callum was kind enough to respond and he told me that Jaguar were busy with making the F-Pace SUV (Which will be featured in next June's Kingsman sequel!) and they had no immediate plans to make a mid-engine sports car. But very soon, who knows? All I know is, when they do, I have ideas for it that aren't over the top.

 

This car doesn't have a name as of now so let's just call it - since Jaguar like referring to all their concepts with names like this - the X56 since my favourite number is 56. The X56 would have the same 5.0-litre Supercharged V8 that Jaguar are using in all their top line vehicles, but this one would have more in common with the one used in the top of the range F-Type SVR which churns out 575 horsepower @ 6,500 revolutions per minute. Who knows? Maybe when the X56 rolls around, Jaguar will

 

The X56 would also utilise the same 8-Speed ZF Automatic transmission with paddle-shifters offering manual override and it would also have the same all-wheel drive system as seen on the F-Type SVR. Yes this is a wish list but it is a lot better for Jaguar than what I was asking years ago, a V12 with racing tyres etc. I could request for scissor doors on the X56, but it would not be a necessity.

 

I'd love to see this. Mainly because the Jaguar cars nowadays are so incredible with pretty much everything, and the X56 could be a worthy rival to the equivalents at Ferrari, McLaren, Lamborghini and mainly the Audi R8. For me - despite my biases - the X56 despite it being so down on speed to the Ferrari, McLaren and Lambo, would have the advantage of having a Jaguar interior, which in recent years has been the best thing about Jags among many great things.

The main thing about the X56 concept here, there will not be alternative engine models. You won't see one of these with a diesel powered V6 engine, just the F-Type SVR's 575 horsepower 5.0-litre supercharged V8 powertrain, but maybe possibly after seeing the C-X16 model's 92 horsepower electric motor, Jaguar could implement that alongside the X56's V8 to make it a hybrid in the same way the new Honda NSX, the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder all are as well.

Hopefully Jaguar think about creating the X56 concept for real, not with that name as I just made that up for a concept name. Competing with the likes of the Ferrari 488 GTB, McLaren 650S, Lamborghini Huracán, Audi R8 etc., which would mean a price range north of £150,000 for a hard top and £160,000 for a foldaway roof model, at least I am estimating. There's a world of difference between estimation and reality.

Now I want to move swiftly onto the most recent correspondence I had with a car maker. If any of you remember my article on my personal favourite cars in GTA Online, I ranked the Enus Windsor Drop as one of my favourites and said that I would love to see an equivalent to it created in real life.

Image courtesy of myself

After I wrote that, I decided to write off to Rolls Royce requesting that they do create a four door Drophead model. I even sent them a birds eye view design, and even asked if they would start using the 9.0-litre V16 powertrain that was made popular in Johnny English Reborn.

I got a letter back from the front of house manager and he told me that he had handed my proposal over to the designers, and told me that the cars in their range would do just fine with the V12 6.75-litre engine that has been long used since the Phantom was introduced. I can live with that, but asked that should this four door drophead make production, that they at the very least let me have someone drive me and my mum whilst we are in the back. That would be all, even though my friend Ahmed insists I should request to have a model for myself for no money at all.

Though I have proposed a name for the four door drophead model. Initially in my first letter, my friend Ahmed said that the last known four door convertible in the Rolls Royce family tree was the Silver Cloud so I suggested they resurrect that heritage name, but when writing back, I proposed either resurrect the Corniche name or have an entirely new name, and that would be the Maketh.

From the William Harmon quote which was made popular by Kingsman: The Secret Service, 'Manners Maketh Man'.

But that's all I can think to tell you. There's no overall message here, it's just something I would like to tell you guys and I hope the Jaguar X56 concept and the Rolls Royce Maketh make production very soon and that some lucky souls get to enjoy them. Mostly oil billionaires in the Middle East or Simon Cowell, but nevertheless as long as they're out there and people see them as great cars. As far as me getting to drive them, I'll just wait until the next Gran Turismo game.

