title: History of the telephone

text: The history of mobile phones can be traced back to two-way radios permanently installed in vehicles such as taxicabs, police cruisers, railroad trains, and the like. Later versions such as the so-called transportables or "bag phones" were equipped with a cigarette-lighter plug so that they could also be carried, and thus could be used as either mobile two-way radios or as portable phones by being patched into the telephone network.


title: History of the telephone

text: In December 1947, Bell Labs engineers Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young proposed hexagonal cell transmissions for mobile phones. Philip T. Porter, also of Bell Labs, proposed that the cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas that would transmit/receive in 3 directions (see picture at right) into 3 adjacent hexagon cells. The technology did not exist then and the radio frequencies had not yet been allocated. Cellular technology was undeveloped until the 1960s, when Richard H. Frenkiel and Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs developed the electronics.


title: History of the telephone

text: Meanwhile, the 1956 inauguration of the TAT-1 cable and later international direct dialing were important steps in putting together the various continental telephone networks into a global network.


title: History of the telephone

text: On 3 April 1973, Motorola manager Martin Cooper placed a cellular-phone call (in front of reporters) to Dr. Joel S. Engel, head of research at AT&T's Bell Labs. This began the era of the handheld cellular-mobile phone.


title: History of the telephone

text: Cable-television companies began to use their fast-developing cable networks with ducting under the streets of the United Kingdom in the late 1980s to provide telephony services in association with major telephone companies. One of the early cable operators in the UK, Cable London, connected its first cable telephone customer in about 1990.


title: History of the telephone

text: The rapid development and wide adoption of pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital telephony was enabled by metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology. The MOS field-effect transistor (MOSFET) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1959, and the MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC) chip was proposed soon after, but MOS technology was initially overlooked by Bell because they did not find it practical for analog telephone applications, before it was commercialized by Fairchild and RCA for digital electronics such as computers. MOS technology eventually became practical for telephone applications with the MOS mixed-signal integrated circuit, which combines analog and digital signal processing on a single chip, developed by former Bell engineer David A. Hodges with Paul R. Gray at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s. In 1974, Hodges and Gray worked with R.E. Suarez to develop MOS switched capacitor (SC) circuit technology, which they used to develop the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) chip, using MOSFETs and MOS capacitors for data conversion. This was followed by the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) chip, developed by Gray and J. McCreary in 1975.


title: History of the telephone

text: MOS SC circuits led to the development of PCM codec-filter chips in the late 1970s. The silicon-gate CMOS (complementary MOS) PCM codec-filter chip, developed by Hodges and W.C. Black in 1980, has since been the industry standard for digital telephony. By the 1990s, telecommunication networks such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) had been largely digitized with very-large-scale integration (VLSI) CMOS PCM codec-filters, widely used in switching systems for telephone exchanges, private branch exchanges (PBX) and key telephone systems (KTS); user-end modems; data transmission applications such as digital loop carriers, pair gain multiplexers, telephone loop extenders, integrated services digital network (ISDN) terminals, digital cordless telephones and digital cell phones; and applications such as speech recognition equipment, voice data storage, voice mail and digital tapeless answering machines. The bandwidth of digital telecommunication networks has been rapidly increasing at an exponential rate, as observed by Edholm's law, largely driven by the rapid scaling and miniaturization of MOS technology.


title: History of the telephone

text: The British companies Pye TMC, Marconi-Elliott and GEC developed the digital push-button telephone, based on MOS IC technology, in 1970. It was variously called the "MOS telephone", the "push-button telephone chip", and the "telephone on a chip". It used MOS IC logic, with thousands of MOSFETs on a chip, to convert the keypad input into a pulse signal. This made it possible for push-button telephones to be used with pulse dialing at most telephone exchanges. MOS telephone technology introduced a new feature: the use of MOS memory chips to store phone numbers, which could then be used for speed dialing at the push of a button. This was demonstrated in the United Kingdom by Pye TMC, Marcno-Elliot and GEC in 1970. Between 1971 and 1973, Bell combined MOS technology with touch-tone technology to develop a push-button MOS touch-tone phone called the "Touch-O-Matic" telephone, which could store up to 32 phone numbers. This was made possible by the low cost, low power requirements, small size and high reliability of MOSFETs, over 15,000 of which were contained on ten MOS IC chips, including one chip for logic, one for the keypad dial interface, and eight for memory.


title: History of the telephone

text: The telephone was instrumental to modernization. It aided in the development of suburbs and the separation of homes and businesses, but also became a reason for the separation between women occupying the private sphere and men in the public sphere. Both historically and currently, women are predominantly responsible for the telephone calls that bridge the public and private sphere, such as calls regarding doctor's appointments and meetings.


title: History of the telephone

text: Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, also known as Internet telephony or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is a disruptive technology that is rapidly gaining ground against traditional telephone network technologies.


title: History of the telephone

text: IP telephony uses a broadband Internet service to transmit conversations as data packets. In addition to replacing the traditional plain old telephone service (POTS) systems, IP telephony competes with mobile phone networks by offering free or lower cost service via WiFi hotspots. VoIP is also used on private wireless networks which may or may not have a connection to the outside telephone network.


