I am actually saddened by the whole Ris Low saga. Singaporeans can be really unkind.

I do agree that she doesn’t represent everything that a beauty queen should, but I get the feeling that most of her critics are simply jumping on the bandwagon to insult her just because it’s fun to gang up against a common target.

The first major thing that people picked on her about was her bad language skill. Everyone made fun of her poor diction and said she shouldn’t be allowed to represent Singapore because of that.

I think that’s an unfair thing to pick on. Since when was good English a prerequisite for Miss World contestants? What about contestants who don’t speak a word of English and have to use translators to help them through the Q&A round?

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I could never stop being a gamer.

Now that I don’t have time to play serious games, I find myself compulsively playing stupid kiddy games, such as Facebook games, which I mentioned last week.

I almost feel ashamed of myself.

I also recently downloaded a bunch of free iPhone games just for days when I’m caught with nothing to do outside and I didn’t bring my DS.

Last night, in bed, I decided to play Lemonade Tycoon (!!!) on my phone for 15 minutes to make myself sleepy so I can fall asleep.

I ended up spending an hour on it but it didn’t feel like an hour at all. It felt like 15 minutes.

I had to lock my phone in the bathroom to force myself to sleep.

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Table of Contents

1. Heroes Over Europe
2. Time Wasters by Swordplay
3. Sheylara goes to GCA 09
4. Forza Motorsport 3 video
5. Results of last week’s contest
6. Win a limited Forza 3 2GB thumbdrive!

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Heroes over Europe

A review by the Goonfather

I have always wanted to get into a cockpit and get entangled in chaotic dogfights.

I have tried playing games such as Wing Commander, Strike Commander, F15 Strike Eagle III, Falcon 3.0 and F-22 Lightning II, but gave up after a couple of tries. You need to have attended flight school for a week just to make sense of the controls in these games.

So it was for that reason that I stopped buying flight combat games despite being sorely tempted with each release.

Then, one day, I found a copy of Heroes Over Europe sitting on my desk, courtesy of Sheylara. I hesitated a little. To be honest, I still have an unwrapped copy of Blazing Angels which I bought more than a year ago.

But thanks to the forceful persuasion Sheylara, I finally relented and played Heroes Over Europe over the weekend. My first impression of the game was: “Wow! Easy controls!” There are no gauges to bother with and the controls are as simple as those of FPS games.

The gameplay is less of a flight simulator and more of an arcade shooter, which will appeal to players looking for a fun game rather than a realistic flight sim. There’s the regular “chase, aim and fire” tactic to take down the enemy, or the ace kill mode.

When your meter charges up, you can go into Ace mode where time slows down and you can zoom in a great distance to see in magnified detail the enemy pilot, gunner, engine and ammo container. You will need to hit one of these vital spots to one-shot the plane. (Bigger planes may require two vital spots to be taken.)

There is also a nose dive tactic, in which you’re required to dive straight down at full throttle while firing at the enemy. Damage is maximised in this stunt.

The storyline seems messy and weak as the game takes you to different missions in different areas. The story revolves around three pilots, each out to become a hero of the skies during the WWII era. I just skip the stories and go straight for the action, which is addictive enough as it is.

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Time Wasters by Swordplay

Swordplay is my pesky li’l bro who spends all his time playing time-wasting games. To make him a little bit more useful, I’m sitting on him and making him recommend one fun and simple web-based game each week.

This week: Vox Populi, Vox Dei (a werewolf thriller)

Description: An adventure game about heartbreak and werewolves! Sneak up on werewolves and tear them apart with your bare hands, leaving a trail of pixelated blood.

Gotta love the description!

Vox Populi, Vox Dei, by the way, is a Latin expression meaning “The voice of the people is the voice of God”.

I don’t know what that has to do with werewolves and heartbreak, but it’s a cute, simple side-scrolling game.

Here’s what the pixelated blood looks like.

Yes, I caused that bloodshed, evil me.

You get to pounce on werewolves then hit Space Space Space (see the signboard behind?) to liquefy them. You can actually see the blood spurting out and dripping.

How do they manage to make 8-bit games so gory?

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Sheylara goes to GCA 09

I went to GCA 09, as y’all know, shot some footage and did some interviews.

Here’s the video after much procrastination. (I really dread editing videos cos it’s such a tedious process!)

I mainly just went around the Xbox 360 booth, so you’ll be seeing mostly Forza Motorsport 3 and Halo 3 ODST.

Actually, you’ll be mostly seeing me suck at playing the two games.

I also had a chat with The Great Ian Livingstone (Life President of Eidos, founder of Games Workshop, author of Fighting Fantasy books).

He has a new Fighting Fantasy book out, called Stormslayer. A few other popular titles in the series have also been revamped and republished, with more colour and in B4 size.

I’m also hearing that some FF titles will soon be available on the iPhone and DS, like around Christmas! Gasp!

I digress.

Other interviews in the video: John Wendl (Content Director of Turn 10, for Forza 3), Erik Ford (Regional Senior Marketing Manager, Xbox 360) and the two Forza 3 booth babes!

