The UrbanWire      

Truly, action speaks louder than words when you’re busy thumping both minions and enemies alike.

Enter the world of fairy tales or rather how it was originally meant to be. From the makers of Pikmin, comes Triumph Studios’ twisted tale of one dark lord’s journey to world domination and, along the way, funny yet sinful parodies are interspersed. Surely, the Brothers Grimm have met their protégé.

UrbanWire fell in love with Overlord at first smite. In essence, the Xbox 360 game is all about micromanagement strategy. You can choose to send minions out to introduce pain to your adversaries or you can join in the fun and give them hell.

Having awoken from a long sleep, you are told of the fall of your predecessor by Gnarl (the minion master) and how it’s your turn now to play boss. The main aim is to rebuild your desecrated Tower and to end the reign of the seven Heroes. Each of these heroes has fallen into one of the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, sloth, vengeance, envy, wrath and greed) and thus begins the test of wills to see who is more evil.

The controls are relatively complicated and take a little getting used to. The left analogue controls your main character who incidentally takes very much after Sauron from The Lord of the Rings. The right analogue directs your horde around the map and causes them to do your bidding. Such a set up enables you to multi-task as you go about smashing and burning while your minions find something constructive to do, which is to say constructive to your empire. from

At any time, the horde can have up to 50 little impish buggers with any combination of the four different types of minions, each with different attributes or attacks. Warriors (commonly referred to as Browns) are the tankers of the game and are available in the very beginning. Fire hurlers (Reds) are pitifully weak in close combat but are capable of dishing out large amount damage from a distance. The role of the Healers (blue) is to, well, heal and Assassins (Green) take down mobs really quickly. These imps are the keys to victory and without them well, you are like a de-clawed kitty; cute but totally defenceless.

While the Overlord looks a bit stiff, the minions are humorously animated. Sweep them over tables of bread and beer and they will gobble everything down and relieve themselves of any innate pressure below the waist. As your imps thrash the furniture or pumpkins, they equip themselves with almost anything that hurts. For instance, pots act as helmets and pans come under the category of ‘painful’. Gold and potions are carried and offered to you the way a priest makes offerings to his God. We definitely love it when these buggers come out to play.

With 50 imps running amok in the game, Codemasters obviously made some concessions to keep the engine running smooth. Graphic quality isn’t consistent throughout the game. While the world in general is wonderfully lit with HDR lighting and lush green grass and trees, sewers and villages vary in their texture.

When Gnarl informed UrbanWire of the need for a mistress, we nearly fell of our chairs. Getting to choose between naughty or nice is really a toughie but tougher still is to get missy to bring the Overlord into the bedchambers. The chaps at Codemasters’ forum say buy the right girly tower upgrades and you’ll have a happy Overlord. However, having been given a Teen rating by Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), expect to see only a closing door as the cut scene (Tsk, pity).

During your adventures, your choices and actions will reflect in how you and your tower appears, and how the Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) will react to you. If you so choose to smite and send many a human to hell, the surviving ones may beg for their lives or break into hysterics. When you commit a particularly evil act, the corruption bar will fill up and bonuses such as higher-level spells can be gained.

One thing seriously annoying about Overlord is the lack of development in camera alignment. Clicking the right thumbstick allows an overhead view and the left bumper realigns your camera to behind you. The inadequate auto-camera alignments result in having to contend with enemies backstabbing you plus the pain of manual camera control. Also, the producers didn’t see fit to put in a mini map. Instead, they provide us with a paper one. Come on, paper?

Overlord’s edict

The dark humour featured in the game is really funny especially with his minions and Overlord has succeeded in taking a fresh approach towards a storyline that is wearing thin. It’s time for hobbits, elves and bloodthirsty unicorns to get their asses kicked.

While the game succeeds in making you smile with warped anecdotes, it also brings on a frown with the overly-complex controls and the niggling camera alignment. In the end, master the camera and you’ll find yourself giggling maniacally in Overlord.

Presentation: 8
Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 7.5
Gameplay: 8
Lasting Appeal: 8
Overall Rating: 8

Pictures provided courtesy of Atari.