title: History of the telephone

text: Telecommunication of the 21st century has been dominated by the development of the smartphone. This is a combination of a hand-held computer, a cellular phone, a digital camera, and Internet access. One of its features is the touch screen that facilitates the primary interaction for users for most tasks, such as dialing telephone numbers. Some of its software features also include email communication, as well as audio and video playback and capture.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Shadow of the Colossus is a 2005 action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and Team Ico, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It takes place in a fantasy setting and follows Wander, a young man who enters an isolated and abandoned region of the realm seeking the power to revive a girl named Mono. The player assumes the role of Wander as he embarks on a mission that might entail Mono's resurrection: to locate and destroy the colossi, sixteen massive beings spread across the forbidden land, which the protagonist traverses by horseback and on foot.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The game was directed by Fumito Ueda and developed at Sony Computer Entertainment's International Production Studio 1, also known as Team Ico, the same development team responsible for the acclaimed PlayStation 2 title "Ico", to which the game is considered a spiritual successor. Сonceived as an online multiplayer game titled "NICO" directly after "Ico"s completion, "Shadow of the Colossus" underwent a lengthy production cycle during which it was redeveloped as a single-player title. The team sought to create an outstanding interactive experience by including a distinct visual design, an unorthodox gameplay template, and non-player characters with sophisticated artificial intelligence such as the colossi and Wander's horse, Agro.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Cited as an influential title in the video game industry and one of the best video games ever made, "Shadow of the Colossus" is often regarded as an important example of video game as art due to its minimalist landscape designs, immersive gameplay, and emotional rendition of the player character's journey. It received wide critical acclaim by the media and was met with strong sales compared to "Ico", due in part to a larger marketing campaign. The game won several awards for its audio, design, and overall quality. A remastered version for the PlayStation 3 was released alongside "Ico" as "The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection" in September 2011, developed by Bluepoint Games, who later produced a high definition remake of "Shadow of the Colossus" for the PlayStation 4 in 2018.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Described by several commentators as an action-adventure game, "Shadow of the Colossus" takes place from a third-person perspective in a three-dimensional (3D) graphic environment and involves combat-based gameplay sequences, as well as platforming and puzzle game elements. The game's environment is largely presented as a seamless open world. Progression through "Shadow of the Colossus" occurs in cycles. Beginning at a central point in an expansive landscape, the player seeks out and defeats a colossus, and is then returned to the central point to repeat the process. To find each colossus, Wander may raise his sword while in a sunlit area to reflect beams of light, which will converge when the sword is pointed in the right direction of the next encounter. The player's journey to a colossus seldom follows a direct route: stretches of varied terrain often require that a detour be taken along the way. Most colossi are situated in remote areas, such as atop cliffs or within ancient structures.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Once a colossus is found, the player must discover its weaknesses to defeat it. Each colossus dwells in a unique lair, and in most encounters the player must use some aspects of the current battlefield to advantage, a necessity that becomes more pronounced as the game progresses. The first two battles take place on simple, vast, flat areas of land, wherein the player's only goal is to discover how to scale the colossi and attack their weak points. However, the majority of the following fourteen battles require that the player make use of the surrounding environment.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Every colossus has at least one weak point, symbolized by a glowing sigil that can be illuminated and identified by the sword's reflected light. Each colossus has areas covered with fur or protruding ledges, which Wander may use to grip and scale the colossus while it thrashes about in an attempt to dislodge him. Wander has a limited stamina gauge that decreases as he hangs onto the colossus; the player thus must act quickly when they scale the creature. Aside from the colossi, who are the only enemies of the game, the environment is inhabited by natural animals. Only one species, however, has an effect on gameplay: eating the tail of a certain kind of lizard increases Wander's stamina gauge. Likewise, the player may find fruit that increases Wander's maximum health.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Wander's horse, Agro, plays a large role in the game. Aside from its capacity as a means of transportation, Agro enables the player to fight from horseback, a critical avenue to defeating some of the colossi. However, the game contains many environments that players cannot traverse by horse, and colossi are often found in areas within deep water or beyond large obstacles that must be scaled. Agro cannot travel beyond these, and when separated from Wander by such obstacles, cannot participate in the following battle. While throughout the game, Wander's equipment consists of only a sword and a bow with arrows, in subsequent playthroughs players may access bonus weapons and in-game features after finishing optional Time Attack trials, which allow the battles with the colossi to be replayed with a restricted time limit.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Presented through a minimalistic narrative, "Shadow of the Colossus" eschews disclosure of detailed information about the backstories and interrelationships of its characters to the player. The game takes place in a fantasy world, wherein a vast and unpopulated peninsula, known as the Forbidden Land, serves as the main setting for the game's events. Separated from the outside realm by a distant mountain range to its north and sea to the south and east, the area contains ruins and remnants of ancient structures, an indication that it had formerly been a settlement.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The only point of entry to the region is a small cleft in the mountains to the north that leads to a massive stone bridge. This bridge spans half the distance of the landscape and terminates at a large temple called the "Shrine of Worship" located at its center. It is, however, forbidden to enter the land, which includes diverse geographical features, such as lakes, plateaus, canyons, caves, and deserts in addition to human-made structures.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The protagonist of the game is , a young man whose goal is to resurrect a girl named . The only established fact regarding Mono is that she was a maiden who was sacrificed because she was believed to have a cursed destiny. Assisting Wander in his quest to revive her is his loyal horse, , who serves as his sole ally in defeating the colossi; the English-language version of the game refers to Agro as a male steed, although director Fumito Ueda said that he saw Wander's horse as female. Wander also receives aid from an entity called . The story revolves around these characters but features a small supporting cast, represented by Lord and his men.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Speaking with two voices at once (one male and one female), Dormin is a mysterious, disembodied entity. According to legends of the game's world, Dormin has the power to revive the dead; this premise serves as the driving cause for Wander's entrance upon the forbidden land, as he seeks the being's assistance in reviving Mono. Dormin offers to revive her in exchange for Wander destroying the sixteen colossi. One of the commentators of the game's plot speculated that the name "Dormin", which spells "Nimrod" backwards, serves as a reference to the body of the biblical King Nimrod which was cut up and scattered.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Lord Emon is a shaman who narrates a vision in the game's introduction that vaguely explains the origin of the land to which Wander has come and establishes that entry to this place is forbidden. As portrayed by the game, he possesses vast knowledge about the nature and containment of Dormin, and wields the ability to use powerful magic. He has a small group of warriors at his command, and is pursuing Wander to prevent the use of "the forbidden spell", the rite that involves the destruction of the sixteen colossi and the restoration of Dormin's power.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The colossi are armored, most often enormous creatures with forms ranging from various humanoids to predatory animals, and live in all manner of surroundings and environments, including underwater and flying through the air. Their bodies are a fusion of organic and inorganic parts such as rock, earth, and architectural elements, some of which are weathered or fractured. Some colossi are peaceful and will only attack when provoked, whereas others are aggressive and will attack on sight. Inhabiting specific locations in the forbidden land, they do not venture outside their own territory. Once slain they will remain where fallen, as a mound of earth and rock vaguely resembling the original colossus. A pillar of light marks the location of each colossus after they are defeated. The Latin names of the colossi, though spread throughout fan related media, are not official and are never referred to within the game.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: As the game begins, Wander enters the forbidden land and travels across a long bridge on his horse, Agro. After they reach the entrance to the Shrine of Worship, Wander, who has carried with him the body of Mono, brings her to an altar in the temple. A moment later, several humanoid shadow creatures appear and approach Wander before he easily dismisses them with a wave of the ancient sword in his possession.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: After the shadow creatures are vanquished, the disembodied voice of Dormin manifests within the shrine and expresses surprise at the fact that Wander possesses the weapon. Wander explains the plight that led him to seek the forbidden land and asks that Dormin return Mono's soul to her body. Dormin offers to grant Wander's request under the condition that he completes a rite designed to destroy the sixteen idols lining the temple's hall. To that end, Wander must use his sword to slay each of the idol's physical incarnations–the colossi, whose presence ranges across the vast expanse outside the temple. Although warned by Dormin that he may have to pay a great price to revive Mono, Wander sets out to search the land for the colossi and destroy them.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: An aspect of Wander's mission that is unknown to him is that the colossi contain portions of Dormin's own essence, scattered long ago to render the entity powerless. As Wander kills each colossus, a released fragment of Dormin enters his body. Over time, the signs of Wander's deterioration from the gathered essence start to appear: his skin becomes paler, his hair darker, and his face is increasingly covered by dark veins. The outcome of the battle with the twelfth colossus leads to a reveal of a group of warriors that has been pursuing Wander, led by Emon. Urged to hurry with his task by Dormin, Wander soon heads off to defeat the sixteenth and final colossus. On the way to this confrontation, he rides horseback across a long bridge which begins to collapse as he is halfway across, but Agro manages to throw Wander over to the other side before falling into the distant river below.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Soon after, Wander goes on to defeat the final colossus as Emon's company arrives in the Shrine of Worship to witness the last temple idol crumble. Wander appears back in the temple soon after, the signs of his corruption readily apparent: his skin is pallid, his eyes glow silver, and a pair of tiny horns have sprouted from his head. Emon recognizes him as a transgressor who, in an event that occurred before Wander's journey to the forbidden land, stole the ancient sword with which he killed the colossi. Emon orders his warriors to kill the "possessed" man as he approaches Mono and finally falls once stabbed through the heart by one of Emon's men. However, a newly whole Dormin takes control of Wander's body and transforms into a shadowy giant. While his men flee, Lord Emon casts the ancient sword into a small pool at the back of the temple's hall to evoke a whirlwind of light. The supernatural vortex consumes Dormin and Wander, which seals Dormin within the temple once again. As Emon and his warriors escape, the bridge that leads to the temple collapses behind them, and its destruction forever isolates the forbidden land from the rest of the world. Although he has condemned Wander for his actions prior to their encounter, Emon expresses hope that Wander may be able to atone for his crimes one day should he have survived.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Back in the temple, Mono awakens and finds Agro limping into the temple with an injured hind leg. Mono follows Agro to the pool into which Wander and Dormin were pulled by Emon's spell, where she finds a male infant with tiny horns on his head. Mono takes the child with her, following the horse to higher levels of the Shrine of Worship, and arrives at a secret garden within the shrine as the game ends.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: "Shadow of the Colossus" is the second project of Team Ico, a group of staff members within Sony Computer Entertainment's (SCEI) International Production Studio 1 that was led by director Fumito Ueda and producer Kenji Kaido. The game originated from one of Ueda's concepts that he developed directly after the team submitted their debut title "Ico", released in late 2001 for Sony's PlayStation 2 video game console, for publication. As the basis of Team Ico's subsequent game had not been decided, Ueda examined "a number of old ideas kicking around in my head ... that couldn't be realized under previous circumstances". After a brief review of those avenues, Ueda chose to explore one that aligned with his own preferences as a game player. Ueda cited "The Legend of Zelda" series as an influence, as he grew up wanting to make a game like "Zelda" and designed the Colossi bosses like "inverted "Zelda" dungeons."