Forza 3 is looking really great! The demo is out now on Xbox LIVE, so go check it out!

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Forza Motorsport 3

Oh, yeah, I think I haven’t shown the Forza videos here, yet. (I have too many channels for gaming news to take care of, these days. I get confused.)

Check this out. It will make you so want to play the game!

Forza Motorsport releases on Oct 23, 2009, exclusively for the Xbox 360.

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Results of last week’s contest

These exclusive GTA t-shirts are going to three lucky people!

Amazingly, Mr Randomiser picked NNNW, bryan and Piers!

Congratulations! You three are getting the awesome tees!

Please e-mail me to claim your prizes. (Prizes not claimed after two months will be returned to the giveaway pool.)

Thanks!

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Win a limited Forza 3 2GB thumbdrive!

I was going to keep this for myself because it’s beautiful and it’s 2GB!

But after some thought, I decided to be nice and share it. I’m sure some Forza fan out there would love to have this.

This thumbdrive is one of the goodies that come in the Forza Motorsport 3 Limited Edition game.

To win this, tell me how much of a Forza fan you are. The person I think is the biggest fan will win.

Terms & Conditions

1. Winners will not be notified. Please check the next issue of GGF for results and instructions.
2. Prizes not claimed after two months will be returned to the giveaway pool!
3. Closing date is Oct 8, 2009, 11:59pm.

It pays to be a fan!

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Back to the topic of iPhone games, Nanny Wen recently introduced me to this game called Tap Tap Revenge 2. It’s also free. It’s a music game where you tap on notes as they fall.

By the way, I only download free games on the iPhone. It’s like that. When you give someone something free from the start, they find it hard to pay for the same, subsequently.

That’s why I haven’t attempted to purchase the paid version of the game even though I really enjoy it, and it has only a few songs in the free version, and iPhone games are actually really cheap (value for money).

You gotta wonder what’s wrong with people.

My first encounter with Darah was the little trailer reminding cinema-goers to turn off their handphones.

The short features a psychotic person with long dishevelled hair, looking like a cross between a drag queen and a pontianak, screeching hysterically as she swings a blade at an off-screen victim.

Big red bloody words appear on screen:

TURN IT OFF OR
SHE’LL CUT IT OFF

I rolled my eyes when I first saw it. It was the epitome of cheesy. It gave me the impression that Darah was a B-grade comedy horror.

Weeks after I saw the trailer, I met with Eric Khoo and learnt that he’s the executive producer for the film. I was surprised and a little disturbed.

Subsequently, he invited me to a special Darah screening. He said it’s a good movie so I decided to suspend all expectations and believe him.

The screening was held at the old Thumper Bar at Goodwood Park Hotel, which is currently undergoing major renovations so it looks really grungy and creepy.

It was quite dark in there. I didn’t even realise while I was there that the projecter was sitting on a blood-stained sheet.

Yes, even though I took this photo. And even though I actually sat in the front row that night. I didn’t notice the blood-stained sheet until I went home and saw my photos.

I did notice this blood-stained sheet covering the entrance to the bar, though.

I’m not blind. Really.

That night, I learnt that the lead actress in Darah had won an award for the film, which made me more curious to watch it. It was hard for me to reconcile the comically-crazed pontianak in the cheesy phone trailer with award-winning.

Eric Khoo gives a short speech before the screening.

Well, now that I’ve seen it, I’m declaring that the film is so far from being B-grade that I would give it a few extra As for good measure.

AAAA.

Darah follows a group of six friends who stumble upon a damsel in distress in the middle of nowhere, while on a road trip. Being do-gooders, they offer to give her a ride home.

Home is a big old creepy house in the middle of a thick, isolated jungle.

What follows is a prolonged night of senseless slaughter, sometimes in explosive carnage, sometimes in exquisite detail. The plot is not particularly unique and realistic, but I like how the film was executed.

Let me first say that Darah is possibly the goriest movie I’ve seen (I don’t see too many of them, though). It’s not for the weak-stomached. The lady next to me had to cover her eyes half the time. Me, I was clutching onto my handbag and jacket too tightly for the whole 90 minutes, making valiant efforts to stifle my screams.

The suspense build-up and roller-coaster teasing are chilling and thrilling. The cinematography is dramatic and artistic enough to prevent the film from being simply a gratuitous bloodfest. There is a lot of blood in the film. More than you can bear.

The actors are all brilliant. I can’t understand why they didn’t all get awards. I also learnt that the makeup and special effects were done by just one person, which makes it inexpressibly remarkable.

As an objective critic, I really, really liked the film.

As a scaredy cat, I was totally pulverised.

Darah is an Indonesian film (with English subtitles) by newbie filmmakers Mo Brothers. It’s called Macabre in other parts of the world. I think it’s only called Darah (which means blood) in Singapore because they found that too many Singaporeans can’t pronounce or doesn’t know the meaning of macabre.

It’s rated M18.