Alright! That is it from me. If you guys liked what you had to read here and want to stick around for more, look to the top right if you're on a desktop version of this site and there will be a 'Follow By Email' option. Type your email into that, and you will be sent all my future articles directly to you. You can also follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat and I'll be tweeting out every time when I have posted something new.

So until we meet again.
Luca.



Driving for the dream

Image courtesy of www.usgamer.net

Hello you. The name is Luca but you can call me Luca, and recently, life has been on the up for me. If you harken back to a blog post about change that was coming in my life, you'll remember me talking about how so much change was happening and it was overwhelming me. For the few of you who care to know about it, feel free to read on.

I think I am getting a job in a library starting next week, which I have been looking forward to because it'll give me a chance to follow some kind of time structure and order, which I have been needing in my life. I also recently applied for and obtained a Cineworld Unlimited membership so alongside my bus pass, I can now go to and from the nearest Cineworld without it really costing me a penny. I am really looking forward to exercising that since I got my Cineworld Unlimited card today (Well, a couple of days ago now since I started writing this the other day).

Recently, I also started seeing a professional regarding the issues that I have been having. Namely, believing my life is relatively aimless and because I am not going to university, that I am heading nowhere and won't achieve something. It is very beneficial to me so I'm grateful that I can speak about all of the shit that has been bothering me. This isn't an excuse as to why I haven't been making articles regularly, but I do have some promising things in the works right now that I will be showing soon, but onto today's article.

Now what I want to talk about is a dream I have had. Aside from wanting to make a movie adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time with Taron Egerton as the main character and an array of other things, this one concerns competitive racing in an online setting, and like most of my dreams, it does originate from somewhere quite close to me.

I have always been a racer at heart, but if you want to be a racing driver then you have to have a shit tonne of money and be to a very particular extent, very physically fit. I don't have either of those going for me, my family do have an amazing income but that's for the house and a balance of things that keep everyone in the household happy, and as for physicality, I'm a tad tubby and I enjoy KFC too much in order to give it up, I really can't say much else.

For so long, I would live out my racing passion in the form of driving on my PlayStation console. It wasn't until Christmas of 2010 I believe when my parents bought me a PS3 steering wheel, and I held it on a small tea table with my knees holding it underneath whilst laid back on my very low down gaming chair. Much later on, I obtained a proper frame and I've had some amazing memories of driving and racing on mainly Gran Turismo 5 and 6.

However that screeched to a halt around November/December 2014 when I had just got my PlayStation 4 as an early birthday present, and I went back to my PS3 knowing fine well that I'd be able to change between my PS3 and PS4 dependent on if I wanted to play GTA or Gran Turismo, but for some reason my PS3 would not load up Gran Turismo 6. I panicked and tried to find a way but I gave up when it wouldn't do anything, and it kind of broke my heart.

What prompted me to write this also, a car became available on Gran Turismo 6 that I never got the chance to drive, it being the SRT Tomahawk X which can do north of 500 miles per hour and has taken the mantle of quickest and most 'OP' car in the game from the Red Bull X-cars. Seeing a video of that on YouTube, along with the incredibly soulful and exciting music, and memories of my friends who originated from Gran Turismo with the most incredible races, it does put me in a reflective mood and I just wish I could race like that again with my wheel.

Luckily, Gran Turismo Sport is around the corner and that is being released for the PlayStation 4, and my parents have promised me that they will be buying me a PS4 steering wheel so not only can I play GT Sport with it, but also the likes of F1 2016, Assetto Corsa and Project CARS. However I have ideas that I would like to see executed with Gran Turismo Sport, but for that I will have to provide a little bit of background.

You're probably asking "Why is it called Gran Turismo Sport? After Luca just said GT5 and GT6, would it not be GT7?" and to that, I don't blame you for thinking that. The reason why, the international racing regulatory body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile or FIA - who are responsible for Formula One, the World Endurance Championship, Formula E, World Touring Cars, World Rally etc. - recently certified the Gran Turismo franchise with the same highly prestigious licence for their main racing championships.