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Ueda envisioned a work with an underlying motif of "cruelty as a means of expression". He felt that this theme was widely featured in contemporary titles such as "Grand Theft Auto III" and wanted to use it in a game that he designed. In a discussion with Kaido, Ueda observed that he had played a variety of video games containing battles with large bosses that the player must shoot from a distance to defeat. Ueda believed that the boss sequences of those games could be streamlined if the player character was able to approach and climb the oversized opponents to kill them with a close range weapon. Accordingly, he chose to base the game around the player character's encounters with enormous fictional creatures, a premise that stemmed from Ueda's childhood fascination with monster movies. This led to an emphasis on the inclusion of a large-scale adventure in the title, an element which Ueda regarded as influential in the shaping of the game's stylistic identity.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Originally, the team considered Ueda's idea alongside another concurrently-developed game. According to Ueda, the game was unrelated to his former concept, and the team did not give it a working title or outline its design while it was in development. Ueda recognized the finished iteration of Team Ico's second title as, "in many ways, a game for boys and men"; conversely, the separately produced game was fashioned to appeal more to a female audience. Its contents, interface and thematic focus differed significantly from those that would ultimately manifest in the team's next game after "Ico". The untitled game did not employ 3D graphics, whereas Team Ico applied them to their published game. The team eventually scrapped their plans for a counterpart title to Ueda's intended game, which was advanced into further development.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Prior to the start of the project, Team Ico assessed the opportunity to establish it as a sequel to their first game. This suggestion was opposed by certain staff members who argued that the story and gameplay of their preceding title were largely self-contained, and that the existence of consumer demand for a new "Ico" game was questionable. According to Ueda, Team Ico assumed that the creation of levels for a single-player game akin to "Ico" necessitated the construction of elaborate puzzles, a practice that the staff wanted to eschew. Following lengthy deliberations, they decided not to pursue a sequel to "Ico" and to produce a standalone game provisionally dubbed "NICO" (a portmanteau of "ni", 2 in Japanese, and "Ico"). The team initially agreed to develop "NICO" as an online multiplayer game that, unlike "Ico", "wouldn't require complex level design". Their foundational goal, according to Kaido, was to create a technology demo that represented a tentative rendition of the game's fictional world and features. Development commenced immediately after the December 2001 release of "Ico"s Japanese version.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: To develop the concept video for "NICO", Team Ico formed a small internal group, which was composed of Ueda, one of "Ico"s designers and a roughly 10-person animation team. Their objective was to deliver "[a] movie with an extremely final form" that could serve as a visual template for the finalized game. The first storyboard that outlined the video was drafted in January 2002, and the actual short film was completed that May. It depicted a group of three masked, horned boys who rode horseback across a vast landscape and attacked a towering being reminiscent of the second boss in "Shadow of the Colossus". The video was visualized in the "Ico" game engine and was rendered in real-time on the PlayStation 2 hardware. With those techniques, the team aimed to estimate the extent to which the platform's capabilities allowed the realization of their vision.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: According to Kaido, the team deemed the resulting video to have attained a very high level of completion, and thus was able to use it as a reference point throughout the game's production. Although they subsequently modified the game's visuals from those of the demonstration reel, its themes of "fighting a giant enemy" and "[exploring] a giant field" carried over into the final game design. The demo indicated elements that were excluded from the released game. Among these was a showcased gameplay mechanism wherein one of the colossus' attackers who had scaled and killed it proceeded to mount his approaching horse by leaping onto its back from the entity's corpse. The video was later exhibited at many trade shows, such as the 2006 D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas where Kaido and Ueda retrospectively discussed the game's development with Lorne Lanning.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: In June 2002, a small group of staff at Team Ico started to build a prototype of "NICO" for testing purposes. In his role as producer, Kaido tasked the team with the inclusion of technological features that he recognized as important milestones of the development. One of the challenges issued by Kaido involved the creation of "organic collision deformation", a term that alluded to his concept of realistic character physics in relation to the movement of the colossi. For instance, if a colossus' limb was currently horizontal, Kaido expected the player to be able to run across the limb as though it were any other flat surface. Ueda and Team Ico programmers spent over six months to produce a working version of this functionality. They began by adding a character to a virtual environment where the figure was enabled to climb a pole-like object. One of the team's priorities at the time was to code a physics-based simulation of scenarios where characters were "being shaken off or narrowly avoided being stomped on".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: In May 2003, Team Ico assembled a demonstrational build of "NICO" and presented it at a production meeting. Full development of the game was sanctioned directly after it was pitched, and commenced in the same month. That year, the "NICO" technology demo was shown across Sony's foreign offices among a lineup of prospective PlayStation 2 titles, and its exposure excited the spectators. Although the team attempted to work on the game in secrecy, at a certain point images of "NICO"s horseriding characters were leaked onto the Internet. Their circulation led enthusiasts to speculate about what they perceived as a sequel to "Ico". According to Ueda, the team reused elements of "Ico"s character designs for "NICO" to expedite the production of the concept video and minimize its costs. He asserted that "NICO" was not related to "Ico" despite their stylistic similarities, and that his colleagues did not identify the former game as a sequel. However, contemporary and retrospective sources described Team Ico's second game as both a spiritual successor and prequel to "Ico".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The staff used player feedback to advance the testing of the "organic collision deformation" system by inputting simple objects to experiment its capabilities. Although Team Ico had conducted an elaborate research of the game's technological framework, they did not finish its validation when they entered the production phase. After evaluating the limited number of personnel that was involved with "NICO" as well as their professional profiles, Team Ico concluded that they were not qualified to deliver an online-only game. They then resolved to abandon that direction and to reformulate "NICO" into a single-player title. The team discarded "Ico"s development tools that they had used at the outset of the project and moved to write new programming utilities. Relatedly, they opted to create a dedicated game engine for the title in lieu of that from "Ico". While the staff had intended to reuse the development practices that they had employed in "Ico" to proceed with "NICO", the departure from the technology of the older game meant that its successor "was [built] almost from the ground up again".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: After a lengthy preparatory phase, the game's production began in September 2003. Publisher SCEI gave the project a greater amount of development time, funding and creative freedom in comparison to the resources of the "Ico" team, measures that arose from the company's recognition of that game's critical success. Kaido also noted that he and Ueda endeavored to expand the production with newly recruited staff. They sought out prospective collaborators, particularly artistic specialists, through job advertisements they had distributed across the Japanese trade media and via word of mouth publicity. From a pool of five hundred applicants, ten were subsequently enlisted to work on the game; however, Ueda felt that only one or two satisfied his criteria, as he expected every facet of the title to be as well-crafted as possible. Kaido's concern during production was to guarantee Team Ico's ability to meet their schedule and budget commitments while ensuring that they had the opportunity "to create everything Ueda was aiming for within the amount of time we had".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Kaido remarked that his colleagues needed to "start transitioning into full production", as they had devoted extensive efforts to the preparation of the game's technology. Initially, the team was unable to ascertain the level of sophistication with which they could materialize their ideas in the game. Character designer Shinpei Suzuki recalled that they started to develop the game in an experimental fashion and made progress through trial and error. As the team began, the designers issued instructions that outlined the programmable properties of the colossi enemies–along with the means of their defeat–and that were meant to be gradually implemented into the title. The process in which the staff attempted to introduce those concepts typically led them to encounter problems with their realization, which entailed a revision of previously submitted work. According to Kaido, during the development of the colossi the team struggled to choreograph certain motions of the enemies in line with the expectations of the personnel. To remedy this defect, Team Ico reworked their original programming solution that animated the movements of the colossi in the game. Suzuki described the team's early accomplishments as empirical; in the aforementioned period, the staff would routinely test and adjust the game's anticipated components until confirming them to function properly.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: To plan out the design the game's visual elements, Ueda used 3D computer graphics software instead of sketching them on paper. His rationale was that the necessity to transform the hand-drawn artwork into polygonal shapes in the latter case would cause the reproduced assets' level of detail to be vastly reduced from that of the source images. In defining the inclusion of the game's environments, Ueda outlined his suggestions to the team's scenery designers who then worked to apply them to the title. After the locations of the individual colossi were visualized in the game's engine, the group began to compose the game's setting by adding intermediary areas between the enemies' lairs. During development, the size of the game world frequently changed as the team reorganized the connective material. Environmental designer Kouji Hasegawa noted that the scenery graphics were drastically reworked on several occasions because Ueda urged him and his colleagues to reinforce the light tones in the coloring of the areas and to accentuate "the brightness and the saturation of the textures". Like "Ico", the game displays a distinct style of lighting. The game engine utilizes elements such as desaturated colors, motion blur and partial high dynamic range rendering; and it places heavy emphasis on bloom lighting.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: As Team Ico operationalized the game's physics-oriented features, they continued to refine them with reference to the "Ico"-inspired character designs from the "NICO" concept video. After the systems that modeled the player's interactions with the colossi and generated the game world were established, the team integrated the human models from the prior versions of the game into a newly-designed, singular figure. The necessity for the protagonist to freely traverse a 3D space prompted the team to abandon the presentational format of "Ico", whose gameplay is viewed from a fixed perspective, and to introduce a camera system with a third-person view of the character. After the inclusion of the player character's ability to perform climbing maneuvers, the team enabled the game to alter his physical response to instances of falling from a moving colossus; the reaction would vary depending on the distance that the protagonist's body traveled to the landing point. According to Ueda, the moment when he saw the actual effect of that simulation led him to believe that the project offered an exceptional play experience when compared to preceding video games.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Character animation is accomplished via key frame animation, the game's simulated physics and inverse kinematics (IK)–a method derived from the field of robotics. Some of the game's characters are procedurally animated; this technique is sparsely used due to the limited computational capacity of the PlayStation 2. While the basic movements of the character models were animated by hand, their physical interactions are simulated in real time by the game's physics engine. The generated data is input to the IK system to animate the joints of a model, and, by extension, its entire body. In the process, the system estimates the displacement, angle and the direction of the finalized motion, and the model is positioned in the environment according to these calculations. As a result, predefined animations are blended with physical effects to create lifelike character movement: for example, the player character behaves like a swinging pendulum as he hangs onto a colossus while it tries to dislodge him. As applied to the protagonist's horse, the technology enables the character to adjust its posture when on uneven surfaces for added realism, a feature that extends to the colossi.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: With regard to the colossi, Team Ico were keen to ensure that their motions were plausible, and strove to accurately convey the massiveness and energy level of the creatures. The colossi were programmed to react to the occurrence of specific player-driven events within one of the "sensor" areas set by the artificial intelligence (AI) of the enemies across their surrounding territory. For example, if the player character is at ground level and approaches an armed colossus from the front, the creature brandishes its weapon against him. As opposed to a hard-coded program, the colossi's AI could be fine-tuned for each of the game's scenes. Team Ico also developed AI-enabled movement algorithms for protagonist's horse, which was conceived as a realistic representation of its real-life counterparts. This solution allows the horse to occasionally ignore the player's commands and to be proactive in order to avoid visible sources of danger within its surroundings. However, Ueda admitted that the team had to seek a balance in how often Agro did not respond to player input so as to not sacrifice playability in the pursuit of realism.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Kaido admitted that Team Ico's ambitions for the game were partly unimplementable with the PlayStation 2 hardware, and that the team "[lost] sight of the cardinal rules of game design" several times during production. One of the issues that caused them to discard assets already added to the game was the variety of the colossi. Ueda initially intended to incorporate 48 colossi in "NICO", but their amount was afterward reduced to 24 when he concluded that his former vision was unrealizable. Eventually, Ueda settled on the released game's 16 beings due to a concern that the game would not achieve the desired quality level if the previous number of the colossi was maintained. To choose the colossi that were negligible, Team Ico estimated their level of completion at the time and the degree of overlap between the anticipated method of defeating a given entity and a strategy reserved for another enemy. Other omitted elements of the game included a two-player gameplay mode, excluded due to insufficient development time, as well as a simulation of a full day cycle and weather variations, excised because of problems that Ueda attributed to the PlayStation 2's memory capacity. Despite the design-related difficulties, Kaido remarked that the staff managed to reaffirm their creative priorities repeatedly after they had consulted the "NICO" technology demo.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: As the time passed, the development proved to be a strenuous endeavor for the staff, and fan expectations for Team Ico's second game placed them under pressure to surpass their past work in "Ico". The team's morale was challenged by Ueda's perfectionistic tendencies, as he was often demanding in his requests for revisions of the game's components. According to both him and Kaido, Ueda's insistence on exercising personal supervision over the artistic facets of the development was a factor in the emergence of the setbacks that the team encountered as they continued to work on the game. Thomas Wilborgh of the Swedish gaming magazine "LEVEL" afterward commented that Ueda's hands-on role in the creation of his games was evidence of his familiarity with every aspect pertinent to their development, and that Ueda was able to command the respect of individual personnel because of that personal quality. At the height of production, Ueda stayed in the office after hours to make progress in contributing content to the game; Kaido also refused to leave work early when he felt it necessary to provide other team members who worked overtime with moral support. Kaido commended the staff's dedication in retrospect, as he believed that their output allowed Team Ico to "[stick] to the schedule in the end", despite the reductive alterations that the game had undergone over the course of its production.