Spore definitely looks like one of the most interesting games of the year, developed by renowned games genius Will Wright, and is one that appeals to pretty much every genre. So I thought it was well time that we had a good look at it, and as if to demonstrate the massive appeal I (a “hard-core” gamer) was already fighting a small child for game time. But on with the review, and right from the off this game is something special. The principal idea behind this game is that you create your own cellular being, and then guide it through its evolution to a water dwelling animal and then onto the land as a creature before venturing into tribal, civilisation and space stages. Decisions that you make right at the beginning will (and I am not just quoting the marketing material here) dictate...

After the impressive Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Treyarch had a lot to live up to with Call of Duty: World at War. Treyarch are the company who made Call of Duty 3 and did it very well so there was no doubt that World at War was going to be good, but just how good? It turns out very good indeed! Some people did seem a little disappointed in the fact that this was yet another WW2 Call of Duty and that it was a step backwards, but this is more in depth than the other ones, albeit a hell of a lot shorter, which did annoy me, and was one of the faults with Modern Warfare. But don’t let that put you off, because it really is a great game. The missions are only American and Russian ones, with the American missions taking place in the Pacific and Russian in……Russia, trying to take...

Most of you have probably seen this rather sexy trailer already.  If you’ve only seen it in the low-quality seen below, then here it is in high-quality. Update: It’s also just come to my attention that a new version of the trailer, which I’ve included below, features Leonard Nimoy at the end, just before the Federation logo....

I didn’t read about Professor Layton and the Curious Village until about 2 weeks before the release date, but I’m really glad I did read about it. The pictures seemed to make the game look a bit childish and more like a stocking filler when I first glanced at it. Even though I love animation, Disney films and Studio Ghibli films, it didn’t really appeal to me. But after reading about the game, I really wanted to play the game and suddenly the images looked brilliant. The main storyline sees Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke being called to the village of St Mystere to search for the secret treasure of the late Baron Reinhold that is ‘The Golden Apple’. The tale goes that whoever finds ‘The Golden Apple’ will have earned the right to all of Baron Reinhold’s fortune....

I’ve just seen another Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer and it looks absolutely awesome!! By far the best Harry Potter trailer I’ve ever seen and I really am fuming with Warner Bros. for delaying the release of this amazing film. I thought it was a trailer I’d already seen, but then realised it was new and I was jumping with joy!! The good thing is that this trailer will NOT be one of those trailers that shows the best parts of the film because I know what else is to come, as I’m sure you all do - and that is very exciting! Just wish that Warner Bros. would realise the error of their ways and release HBP early, maybe mid January?!?!? Now that would be magic! (Zath: Nah they just wanna keep teasing us until next summer!) Check out the trailer below or download the...

I’m writing this about Mirror’s Edge on the day which we’ve seen the release of Call of Duty: World of War, the 5th game in the amazingly popular game franchise and I just can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and wear out the disc. But….this game, Mirror’s Edge is released today that I feel deserves a special mention as it hasn’t been widely advertised as much as COD 5 and it could turn out to be the best game of the year. I’d seen the title around here and there, but never paid much attention to it as I’d not seen anything about it. Then the demo became available on the Playstation Network. So I decided to delve into this game and see what it actually was. It blew me away! Mirror’s Edge is a first person, free-running game that plays gorgeously. The city...

The first Lost season 5 trailer has now been released! The first of a few no doubt before the series returns in January 2009 with 17 more episodes which will make up season 5 of Lost. By the end of Lost season 4, you’ll remember that it finished on quite a cliffhanger, what with various people going in different directions, such as Ben leaving the island and the ‘Oceanic 6′ being rescued and taken back to the mainland. Oh yeah and the small thing of an island getting ‘lost’. I thought the series finished quite well (after perhaps losing it’s way for a few episodes around mid-season) and ended up explaining quite well how and why people had ended up as they had from the first few flash-forwards that we saw. I’m definitely interested to see what...

Have you seen the new bond Quantum of Solace trailer? Despite the rather strange sounding title (and that’s saying something for a Bond film), I have high hopes for the Quantum of Solace given that it looks as though it will be picking and continuing the events from Casino Royale. At the time when Quentin Tarantino first mentioned that he’s like to do a re-boot of the Bond franchise going back to the start of 007 by making Casino Royale, I thought that when he was turned down for it, we’d end up getting another ridiculous gadget-fest of a Bond film as they had become in recent years, particularly the latter Brosnan films. However, I was definitely pleased to see what direction the film-makers and Daniel Craig took with Casino Royale which ended up being a great re-boot to the...

