Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ~ review

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a computer game / video game from Ubisoft released in late 2003 and is a reboot of the popular Prince of Persia video game series created back in 1989. A commercial and critical success, the game let players to take on the role of a prince who were tricked into releasing the magical sands of time which turned the occupants of the palace into monsters. To save the kingdom and his father, the King of Persia, he must work together with a beautiful prisoner named Princess Farah and defeat the Vizier who tricked him into releasing the sands. Since the game that I played is for the PlayStation 2, this review would be talking about the aspects of the game on that platform instead of on PC. And also please note that this review will contain spoilers. Without further delay, let's start dissecting Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

First stop, the plot. This video game put players in the shoes of the Prince, the son of King Sharaman of Persia, who had released, unknowingly, the sands of time throughout the kingdom and turning all the occupants of the palace into monsters. With the aid of Princess Farah, the player will then explore throughout the vast areas of the castle to try reverse the situation by returning back the sands of time into the hourglass that had once stored them. I personally feel that the story was just okay at first but as I played along, I fall in love with the story as it became more emotional, engaging and interesting. I also like stories with time travel element in it, so the time travel element in this game also helps in making me fall in love with the plot. I like the growth of the main character, the Prince that players control throughout the game. You can see him slowly learning from his mistakes and bad behaviours and try to wrap things out in his head (that players will learn through his monologues) while this bizarre incident resulting from his action in releasing the sands is happening all around him. The developer managed to create a character that players can root for, something that I feel is important to make the players relate with this story.

The inclusion of Princess Farah made the story even more interesting with the love twist and since the Prince mostly interact with her as there are not many talking characters in the game, she is definitely an integral part of the story as well as the character responsible for the growth of the main character, the Prince. The main villain, the Vizier, is also an interesting character in the game. But sometimes I cannot really grasps what he wants to achieve with his plan and that somehow made me feel like he is not a strong villain that I would like him to be. I personally think the developer could have done a lot better with him and make him a greater villain. One other thing that I would complaint is that it was sometimes hard to follow with the story because of the low-volume of the character's voice during cut-scenes. It was a bit weird since the music that played during gameplay was loud enough but somehow the volume got lowered during cut-scenes. To be honest, it was pretty annoying.

Exciting upcoming video games ~ The Evil Within and Dying Light

Personally, I feel that video gaming is such an expensive hobby. I love console games but the consoles and the video games are so expensive here that I just can't afford to have them, well at least the latest one. But still it's fun to keep up with the news on upcoming games, and here are two of them, both from the horror genre (since I love horror). Let's start with The Evil Within.

The Evil Within is the first video game from developer Tango Gameworks, and will be published by Bethesda Softworks for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. The video game is being directed by Shinji Mikami, the man behind the successful Resident Evil video game franchise. According to what I read online, Shinji Mikami intended to bring the true survival horror genre back to life with The Evil Within as he was disappointed with recent survival horror video games which put too much emphasis on action. Has you seen the video gameplay of The Evil Within? It looks so scary and horrifying. The graphics, the atmosphere, the monsters and the chasing scenes; everything look perfect! I especially like the apocalyptic scene when the main character ran out of the building, and also the monsters design. Don't you think the monster with the multiple hands looks terrifying? I got chills just by looking at it coming out from the floor. Looks like The Evil Within will be an interesting video game. No words on when it will be released yet but from the official website, it stated that the game will be released this year (2014) so expect to hear more news from the developer soon. You can also check out the gameplay demo in the official site below.

The Evil Within official site

The next video game that I want to talk about is Dying Light. The video game is being developed by Techland for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows, and it will be released end of March 2014. The game has a zombie-apocalyptic type of setting, and the players have to explore open areas to find supplies and craft weapons to fight these hordes of zombies. What is more interesting is that the game has a day and night cycle. Judging from the gameplay video that I watched, the night zombies are more frightening and vicious compared to the day zombies. The gameplay does look a bit like Dead Island though, Techland previous video game that featured zombies. I never played Dead Island before but I read comments that the actual game didn't live up to the hype when the trailer for that game first came out. I'm not sure what the fans think about Dying Light; are they excited about the game or are they worried that the final product would not live up to what had been revealed so far in the trailer and gameplay demo? But I think the game would be just fine since I personally think it looks interesting, fun and challenging. You can check out more info from the official site below.

Dying Light official site


Both games look deliciously fun and promising, hopefully both of them deliver amazing gaming experiences for players worldwide. Are you ready to be spooked gamers?

Asia's Next Top Model Cycle 2 ~ 3 episodes impression

The second season of Asia's Next Top Model had premiered on 8th January 2014. You can catch the show on Star World (Channel 711 ASTRO Malaysia), every Wednesday at 9.40 pm (8.40 pm in Jakarta and Bangkok). Currently the show had already aired 3 episodes, so here's what I think about the reality show so far.