This means that Gran Turismo Sport will keep track of the progress of players and allow them to be recognised by the FIA, and put them into consideration for selection in the FIA Online World Championship. This is where my idea comes in.

The creators of Gran Turismo in partnership with Nissan and PlayStation are also responsible for GT Academy, where gamers from around the world would participate for a chance of becoming a racing driver for real and it has churned out some incredible talent. The inaugural winner Lucas Ordóñez finished 2nd in class at Le Mans in his first outing, the first British winner Jann Mardenborough went on to race in single seaters and won the All-Japan F3 championship this year.

My point is, Gran Turismo is the definitive driving simulator and now that the FIA are backing this proven pioneering game franchise, it's the perfect transition into making competitive online racing not just a pipe dream, but an actuality. What I mean is, I am sure if you turn on Motors TV or if you occasionally watch a few Formula E specials on BT Sport, you will see such a thing.

On Motors TV, you will occasionally find professional gaming championships like iRacing and TORA, and there was even some serious consideration for the most recent Formula E season to have a video game based round to fill the vacated Moscow ePrix. Whilst that last bit was preposterous, to an extent, this highlights something that plagues modern motorsport.

There are countless examples of drivers who have had to give up racing professionally because of money and sponsorship draining, and because so many drivers can't continue racing, we have a shit tonne of crap drivers who make it to top line level racing that only have their government's funds from their country's oil industry powering them.

The money is needed to help the teams fund the repairs, the costs to travel and so many talented drivers have had to give it up and it is such a shame. But because a racing championship based entirely on a video game will require a lot less money since you won't have to repair the cars, or ship the vehicles from country to country. Plus with the FIA behind this, it would certainly attract a lot of attention, and since we have entered the era of eSports becoming popular, this is a perfect time to do so.

Football club West Ham recently signed 24-year old Sean 'Dragonn' Allen and in doing so, became the first FC to sign an eSports player, Allen was the vice-champion in the 2016 FIFA Interactive World Cup. You also have 'athletes' who play in tournaments on games such as League Of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

This is too much of a great opportunity for the motorsport world to miss out on. We could have incredibly competitive and highly contested races in many championships held on Gran Turismo, we could have incredibly well set up events with every entrant into a race based at gaming or motoring events, we could have live commentary and direct feed from the race on both any particular sports TV channel like BT and also a live stream on Twitch, YouTube you name it!

I got this idea when I saw a live stream by Rockstar on Twitch when the Last Team Standing update on GTA Online was released back in October 2014, when they pitched Lui Calibre, Mini Ladd, Daithi De Nogla and MissesMae against KSI and three other Sidemen in an LTS playlist. But along with the competitive gameplay, they were publicising the new outfits, weapons and the vehicles like the Lampadati Furore GT, the LCC Innovation and the Shitzu Hakuchou as well as the update to the content creator to create custom LTS maps.

Apply the same here, Polyphony and whoever else involved can use this to promote their product and with the 'athletes' that will spawn from this, sponsors will see this as a dream with all the possible demographics that this will reach out towards. Infact having spoken briefly about those YouTubers who were asked to be in Rockstar's livestream, you have so many big names on YouTube who could get involved, like I have said already there could be a shit tonne of actual drivers get involved, and pure gamers who see a chance to get into competitive racing, the possibilities are endless!

There is so much potential with this. Just thinking about it, if it was possible then we could have dedicated servers that could hold up to 64 entrants like on the Battlefield games. Which is incredible to consider when that Le Mans in recent years has had only shy of 60 entries, so there are such amazing possibilities with whatever racing we could have.

I'll stop waxing lyrical about all of this now and get to my point, I would like a hand in making all of this happen and when it does happen, I'd love to become a driver. I can see so much great stuff in this, and if I could become a driver for let's say, Fortec Motorsport - who compete in Formula 3 and Formula Renault - and that could lead us to competing at events like PAX or E3, or even Autosport International.

