BACK in the mid-1990s I found myself hooked on a particularly intense habit: Johnnie To movies. I’d seen A Hero Never Dies and The Barefoot Kid (his one period martial-arts film) and had been digging through various DVDs ever since, hoping to find more.

THERE CAN be no denying that FromSoftware’s Dark Souls is brutal and difficult, often bordering on the sadistic in terms of its capacity to challenge players. That said, it’s beatable, and while its gameplay borders on the unforgiving, it succeeds in its objective. You get a massive sense of achievement in persevering through it and conquering the even-tougher-than-tough parts. It’s an acquired taste, a pain to get into, really. It’s also harder to put down once you’re hooked.

PALLIATIVE care aims to improve the quality of life of people with serious illnesses by preventing or treating symptoms and side effects of disease...

WITH its beautiful architecture, its efficient tram system, and a countryside which is a source of both good wine and chocolates, it is very easy to see why Melbourne, the second-most populous city in Australia with almost five million people, was named the “world’s most liveable city” for seven consecutive years by The Economist.

PAUL SCHRADER’s latest feature First Reformed — his 23^rd directing job — is a tiny feature shot around Brooklyn and Queens in only 20 days, on a budget of roughly three and a half million dollars. It’s also arguably his best work to date, or if not his best then somewhere up there.

IT WOULD BE an understatement to describe Sweden-based SkyGoblin as a small independent video game developer. Composed of a handful wearing a variety of hats, the company burst into the mainstream following the release of free ware adventure game The Journey Down: Over The Edge at the turn of the decade. Smartly, it leveraged the success to come up with a much-improved and highly expanded version that serves as the starting point for a point-and-click series of the same name. Given the limited resources it has had at its disposal throughout production, the commercially released Trilogy is nothing short of remarkable.

NORTHERN Ireland may not be on most people’s itineraries when visiting the United Kingdom, but it should be.

SINCE ITS DEBUT early last year, the Nintendo Switch has been a haven for makers of rhythm games. It’s certainly with reason; the hardware boasts of touchscreen and multiple-controller configurations, backstopped by portability and ease of use. It’s why such notables as Deemo, Superbeat: Xonic, and VOEZ have been ported over, and why even offbeat — pun wholly intended — titles like Frederic: Resurrection of Music, Crypt of the NecroDancer, and Hiragana Pixel Party have thrived on the hybrid console.

IN 1986, Mayor Jejomar Binay signed an agreement with the Makati Medical Center to allot a number of beds to poor residents, with the city government subsidizing the beneficiaries’ hospital bill. The increasing demand for health services eventually prompted the city government to push for the construction of its own full-service hospital.

Malou Treñas-Del Castillo, who was then 27-years-old when she worked as a brand manager for multi-national company, came home early from work one evening due to a bad headache. She recalled receiving a phone call from a friend when she suddenly passed out leaving the other person hanging on the line. She regained consciousness unaware of what had happened.

HAVANA, CUBA -- Havana could be compared to the colorful 1950s classic American cars that fill its roads: an object of desire for historians and tourists alike.

THERE was a time when fighting games were little more than button-mashing exercises. Perhaps the relative lack of complexity was due to the genre being in its infancy stage. Perhaps it was borne of the publishers’ intent to be as inclusive as possible. In any case, gamers still found them irresistible for the most part, if for no other reason than because they afforded the opportunity for instant gratification. In comparison to, say, sports titles, fights involved short matches and rematches. Bragging rights were passed on quickly and often, and the speed with which they were earned, lost, regained, and desired anew served only to ramp up the intensity of the competition.