Find out what the Directors of Thai box office hit Shutter have to say about their new film Alone at Blog Aloud held after a 7pm preview screening at Golden Village Cinema Europa on 20 Jul (Fri). (Read more)

After 2 years of waiting, the winners of The Straits Times School of Rock competition , 3 Dash 1, have finally released their debut album, June’s Lucky Bunch. UrbanWire spoke to the band members about their new album at Timbre where they were scheduled to play on Jun 23. of Rock 2005

Here’s what Ashik Sokhaimee (lead vocals, guitarist), 20, Andhika (bassist, backup vocals),21 and Nashir Ayub (drummer),20, have to say about their new album.
UrbanWire: “It’s been 2 years since you guys won the School of Rock. So why the long wait for the album?”

Nashir: “When we won, we expected the recording to begin straight away. However, recording only started 6 months later and even then, we had difficulty booking the studios because we had to find days when we were all free.”

UrbanWire: Who did you guys work with during the recording?

Andhika: Leonard Soosay! He’s the one who helped record Electrico and Firefight.

Nashir: He’s also the reason why we recorded 6 months later. He has a very busy schedule and also he’s very sought after.

UrbanWire: Tell us more about the songs in the album.

Nashir: For one, our genre is pop punk. We all love punk but pop because our songwriter, Ashik, tend to write pieces that has [sic] a pop vibe to it. Every song in the album was written by Ashik and we help him by coming up with a tune to go along if he doesn’t already have one.

Andhika: Also, the songs “If You’re Gone” and “My Crush” were the ones that clinched us the Title for School of Rock. They’re really good.

UrbanWire: So are these the reasons we should buy your album?

Ashik: Yeah. It’s original, it’s unadulterated and it also has a nice cover.

UrbanWire: Haha! By the way, why is your album titled June’s Lucky Bunch?

Andhika: Well, we didn’t really expect to win the competition back then; the other bands were really good. So we felt really luck and since we won in June, that’s the name we decided we should have.

UrbanWire: How far do you guys think you can go as a band?

Andhika: We want to go far but we might end up doing different things.

Ashik: Music is in us. We just want to explore it and maybe not through the same band. [does this mean they may be splitting up???need to follow up] It really depends.

UrbanWire: If you guys could each give credit to only one person for supporting you, who would that be?

Ashik: My girlfriend, for obvious reasons.

Andhika: Erm, my mom.

Ashik and Nashir: That’s because you have no other person!

Andhika: No, really!

Nashir: I would want to thank my Dad.

Andhika: Yeah, his dad is really supportive.

Ashik: During the competition, he was in the crowd screaming “That’s my son!”

With a 7,000-strong audience including visitors from Indonesia and Malaysia, Planetshakers together with New Creation Church rocked the Max Pavilion at the Zone concert on Jun 15.

The Australian Christian band, which counts Australian Idol Guy Sebastian as a former lead vocalist, performed in Singapore, their first stop on South East Asian tour. Their first album, When The Planet Rocked, was recorded live at the Planetshakers conference in Melbourne in 2000. Since then, they’ve been producing albums each year with their latest being this year’s Saviour of The World.

Like all concerts, the queue began early with fans at the entrance a full 4 hours before the doors opened. They had to brave the erratic weather with sweltering heat and clammy rain just to get the best seats in the hall for the free seating concert. Sometimes, even the early bird has to wait for the worm.

“I came early because I’ve a big group of friends who will turn up later so I want plenty of prime seats,” said Ngee Ann Polytechnic graduate, Ong Han Yuen, 20.

When the doors opened at 6:30pm, the influx of people was so great that tickets were only collected when people exchanged them for a goodie bag carrying a Solid Rock magazine and a water bottle. Of the crowd, a small percentage were gate crashers who simply walked in without a ticket.

“They belonged to another part of the queue that allows them to enter only if there were extra seats,” explained one of the ushers, Nicholas Tan.

The concert kicked off with a drum solo by Timothy Patrick Solomon, New Creation’s drummer. His solo was the prelude to a Stomp team by Dare ministry, New CreationChurch’s Youth Ministry (think Stomp The Yard with Asian secondary school kids). The execution of beats and synchronised actions were close to perfection, considering how hard the dancers were trying not to laugh when their friends were at the front screaming their names.

And then Planetshakers came on stage.