I will end it here but if anyone out there has any power, get me in a room with the people behind the FIA and Gran Turismo and hopefully, us racers at heart can race our heart out.

Alright! Hope you all have enjoyed what I have had to say here. If you like what you've seen and you want to see more, then if you see 'Follow By Email' in the top right, enter your email in there and all my next posts will be sent straight to you. Also, you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat and I'll always tweet out when my next post is live.

So that will be all for today, hope you're here again soon and until we meet again.
Luca.

An idea - GTA Online Batmobile

Image courtesy of www.GTA5-Mods.com

DISCLAIMER: This article is very reliant on you lot knowing about GTA Online. If you don't but are so kind enough to read it anyway, I'm grateful but you don't have to, but just know going in that to understand this article more, you may need to be a GTA fanatic.

Hello you. The name is Luca but you can call me Luca, and I have to apologise for not getting an article out sooner, there was a new update on GTA focused around Bikers, and I have been enjoying that hugely. You know me by now, I am a huge GTA fanatic, and Rockstar (Who make the game) have encouraged a lot of us fans to submit ideas, so here is one that I have been wanting to propose and I thought, I'll write it up on here. Who knows? Maybe those big GTA YouTubers may use it to make 10 minute videos and gain some monehs. I have to say, if you're going to, don't be scum and mislead fans into believing this is '100% LEGIT CONFIRMED WTFFFF'. This for those of you who don't know what I am on about, is a conversation for another time.

Anyway, as you will have noticed, I would like to see a Batmobile in GTA Online, but I am keeping my feet on the ground regarding the concept because there has to be some element of realism, even if it is GTA. The Batmobile I am specifically talking about is the Tumbler, the one that was used in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy films; Batman Begins from 2005, The Dark Knight from 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises from 2012.

We have seen many iterations of the Batmobile throughout the years, such examples being the one from the Adam West era, Michael Keaton's iconic machine and even the most recent one in the DC Extended Universe in which Ben Affleck is Batman. The Tumbler exists with Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, and why do I like it? The Tumbler is very unique in that, it was both intended to be a Batmobile and wasn't, allow me to explain.

So how was it intended to be a Batmobile? Well most movie cars and as far as I'm aware, all past iterations of the Batmobile, are all premade cars with a new body attached. The Tumbler is unique because it was designed from the ground up for Warner Brothers, and something even more interesting about it, WB had approached many car companies in the US and every single one saw the initial design and said "Nah, can't be done" with the inverse front axle and such, so the Tumbler was actually made in Britain.

What about the other part of my statement? The Tumbler in terms of the context of the films, was a highly sought-after prototype tank vehicle that was designed by Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences Division for usage by the military. Morgan Freeman's character Lucius Fox meets with Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne when Wayne notices the Tumbler in Fox's workshop, and Fox explains the Tumbler's military background, and the fact that it was used to leap across a river during combat with towing cables in order to get other vehicles across.

I love that. I love the fact that the Tumbler in the context of the films, had a purpose before the Dark Knight got a hold of it. It just looks like it would be used in today's world, and it has a much more workhouse look to it over all the other Batmobile incarnations both before and after, which all look sleek and automobile like. So how does this feed into Grand Theft Auto Online?

I've had many ideas for GTA Online, some of which include a single seater on the level of a Formula One and a quad bike/jet ski cross, but this one is one of my main ideas. A tank prototype based on the Tumbler, and what follows are ideas I have had for the in-game equivalent of the Tumbler, you will have to be a GTA fanatic to know a few of the things that I'm on about. So as follows, my idea for the in-game equivalent of the Tumbler.

For those who are unaware, Rockstar are unable to just copy cars into their games since they don't have the same licence as the people behind games like Test Drive, Gran Turismo, Assetto Corsa, Need For Speed, Forza, Project CARS etc. so they have to come up with parodies. For example, if you remember my article talking about my top five favourite vehicles in GTA Online (Link: https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/my-top-five-favourite-vehicles-in-gta.html), the cars are all based on real life equivalents with different design elements and completely different make and model names. For example; Grotti is Ferrari in GTA, Progen is McLaren, Pfister is Porsche, you get the idea.