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: In late 2004, following two years of development during which "NICO" was listed on Sony's internal schedules for forthcoming products under that respective name, Team Ico changed the games designation to its final Japanese title. SCEI's European branch was determined to publish the game under the name "Ico 2" in its associated regions. However, Sony Computer Entertainment America proposed that the game's original title, translated as "Wanda and the Colossus", be rebranded as "Shadow of the Colossus" for a North American release. In naming the game, Ueda intended to move away from the abstract title of "Ico" to a simpler and more straightforward product name. This resulted in the game's native title, which offered greater public appeal and clarity than that of "Ico", and was striking from the perspective of Japanese consumers. "Shadow of the Colossus" was unveiled in early September 2004–along with ""–via an announcement on the official Japanese PlayStation website. On September 10, SCEI held an official press conference where "Shadow of the Colossus" was presented by Ueda and Kaido to Japanese trade journalists. The event was accompanied by a live orchestral performance of selected music from the game's soundtrack, which drew interested visitors to the showcase. Later that month, a trailer of "Shadow of the Colossus" was revealed at the 2004 Tokyo Game Show, where Sony alluded to the game's tentative release date in the next year.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: At an internal meeting in February 2005, Team Ico decided to monitor player feedback to the unveiling of "Shadow of the Colossus" in an effort to correct the game's deficiencies. That April, Sony announced the game's American title, and by the next month, Western video game-oriented media outlets such as "GameSpot" and "1Up.com" had received a pre-release playable version of "Shadow of the Colossus" and reported their early impressions about the game. Also in May, the same version of the game–estimated by a Japanese online news source to be at "60 percent of completion" by that point–was exhibited at E3 2005, and, according to "Edge", attracted "heavy crowds, all clamouring to get their hands on and heads around its sheer enormity". However, several spectators complained about the low frame rate of the title, and Andrew Vestal of "Electronic Gaming Monthly", commenting on the game's status in a preview, cited problems that pertained to its collision detection. Ueda later admitted the existence of several flaws in the design of "Shadow of the Colossus"; at the same time, he had asserted that the staff's adherence to the central ideas that they had envisioned meant that the game's elements eventually coalesced into a coherent product.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: By July 2005, Team Ico entered the last phase of "Shadow of the Colossus" development. They had pledged to improve the game's frame rate, and worked to optimize its physics engine and the rendering of the game world. Ueda noted that the finished version of the "organic collision deformation" technology differed drastically from the iteration that the team originally developed. SCEI demonstrated "Shadow of the Colossus" at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show to a positive reception, and Jō Kirian of "ITmedia" reported that a long line of attendees queued up near the game's exposition stand at the venue. Ueda told "Eurogamer" after the convention ended that Team Ico deemed the game to be "pretty much fixed as it is" and that they did not have plans to supplement the game with new content. Although they had repeatedly missed deadlines and exceeded budget limitations, Kaido thought that the implementation of the game's major features instilled pride in his colleagues. According to Ueda, "Shadow of the Colossus" ultimately involved a 40-person team. After three and a half years of development, Team Ico completed the Japanese and North American versions of "Shadow of the Colossus" in September 2005.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: For "Shadow of the Colossus", Team Ico adopted a more sophisticated template for their creative process than "Ico"s principal idea of "design by subtraction"; under the latter approach, they removed the title's integrated elements that detracted players from its reality. Ueda felt that "Ico"s analogous structure to an adventure game resulted in its limited interactivity, and he wanted "Shadow of the Colossus" to be more player-driven by comparison. To that end, he sought to ensure that the game provided players with agency both sporadically–in that they would be able to trigger in-game scenarios by their own efforts–and on an overarching scale–by the creation of emergent solutions to the gameplay. Furthermore, the player can manipulate the camera during cutscenes, a functionality designed to maintain the impression of controllability–and therefore, the consumers' interest–in those otherwise self-directed segments of the game. At the same time, Ueda strove to make the title accessible to people who did not play video games by simplifying its controls and other components.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Kaido and Ueda aimed to challenge the contemporary trends of the video game industry, and they thus fashioned the battles with the boss-like colossi characters as an unconventional rendition of video game levels. The quality of the battles with the colossi was of critical importance to Ueda, who saw them as an outgrowth of his appreciation for boss fights in video games as a player. During development, the team considered including fights with smaller enemies beyond the colossi and with "optional Colossi you wouldn't need to defeat" in the game. Those suggestions were rejected due to Ueda's belief that the title's play value would not benefit from those confrontations. Relatedly, "Shadow of the Colossus" was made exclusive of human non-playable characters (NPCs), although the team placed discoverable small-sized animals in the game per Ueda's specifications. The creation of the colossi, as the focus of the game's separate segments, required Team Ico to provide input across disciplines. The ensuing distribution of duties between the title's artists, animators, programmers and designers meant that they needed to make their contributions to the game intercompatible so as not to engender design issues.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Ueda wanted the game's presentation to be outstanding and to exhibit "the density of a painting". He visited geographical landmarks of the Western United States such as the Grand Canyon and Death Valley to seek inspiration for the game's setting. The modeling of the game's environments, whose arrangement stemmed from independently constructed battlegrounds tied to each of the colossi, followed a pattern that Kouji Hasegawa described as "a repeating cycle of creating, testing and tuning". The team initially struggled to carry out Ueda's instructions for the shaping of the scenery and altered the game's locations frequently so as to find a satisfactory design for the setting. After researching several visual arts genres, Team Ico crafted a distinct graphical style that utilized both grayish and light color tones to underscore the game's ambiance, identified by Ueda as "firm-feeling". This aesthetic was exemplified by the game mechanics of searching the setting for the colossi, which came from Ueda's desire to determine a straightforward and visually defined reference for the player. He remarked that the game's completed graphics–as well as its gameplay principles–were produced similarly to those of "Ico", as an invocation of stylistic parallels between the two titles.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Among the game's characters, the appearance of the human personalities was established prior to that of colossi. According to Ueda, Wander and Mono, while fitting the literary trope of "a little boy and a little girl", were not meant to occupy archetypical roles, and the team attempted to foster a "cool" image in molding Wander's gestures. The colossi's design was derived from that of the gameplay, and was meant to invoke a simultaneous sense of peculiarity and realism while not indicating their true nature. Ueda was keen to achieve a convincing depiction of the colossi's scale, which was underlined by the addition of a climbable fur surface to the creatures. However, the complexity of the game's physics engine meant that the faster colossi needed to be smaller as well. Another concern for Ueda was to materialize a unique connection between the colossi, as NPCs, and the game's audience, by ensuring that victory over an enemy evoked a conflicted sensation in the player. In exploring this aspect, Ueda combined a scene that portrayed the death of a colossus with a melancholic song from a film soundtrack. He presented the edited sequence to the staff, who "burst out laughing. To have a scene like that ... seemed like a mistake to them". Nevertheless, Ueda resolved to carry the idea over to the rest of the colossi battles, which he asserted to be a well-judged choice after he had asked players to voice their opinions on that matter.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: While "Ico"s plot is told partly through dialogue, "Shadow of the Colossus" avoids that narrative device and relies more on nonverbal storytelling. Ueda strove to clearly characterize the game's setting within the constraints of the target platform, and thus devised a simple storyline for the title. As part of his approach to the game's environmental design, Ueda emphasized the motif of a "lonely hero" in the game, in keeping with the atmosphere of "Ico". Ueda explained that his design practices, together with the technological limitations of the time, meant that he favored "characters that live inside their own heads instead of having complicated relationships with other characters". At the same time, he was interested in the concept of companionship between an AI-controlled character and the player. This led him to construct a partnership between Wander and Agro, reminiscent of the connection between "Ico"s titular hero and Yorda, an NPC. Based in part on Ueda's own experiences in horseriding, the team prepared a detailed set of maneuvers that Wander could execute in concert with Agro, and gave Agro a crucial supportive role during gameplay. Kaido was especially satisfied with Agro's implementation, and Ueda was inspired by the interplay between the horse and the protagonist to focus his following game, "The Last Guardian", on a similar relationship.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The development of "Shadow of the Colossus" music started alongside that of the game itself. Ueda's core idea was to use a "dynamic and gallant" score in the game, akin to traditional Hollywood film music. The team's goal with the soundtrack of "Shadow of the Colossus", as with "Ico", was to differentiate it from conventional video game music, and to "express restraint with regards to emotional expression as much as possible". Inspired by the opening theme from "Silent Hill", Ueda also intended the soundtrack to reflect a melancholic ambiance as well as the history of the game's setting, based on the narrative's elements of death and resurrection. His other objective was to provide the game with compositions that adopted an elevated and dignified tone to underline the grandiose nature of the colossi.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The soundtrack was composed by Kow Otani, who had been previously responsible for the music to the 1990s-era "Gamera" films and a number of anime titles. Within the video game medium, his past work consisted of the soundtracks to the PlayStation 2 flight simulator "Sky Odyssey" and the PlayStation scrolling shooter "Philosoma". In selecting the composer of the game, Ueda sought to deviate from the conceptual perspective of the score for "Ico", written by Michiru Oshima. Unlike "Ico", which Ueda saw as a game that equally attracted male and female audiences, he saw "Shadow of the Colossus" as a work that appealed more to male players. This led Ueda to hire a male composer for the game. The versatility of Otani's musical output and his understanding of folk instruments were further factors in his recruitment by Ueda.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Otani began work on "Shadow of the Colossus" at the time of its inception as "NICO", and Ueda characterized the soundtrack's development as difficult due to the protracted creation of its associated game. The development staff's enthusiasm in bringing the game to completion motivated Otani to deliver tracks with which he meant to convey a sense of wonder, and he drew inspiration from the portrayal of Wander's determination to revive Mono in the game. The team worked with Otani through many meetings to develop satisfactory musical themes for the game's individual colossi. According to Ueda, one of the challenges of the music's production was to incorporate compositions whose melody and structure would adapt in response to the changing circumstances of gameplay events. Although the game has an extensive orchestral soundtrack, the music is mostly heard during colossus encounters, beyond which the game's setting is underscored by more subtle sounds of water and wind. The open nature of "Shadow of the Colossus" locations and their lack of life, coupled with the restrained use of music in the game, reinforces its atmosphere of solitude, analogous to that of "Ico".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Team Ico wanted to bring "a unique sound and feel" to each of the player's confrontations with the colossi. At the time that "NICO"s technology demo was developed, Team Ico used available sample music. Once those materials had undergone in-company review and had been finalized, the staff invited Otani to see the prototype as a means to communicate the game's direction to the composer. He then worked on the music for the game's discrete segments from the concepts submitted by the team via artwork and storyboards for the game's isolated scenes. Otani was repeatedly asked by Ueda to rewrite his compositions so that the team was able to use them in particular configurations that were compliant with the game's technical specifications. Otani felt that the assembled soundtrack was imbued with a cinematic quality. On December 7, 2005, an album containing music from the game was released only in Japan, titled "Wanda and the Colossus Original Soundtrack: Roar of the Earth" (ワンダと巨像　オリジナル サウンドトラック大地の咆哮, Wanda to Kyozō Original Soundtrack: Daichi no Hōkō). After the release of "Shadow of the Colossus", Ueda stated his appreciation for Otani's work in the game. Ueda was especially fond of the music that accompanied the game's finale, a series of phrases that had been extracted by Otani from each of the score's other tracks and remixed into a new recording. Although parts of that composition perplexed Ueda at first, he became convinced that it "was a really cool way to use the game's music" after familiarizing himself with the result.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Following a July 15, 2005 news release where SCEI confirmed the publication date for the Japanese version of "Shadow of the Colossus", the company divulged details about the limited first run edition of the game, which players could only acquire by pre-ordering, on August 19 of that year. On September 12, 2005, SCEI revealed that it had secured an arrangement to distribute the game through 7-Eleven's Japanese сhain of convenience stores. The companies launched a promotional campaign: consumers who pre-ordered the game at one of the 7-Eleven's retail outlets would receive stylized bookmarks whose designs incorporated artwork from "Shadow of the Colossus". On October 7, 2005, several weeks before the game was demonstrated at the 2005 Akihabara Entertainment Festival in Tokyo, "Dengeki PlayStation"s online news service reported that custom copies of the game bundled with thematic memorabilia would be available for purchase at the event. Branded merchandise, such as calendars, posters and T-shirts, was also sold in the Akihabara district on the occasion, and a promotional image featuring a colossus was placed on a billboard in the area.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Unlike "Ico", "Shadow of the Colossus" received far more exposure, in part because of Sony's willingness to leverage its resources for a massive advertising campaign. It was advertised in game magazines, on television and via online resources such as SCEI's affiliated websites: for instance, in November 2004 the game's soundtrack was partially made available for listening on the game's official webpage. "Shadow of the Colossus" was released in Japan on October 27, 2005 at a list price of 7,140 yen. The limited edition of "Shadow of the Colossus" distributed through pre-ordering contained a different packaging from the standard edition, promotional videos that had been screened at the game's initial September 2004 unveiling, E3 2005 and the 2005 Tokyo Game Show, and production footage of "NICO". The edition's content also consisted of unpublished screenhots, storyboards and video materials from various periods of the game's development.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Prior to its domestic launch, "Shadow of the Colossus" had been released in North America on October 18, 2005, accompanied by a nationwide advertising campaign that ran across multiple mediums. The PAL version of the game was released in February 2006. Much like the PAL release for "Ico", the game came in cardboard packaging displaying various pieces of artwork from the game, and contained four art cards. The game also came with a "making of" documentary, a trailer for "Ico" and a gallery of concept art, accessible from the game's main menu. Sony Computer Entertainment also re-released "Ico" in PAL territories at the time of "Shadow of the Colossus"s release, both to promote the game through "Ico"s reputation, and to allow players who did not buy "Ico" during its original limited release to "complete their collections".


