By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

LIKE previous movies based on Marvel comic book characters, the first film about a particular Marvel superhero is an origin story. The goal is to come out with a film that mostly stays true to the comic book version to satisfy longtime fans, while also appealing to a new audience unfamiliar with the source material. This is a formula that has been wildly successful for some Marvel films (i.e. “Spider-Man” and “X-Men”), though some have been less than spectacular (i.e. “The Punisher” and “Daredevil”).

“Iron Man,” Marvel Studios’ latest comics-to-Hollywood production and also its first self-financed film, follows the same formula, and thankfully this is a movie that will satisfy fans without melting the brains of the uninitiated. Marvel Studios tapped the directorial services of Jon Favreau, who made sure that the audience will care about the characters even without having read the comic books. It helps that the talented Robert Downey Jr. plays the role of fictional playboy billionaire industrialist Tony Stark and his alter ego Iron Man.

This review will of course contain spoilers, so those who would like to watch the movie without knowing anything about the plot should stop reading. The movie starts with Stark, whose company designs state-of-the art weapons for the US military, being kidnapped by a group of terrorists in Afghanistan. In a flashback, we learn that Stark is in Afghanistan to demonstrate his company’s latest weapon, the Jericho missile system. The terrorists now want to force Stark to create a Jericho missile for them, using parts from Stark Industries weapons that they have gathered.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

IT certainly is the most absurd mini-cartoon series ever created but it does a lot of good for the heart, because it’ll make you laugh pretty hard. Harvey Birdman is one of the characters in “Adult Swim,” a late-night show that is one of Cartoon Network’s most original comedy animations. It is quite a surprise that a video game was released by Capcom to emulate the show’s off-beat humor. The PlayStation 2 game Harvey Birdman, Attorney-at-Law is largely an interactive video game that takes the player to the world of Harvey Birdman, a retired 1960s superhero-turned-lawyer for a law firm called Sebben and Sebben. The entire series is very short; about four to five hours, depending on your speed of gameplay.

Speaking of which, this game doesn’t have much gameplay. Would-be players of Harvey Birdman may have to be told to watch out for its lack of the normally fast-based gameplay that is expected of a video game. There is barely enough playing around and it’s basically a TV series offshoot squeezed into a DVD game. Its interactive nature is more of pointing and clicking on items on the screen, moving forward and backward and, well, that’s basically it. However, what it lacks in gameplay it makes up for with its utter absurdity to comedic effect. The humor used in this game is just as good as the Adult Swim TV series and it will give players moments of laughter, especially with the dialogue of the characters.

Just as in the TV series, Harvey Birdman will take on court cases that range from finding out who robbed a bank to proving that Harvey’s partner, Peter Potamus (another Hanna-Barbera cartoon character way back in the 60s) is not an arsonist. You play Harvey Birdman to solve these cases. Each case will require Harvey to search for evidence or clues that he can use during the court case. Harvey can interact with witnesses (most of whom are also 60s characters) and police officers to help him out with his cases.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

WHEN it comes to game complexity, developer Ubisoft almost always lands on top of the list. Nearly all its action-oriented games require a considerable learning curve just to get through the controls. This is common in its Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter series wherein every aspect of the Xbox 360 controller is used. Nonetheless, these controls become essential to the entire gameplay. The company’s latest game is Assassin’s Creed (designed by no other than my favorite game developer, Jade Raymond), which melds together a lot of gameplay elements from Splinter Cell, God of War, Elder Scrolls, and Prince of Persia.

Just as the gameplay is complex, so is the storyline; the plot is set somewhere near the future. Desmond Miles is a bartender but is a direct descendant of a long line of assassins from the days of the historic Crusades nearly 1,000 years ago. Miles is kidnapped and experimented upon by scientists of the Abstergo Industries, which has a machine called the Animus that pulls out memories of long-since dead people as long as their DNA structure remains intact with their descendants. Desmond holds the memories of Altair, one of the Assassins who knew the location of the “Piece of Eden,” which seems to be an artifact that can cause mass hypnosis. Abstergo scientists want this artifact. In between the plot, as they say, thickens and the player might get confused with the integrated story between Altair and Miles. The story, while linear, is so complex that players can start their adventures just about anywhere in the map and still be able to continue the story.