So the Tumbler equivalent in GTA will need a new name and a manufacturer to be placed under, so here's my idea for the name; the HVY Stealth. The make HVY are behind popular vehicles in GTA such as the Insurgent and the Brickade (Though that later became an MTL), and the Stealth part I got for being a word associated with combat and the fact that I just love the word. Back on Gran Turismo 5, I was given Stealth models of the McLaren F1 and Mazda 787B, which were exclusive and quicker variants of the regular McLaren F1 and Mazda 787B.

So what about vehicle stats, performance, design, cost, weapons etc.? Well the party piece of the HVY Stealth, it has the same engine that is in the Rhino tank, a gas turbine engine developing 1,500 horsepower and something that will be very popular, an afterburner. If you've been on GTA Online for any amount of time, I can guarantee that at some point, you have had a friend in a jet and you either run off of the back of it or you jump behind it, in turn sending you flying.

On a minor side note, I have been trying to find out how much a gas turbine weighs, if anyone out there would happen to know how heavy a tank's motor is, could you let me know? Thank you.

Weapons wise, I've had this down for some time. The Savage helicopter has a cannon on it which is very powerful and sounds amazing when you run it across the ground, so along with a missile launcher with a heads up display the same as the Hydra and Savage, that can lock onto vehicles within the peripherals of the front of the Stealth. Those would be the weapons of the HVY Stealth and I know it'll be a proper beast when used in competitive and free mode events.

The Stealth is heavily armoured, but to what degree? If you look at the quicker and non-weaponised vehicles in GTA, you either have something that is fully bulletproof but will blow up on the first sticky bomb or RPG directed its way. On the other end of the spectrum you have something which will get destroyed after four explosions but will be just as resistant to bullets as the average car, and the middle we have vehicles that are partially resistant to bullets and will survive two explosions. The Stealth will be able to take up to four explosions and is completely bulletproof like the Rhino Tank, and now I know what you are thinking.

"But Luca? That sounds properly over-powered. It is bad enough with Hydra and Tank noobs, the Stealth will be much worse". Well allow me to illustrate in what areas the Stealth will be nerfed, because like I said, I only put the missile and cannon launcher at the front, the Stealth may be agile but not to an amazing degree.

If you look at the Tumbler design, it is relatively high off of the ground and when it corners at speed - if you saw particularly the chase in the middle of Batman Begins - it will lean at an angle and rely on whichever tyre is on the other side of the car. It does turn quite quickly but because of its big and burly body, it won't be incredibly agile so unlike a Hydra or a Tank, you can't just swivel round and combat an enemy from behind, they have to be in front of the Stealth to kill them.

The Stealth will have six wheels, two smaller ones at the front and the four massive rear tyres (Just like its 'real life' counterpart) and I am thinking that along with the Stealth leaning into corners, maybe have the power be moved around all the tyres depending on which way the driver is turning. With more power going to the left if turning left and vice versa.

As for design, well the Stealth will keep its invert front wheel design and massive rear tyres like the Tumbler does, but I also have an idea for the flaps that you see on the back of the Tumbler that I could rework for the Stealth. One of my favourite cars in GTA is the Grotti X80 Proto, that was a part of the continuation of the June 2016 Further Adventures in Finance and Felony update, and is based off of the fictitious Ferrari F80 concept.

The X80 Proto looks amazing (It should do if you're going to pay $2.7M in GTA to pay for it), and one of its most prominent features are two flaps at the back that move depending on what the car is doing. If you're driving the X80 and turning left, the flap on the left goes upwards and the flap on the right goes downwards, with the other way round happening when turning right, and both go up when braking and therefore act as an airbrake. The Tumbler has a group of flaps above the rear wheels that I know could carry over to the Stealth, so that's something else I'd like to see.