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: "Shadow of the Colossus"s commercial reception was positive, with sales of 140,000 copies in its first week at retail in Japan, reaching number one in the charts. Almost 80% of the initial Japanese shipment was sold within two days. These figures compare favorably with "Ico", which was well received by critics but failed to sell a significant number of units. The game was placed on Sony's list of Greatest Hits titles on August 6, 2006.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: "Shadow of the Colossus" received critical acclaim, with an average critic score of 91% at GameRankings, making it the 11th-highest rated game of 2005. The game received strong reviews from publications such as the Japanese magazine "Famitsu", who rated the game 37/40, the UK-based "Edge", who awarded an 8/10, and "Electronic Gaming Monthly", who granted 8.8/10. GameSpot's review gave it an 8.7, commenting that "the game's aesthetic presentation is unparalleled, by any standard", while multimedia website IGN hailed the game as "an amazing experience" and "an absolute must-have title", rating it 9.7/10. GameSpy described it as "possibly the most innovative and visually arresting game of the year for the PS2". A retrospective "Edge" article described the game as "a fiction of unquestionable thematic richness, of riveting emotional power, whose fundamental artistic qualities are completely fused with its interactivity." Dave Ciccoricco, a literature lecturer at the University of Otago, praised the game for its use of long cutscenes and stretches of riding to make the player engage in self-reflection and feel immersed in the game world.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Many reviewers consider the game's soundtrack to be one of its greatest aspects. In addition to "Electronic Gaming Monthly"s award of "Soundtrack of the Year", GameSpot commented that the musical score conveyed, and often intensified, the mood of any given situation, while it was described as "one of the finest game soundtracks ever" by a reviewer from Eurogamer.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: However, the game has been criticised for its erratic frame rate, which is usually smooth while traversing the landscape, but often slows down in fast-paced situations, such as colossus battles. Concern was also expressed about the game's camera, which was described by GameSpy as being "as much of an opponent as the Colossi", "manag[ing] to re-center itself at the worst and most inopportune times". Reviewers are often mixed about Agro's AI and controls; "Edge" commented that the controls were "clumsy, crude, and unpredictable". Other critics like Game Revolution and GameSpot felt the game was too short (average playthrough time estimated 6 to 8 hours), with little replay value given the puzzle elements to each colossus battle.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: "Shadow of the Colossus" has received several awards, including recognition for "Best Character Design", "Best Game Design", "Best Visual Arts" and "Game of the Year", as well as one of three "Innovation Awards" at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards. At the 2006 DICE Summit, the game won the award for "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction" at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, while it received one of two "Special Rookie Awards" at the Famitsu Awards 2005. It was nominated for "Best Original Music", "Best Artistic Graphics" and "Best PS2 Game", yet also "Most Aggravating Frame Rate" in "GameSpot"s awards for 2005, while it won "Best Adventure Game" and "Best Artistic Design" in IGN's Best of 2005 awards, who cited Agro as the best sidekick in the history of video games. Two years after its release "IGN" listed "Shadow" as the fourth greatest PlayStation 2 game of all time. "GamesRadar" awarded it Best Game of the Year 2006 (being released in the UK in early 2006, later than the US), and appears in the site's "The 100 best games ever" list at number ten. The game's ending was selected as the fourth greatest moment in gaming by the editors of "GamePro" in July 2006. The readers of "PlayStation Official Magazine" voted it the 8th greatest PlayStation title ever released in the magazine's 50th issue, and it placed 43rd in a later poll presented in the journal's 100th issue. "Destructoid" named the game #1 in their list of the top 50 video games of the decade. "IGN" named "Shadow of the Colossus" the best game of 2005, and the second best game of the decade, behind "Half-Life 2". In 2012, "Complex" magazine named "Shadow of the Colossus" the second-best PlayStation 2 game of all time, behind "God of War II". In 2015, the game placed 4th on "USgamer"s The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: "Shadow of the Colossus" has been cited as an influence on various video games, including "God of War II" (2007), "God of War III" (2010), "Titan Souls" (2015), "" (2017), "Death's Gambit" (2018), "Praey for the Gods" (2019), and "Elden Ring" (2022). Film director Guillermo del Toro considers both "Ico" and "Shadow of the Colossus" as "masterpieces" and part of his directorial influence. "Shadow of the Colossus" is also cited numerous times in debates regarding the art quality and emotional perspectives of video games.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: The game plays a significant role in the 2007 Mike Binder film "Reign Over Me" as one of the ways Adam Sandler's character copes with his primary struggle – with aspects of the game mirroring the tragedy that befell Sandler's character; "Shadow of the Colossus" falling giants mirroring the crashing towers of the September 11 attacks in which his wife and children died, and the game's lead character trying to resurrect his deceased love are two of the main themes which strike a similarity. Sandler is said to have ad libbed a detailed description of the control scheme in a scene with Don Cheadle, who plays his old friend. Both actors are said to have become experts at the game during the filming.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: A PlayStation 3 remastered version of "Ico" and "Shadow of the Colossus" was announced at Tokyo Game Show 2010 and released in September 2011 under the title "The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection". Developed by Bluepoint Games, both were improved graphically to take advantage of the PlayStation 3's hardware and HDTVs, with numerous other improvements implemented. The updated re-release of "Shadow of the Colossus" features high-definition (HD) graphics, content previously missing from the North American release, PlayStation Network Trophies, and 3D support. The HD version was released separately in Japan.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: Sony announced a remake of "Shadow of the Colossus" for the PlayStation 4 during their Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 press conference. It was released on February 6, 2018. The remake is led by Bluepoint, who developed the earlier PlayStation 3 remaster. The developers remade all the game's assets from the ground up, but the game retains the same gameplay from the original title along with the introduction of a new control scheme. Ueda had since left Sony, but provided a list of recommended changes to Bluepoint for the remake; he stated that he does not believe many of them will be implemented, nor would they add any of the colossi that had been cut from the original game.


