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Let me state for the record that I never bothered to watch the first National Treasure movie after I knew it was a Disney film, turns out it’s a good thing I did. However, I got dragged along to watch this sequel released 3 years after the original film since I didn’t have anything else to do on Christmas’s eve. Hence, I was slightly skeptical when I stepped into the theater to watch National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Unfortunately, my doubts turned out to be true.

No offence Disney, but you’d be better off sticking with movies and shows for children rather than trying to produce movies like National Treasure which are aimed at a more mature audience. The movie was pretty much a typical Disney production. There’s a good guy (in the form of renowned treasure hunter Benjamin Gates played by Nicholas Cage) whose great-great-grandfather’s name has been tarnished when a bad guy (Mitch Wilkinson, played by Ed Harris) convinces everyone that he was the mastermind behind the Lincoln assassination. So, he sets out to search for some treasure to prove his great-great-grandfather’s innocence and solves many clues along the way and overcomes many obstacles with his estranged girlfriend, Abigail (played by Diane Kruger) and good friend, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) (how finding a treasure helps, I’m not all too sure). Then, midway through, the bad guy tries to track his movements as he wants to search for the treasure himself. However, in the end, he has to work with Gates to find the treasure, in the process of doing so, the bad guy eventually dies and everyone lives happily ever after.

Watching the show ultimately feels like you’re playing an Xbox adventure game since you have to find clues and solve mysteries and ultimately find a reward at the end of the day as you battle through various obstacles. Sounds great, only problem is that you’re watching someone else play the game and he’s obviously using some cheat code since Gates can solve every puzzle presented to him in a matter of seconds. The story and plot is pretty childish since everything doesn’t make much sense and much of it is only there to help move the movie along. For example, midway through the film, Gates “kidnaps” the president to gain some information he needs and ends up releasing him after that. However, after that he easily evades capture, and can still travel all the way to the Mount Rushmore monument without anyone bothering about him. And you’d think someone would have noticed the hidden entrance to the treasure by now if it’s located at Mount Rushmore.

The acting in the film is pretty good, with many bits of comedy thrown in for good measure. At least there isn’t really any part that’d make me want to cringe. The scenes depicting the underground cave the group has to travel through and other special scenes look pretty good and the effects are definitely top notch, especially the scene depicting the treasure at the end (I won’t spoil it for you). All in all, if you try and forget all the inconsistencies within the plot, it’s a pretty good film.

All in all, this is a pretty mediocre film at best and is something you’d see on Disney channel in the future anyway. My advice is that it’s not worth your money to go watch it in a cinema, wait for it to premiere on Disney channel or rent a DVD at most if you must when it’s released. If you’re really really bored, National Treasure: Book of Secrets isn’t a complete waste of your time and money though.

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With the Harry Potter series at its end with the 7th book finally being published this year, I took some time to search for other books with roughly the same genre, teen fantasy. Through a friend, I stumbled upon the Artemis Fowl series, written by the Irish author Eoin Colfer which began in 2001. This series has been ongoing with roughly 5 books, with the last one projected to emerge in 2008. Although it lacked publicity compared to the Harry Potter series, it still made up by becoming quite successful, receiving a favourable response.

The setting is relatively simple to understand and intriguing at the same time. Artemis Fowl II is a child prodigy, a genius, at 12 years old, he has an IQ debatably one of the highest in the world. He is the sole heir to the affluent Fowl family line, a long line of infamous Irish criminals who reside in their traditional Fowl Manor. Accompanying him are his personal bodyguards and servants, Juliet and Butler.

The story begins with Artemis brooding over his family’s recent misfortune. His father, Artemis Fowl I was recently lost in the Arctic during a business transaction, driving his mother to insanity due to his absence. Normally, a 12-year-old kid might be stunned with not knowing what’s next to do, but not Artemis. Immediately, this classical “evil genius” tries to hatch a plot to reinstate the Fowl name as the wealthy family they were once were, by amassing another fortune, illegally. This leads to the main plot of the first stolen gold from fairies.

The stereotypical image of fairies are little “pixies”, small hand sized humanoids who fly around with their wings, accompanied by the Irish myths of leprechauns with their magical pots of gold. However, in Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer not only utilises this myth thoroughly, but pushes it beyond our wildest imaginations. In the story, fairies are a large colony of humanoids including pixies, dwarves, goblins, the usual mythical group. Centuries ago, they had war with us (humans) and after being defeated, they fled underground where they stayed hidden for centuries using their superior technology and fairy magic.