The music was simply awesome. Unlike so many popular songs that speak of anger and maladjustment, the band’s music was uplifting and, for want of a better word, happy. Their genre: Contemporary Christian.

Although there were 2 lead singers, Samantha Evans and Henry Heeley, in the 10-piece band, the latter had more of a stage presence and did most of the singing. A large reason why Heeley was the centre of attention was because he sang the louder and faster songs and looked more like leader of a band while Evans had a more mature feel to her voice.

It was, however, disappointing that the Planetshakers’ gig lasted for no more than 7 songs (approximately 1 hour).

“I was really surprised that their performance was so short but I guess most of the people here wasn’t familiar with their songs, so most of the time they are just jumping to the music,” said Steve Kwa, 27, professional bodyguard.

And as the band left the stage, Joscelin Yeo, ex-national swimmer, went up and shared her experience about last year’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and how she managed to do well despite the fact that she was stricken with chicken pox a week before the competition.

Recounting that most critics had dismissed her chances of success, she revealed that she relied on her faith and self-belief, which at the end of the day, saw her achieve miraculous results against all odds.

“In fact, last year at the age of 26, I broke many of my records which I had set at the age of 21.”

The next speaker was Pastor Joseph Prince who gave a talk about grace and righteousness, and kept everyone laughing. At one point, he even did an impersonation of Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean which probably even Johnny Depp would have paid money to watch.

The last item of Zone concert was the band from New Creation. With their original compositions, they performed all the way from 9 pm to 10.15 pm. And the crowd’s reaction was no less compared to Planetshakers’, with many jumping and cheering all the way to the end.

After a 3 year hiatus, Benjamin Puah is back with a visually unsettling exhibition at Forth Gallery to shake the senses off all art and non-art patrons leaving them in a state of “Luan Qi Ba Zao” (Mandarin for Very Messy) which, of course, is the title of the exhibition.

During his break, Puah held the workshop “Colours of Life” which aims to allow primary and secondary students to enter the artist’s world and to create their own. The youths’ artworks were then displayed on Singapore’s National Day Parade in 2006. Other exhibitions of his were “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Rats In A Lab”.

At the opening on Sat, May 19, people well acquainted with Puah’s work or those who were simply curious walked in for a world of possibilities. Instead, what greeted them was shock and unbelief. Clearly, the 10 year veteran achieved the effect he wanted.

Revolving around the theme of “Post Surreal Monopolyism”, Puah’s paintings explore a world of messiness and childlike innocence and at the same time reflect his mental state of mind. Interestingly enough, it took him just 1 month to finish the entire collection.

“The paintings are an investigation into my uncertainty state of mind in an organised structural space,” says the Lasalle graduate, “The tons of self-questionings have resulted in different routes that I took with life.”

With a little more than 80 square metres to display his collection, Puah was more than happy to explain that as an artist, “I have to be sensitive and be able to adapt to changes”.

In one aisle of Forth is a set of canvas with a bald man wearing different clothing in a seemingly different world. Labelled “Gong Gong” (colloquial tongue for ‘dumb’), Puah spoke of an insight where “being too clever is being too stupid” and being “Gong Gong” is a form of greater wisdom.

It can be said that “Gong Gong” is a representation of himself but yet the veteran seemed shocked when similiarity of baldness between the creation and the creator was pointed out. It was almost as though he did a self-portrait on a subconscious level.

Fellow artist and owner of Forth Gallery, Justin Ng, believes Puah’s work provides us with a new perception in life and to realise “it’s time to break out from the walls that we have been encased in”.

However, such philosophical thinking was lost on the other patrons.

“I feel that his new art has too much resemblence to a primary school drawing” says Nayang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) student, Chew Zhen Ling, 18, “Although, I quite like his previous work with the celebrity portrait back in 2004.”

Another patron, Terence Lau, Singapore International Airlines intern, 20, recalls seeing a painting with the chinese words “I think of suicidal thoughts everyday” and felt so perturbed that he simply left the place.

Ironically, Puah “wants to create artworks with/about the young ones to spread the message of peace, love and the celebration of life across to the masses”. In a weird way, the artist’s works and philosophy blends perfectly into the title of his works. In short, it really is all very messy.