Final thing about design, I'd love to see a canopy like door that opens forward like on the jets, and the interior could even have a heads up display like the one you see in a Progen Tyrus, with a green and early age digital number counter.

This is basically a wish list, I have a lot of this written out right next to me on a lined piece of A4 paper. Another one would be having it only available in camo, but I fear a lot of you will want it in black, though I would argue with it being a military vehicle that camo would make more sense, like the Tumbler was before Bruce Wayne requested for his to be made available in black.

But the main thing, the Stealth should do rampless jumps like the Tumbler does. Forgive me if you're a keyboard user or use an Xbox One controller but I am referring to a PS4 controller to talk about what buttons could be used to make the Stealth do rampless jumps. If you push the L3 analog stick up then quickly press down, the car could lower its nose and then push it back up again and the Stealth would then jump.

Finally, how much money will we have to cough up for this wonderful piece of machinery? The HVY Stealth will be on Warstock Cache and Carry and my guess since R* will price heavily since their aim is to develop Shark Card sales, I reckon at a bare minimum $3M and at a maximum $5M. I even have a description for the site that will allude to the Tumbler.

"Built as a bridging vehicle to help transport heavy machinery across rivers and canyons, the Stealth is the brainchild of HVY's British combat and weaponry division, and has been the most highly sought after military vehicle for the past few years. Now retired, the Stealth is the perfect toy for the billionaire play boy to indulge in the fortune his parents left behind".

As for vehicle class, definitely the Military class it only makes sense, but maybe have it be able to be used in Off-Road races? Maybe not considering if you turn GTA mode on in races, this thing will annihilate everyone.

If Rockstar run with this, I'd love to see this introduced in a military style update. Military style vehicles, weapons and clothing are very popular anyway in GTA.

That will be all from me. Thank you for taking the time to read this, maybe even tweet it at Rockstar to see if they will listen.

If you're a GTA YouTuber and want to run with this, feel free. Get your 10 minutes worth of advertisement revenue with a clickbait scummy title saying 'BATMOBILE IN GTA ONLINE GAMEPLAY!!! PLUS GTA 6, PS4, XBOX ONE, SAMSUNG GALAXY S5 AND MEGLODON SHARK CARD GIVEAWAY TO EVERYONE WHO LIKES THE VIDEO AND COMMENTS "I WANT MONEY, DADDY!!!" FEATURING PEWDIEPIE AND VANOSS' with red arrows and circles in the thumbnail pointing at a girl's ass. Don't actually do that to such a whoring degree.

I know if you do decide to cover this, you'll cherry pick so nobody sees that bit. Heck you probably won't credit me but that's alright, all I hope is that Rockstar see this and consider turning the HVY Stealth from a dream to an actuality.

Anyway if you guys want to be notified of my next blog post, follow me by email if you're on desktop by entering your email into the top right. Or you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. On a side note, I am thinking of changing my Twitter name, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to send some my way.

Alright! That is it from me, so until we meet again.
Luca.

Why I love Kingsman

Image courtesy of www.filmfutter.com

Hello you! The name is Luca but you can call me Luca and welcome back to Red's One-Shot. The blog where I decide to write whatever on earth I like, and have the audacity to expect you all to read it. But feel free to click away and watch a Minecraft Let's Play on YouTube, or be seriously emotionally hurt and want to tell Tumblr. If you do not have the desire to read this, don't worry boo, I understand. It does feel painful, but I get you.

 

So today, we are going to be talking about a movie that is very personal to me. 2015's sleeper hit, Kingsman: The Secret Service, directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine and newcomer, Taron Egerton. Kingsman was released in late January 2015 here in the UK (A time in the cinematic cycle where mostly trash is released alongside all the Oscar and award bait that gets wider release in January) and nobody really knew about it.

I only recognised it as the film that Matthew Vaughn had opted out of directing X-Men: Days of Future Past in order to direct Kingsman, as he had directed the previous instalment in the franchise, X-Men: First Class. That was all that I had heard at that point, then I saw Jeremy Jahns' review of Kingsman and it did intrigue me, so I went to watch it, and I was blown the absolute fuck away.