More than 90 percent of the action happens during Miles’ usage of the Animus. The player/Miles becomes the Assassin Altair upon entering into a dream-like state then the adventure begins. The world is set in the year 1191 during the Third Crusade that saw the war between the real-life King Richard the Lionheart and the Muslim warrior-king Saladin. While the two kings battle it out, the secret society of the Assassins are facing off against the Templar Knights. Altair, having failed to kill the Templar Knight Grand Master, is stripped of his weapons and skills by the Assassins’ leader Al Mualim. As such the player will have to complete tasks set upon Al Mualim to recover parts of his skills and weapons. Likewise, the missions will lead to the discovery of the “Piece of Eden” as well as a conspiracy set by Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. The plot can be likened to a video game version of a Tom Clancy novel and is surprisingly well implemented in a video game.

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By Relly Carpio, hackenslash Contributor
INQUIRER.net

“I will not be dictated to, I will not be threatened. I am the morning and evening star, I am Pharaoh!” — “Prince of Egypt”

IT is by your will and decision where the city shall lie along the great banks of the Nile. It is by your wisdom what crops shall be sown after the inundation. It is by your leave when the priests will have their joyous celebrations, exulting the gods. It is by your command how those who dare challenge your rule will fall.

Pharaoh may not be a game for everyone, especially now that the fad for “gamers” is first-person shooter Half-Life clones (which any real gamer will instantly recognize as Quake 2 progeny, but that’s another review). Riding on the fame of the SimCity game fad which took the world by storm then, Pharaoh and its predecessors, the Caesar series were a historical alternative to the present-day sprawls of Will Wright and the boys and girls at Maxis Software. It was a fair alternative to SimAnt and SimFarm.

This game is part of the City Building Series that was published by Sierra Entertainment and Myelin Media. This particular game was developed by Impressions Games and those familiar with it will instantly see that it uses the Caesar III engine. Pharaoh was released in October 1999, and has an expansion, Queen of the Nile: Cleopatra. The game received fair acclaim when it was launched. Surprised? One should consider that the game was released after the movie “The Mummy” was shown in the summer of 1999. And the year before that, Disney’s “Prince of Egypt” came out.

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By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter
INQUIRER.net

I’M an air guitarist, that is I strum my fingers without a real guitar. Actually, I don’t know how to play the guitar nor will I have the patience to learn how to. I just use my imagination like most non-guitarists. But Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2) just about made me wan to pick up a real guitar and learn how to pluck chords.

This is the very first time I’ve played a game from the Guitar Hero series, which has been getting more and more popular and gave PS2 owners a reason to actually keep their PS2s for quite a while. This is not a game about graphics and as such players will not be concerned or distracted by the 3D background, which I would say is nominally good in some sense. All the players will be concerned about are the five colored notes from the top of a screen coming down along a virtual guitar neck and the player will have to press the corresponding fret button on their guitar controller. It’s also important that every time a fret button is pressed the strum bar has to be pressed down as well. As in a real guitar, there is also a whammy bar for hammer-on and pull-offs for rapid, consecutive notes.

First-time players like me will find playing the game difficult to start with, especially when having to press five buttons with only four left fingers (the left thumb is at the back of the guitar neck). Most of the time, the index finger will be used to press two buttons as it is the most movable finger among the four. Still, it takes quite some time to learn what to press and can be daunting even with the easy mode. The concept is similar to the arcade Dance Dance Revolution wherein the player has to time their button press when the notes hit the empty colored buttons at the bottom of the screen. Missing a note will cause some points and the Rock Meter to be shaved off. The Rock Meter serves as the player’s health and when it drops to zero it will cause the music to stop. Not missing for a while will give special bonus points to the player. Bonus points become harder to achieve as the levels increases. Getting in the “groove,” that is, being able to completely following the buttons on screen would take at least 1 hour. But once the buttons are mastered, it’ll be hard for anyone to let go of the controller.

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