Artemis, through someway was able to come to the knowledge of their existence, and knowing their secret, plans to steal gold from them to help reinstate his family’s wealth. What we are given in the end is an interesting plot full of mythical twists and turns as we see this boy, not even a teenager, attempt to outwit the other races based on his cunning plans. Artemis, in this way, plays a lovable “evil genius”, whose plots for personal power and greed against the fairies form the basic plot line of the series.

As with the Harry Potter series, one thing I noticed was that as the series progressed, the themes of the books become more and more mature. Having read the entire series, I can safely say that the unique setting would draw the interests of both the young and old into the very possible scenario that we are not the smartest beings on this planet. I personally recommend getting hooked onto the series, which has its last book coming out some time in 2008, in addition to a movie in the works.

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Ever heard of myths that you never knew existed? Ever wanted to personally witness such myths being busted / confirmed? If you had such desires, this is the series for you. Mythbusters is a TV Series that shows you how true, or how fake a myth is. They don’t tell the myths, they put them to the test. Whenever the Mythbusters are around, there would surely be hilarious moments, jokes of such and often, blowing up of stuff.

Hosted by special effect specialists Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the duo would attempt to solve and prove popular beliefs, internet myths and urban legends through the use of basic science and knowledge. This ensures that all audience would be able to understand them clearly. Due to the nature of some dangerous experiments, home viewers are not advised to try them out themselves without professional assistance. Between them are 30 years of special effects experience and would try to prove to the audience once and for all, the truth behind all those myths.

The show often make use of a dummy to conduct the experiments and they do have a long-term personal dummy known as Buster. Buster is a dummy similar to what you would see at seat belt test experiments. When it comes to dealing with high explosives and a dummy, Buster would probably be excused and in its place, a dummy made of ballistic gel. This type of gel dummy is usually used for myths testing for damage to humans, ie. is it possible to shoot through a sniper’s scope and kill the sniper behind it? That would require a sniper to shoot at. Hence, the unlucky sniper would be made of ballistic gel. Since ballistic gel reacts almost the same way and is similar to human flesh, it would be a useful tool to see the extent of the damage done to human flesh. Being able to see through it, it is an added bonus to be able to see how damaging something could be to a human.

After all said and done, Mythbusters is still my favourite show currently aired. There is no myth too tough for the Mythbusters. When I first watched it, I found the title already interesting enough and indeed, the show captivated many with myself included. It could possibly be the highest rated TV reality series shown on Discovery Channel. Anyway, Discovery Channel even created a fansite for fans of Mythbusters to post myths that they are interested in and also provides a platform for fans to discuss about possible scenarios and intriguing myths. A proof of its popularity is that currently, it is already in its 6th season and newly emerged myths still find their way into the fansite through word of mouth. Soon enough, if it is widely discussed on the fansite, it is going to find itself on one of its episodes.

All in all, Mythbusters is a very interesting series which serves to prove to the general public that not all myths are true.

For more information on Mythbusters, visit the fansite here

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In recent years, more and more Real Time Strategy (RTS) games have been popping up all over the market. Unfortunately, most of them have pretty much similar basic gameplay mechanics: collect resources, build buildings, build troops, fight it out with your opponent(s) until someone eventually lasts longer. Of course, most RTS games try to play around with the formula by introducing more unique gameplay mechanics in order to make the game appealing. However, in my opinion the most unique gameplay mechanic of all that has been introduced into an RTS game in recent times is the one in Impossible Creatures, an RTS game developed by Relic and published by Microsoft back in year 2002.

Despite being a 5 year old game, that doesn’t make this game too outdated (Starcraft is almost 10 years old and is still being played competitively nowadays). It has an extremely unique gameplay mechanic: it allows you to create your own army before an actual match, and the way in which you do this is what’s special. Basically, you’re given a database of around 70 animals and insects (if you download the free Insect Invasion expansion that is), all of which have different stats (size, health, damage, ability to fly/swim, etc). From there, you then have to mix 2 creatures together to form a single unit. You are able to determine which animal’s head, torso, front and hind legs and tail you want on your resultant creature. For example you could have a dog with a whale’s head or an owl with a beetle’s torso. Every small detail affects your resultant animal in big ways. For example if you decide to include a crocodile’s tail on a land animal, that creature will become an amphibious creature, allowing you to swim and move around on land. If you give a dog an eagle’s wings, it will be able to fly. This sounds next to absurd, hence the game’s title Impossible Creatures. You then have to create 9 different creatures to form your army, and even then there are other things to consider such as the level of research of each creature and the cost required to build them in game.

