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[email protected] Technique Entertainment Editor: Daniel Spiller 17 Friday, Assistant Entertainment Editor: April 17, 2009 Entertainment Jennifer Aldoretta DS’s GTA revamps series Knowing explodes with VIDEO GAMES back in 2004, and it never came the game control. !e in-game Grand Theft Auto: close to the success of the Play- settings provide many di"erent action-packed thrills Station releases. However, Nin- options for camera and game con- Chinatown Wars tendo’s latest handheld system is trol, one of which is bound to #t CONSOLES: Nintendo DS able to correct the mistakes of its your playing style. !e gaming predecessors and provide violence style is very similar to the original GENRE: Action and mayhem to players on the go. two GTA games, with a bird’s eye DEVELOPER: Rockstar Leeds !e protagonist, the character view of your character and his sur- that the players will be controlling roundings. !is, plus the above- RATING: M (Mature) throughout the game, is Huang mentioned genius GPS system, RELEASED: March 17, 2009 Lee. !e spoiled son of a recently allows you to always be aware of murdered Triad boss, Lee arrives your surroundings in a dangerous OUR TAKE: !!!!"! in his hometown Liberty City to city where anyone can be up for deliver the family heirloom Yu your throat. By Zheng Zheng Jian (a sword) to Uncle Wu “Ken- All the basics that everyone Contributing Writer ny” Lee. expects from a GTA game are ob- However, upon arriving in viously present. Stealing cars, set- Unlike its big brother, the Liberty City, Lee is kidnapped ting explosions and shooting sub- Wii, who tried to hold on to its and the sword was stolen. During machine guns are just a fraction innocence for as long it could his journey to retrieve the family of the fun you could be having with family style gaming such heirloom and revenging his fa- with Chinatown Wars. In order as Wii Sports, the Nintendo DS ther, Lee gets caught up with local to promote new material to the was doomed for corruption the crime bosses and their feuds. !e genre and fully exploit the DS’s moment it was introduced to the story is well-written and is full touch screen, the game presents world with its touch screen tech- of plot twists and shocking rev- the most controversial (and most nology. elations which add to the chaotic fun) aspect, the mini-games. With games such as Feel the gaming experience. You don’t know how to hot Magic XY/XX in which you can Fans of the series will immedi- wire the car you are trying to “interact” with a girl through the ately be given a taste of nostalgia steal? No problem. Chinatown stylus (e.g. unzipping her dress once granted control, as China- Wars will teach you how to steal as a mini-game) and Pictochat in town Wars is set in Liberty City, a car properly. How about making which you send your friends poor- which is the central location for a Molotov cocktail? !e game will ly drawn pictures of phallic fruits, many GTA games of the series. present you with step-by-step in- the handheld system is a revolu- On the other hand, the clever structions that you carry out with tionary innovation that provides in-game GPS system will guide your stylus. You don’t think drug new opportunities for controver- any newcomers through the city, trading was fascinating enough in sial gaming. smoothly around the cops and the other GTA games? Now you Grand !eft Auto: Chinatown straight to the drug dealers, arm can personally hand them to your Wars, Rockstar’s latest release of shops and crime bosses as needed. buyers with a simple drag on the the popular and controversial It is very easy to get used to touch screen. Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment GTA series exclusively for Ninten- !e mini games in Chinatown do DS, does not disappoint. !e Wars are nothing like, say, the last time a GTA game had been re- WarioWare series. FILM ships and things such as $ying leased on a Nintendo system was !ey are educational to anyone Knowing cars. One girl in particular, Lu- cinda Embry, seems to be a bit Chinatown See , page 18 GENRE: Action, Thriller of an outcast from the other stu- STARRING: Nicolas Cage and dents, and furiously starts writing Rose Byrne numbers down instead of drawing a picture. DIRECTOR: Alex Proyas !e teacher seems disturbed RATING: PG-13 by Lucinda’s entry for the time capsule but puts it in anyway. RELEASE DATE: March 20, Later, when Lucinda goes missing 2009 from the time capsule ceremony, they #nd her in the basement of OUR TAKE: !!!!! the school doing something simi- lar to a scene in a horror