Rich Persian history portrayed in new animated film

Nader Yaghma'ian, the director of Jamshid and the Sun, says his animated film, which took three years to make, is a portrayal of the "glorious realities" and "rich civilization" of ancient Persia.

He suggested Iran should make more programs like Jamshid and the Sun to depict the reality of its history and to replace what he described as "imaginary heroes" fabricated by Hollywood.

"The Tablet of Human Rights by Cyrus the Great and a famous poem by Iran's Sa'di at the United Nations is evidence of the peaceful way of life which Iranians have always searched for," Yaghma'ian said during the forum.

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising slated for Summer 07 completion

Recently the folks at Gamespot had a chance to try out the developing combat system driving the upcoming game "Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising".

"Sony Online Entertainment and Perpetual Entertainment want you to start thinking about the upcoming Gods & Heroes not as a massively multiplayer role-playing game but as an action adventure massively multiplayer role-playing game. That's because the style of gameplay in Gods & Heroes is inspired by fighting such games as Mortal Kombat. When you attack something in Gods & Heroes, it looks like you're actually attacking it, and that translates into a much more intense feel to the combat." - Game spot

What I thought was particularly interesting is the inclusion of a character builder:

Characters can only be human, but you can choose a gender and a class, including gladiator, soldier, priest, and healer. The class that you select will determine which two Roman gods you can choose from to worship, and that will play a significant role throughout the game. After that, you can customize the appearance of your character, from various facial features using sliders (such as the size of eyes, the separation distance between them, and their color), to hairstyle, body build, skin tone, and more. In no time flat, we made a sleek female Roman soldier, as well as an albino male gladiator. - Gamespot

"300" places graphic splendor over inspiring story

I dutifully took the afternoon off and took my husband and another couple of friends to see the highly anticipated film "300". I had read an article by the producers of the film in which they stated their movie is more about the legend and not the actual event so I wasn't expecting much in the way of historical accuracy.

I might be getting older, but as I am not dead yet, I have to admit to enjoying the Spartan "eye candy". However, I would have preferred a more realistic depiction of the Persians. Everytime I saw Xerxes I would think of the villains of Stargate and of course, like many people, I thought Ephialtes was a thinly disguised Gollam character. I saw no reason to portray the Ephors as leprous trolls either. The men in the audience could have still enjoyed the writhing prophetess (I actually found that scene at least somewhat artistic) without deforming the Spartan elders.

I think overall, though, the film suffered from a lack of exploration of human emotions. We weren't provided with enough interpersonal relationships in the film to develop much empathy for any of the characters. I think this is a major oversight in a film whose purpose was to inspire and sadly, a common flaw in many of the films Hollywood now produces.

Of course it is accompanied by the release of a Playstation Portable game based on the film where players are invited to "Decapitate, dismember, and disembowel your enemies in bloodthirsty sword-and-spear combat."