For all you crazy Harry Potter fans out there who are still fuming from Warner Bros. sadistically putting back of the Half Blood Prince release date and anyone else too - here’s the new teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince! I remember seeing the first Half Blood Prince trailer and getting all giddy like a little kid, and then the teaser that was released with The Dark Knight was just a voice over of Dumbledore which sent chills down my spine (and yes I’m a Harry Potter maniac). But the new trailer is awesome! I cannot wait to see the penultimate film in the magically successful series. I’m not going to tell you anything about what’s in the trailer apart from that it looks even darker but still has elements of cheery, cheeky magical mishaps. After watching it...

I read a review for Overlord: Raising Hell (PS3) a few weeks ago because it was just there to read. But after reading what the game was about and what you could do, I really wanted to play it and so glad that I have. Imagine a mix between Pikmin, The Lord of the Rings and Fable and you have Overlord! The point of the game is to use your ‘minions’ to accomplish certain tasks such as opening gates, collecting treasure or killing great big fat Halflings. If you want to kill some innocent villagers and become an evil overlord, then so be it. There are points where you have the option to do this in order to create good morale within your minions. Also, if you’re low on health, there are ‘Wells’ situated around the world where you can send you minions on suicide jumps into the well...

The live action Resident Evil films started off quite well and I thought that they could only get better. But in my opinion they just got worse. They’ re good as action films, but as a fan of the Resident Evil games it left me a bit brain-dead. I think the studios have picked up on this (from the general consensus, not just me) and decided to make a film based on the game that feels like its connected to the games. Resident Evil: Degeneration is a fully CGI film that is being released straight to DVD. From what I’ve seen it’s looking pretty good but I’m not getting my hopes up just yet. If it’s anything like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (which is THE best game-based film EVER), then it’s definitely going to be exciting to watch. The main characters are Leon S. Kennedy...

I’m a big fan of the Bourne films and definitely think they’re one of the reasons why the new Bond films are that good. The intensity of the fights and how Bourne just acts on pure instinct to get out of tight spots, blending in to stay hidden and not to draw attention to himself. In fact I just like to whole espionage scene, sneaking behind your enemy to take him down, shooting people from a distance as not to be noticed. It’s great to see that The Bourne Conspiracy fits right into this category and it’s like playing through a prequel of some sorts to the brilliant Bourne trilogy. I did play the demo a while back which I thought was quite good, but wasn’t rushing out to buy the full game. But from playing the full game version, I’m so glad I’ve got it otherwise I’d have...

Tropic Thunder (15) Cast: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Coogan, Nick Nolte, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise Director: Ben Stiller Running Time: 106 minutes There was a lot of controversy surrounding Tropic Thunder whilst being made. Robert Downey Jr. getting his skin pigmentation changed from white to black and the whole ‘retard’ scenes. Some people were asking for certain scenes to be cut, or the film being completely cut from the movie calendar. I can see why the latter complaint was an issue, but Stiller said it wasn’t meant to be an insult but rather how stupid the characters in the film are. From seeing previous Stiller films you know what kind of stuff is in there and how he has a quite strange sense of humour, which most...

As you may have already read in my “Pure (PS3) Demo” review, the game is a racing game on ATV bikes and has a feel of Motorstorm and SSX. The craziness of Motorstorm with 16 riders on the track at one time which can be fun, and the tricks you can pull off on the jumps is reminiscent of SSX. You might notice a difference to this review and this is because I’m going to be doing game reviews from the tech side a bit more to give a deeper account of the game being reviewed. And what a game to start with! The opening of Pure has you completing a training session the same as in the demo, and then you have to build your own ATV which is really cool! Then it’s into the game! When you’ve completed a few races and gained some points you unlock extra parts for your bike which helps to...

The Office season 5 trailer and promos are now out in America and being shown on TV over there, with the actual 5th season starting on the 25th September 2008 - no news on when it will be shown over here in the UK as yet. After the shortened season 4 of the Office due to the writers’ strike, it will be good to see a full length season 5 and also one that doesn’t have such a long break part way through. I don’t know about you, but I’d lost track of what had actually happened in the first part of season 4 in the Office and had to go back and re-watch them before seeing the second batch of episodes. One of my favourite episodes last year had to be the one where Michael and Jan host a dinner party – some great TV in that episode in my opinion. I won’t go into too many details in...