All this might sound very complicated, but in my opinion that’s what gives this game such a deep and unique gameplay. The reason being that practically no two people will have exactly the same army, because there are an infinite number of possible combinations. Even if 2 people choose to mix the exact same 2 animals out of around 70 of them, the different parts of the animals you choose will still affect the resultant creature’s stats and price and even research level. This is important because you start off at research level 1 at the beginning of any game, this means you can only build creatures of that research level. As you collect more resources (coal and electricity), you’ll be able to gradually research higher levels up till level 5 when you can finally build your most powerful (and expensive) creatures. This then opens up even more possible tactics for the player to take. Some players might choose to have more level 1 creatures so that they can rush (attack in the early stages of the game) their opponent and hopefully clinch an early victory, or others might have more level 5 creatures and possibly use towers to defend their base in the early game until they can tech up to higher levels so that they can quickly produce more powerful creatures. The possible scenarios and outcomes are endless due to the different armies.

However, while the gameplay itself might still be fresh, the graphics certainly aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, this game is by no means ugly, but they just don’t look too good 5 years later. Still, Starcraft uses 2d sprites and people are still playing that game, so I’m not going to complain about the graphics of Impossible Creatures. The sound effects on the other hand is top notch, save for some corny voice acting. There’s nothing much for me to comment about the sound, though the animals will all produce very authentic sounds when you click on them or order them to move around, which is a nice touch.

Unfortunately, despite having such a unique gameplay and a fresh idea in a market full of RTS clones, Impossible Creatures never really caught on. It might be because of the name itself, as well as the fact that the box art makes it seem like a game intended for children. By no means does that mean that no one’s playing the game anymore. There’s still a large community for it which is still releasing their own mods for the game which adds even more creatures to the game and tweaks some of their stats. For anyone looking for a breath of fresh air when it comes to RTS games, I’d definitely recommend you check out Impossible Creatures.

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If you do some typing work frequently on the computer, may it be for work, digitalising an essay or perhaps just writing a story, you would surely understand the enormous number of distractions which can easily throw you off your work path. It might be a random friend instant messaging you, or perhaps a bad habit of surfing the web at the same time and you have encountered an interesting enough article that it beckons you from your work. This is what exactly Writeroom/Darkroom is made for.

Writeroom is actually a program which was coded solely for the MAC OS, being advertised as an application which is able to keep out all the distractions from a writer. The program’s slogan is “Distraction free writing”, which is exactly the type of environment it tries to emulate for the users. It’s a program which blocks out everything else except a blank screen for you to write on in full screen mode, and it also gives the basic utilities of being able to save, count your words and even a spell checker. What it basically promises is a place you can focus on your writing, nothing else.

When I personally first started up Writeroom, upon a friend’s advice, the interface looked sleek and smooth. The basic skin, which can be customised, is just a black screen, with green text which appears when you start typing, giving the user a “matrix” feel. It blocks out everything else which might be present on the background, such as IM’s popping up or even your Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer standing by with loaded contents. It reminded me of writing in real life, where the only things on your desk would be a writing pad and your stationery, just like a blank screen for you to type on.

However, despite what it was made for, a distraction blocker, it does not exactly grant full immunity to such distractions. In the end, it’s just a helping tool, and writers still have to rely on themselves to be able to fully concentrate on their work. With easy hot keys to exit, and the usage of certain hot keys of whatever operating system one is using, you can easily tab away the Writeroom to other programs, overriding whatever use it may have. Furthermore, it does not exactly block out sounds in the background, so one would still hear the familiar pings of instant messages in the background and easily tab out to reply them.

In the end, Writeroom is still just a tool to help a writer get going, it still boils down to the person himself or herself to concentrate on their work. Still, it is a helpful program which can be downloaded here for the Mac version, or here, for a ported PC version.

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