title: Shadow of the Colossus

text: In April 2009, it was reported that Sony Pictures would adapt "Shadow of the Colossus" into a film. Kevin Misher, producer of "The Scorpion King", "The Interpreter" and the recent attempted remake of "Dune", negotiated to produce. It was announced that Fumito Ueda would be involved in the film's production. On May 23, 2012, it was reported that "Chronicle" director Josh Trank would be directing the film adaptation. Seth Lochhead was due to write the film. In September 2014, Variety reported that "Mama" director Andrés Muschietti would direct the film after Trank dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with other projects.


title: Opuntia

text: Opuntia, commonly called prickly pear or pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as "tuna" (fruit), "sabra", "nopal" (paddle, plural "nopales") from the Nahuatl word for the pads, or nostle, from the Nahuatl word for the fruit; or paddle cactus. The genus is named for the Ancient Greek city of Opus, where, according to Theophrastus, an edible plant grew and could be propagated by rooting its leaves. The most common culinary species is the Indian fig opuntia ("O. ficus-indica").


title: Opuntia

text: "O. ficus-indica" is a large, trunk-forming, segmented cactus that may grow to with a crown of over in diameter and a trunk diameter of . Cladodes (large pads) are green to blue-green, bearing few spines up to or may be spineless. Prickly pears typically grow with flat, rounded cladodes (also called platyclades) containing large, smooth, fixed spines and small, hairlike prickles called glochids that readily adhere to skin or hair, then detach from the plant. The flowers are typically large, axillary, solitary, bisexual, and epiperigynous, with a perianth consisting of distinct, spirally arranged tepals and a hypanthium. The stamens are numerous and in spiral or whorled clusters, and the gynoecium has numerous inferior ovaries per carpel. Placentation is parietal, and the fruit is a berry with arillate seeds. Prickly pear species can vary greatly in habit; most are shrubs, but some, such as "Opuntia galapageia" of the Galápagos, are trees.


title: Opuntia

text: "Opuntia" contains a range of phytochemicals in variable quantities, such as polyphenols, dietary minerals and betalains. Identified compounds under basic research include gallic acid, vanillic acid and catechins, as examples. The Sicilian prickly pear contains betalain, betanin, and indicaxanthin, with highest levels in their fruits.


title: Opuntia

text: When Carl Linnaeus published "Species Plantarum" in 1753 – the starting point for modern botanical nomenclature – he placed all the species of cactus known to him in one genus, "Cactus". In 1754, the Scottish botanist Philip Miller divided them into several genera, including "Opuntia". He distinguished the genus largely on the form of its flowers and fruits.


title: Opuntia

text: Considerable variation of taxonomy occurs within "Opuntia" species, resulting in names being created for variants or subtypes within a species, and use of DNA sequencing to define and isolate various species.


title: Opuntia

text: "Opuntia" hybridizes readily between species. This can make classification difficult, yielding a reticulate phylogeny where different species come together in hybridization. "Opuntia" also has a tendency for polyploidy. The ancestral diploid state was 2n=22, but many species are hexaploid (6n = 66) or octaploid (8n = 88).


title: Opuntia

text: Species accepted by Plants of the World Online, , are listed below, together with some species accepted by other sources, where the name preferred by Plants of the World Online is also given.


title: Opuntia

text: Chollas, now recognized to belong to the distinct genus "Cylindropuntia", are distinguished by having cylindrical, rather than flattened, stem segments with large barbed spines. The stem joints of several species, notably the jumping cholla ("C. fulgida"), are very brittle on young stems, readily breaking off when the barbed spines stick to clothing or animal fur as a method of vegetative reproduction. The barbed spines can remain embedded in the skin, causing discomfort and sometimes injury.


title: Opuntia

text: One of the ancient homes of the cactus pear, Mexico, ran a breeding program in the 1960s. This effort at the Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University (Universidad Autónoma Agraria Antonio Narro, UAAAN) produced improvements in some traits including cold-hardiness.


title: Opuntia

text: Like most true cactus species, prickly pears are native only to the Americas. Through human actions, they have since been introduced to many other areas of the world. Prickly pear species are found in abundance in Mexico, especially in the central and western regions, and in the Caribbean islands (West Indies). In the United States, prickly pears are native to many areas of the arid, semiarid, and drought-prone Western and South Central United States, including the lower elevations of the Rocky Mountains and southern Great Plains, where species such as "O. phaeacantha" and "O. polyacantha" become dominant, and to the desert Southwest, where several types are endemic. Prickly pear cactus is also native to sandy coastal beach scrub environments of the East Coast from Florida to southern Connecticut, where "O. humifusa", "O. stricta", and "O. pusilla", are found from the East Coast south into the Caribbean and the Bahamas. Additionally, the eastern prickly pear is native to the midwestern "sand prairies" nearby major river systems, such as the Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio rivers. The plant also occurs naturally in hilly areas of southern Illinois, and sandy or rocky areas of northern Illinois.


title: Opuntia

text: "Opuntia" species are the most cold-tolerant of the lowland cacti, extending into western and southern Canada; one subspecies, "O. fragilis" var. "fragilis", has been found growing along the Beatton River in central British Columbia, southwest of Cecil Lake at 56° 17’ N latitude and 120° 39’ W longitude. Others are seen in the Kleskun Hills Natural Area of north-west Alberta at 55° 15’ 30’’ N latitude and 118° 30’ 36’’ W longitude.


title: Opuntia

text: Prickly pears also produce a fruit, commonly eaten in Mexico and in the Mediterranean region, known as "tuna"; it also is used to make "aguas frescas". The fruit can be red, wine-red, green, or yellow-orange. In the Galápagos Islands, the Galápagos prickly pear, "O. galapageia", has previously been treated as a number of different species, but is now only divided into varieties and subvarieties. Most of these are confined to one or a few islands, so they have been described as "an excellent example of adaptive radiation". On the whole, islands with tall, trunked varieties have giant tortoises, and islands lacking tortoises have low or prostrate forms of "Opuntia". Prickly pears are a prime source of food for the common giant tortoises in the Galápagos Islands, so they are important in the food web.


title: Opuntia

text: Charles Darwin was the first to note that these cacti have thigmotactic anthers; when the anthers are touched, they curl over, depositing their pollen. This movement can be seen by gently poking the anthers of an open "Opuntia" flower. The same trait has evolved convergently in other species (e.g. "Lophophora").


title: Opuntia

text: The first introduction of prickly pears into Australia is ascribed to Governor Phillip and the earliest colonists in 1788. Brought from Brazil to Sydney, prickly pear grew in Sydney, New South Wales, where they were rediscovered in a farmer's garden in 1839. They appear to have spread from New South Wales and caused great ecological damage in the eastern states. They are also found in the Mediterranean region of Northern Africa, especially in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, where they grow all over the countryside, and in parts of Southern Europe, especially Spain, where they grow in the east, south-east, and south of the country, and also in Malta, where they grow all over the islands. They can be found in enormous numbers in parts of South Africa, where they were introduced from South America.


title: Opuntia

text: Prickly pears are considered an invasive species in Australia, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Hawaii, among other locations.


title: Opuntia

text: Prickly pears (mostly "O. stricta") were originally imported into Europe during the 1500s and Australia in the 18th century for gardens, and were later used as a natural agricultural fencing and in an attempt to establish a cochineal dye industry. In Australia, they quickly became a widespread invasive weed, eventually converting of farming land into an impenetrable green jungle of prickly pear, in places high. Scores of farmers were driven off their land by what they called the "green hell"; their abandoned homes were crushed under the cactus growth, which advanced at a rate of per year. In 1919, the Australian federal government established the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board to coordinate efforts with state governments to eradicate the weed. Early attempts at mechanical removal and poisonous chemicals failed, so in a last resort, biological control was attempted. The moth "Cactoblastis cactorum", from South America, whose larvae eat prickly pear, was introduced in 1925 and rapidly reduced the cactus population. Alan Dodd, the son of the noted entomologist Frederick Parkhurst Dodd, was a leading official in combating the prickly pear menace. A memorial hall in Chinchilla, Queensland, commemorates the moth. The release of cochineal insects that eat the cactus and simultaneously kill the plant has proven an effective measure for combatting the spread.


title: Opuntia

text: Natural distribution occurs via consumption and seed dispersal by many animals, including antelopes, nonhuman primates, elephants, birds, and humans. When ingested by elephants, the sharp components of the plant cause harm to the mouth, stomach, and intestines.


title: Opuntia

text: "O. ficus-indica" thrives in regions with mild winters having a prolonged dry spell followed by hot summers with occasional rain and relatively low humidity. A mean annual rainfall of provides good growth rates. "O. ficus-indica" proliferates in various soils ranging from subacid to subalkaline, with clay content not exceeding 15–20% and the soil well-drained. The shallow root system enables the plant to grow in shallow, loose soils, such as on mountain slopes. "Opuntia" spreads into large clonal colonies, which contribute to its being considered a noxious weed in some places.