Imagine a mix between Motorstorm and SSX……..and you’ve got Pure! I saw the PS3 demo for this game on the Playstation Network and thought it could be good for a laugh for a couple of minutes, but this game has left me wanting more. Pure is the new ATV racing game from Disney Interactive. In the demo, you have objectives to complete before you can race. The objectives are there just to get you used to the game controls and include, doing a lap around the track, pulling tricks, boosting and completing a lap within 27 seconds. After completing the objectives, you get the chance to race against another 15 racers. This is when the funs begins, as it can get quite hectic in small parts of the track and its great seeing 7 or 8 ATV’s in mid air off the jumps pulling off tricks. The tricks...

Supernatural is back for its 4th season. I really like this show and think there have been some really good moments so far and hope that the show doesn’t go off in another direction and become a has been show. In case you’ve been living in a cave and haven’t seen Supernatural yet, the story follows brothers Dean (Jensen Ackles, who you might recognise from early Smallville episodes) and Sam (Jared Padalecki) Winchester as they track down and kill evil spirits, ghosts, werewolves, Demons and all kinds things from Hell. When I started watching Supernatural, I was surprised at how dark some of the episodes were for TV, as a lot of programmes tend to water things down. Each season has become darker and the storyline has come along nicely. The end of Supernatural season 3 saw Dean being...

The Smallville season 8 trailer has been released ahead of the show starting again in America on 18th September 2008 for what will probably be its final season. I was quite surprised by Smallville season 7 on a number of accounts, first of all I was impressed by the fact that the producers actually managed to get 20 episodes made in the year that the writers’ strike meant that most shows had a great many less episodes in them, most of them only managing around half as many episodes, such as was the case with Heroes and Prison Break. Secondly, season 7 kept up a high standard of writing for most episodes and they to come up with some really stories, especially around Lex given that Michael Rosenbaum will not be returning as a series regular in Smallville season 8. The Smallville season...

I’ve just downloaded a demo of Play TV for the Playstation 3. The Play TV demo is a digital tuner for use with the PS3 and allows you to watch and record digital programmes onto your HDD, the same as Freeview recorders or Sky+. The menu is very basic and easy to navigate around and the guide with all the TV listings was very easy to use as it’s no different from the ones I’ve used previously on Freeview and Sky. The programmes that are the demo are obviously just demo channels that have already been pre-installed for users to get used to how Play TV works. You can record a programme with one push of the select button, which I found very useful also. Play TV allows you to view the channels listings 7 days in advance so you can set up recordings for the next day or 4-5 days in...

Via Angry Who Fan, here’s the cinema trailer for the second series of Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures:...

Has your Spore creature been created yet? Millions of people have created their creatures since the Spore Creature Creator download was made available back in July. These creatures have then been included into the Spore full game as other creature races that you may encounter during the course of the game - Will Wright and the rest of the development team have been quite clever here really! It means they’ve potentially reduced their development time in creating creatures or working on a random creature generator, by getting us (the gamers, their customers) to populate their game for them! You’ve no doubt seen a lot of great looking creatures already created, some cool, some strange and some just plain rude! However, Mike (one of the writer’s here at Zath) has created...

The Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon series is going to be starting on the Cartoon Network on Friday October 3rd 2008………in the US! So us Brits might have to wait a little bit longer, but the way that TV shows are being aired over here soon after it’s been aired over in the US, it shouldn’t be too long before it starts over here - here’s hopefully it gets picked up by a channel with a high definition version to really appreciate the computer graphic visuals! The Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon series will follow the events that have already occurred in the Star Wars: Clone Wars movie which was released in cinemas during the summer. There is going to be a double bill of the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon series the first week which will include these 2 episodes: AMBUSH: Jedi...

For all you Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fans out there, I’m writing this as I need some kind of Battlestar fix at the moment, so I’ve decided to write this blog post and get some ideas thrown around about who could be the 5th Cylon of the Final 5 Cylons!! Battlestar Galactica is truly great science fiction show which gives commentary on and addresses a lot of social issues in a manner which ma