Arts. Have an idea for a story or review? Contact the editor at arts@theotherpress.ca An introduction to Pretty Little Liars By Sonia Panesar, Contributor ‘m sure that quite a few of us watch ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, currently filming its fourth season. But for those who aren't familiar, I think it’s about time those folks learn what they’re missing out on. Pretty Little Liars is based on the popular series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard, although the TV adaptation has strayed quite a bit from the original books. Both the novels and the show unravel the events of one summer when a group of friends—Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale), Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson), Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario), and Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell)— find one of their “best friends,” Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse), murdered. After Alison’s death, these four girls start receiving anonymous messages from the unknown “A.” A knows all of the girls’ deepest, darkest secrets, and uses these secrets to threaten and manipulate the girls. Strangely, A knows all the secrets that they told Alison. The four girls then set out to discover who this A really is. Throughout the series, things like additional deaths, betrayal, and revenge keep the plot flowing. Season one is the beginning of a roller coaster ride of drama, with the key still being trying to find out who A. Let me step back a minute and further explain these individual characters. Aria Montgomery is a very subtle girl with a unique sense of style, who previously moved to the show’s setting (the fictional Rosewood, Pennsylvania) from Iceland with her family. Spencer Hastings is the genius and a jack of all trades, although her relationship with her sister Melissa does get messy. Hanna Marin is the dumb blonde, but with a great heart, previously suffering from bulimia. Finally, Emily Fields finds herself in one of the more complicated situations out of these characters, as she is a closeted lesbian—and A knows this. While a good murder mystery is always fun and exciting, that’s not all the show offers. Pretty Little Liars tackles a lot of touchy subjects, like body image problems and closest homosexuality. All of these are subjects not just handled for the audience, but they’re also handled on a channel one Par A Ty ty A (STN —— as Pretty Little Liars | Photo courtesy of wwwfanpop.com would least suspect. If nothing else, it shows that even a major company like ABC (owned by Disney) wants to try to get teen audiences to better understand these issues. Season three of Pretty Little Liars ended last Tuesday, so until season four rolls around in June, take some time to catch up on the re-runs. Pretty Little Liars is one of my favourite shows, for its drama and its melodrama, and hopefully I’ve convinced some of you to give it a chance now. Subpar ‘Survival Instincts of ‘The Walking Dead Half-assed zombies arent gonna grab you By Steven Cayer, Contributor on wx @e ev @e Ses hen I found out there would be a new Walking Dead game based on the AMC series with Daryl and Merle Dixon as the main protagonists, I couldn't believe it—then I heard is was to be a first- person shooter, and I got a little worried. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was developed by Terminal Reality and published by Activision. The worst thing about it though is actually playing the game. Not only were the graphics bad, but also outdated. In today’s games, people are expecting a lot more in terms of graphics, and this game fails to deliver. The environments were very bland and forgettable. There are only about nine different zombies 8 that you can either charge through and grapple with or stealthily sneak around. I tried to sneak around them, but it never worked; they always saw me and I'd need to use the exact same moves to kill them all: shove, swing, swing. In some cases when they grab, you: grapple, stab, repeat. Throughout the game, you find different weapons, but they don’t matter when you finally get your hands on Daryl's fabled crossbow—it’s easily the best weapon in the game. You can silently kill zombies from a distance, and you can reuse the bolts you fire so you never run out of ammo (as long as you remember to get the bolts back from the heads of the corpses). I actually found this system of shooting and retrieving a little fun. It’s too bad you don’t get it until you're two-thirds into the game. The gameplay is pretty typical for a first-person shooter, you just need to follow a compass in the bottom-left corner of the screen to get to the main objectives. In some areas, you find other survivors that ask you to find something or someone for them. When you do, they either come with you, or they just stay there waiting to die. Whenever you get to a new level or area, you need to organize your inventory, then assign your survivor to either get fuel, food, ammo, or stay by the car (by the way, none of this helps you fight at all). Sometimes when you're traveling, your car breaks down or you run out of fuel. Almost 7 every time this happens, you go to the exact same diner or the exact same campsite, which gets really repetitive and annoying. The one aspect of gameplay I thought was cool was the executions you can use on the zombies. If you can sneak up behind one, you can pull off a pretty badass stab on many different places of the head. The one good thing I got from this gaming experience was that I was finally inside The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts | Screenshot courtesy of wwwwvideogamer.com fi the universe of the increasingly awesome show. It even had the cast members playing their roles, Norman Reedus as Daryl] and Michael Rooker as Merle. While it does take place before the events of the show, it’s still good to be there. If you like watching AMC’s Walking Dead, I'd say pick this game up, but not until the price goes way down.