title: Opuntia

text: Animals that eat "Opuntia" include the prickly pear island snail and "Cyclura" rock iguanas. The fruit are relished by many arid-land animals, chiefly birds, which thus help distribute the seeds. "Opuntia" pathogens include the sac fungus "Colletotrichum coccodes" and Sammons' "Opuntia" virus. The ant "Crematogaster opuntiae" and the spider "Theridion opuntia" are named because of their association with prickly pear cactus.


title: Opuntia

text: Although the plants are edible, the pointed hairs should not be eaten, and similar species with milky sap are suspect.


title: Opuntia

text: Raw opuntia leaves are 88% water, 10% carbohydrates, and less than 1% both of protein and fat. In a reference serving, raw leaves provide of food energy, 17% of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin C, and 24% DV for magnesium, with no other micronutrients in significant content.


title: Opuntia

text: The fruit of prickly pears, commonly called cactus fruit, cactus fig, Indian fig (meaning "Native American", not India), "nopales" or "tuna" in Spanish, is edible, although it must be peeled carefully to remove the small spines on the outer skin before consumption. If the outer layer is not properly removed, glochids can be ingested, causing discomfort of the throat, lips, and tongue, as the small spines are easily lodged in the skin. Native Americans like the Tequesta would roll the fruit around in a suitable medium (e.g. grit) to "sand" off the glochids. Alternatively, rotating the fruit in the flame of a campfire or torch has been used to remove the glochids. Today, parthenocarpic (seedless) cultivars are also available. The seeds can be used for flour.


title: Opuntia

text: In Mexico, prickly pears are often used to make appetizers, soups, salads, entrees, vegetable dishes, breads, desserts, beverages, candy, jelly, and drinks. The young stem segments, usually called pads or "nopales", are also edible in most species of "Opuntia". They are commonly used in Mexican cuisine in dishes such as "huevos con nopales" (eggs with nopal), or "tacos de nopales". "Nopales" are also an important ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. In 2009 it was introduced as a cheaper alternative to corn for the production of tortillas and other corn products. They can also be pickled.


title: Opuntia

text: "Opuntia ficus-indica" has been introduced to Europe, and flourishes in areas with a suitable climate, such as the south of France and southern Italy: In Sicily, they are referred to as "fichi d'India" (Italian literal translation of Indian fig) or "ficurinia" (Sicilian language literal translation of Indian fig). In Sardinia, they are called "figumorisca" – Moorish figs), the same denomination they receive along the Catalan-speaking regions of the Western Mediterranean, "figa de moro". They can be found also in the Struma River in Bulgaria, in southern Portugal and Madeira (where they are called "tabaibo", "figo tuno", or "Indian figs"), in Andalusia, Spain (where they are known as "higos chumbos").


title: Opuntia

text: In Greece, it grows in such places as the Peloponnese region, Ionian Islands, or Crete, and its figs are known as "frangosyka" (Frankish, i.e. Western European, figs) or "pavlosyka" (Paul's figs), depending on the region. In Albania, they are called "fiq deti" translated as 'sea figs', and are present in the south-west shore. The figs are also grown in Cyprus, where they are known as "papoutsósyka" or "babutsa" (shoe figs).


title: Opuntia

text: The prickly pear also grows widely on the islands of Malta, where it is enjoyed by the Maltese as a typical summer fruit (known as "bajtar tax-xewk", literally 'spiny figs'), as well as being used to make the popular liqueur known as "bajtra". The prickly pear is so commonly found in the Maltese islands, it is often used as a dividing wall between many of Malta's characteristic terraced fields in place of the usual rubble walls.


title: Opuntia

text: The prickly pear was introduced to Eritrea during the period of Italian colonisation between 1890 and 1940. It is locally known there as "beles" and is abundant during the late summer and early autumn (late July through September). The "beles" from the holy monastery of Debre Bizen is said to be particularly sweet and juicy.


title: Opuntia

text: In Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East such as Israel, prickly pears of the yellow and orange varieties are grown by the side of farms, beside railway tracks and other otherwise noncultivable land. It is sold in summer by street vendors, and is considered a refreshing fruit for that season. In Libya, it is a popular summer fruit and called by the locals "Hindi", which literally means "Indian".


title: Opuntia

text: "Tungi" is the local St. Helenian name for cactus pears. The plants (Indian fig opuntia) were originally brought to the island by the colonial ivory traders from East Africa in the 1850s. "Tungi" cactus now grows wild in the dry coastal regions of the island. Three principal cultivars of "tungi" grow on the island: the 'English' with yellow fruit; the 'Madeira' with large red fruit; and the small, firm 'spiny red'.Tungi also gives its name to a local Spirit distilled at The St Helena distillery at Alarm Forest, the most remote distillery in the world, made entirely from the opuntia cactus.


title: Opuntia

text: Cactus pear is being promoted and researched by ICARDA for India, Jordan, and Pakistan especially. It is an underappreciated crop in these countries and has undergone recent expansion in cultivated area. In some particularly promising areas of India and Pakistan it has given a 30% increase in milk yield /hectare (/acre).


title: Opuntia

text: In Mexican folk medicine, its pulp and juice are considered treatments for wounds and inflammation of the digestive and urinary tracts, although there is no high-quality evidence for any clinical benefit of using opuntia for these purposes.


title: Opuntia

text: Prior to modern medicine, Native Americans and Mexicans primarily used "Opuntia" as a coagulant for open wounds, using the pulp of the stem either by splitting the stem or scraping out the pulp.


title: Opuntia

text: In one recent study, it was found that "Opuntia" aided in the prevention or slow down of diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. The results of the group that was taking "Opuntia" showed a reduction in BMI, body composition, and waist circumference when compared to the placebo group.


title: Opuntia

text: "Dactylopius coccus" is a scale insect from which cochineal dye is derived. "D. coccus" itself is native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico. This insect, a primarily sessile parasite, lives on cacti from the genus "Opuntia", feeding on moisture and nutrients in the cactus sap. The insect produces carminic acid, which deters predation by other insects. The carminic acid can be extracted from the insect's body and eggs to make the red dye.


title: Opuntia

text: Cochineal is used primarily as a red food colouring and for cosmetics. The cochineal dye was used by the Aztec and Maya peoples of Central and North America, and by the Inca in South America. Produced almost exclusively in Oaxaca, Mexico, by indigenous producers, cochineal became Mexico's second-most valued export after silver. The dyestuff was consumed throughout Europe, and was so highly valued, its price was regularly quoted on the London and Amsterdam Commodity Exchanges.


title: Opuntia

text: The biggest producers of cochineal are Peru, the Canary Islands, and Chile. Current health concerns over artificial food additives have renewed the popularity of cochineal dyes, and the increased demand is making cultivation for insect farming an attractive opportunity in other regions, such as in Mexico, where cochineal production had declined again owing to the numerous natural enemies of the scale insect.


title: Opuntia

text: Cactus is used as a fodder crop for animals in arid and dryland regions. Some farmers prepare it with a fermentation produce, to remove the spines, and increase the digestibility.


title: Opuntia

text: The prickly pear cactus has been used for centuries both as a food source and a natural fence that keeps in livestock and marks the boundaries of family lands. They are resilient and often grow back following removal.


title: Opuntia

text: The 1975–1988 version of the emblem of Malta also featured a prickly pear, along with a traditional "dgħajsa", a shovel and pitchfork, and the rising sun.


title: Opuntia

text: The cactus lends its name to a song by British jazz/classical group Portico Quartet. The song "My Rival", on the album "Gaucho" by the American jazz-pop group Steely Dan begins with the words, "The wind was driving in my face/The smell of prickly pear."


title: Opuntia

text: In the fall of 1961, Cuba had its troops plant an barrier of "Opuntia" cactus along the northeastern section of the fence surrounding the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to stop Cubans from escaping Cuba to take refuge in the United States. This was dubbed the "Cactus Curtain", an allusion to Europe's Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain in East Asia.


title: Opuntia

text: Uruguayan-born footballer Bruno Fornaroli is nicknamed prickly pear due to his sometimes spiky hairstyles.


title: Opuntia

text: The coat of arms of Mexico depicts a Mexican golden eagle, perched upon an "Opuntia" cactus, holding a rattlesnake. According to the official history of Mexico, the coat of arms is inspired by an Aztec legend regarding the founding of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, then a nomadic tribe, were wandering throughout Mexico in search of a divine sign to indicate the precise spot upon which they were to build their capital. Their god Huitzilopochtli had commanded them to find an eagle devouring a snake, perched atop a cactus that grew on a rock submerged in a lake. After 200 years of wandering, they found the promised sign on a small island in the swampy Lake Texcoco. There they founded their new capital, Tenochtitlan. The cactus ("O. ficus-indica"; Nahuatl: "tenochtli"), full of fruits, is the symbol for the island of Tenochtitlan.


title: Opuntia

text: The cactus fig is called tzabar in Hebrew (). This cactus is also the origin of the term ""Sabra"" used to describe any Jew born in Israel. The allusion is to a thorny, spiky skin on the outside, but a soft, sweet interior, suggesting, though the Israeli Sabras are rough on the outside, they are sweet and sensitive once one gets to know them. This term is might be derived from an Arabic word for this cactus صبار "ṣubbār", where the related term "sabr" also translates to "patience" or "tenacity".


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The Hyundai Elantra, also known as the Hyundai Avante (), is a compact car produced by the South Korean manufacturer Hyundai since 1990. The Elantra was initially marketed as the "Lantra" in Australia and some European markets. In Australia, this was due to the similarly named Mitsubishi Magna Elante model; similarly, in other markets, the name Avante is not used due to its similarity with Audi's "Avant" designation, which is used for their line-up of station wagons. The name was standardized as "Elantra" worldwide in 2001 (except in South Korea and Singapore).


