Mirror's Edge

While Mirror's Edge had great potential to reinvent both the adventure and first person game genre, it fell flat on itself trying to juggle both at the same time.

The idea behind Mirror's Edge was it suppose to be a free running parkour adventure game, moving as quickly as you can from A to B, and it felt like a great adrenaline rush... initially. Unfortunately, as you progress through the game, DICE tried too hard to put in something they are too comfortable with - a gun into player's hand. Whilst the gun mechanic isn't bad by all means, it does not pace well with the game. The combat mechanic is also a let down, forcing you to fight with only one shoulder button doesn't reflect on the apparent great agility and flexibility of Faith. There are many different section of the each levels where you are given no choice but to fight your way out. With the clumsy effort of combat mechanics and boring AI, the game ends up feeling very dull. The story was mostly told via cell-shaded cut scene in between each levels. They were ugly and felt very lifeless, the dialogue was extremely cheesy and cringe-worthy.

There were very few highlights on this rather disappointing game. It was good for a few hours; it was a somewhat decent effort to make a new genre. At the end of the day, there were too many obstacle, too many tall building and too many overly used lens-flare for Faith to leap over this one.

Valkyria Chronicles

Valkyria Chronicles is easily one of most innovative game that has came out of Japan for many years, but despite its exceptionally fresh new gameplay design, it still suffers from a very backward story telling method, that plagues countless of games in the similar genre before it.

The first thing that anybody notice when they start playing the game, is that the artistic style of this game is one of the best on the PS3. Its cell-shaded graphic overlays with a canvas style white out on the edges of the screen, along with a paintbrush style filter, gives the game an extremely fresh, unique and beautiful presentation. The game engine that powers the game creates some of the most fluid cut scenes, and it out do most of the anime productions from Japan. Almost every single dialogue in the game is spoken by a voice actor, and the choice of either English and Japanese is welcomed for an otaku like me.

The base game mechanic is a mixture of turn-based strategy games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea and Advance Wars with a touch of Gears of War style cover, aim and shoot element. The great freedom given by the lack of movement grid system currently present in virtually all turn-based strategy games is a definite plus. In many ways, it feels like a real time strategy in some aspect, since the battles are very fast pace and require instantaneous reactions and decisions. The player is given a set amount of 'Control Point' at the start of each round, which determines how many actions you can perform per turn. It is possible to use all of them on a single character, but the character will eventually fatigue and only moves a very short distance, so it pays off to plan ahead and use them strategically.

The game takes place in a fictitious WWII setting, the main protagonist is the young protege who magically appears and starts to decimate an unstoppable force with a mysterious love interest, a very typically Japanese style story. The game progresses in a manga style chapters with cut-scenes in between each missions. There are two types of cut-scene, one for cinematic and one for general dialogue. The latter one is extremely slow pace, in many case, it holds the game back so much because they are long and boring. It feels like its one of those case where the developers are trying too hard to be screen writers, and in this instance, you are watching an interactive anime rather than playing a game. It is disappointing that the developer made such an innovative gameplay to just have it falls back on such an ancient way of story telling. The AI is also very flawed, and is the most problematic in any of the turn-based strategy games that ever come out of Japan. They are always pre-determined, with no variation at all. The game presents little challenges, missions are always simple to finish.

There is no doubt that Valkyria Chronicles stands out as an unique product for the PS3, one of the best effort from a Japanese developer in an attempt to reinvent the genre. In many ways, they have succeeded, the game is fun, if only I did not have to press circle so much...

Z Cinema unboxing and the completed setup

Too Human is awful

I wouldn't have enough words in my vocabulary to describe how bad Too Human is. It's like going through a bad relationship, first you don't know what your expecting, so you want to spend sometime with it. Then at some point during it, you *might* like a certain aspects of the game. When you have seen all it has to offer, it is ultimately disappointing.

The game starts off with vague tutorial explaining the different mechanics of the game, how the charm and rune works, except they are next to useless. The charm and rune give some very useless procs similar to a lot of RPGs and the very minimalistic approach of using those has absolutely no impact on gameplay, it doesn't make your character any more powerful than he already is, so it makes little sense to make any effort in collecting them.

The whole draw point of Too Human was the loots, sure it has plenty, but if you even step back and think about it. Why would you bother, really? This is not like WoW, where you might need better gears to kill bosses, the game is not challenging, at all, so why even bother waste time on this half baked product? Even though there is multiplayer component to the game, it's still mostly a single player experience, so is showing off your epic loots really that cool?

There is nothing worst than trying to tell a story (and it was an awful one), then not even try to bring any sort of closure to it. To me, Too Human ended because the developer press the stop button. The story didn't end when the game end, they simple choose to stop telling it.

There are way too many glitches in the game to make it enjoyable, the clipping of Valkyrie's feet, the texture pop-ins, and I even got stuck on a structure once. If this game really took 4 years to make, then what the hell has Silicon Knights been doing in those 4 years.