movie. By Kristin Hanson !e movie includes many shock- Sta! Writer ing and almost horri#c scenes, especially when the children start Not often does a movie come hearing faint whispers that seem out that taps into humanity’s to come from mysterious “watch- unquenchable desire for know- ers” that appear throughout the ing what the future will hold for movie. mankind, while still managing !e movie then fast-forwards to deliver nonstop action with an 50 years to the present where Ca- unconventional merge of religious leb opens up his drawing from the and science #ction elements that time capsule, and it is the page are actually original. Knowing, of numbers from Lucinda. He is directed by Alex Proyas, the well- convinced that the numbers have known director of I, Robot and some meaning, but John refuses !e Crow, does just this. to believe it at #rst. Nicolas Cage does an excep- After Caleb goes to bed, John tional job of playing John, a de- spends all night pondering the voted single dad and professor of numbers, their possible meanings astrophysics at a university. Ever and why a child would have writ- since his wife’s death in a #re sev- ten them. He is blown away when eral years earlier, his ideas about he discovers that the numbers are religion and the order of the uni- dates to every major disaster to verse have been cynical. When his happen in the world for the past son Caleb’s school opens a time 50 years. Horrifyingly enough, capsule from 50 years ago, all his the next date on the page is to- doubts are put to the test. morrow. !e movie starts with a group John’s frantic search for an- of school children from 1959 that swers lead him to Lucinda Em- are supposed to draw a picture bry’s daughter, played by Rose about what they think the future Image courtesy of Rockstar Leeds will look like. Many draw rocket See Knowing, page 20 t"QSJM tTechnique ENTERTAINMENT Chinatown from page 17 dreaming of one day becoming Casiotone bears beautiful, lonely Children a mob boss, and they are also a MUSIC through the eyes of his characters nightmare to parents everywhere. Casiotone for the is also noteworthy. On “Harsh the !e game shows o" the DS’s Herald Angels Sing,” he chan- graphic capabilities quite nicely, Painfully Alone nels an unwed soon-to-be-mother with a mixture of 2D and 3D en- Vs. Children who is less than excited about vironments that present a rather LABEL: Tomlab the prospect of motherhood. !e unique look only for the handheld woman faces judgment from her system. GENRE: Rock, Electronic neighbors and isolation from ev- !e in-game characters, how- TRACK PICKS: “Man O’ War” eryone around her. !e moment ever, can only be considered bor- and “Optimist Vs. The Silent she begins to accept her pregnan- derline Chinese at most. Take any Alarm (When The Saints Go cy, Ashworth sings “I guess I just mobster face and paint it yellow or Marching In)” quit drinking / I guess I just quit add a mustache to it and you have smoking / Guess I’ll need some a Grand !eft Auto: Chinatown RELEASED: April 7, 2009 names / Alan, William or James / Wars character. !e stereotypical, Doctor tell me you’re joking.” but nonetheless $avorful, speak- OUR TAKE: !!!!!" In the end, neither the vocals ing style makes the occasional nor the music would or could sur- cutscenes quite hilarious. vive on their own. Some of the Like all of the GTA games, By Robby Cassidy most upbeat work he’s done is on Chinatown Wars supports a di"er- Contributing Writer display here, especially with “Op- ent kind of playing style and de- timist....” !e barroom piano bar- pends on your mood. You could Casiotone for the Painfully rels through the track’s two-min- either follow the storyline by Alone’s Owen Ashworth gained ute runtime, accentuated by the doing missions and jobs to earn early recognition for his extreme sparse drums, culminating with money, or you can start destruc- minimalism. His #rst album, Image courtesy of Tomlab the tune of “When !e Saints Go tion from the onset. Answering Machine Music, was Marching In.” !e latter can be easily achieved spawned from a song recorded on !e lyrical content is also due to the ease at which the play- a friend’s answering machine with morphosis, an amalgamation of that it points out that underneath much less depressing than his ers can manipulate the drug mar- just a Casiotone keyboard, drum acoustic and electric, with his lo- the distortion and lack of produc- typical work, telling the story of ket. You will #nd yourself to be machine and Ashworth’s grumbly # beginnings cleverly disguised.

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