Holy shit this film never stopped, nobody expected Kingsman to be as good as it was and it was a huge sleeper success, mostly because of the little amount of people that went to see Kingsman then told the unfortunate soul that went to see 50 Shades Of Grey (Since that was released around the same time as Kingsman), that they missed out big time. This certainly was the case for me, a load of people who know me can definitely vouch for me constantly singing Kingsman's praises to the point where they become borderline sick of me.

So what is this Kingsman movie that I am speaking of? As in, what is it about? So you have Colin Firth portraying Kingsman secret agent Harry Hart/Galahad, and an opportunity is presented to him to propose a candidate to fill a vacated role. Alongside this, we have Gary "Eggsy" Unwin who is a young man living with his mother, his infant half-sister and abusive stepfather on a London council estate. Living the life of a typical chav (That by the way for you Americans, in terms of social status is probably Britain's equivalent of hood people), despite being highly intelligent and capable.

Their paths collide when Eggsy is thrown in jail and calls a number that was given to him on a medal of valour that Harry had presented him after Eggsy's father saved Harry's life and was subsequently killed in action. After meeting Eggsy, Harry decides to offer him a chance of becoming a Kingsman agent, so Eggsy accepts and trains to become a Kingsman along with a group of possible candidates, and all in the mean time, Harry is tasked with finding out what Samuel L. Jackson's villainous Richmond Valentine is up to.

So why do I love Kingsman so much? Overall, it is just plain and simple fun. This is something that we as consumers of film and media should be more lenient towards, since we have this idea that all films have to be the following words, gritty and dark, not in that particular order. I get that some characters and stories need to be portrayed in that way but don't make everything super serious, don't have everything follow the success of The Dark Knight despite how brilliant it really is.

I can't really conjure up one reason yet I am unable to think of them all, but one definite factor in me taking such a liking to Kingsman. I guess where we can start is the story, of how a young kid who is definitely the odd one out when it comes to social status, respectfully earns his right to be there by using actual values over his disadvantage of being not of higher class. It should reflect in real life, that nobody should be judged on their class but more their values, which ties into a quote that Ernest Hemingway said that Harry repeats in the film, "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.", and I love that quote.

The lore behind Kingsman as well is amazing. Incase you didn't know, Kingsman is actually based on an original line of comics by Mark Millar, who is also responsible for the Kick-Ass comics and the original novel that Captain America: Civil War is based on. In the original comics for Kingsman - which were just titled The Secret Service - the secret service itself was actually not an independent organisation like in the comics, but actually MI6. Not faulting Millar here but the film did this so much better.

So in the film, Kingsman tailors were founded in 1849 (Just like their real world counterpart Huntsman) by some really powerful men who by 1919, lost many of their heirs to World War One so their fortunes would go un-inherited. So these powerful men decided to put all of their money into funding an independent international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion, without any the politics to undermine the bureaucracy of government ran spy organisations. It just seems like Matthew Vaughn really put some time to think of everything, as he apparently came up with the idea when getting a suit fitting at the Huntsman tailors.

With all this rich and unexplored background in the Kingsman universe, no surprise that many people saw this as having franchise potential and why next June, we are having Kingsman: The Golden Circle and I cannot contain myself to see where they go with these amazing characters in this incredible world. I think that's something I loved also, the fact that this property has such potential to be so much bigger than what it already is right now, the possibilities are endless.

For example, I'd love to see a series of video games made based on Kingsman, in the same vein as the what the Arkham games are for the Batman franchise, I even have ideas for who could voice some of the characters. Another thing I'd love to see, an animated series like how DC and Marvel have their own animated series, though I would refrain from doing that if it meant that there would be an interest developing regarding Kingsman among the younger demographic, which I'll speak about now.