For this cycle, the competition is based in Malaysia which I think is a great move since the show had already been based in Singapore for its first cycle. Maybe they plan to have each cycle to be based in different Asian country? If that's the case, then it's even better as viewers would get a different vibe with each cycle and that would definitely help the show differentiate itself from the other country version of the reality show.

Nadya Hutagalung remains as head judge and host of the show, while Joey Mead-King, Mike Rosenthal and Adam Williams round up the judging panel. I'm glad Nadya Hutagalung and Joey Mead-King decided to stay on the show as I feel they bring in great energy to it. But sometimes they had too many guest judges that made the judging panel seemed crowded, like with the case in episode 2. I also feel that in the first 2 episodes, the comments by the judges sound like it were scripted (except for Joey Mead-King who I feel was amazing during panel) but fortunately by episode 3 the comments sounded more natural coming from the judges.

For the first episode, 16 aspiring models were showed coming to Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, and had their first challenge in which they had to catwalk on a runway submerged in water. After the challenge, we got our first elimination where Jessie was eliminated for performing the worst on the runway. It was pure bad luck for her that the first challenge involved water which she have a fear of. If it didn't involved water, maybe she could have performed better.

As for the first photo shoot, the girls had to take photos for their opening titles of the show. It was quite obvious from this photo shoot that the girls were still uncomfortable to pose in front of the camera. I think some of them do have modelling experience before but still almost all of the girls did a mediocre job in my opinion. I think they still need some time to get used to it, so I feel bad when Elektra became the first girl eliminated at the judging panel as I feel it is still too early for any of these girls to go home.

What to watch? ~ 2014 movies: February

There are a lot of interesting movies coming our way this year. But there are too many of them to keep track. So I've decided to come up with a list of movies that caught my interest that are coming out each month. Since different countries have different release dates, so I'm going to follow with the release dates stated within the Wikipedia list (since that is my main source anyway) which mainly follows the US release date. Take note that the release date might have a last-minute change though. We're already in January, so I'm going to skip January and start with February movies instead. So what are some of the movies that had caught my attention and will be released in February? Let's start!

1. The Lego Movie

When I first heard about this movie, I have no interest on seeing it at all. Then the trailer came out and I was surprised, it actually looks good! The trailer highlighted the innovative visuals of the Lego world and the fun characters that the movie has, so I might be seeing it in the cinema anyway. With the release date of February 7, 2014, the movie will feature a large voice cast which include Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett and Channing Tatum. Expect to see Lego version of DC superheroes in the movie as well.


2. RoboCop

RoboCop will be a remake of the 1987 RoboCop film, and will also serve as a reboot for the movie franchise. The movie will star Joel Kinnaman as the police detective-turned-RoboCop, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and Abbie Cornish. From the trailer, the movie does looks quite interesting but it also looks a bit small in scale compared to its $120 million budget. I also read a lot of comments about the new suit which some people described it to look like kitchen appliances. Well, I kind of like it, even though it looks like a human in a robotic suit instead of a complete robot with a human head. I will wait until the movie comes out to fully judge it. RoboCop will be released in cinemas on February 7, 2014 in the UK and February 12, 2014 in the US.

My 2013 Top 10 Films ~ No. 5 - No. 1

Welcome to the second part of my top 10 favourite movies of 2013. If you missed part 1, you can click here. For those who already read that, let's continue with the remaining five movies in my list. Hope you enjoy the post.

5) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

This second film in a planned trilogy is doing very well at the box office and most probably do as well as its predecessor, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey which raked in more than $1 billion at the box office. Personally, I feel The Desolation of Smaug is a much better film than An Unexpected Journey in terms of its plot, pace, action, and emotion that it gives to audiences. All the casts did great in the movie but I'm particularly very impressed with the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) which made a very convincing and intimidating appearance in the film. And it has a great cliffhanger ending too which make me even more excited for the third film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

4) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Even before the film was released, I already predicted that this film would be in my top 10 list because I love the first film so much that it would seem impossible that I wouldn't love this one. I was right, I love Catching Fire, it was an amazing experience watching this movie at the cinema. But I realized that eventhough the film grossed more than $830 million at the box office, a lot of people actually didn't like this film based on some comments I read online with people saying they wasted their money seeing this movie at the cinema. Of course those commentators who said that they hate the movie might be just a portion of the whole audiences but still it kept me thinking; did the movie made so much money because there are people who watch it not because they like the franchise but because they are curious about the movie due to its aggressive advertising and also out of curiosity? If this is true, I wonder how Mockingjay Part 1 (the next sequel in the film series) would perform at the box office?