I'll write about Uncharted: Drake's Fortune...

When I get every single god-damned trophies in the game, which means...











I'd have to play the game again....

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriot

I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but was too busy to write up an entry until now.

This game is the final chapter in the Solid Snake's tale, it has answers for every questions that was ever raised and also closes all the gap in the story.

The control scheme and camera view has change quite a bit for me since I did not play MGS3: Snake Eater. They were bold moves to alter the style of them to the likes of many shooters that's been out on the market since Snake Eater. Kojima took a risk to lose the uniqueness of the Metal Gear Solid franchise to make the game more enjoyable for wider audience, I personally think it was a right move. The gun-play was much more fluid and fun compared to the other MGS games, the camera angle was no problem at all now since you can rotate it freely.

The story was great, Kojima's direction was clear in this final entry and was a lot less confusing. However, for 2/3 of the game, you spend A LOT of time watching in game cut-scenes, some of them are quite long (to the point where I did felt asleep a couple of times), but I didn't find this hindering my enjoyment of the game. I understand that Kojima had a story to tell, and he could only get away with telling this story in an interactive video game format, because nobody is going to watch a 10 hour long movie. The bosses weren't outstanding and mesmersizing for me, it was good and fun, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The game brings a conclusion to a story that start 20 years ago, Kojima did the series a great justice by finishing it on the PS3 platform, the graphics is nothing short of impressive. The character models look fantastic, their emotion felt real and believable, to the point where it could stand against a big budget Hollywood featured film. The environments in the game (which changes every acts), varies from a middle east city to a snow covered Shadow Mosses, they are all highly detailed and looks beautiful.

I hope that in some way or shape, Kojima will continue with this success in a different way and not make this his last game.

Fuck Nintendo

It was pretty obvious that they don't give a shit about people who actually play games on a regular basis anymore, so fuck 'em, I'm not spending another cent on any Wii or DS games.

If they think a game with no depth, pick up and play for 5 mins, throw it in corner and dust it off once in a while when your friends come over, is their way of making this so called 'game', then I refuse to be any part of it. They have gotten too desperate with the failure of their last two consoles, to the point where the Wii have pretty much turned in a toy, and now this was the best they can come up with?

Well Nintendo should have die a long time ago, RIP.

It's all in here

Every major consoles in this generation, I have them all. Finally :D

I have a job

And I'm still miserable. But at least I will have money to to cry to sleep.

I want to move out of home, if I can support myself. For real this time, I've had enough.

I want my PS3! T_T

First entry in weeks and I write these crap, lol.

In the world of Hyboria...

It's hard to find a yellow exclamation marks after level 50...

Age of Conan is certainly fun, I really do enjoy the combo systems and I love playing the Dark Templar, except if they are not totally gimped in PvP. The problem with the game right now is that there are only 1 area to solo quest in from level 45 onwards, I'm currently at 52 and finding it really hard to do some of the quest. The only other way was just to grind repetitively and get xp that way, which I sworn to myself to never do again, but yet I'm doing them right now (I'm the biggest hypocrite ever). Even though some of the bugs in the game aren't game breaking and in urgent need of fixing by the developers, they are still annoying, which make me wonder why they would miss it in the first place...

Age of Conan begins; GTA IV, done for now...

The above is my limited edition version of 'Age of Conan'. My initial thought of the package, it's a freaking huge oversize box!
Fortunately, before I made my impulsive decision to buy this game, I managed to finish the story mode of 'GTA IV', and it was as impressive as everybody says. This latest incarnation of the series took a few steps back in terms of scale compared to 'San Andreas', but it certainly did not go backwards in any way. The story is the best of the series has to offer yet, Niko is a great protagonist, he is emotional, likable and pack full of some of the best one liner a game could ever have. The script of the game brings out some of the finest story telling in the history of gaming so far. The re-designed Liberty City feels very authentic and lively, it's quite beautiful at first that I tried to follow the traffic rules. I've had very limited experience with the multi-player so far, but I will definitely prepare to spend some time in it in the future.
I was quite skeptical about how 'Age of Conan' will turn out, not when 'World of Warcraft' is still around with 10 million active players. My first few days in the world of Hyboria turned to be the best experience of a MMO I've had yet. As a MMO in its first week, AoC is in any way, a success, with only few minor hiccups. The game is beautiful (since it has boobies), your characters has plenty of options for customisation. The environment is lush and quite atmospheric, from a tropical jungle to an ancient temple, they all look great. The combat system is a huge step forward from the usual auto attack that most MMORPG have, the three directional attacks combine with a combo system is really fun once you get your head around it. As of right now, AoC will stand a chance against WoW and hopefully as the developer updates the game over time, it will be as successful as WoW.

Why did I ever do it in the first place...