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: It was sold in Europe from the spring of 1991. It replaced the somewhat larger on the outside Stellar, although that model had not been offered in many markets. The Elantra competed with the likes of the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier/Opel Vectra, but at a considerably lower price.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The Elantra was powered by a Mitsubishi-designed 1.6 L (1595 cc) straight-four. This DOHC 16-valve 1.6 L unit produced 113 hp (84 kW) at 6000 rpm and could push the Elantra to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 9.5 seconds. The quarter-mile (0.4 km) run took 17.1 seconds and produced 80 mph (129 km/h). Top speed was 116 mph (187 km/h). The Elantra got in the city cycle. Starting in 1993 a Mitsubishi-designed 1.8 L (1836 cc) inline-four option was available; this unit produces 124 hp (99 kW) at 6000 rpm.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The vehicle was refreshed in 1992 for the European market, adding Hyundai's current logo to the grille, although North American models retained the previous year's look. In 1993, the vehicle was refreshed again. The third (second in North America) and final facelift of this generation occurred in 1994 for both front and rear fascias. The vehicle featured ABS brakes, front airbags, fog lamps, power-operated side mirrors, and optional alloy seven-spoke wheels.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Between 1995 to 1998, the first-generation Elantra was also produced and sold for the Indonesian market as the Bimantara Nenggala, it is only available in there with 1.6 L engine.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Launched in 1995, the second generation (codename "RD" or "J2") was offered as a sedan and station wagon. It was sold in the South Korean market as the "Hyundai Avante" in sedan form and "Avante Touring" in the wagon body style. Some export markets such as Australia and Europe received the series as the "Hyundai Lantra" as per the first generation. Australian market wagons were given the "Lantra Sportswagon" name.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: In Europe, 1996 through 1997 sedan models had carried a silver Mercury-type false grille, while the wagon carried no front grille.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: At launch, a 1.5 L Alpha SOHC () inline-four engine and 1.8 L Beta DOHC () gasoline I4 engine were available domestically. Later, a 1.5 L lean-burn () gasoline engine based on the Alpha DOHC engine was added. The Philippine version, as well as in some European markets, had the 1.6 L (1599 cc) Beta, DOHC ("G4GR") which produced () (in some European markets ).


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: New grilles arrived in 1998 for the 1999 model year. The Lantra in Europe converged into a single-front end design, for both sedan and wagon. The model received the "RD2" or "J3" model codes. A PSA-built 1.9 L naturally-aspired diesel option was also added for some European markets, producing .


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: A new 2.0 L engine option became available. In Australia, the GLS model was an upgrade on the GL model and offered the 2.0 L engine, velour trim, softer cloth seats, and alloy wheels. The GLS had body-colored rear license plate light holder and exterior side-view mirrors.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: An all-new model (codename "XD") was launched in 2000. The station wagon version was dropped in favor of a five-door Liftback. Starting in 2001, all American models came with standard front and front-side airbags, air conditioning, power locks, power windows, and power steering. This simplified dealer inventories and repairs and also sought to improve Hyundai's image of "value" cars.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: In 2004, all models were refreshed (codename "XD2"); this introduced new headlights and tail lights, a new grille, new front and rear bumpers, a redesigned hood and trunk lid, as well as a redesigned dashboard.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The GLS trim is standard for the Elantra. The top-of-the-line model, the GT trim, came with a stiffer suspension, leather seats, fog lights, alloy wheels, lip spoiler, and blue-lit instrument cluster. Offered as a Liftback since 2001 as a 2002 model year vehicle, the only options for the GT were a power moonroof and anti-lock brakes with traction control. The only major option was a Kenwood MP3/CD deck. The GT trim sedan was introduced in 2003 and discontinued in 2005. The GT trim was replaced for the 2006 model year with the Limited trim, which featured new paint colors, a chrome vertical grille, leather interior with leather steering wheel and leather shifter and wood trim. The Limited trim featured steel rims with a 6-spoke cover featured in the GLS model. The GT trim for the five-door was produced for the remainder of the 2006 model year.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Canadian trim levels differed from that in the US: "GT" models came standard with alloy wheels, four-wheel disc brakes and ABS. Leather upholstery and TCS were only available on the "premium" GT edition.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The XD was available with 1.6-, 1.8- and 2.0-liter gasoline engines and a 2.0-liter turbo-diesel. North American models are available only with the 2.0-liter gasoline engine. The 1.8-liter engine is a 1.6-liter engine modified for the New Zealand market.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: While compact on the outside, it was listed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as a mid-size car because of a spacious interior. Although the basic powertrain design had changed little since the second generation, fuel economy improved for Elantras with manual transmissions from an EPA city rating of to , and further to in 2006. Cars with automatic transmissions returned , a reduction of .Horsepower improved from 135 hp (100 kW) to 138 hp (102 kW), and torque from 132 to 136, mainly due to the addition of continuously variable valve timing (CVVT) in 2004. Originally, the horsepower rating was misrepresented as 140 hp (104 kW). In 2006, the Elantra was offered with a SULEV emission rated engine in some US states.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: In China, the Elantra XD was produced by Beijing Hyundai from 23 December 2003 to 2011. This car has been used as a taxicab in Beijing since 2005 and replaced the popular red Tianjin Xiali taxi in 2006 in an effort to cut down pollution. The Elantra is available in 5 door Liftback for 2007 and sedan form from 2003 to 2010. Pre facelifted models of the Elantra XD were produced for the 2004 model year and had a facelift in 2007 consisting of new headlights, radiator, rear foglights on the rear bumper, and new wheels. Production ran up to 2010. It was facelifted again for the 2011 model year featuring new front and rear lights, bumpers, a single rear bumper fog light, radiator and power-folding mirrors with integrated turn signals. A 1.6-liter engine is available on taxi and passenger cars paired with a 5-speed manual gearbox. A 1.8-liter engine was available until 2007.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: A redesigned sedan (designated "HD") debuted at the 2006 New York International Auto Show for the 2007 model year. As before, the HD sold under the Hyundai Avante name in its South Korean home market. It used a resurrected appearance from the 1960s and 1970s called "coke bottle styling".


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The engine lineup included 1.6- "Gamma" and 2.0 L "Beta II" gasoline inline-four engines, and a 1.6 L turbodiesel inline-four. All engines featured improved fuel economy. A five-speed manual transmission was standard with an optional four-speed automatic.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) the Elantra received a "Good" overall score in the frontal crash test and a "Marginal" overall score in the side impact test, but all Hyundai Elantras manufactured after November 2009 earned a "Good" overall score in the side impact test. Standard side airbags included front and rear head curtain airbags and front seat-mounted torso airbags.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Beijing Hyundai launched a redesigned Elantra called the "Elantra Yue Dong" for the Chinese market with an updated exterior and a separate facelifted 2011 Elantra model. The model was later updated in 2017 and is currently known as the Hyundai Celesta.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Only the 2.0 L engine was offered in North America. Unlike the 2006 model year XD series, the 2007 model year base Hyundai Elantra GLS trim did not include air conditioning as standard equipment, but added side curtain airbags (previously front and side only), active head restraints and all-round disc brakes with four-channel ABS. The Elantra offered the most interior room in its class, leading the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to classify it as a mid-size car.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Hyundai offered the Hyundai i30 wagon in the U.S. and Canada marketed as the "Elantra Touring". Elsewhere, the same vehicle was marketed as the Hyundai i30cw.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Canadian trim levels were different from the US models. The base model "L" offered a base package with a four-speaker CD/MP3/Auxiliary stereo and front airbags. This trim included power windows in the front with manual windows in the rear. The "GL" added heated mirrors, air conditioning, power windows, heated seats, a six-speaker stereo, wheel-mounted cruise control, and keyless entry with alarm. The "GLS" trim added wheel-mounted audio controls, ABS, all-round disc brakes, and front seat-mounted side-impact and roof-mounted side curtain airbags. The "GLS" with the "Sport Package" included a rear spoiler, power sunroof, 16-inch alloy wheels, fog lamps, trip computer and a leather-wrapped steering wheel and leather shifter. The final trim level, the "Limited", added leather seats, a telescopic steering wheel, and automatic climate control air conditioning.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: Hyundai presented the LPI Hybrid at the 2009 Seoul Motor Show, and sales began as the Avante "LPI Hybrid" in the South Korean market in July 2009. The LPI Hybrid (liquefied gasolineeum injected) is a mild hybrid and is the world's first hybrid electric vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine built to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a fuel. Hyundai developed the technology and all key components in the LPI Hybrid, together with its local partners including the electric motor, battery and low DC/DC converter. The lithium-ion polymer batteries, which the LPI Hybrid was the first hybrid to adopt, differed from lithium-ion batteries, using a claimedly more stable and fire-resistant dry polymer electrolyte from Korean company LG Chem instead of a liquid or gel.


title: Hyundai Elantra

text: The LPI Hybrid came equipped with the 1.6 L "Gamma" engine, a electric motor, and a continuously variable transmission (CVT). The LPI Hybrid delivered . Compared to the conventional 1.6 L model, and considering South Korean gasoline prices, the LPI Hybrid can travel for the price of one liter of gasoline, while the conventional model would be able to travel only . The engine emitted 99 g/km of , which allows the car to qualify as a Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV). The LPI Hybrid produced 90 percent fewer emissions than an equivalent standard gasoline powered model, and LPG is a low carbon emitting hydrocarbon fuel that burns more cleanly than either gasoline or diesel, and also is free of the particulates associated with diesel. The LPI Hybrid shares its powertrain with the Kia Forte LPI Hybrid.