Kingsman shares more in common with films like Kick Ass and Deadpool when it comes to sexual references, profanity and bloody violence with its hard R rating, and that last part could not be more emphasised. It's not overly gory but it's bloody and brutal, it may be very over the top but it never becomes almost parody like, it's always riding that ledge to an incredible extent.

Speaking of parody, not that this is one but Kingsman is heavily inspired by the Bond films of old, primarily the Connery and Moore era. That era of Bond is very abundant in this film, with all the fancy gadgets that are very much missed in the modern Bond films, the over the top and absurd nature that the older Bond films were known for, it's a passing of the torch now between Bond and Kingsman. The films with Craig as 007 were a departure from that type of Bond and put it in more of a vein of the Bourne franchise, which isn't a bad thing but this void of funny and campy spy films was very much felt, so Kingsman filling this gap is more than okay with me and I hope it stays that way.

So now the stars of the film, and I am not just talking about the people on screen, I'm also talking about those off camera. First of all, director and writer Matthew Vaughn who in my opinion (Which is fact by the way, I will have you know!) the best at what he does, and has made some amazing movies which include; his directorial debut with Layer Cake, which many consider to be the film that got Daniel Craig the role of Bond, and others include such amazing movies as Stardust, Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class.

Vaughn's main strength as a director is his ability to film very fluid action scenes, which you'll see in Kingsman with abundance in two scenes in particular. There is a plague in action movies today where you will have the director move the camera like he has grease all over his palms, shaking it to such a degree that you cannot follow the action. Vaughn is the master of being able to film an action scene in such a rapid way that you can follow the action, he insists that his actors do most of their own stunts so he doesn't have any limitations when editing shots in one action scene.

Speaking of actors doing their own stunts, can we give a hand to Colin Firth? He apparently did over 90% of his own stunts, which is even more impressive considering we have not seen him be much of an action hero type of person. Infact seeing Mr. Darcy himself fight some thugs in such an aggressive manner does make you take a step back and be like, "Oh wow!". Same thing with Samuel L. Jackson's villainous Richmond Valentine, you see him and know that Jackson is known for keeping his cool when killing people on screen but then you notice how quirky his character is and it's absolutely amazing to see him wince at the sight of blood or violence.

That is something that Matthew Vaughn is known for as well, casting someone for a role that is a complete contradiction of what they are best known for. Other examples of this stroke of genius include seeing Hollywood tough man Robert De Niro portray a pirate captain in Stardust that loved to dress up as a woman, and also when a barely 13-year old Chloë Grace Moretz was in Kick Ass and you expected her to act all sweet and innocent but she would stab you with a spear and call you a cunt. I can see many examples of actors portraying themselves as their polar opposite in future Matthew Vaughn movies.

Now for our main actor, Taron Egerton who portrayed Gary "Eggsy" Unwin. His charisma and how easy he made this role seem, I remember watching Kingsman and he reminded me so much of young Leonardo DiCaprio, he will be around for a long time and if many of you have been following my blog for a while, will know I'm hoping he gets an Oscar in not too long at all.

It's made all that much more unbelievable when you find out that Kingsman was actually his first feature-length movie, when normally most actors would appear in a small low-budget indie film. He's such a versatile actor, because fast forward a year later and he is playing Eddie the Eagle in the titular biopic alongside Hugh Jackman.

Overall there is so much that can be said about how great Kingsman is, but what I love the most about it? I reiterate and emphasise how fun it really is, and I implore and stress that all of you should go watch it as soon as possible and you will get me.

So I thank you all for your patience. This took so much writing, I had to start over when I read out my first draft but if I have made you intrigued to see this movie, then I have done my job. Watch it and enjoy it you people.

Alright! That will do. Again, I apologise for how long it has taken for me to make this, and I even had to create my last post in an attempt to salvage something for you lot, not that I had no intention of making it regardless because I did. Next post, I'll make sure I can get it out as soon as possible. I have an idea, and I hope you stay tuned for it, so if you want to be notified of when I post next, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or if you're on a computer, look for the 'Follow By Email' option in the top right of your screen.

That will do for now. So until we meet again,
Luca.