Soon after I woke up this morning, I did what I usually do; I check my computer. Today is no different, except for one thing, the computer was dead. Precisely speaking, the boot drive, WD 74gb Raptor was dead, it's so dead that even if Superman could reverse time and save it, he wouldn't be able to.

I knew from the begining that WD are probably the easiest harddrives to die, still, knowing that fact, I still bought it, it's one of those stupid things that I always wonder why I even bother to do it in the first place. As of right now, I have to do everything on the notebook, including playing games. With such a last-last-last-gen graphic card, I wonder how long I can last before I go slightly insane.

3 years later

This is what happen when you dissemble a PS2 ('Yellow Page' size version) and can't be fuck re-assemble it afterwards.

After 3 years of installing a mod-chip on my PS2 for $190, which I bricked the firmware 3 months later. I found out I actually got some fake Chinese made copy, instead of the genuine firmware upgradeable mod-chip.

This confirms in facts that I did not screw up anything, I was just stupid trying to even bother to upgrade in the first place.

Recently finished games

It's been a while since I actually finish a game from start to end, story wise. I do think some games are way too long and not single player friendly these days, like Halo 3. Sure, that game might be 'good' to some people, hell, the Americans loves it so much, they see it as one of their symbol of gaming triumph over the Japanese, I never got what the fuzz is all about. It's got sub-par graphics, story and sound, the multi-player offers nothing new to compare to PC FPS. On top of that, you have to pay for new maps?? Yeah right... Well, onto what games I actually finished this month.

It's 'God of War' on PSP, that works, really really well and plays perfectly. The developer (Ready at Dawn) capture what the original developer of the 'God of War' series on the PS2 is about and translate it seamlessly on the PSP. I admit that I didn't play more than 30 mins of the first 'God of War' and never play the 2nd one, but 'Chains of Olympus' contains the element that made both games so highly rated and popular. The non-stop action sequences with quick time button pressing works as well as it ever could on the PSP, despite the lack of buttons compare to a PS2 controller. The graphically stunning real time shadow and lighting really shows what the PSP is capable of, if someone make an effort. The orchestral score is amazing, truly capture the game's great cinematic presentation. Last but not least, I want the 'Gauntlet of Zeus' to be in GoW 3!

The complete change of the series' main cast is understandable, but given that the new characters are almost identical to the old one, it's puzzling why Capcom even bothers at all. The story is typical like the 'Ace Attorney' series, someone get kill, you, as the main character, Apollo Justic defend the innocent accused of that murder and eventually you would find the real murderer. This time around, the feature on the DS is fully utilised, such as applying fingerprint dust with the stylus, blow into the mic to reveal the fingerprint and able to zoom into people to see their subtle body gesture changes when they are lying. Except you hardly ever get to use it, at all. The gameplay is still just like the series, finding contradictions from witness's statement. Stories and characters are just as outrageous as previous games. The game is still fun to play, however. Just like a cheap B grade movie, you want to finish it even though it's stupid and simple because you want to know how it will end.

The very first finished papercraft!

It was indeed quite hard, as it is my first completed model. The smaller bits were especially problematic to glue together and I took a couple of short cut. It was definitely harder than I expected.

Great start to Autumn... yeah right...

I completely felt like shit today, I came home, my Creative 5.1 finally died. What a fucking perfect timing. Right now I'm trying to make a decision to either buy a new USB headset or the Logitech z5500. What a great start... FUCK no!

RX-78 papercraft - day 4

and something else...


It feels like I took a step backwards... but however, I bought a few things, namely a new scalpel, cutting board, professional woodwork glue and a pack of matte photo paper (which is indeed better than regular printing paper for papercraft). Although it doesn't improve my crafting and reading skill, as I screwed up pretty badly on that Nissan 350z by not following the instruction properly (or lack of it). It also doesn't help that Nissan only has a tiny image of the finished model, so it was impossible to compare or reference to. I love cutting with the scalpel, it's better than cutting... if I can do it right. Most of the time... I don't.

RX-78 papercraft - day 3

RX-78 papercraft - day 2

The 'dinning' table is much easier for me to work on, only problem is I need to move my desk lamp and move it back when I've finish. There was some problem putting it together as the cube shaped connecting piece of the head to the body wouldn't fit inside the head, I had to cut a bit off the back of the face to make it work, it looks ok so far...

RX-78 papercraft - day 1

Papercraft and Japanese

These two things have something in common for me, I started doing them today. My first paper craft model is a Gundam RX-78, it seems simple enough for a beginner. Start the hard way and everything else after that is easy, something I learned from a friend.

Pata-pata-pata-PON!

This game is unique, there is no doubt about it, there's nothing like this on the market currently.
Patapon is a music/strategy game for the PSP from the developer of Loco Roco. The game's objective is relatively simple: beat the bad guys, get better items, beat more bad guys; but what differs this to anything else on the market is the actions are all rhythmic based. Each button (Square, Circle, Triangle and X) represent different sound of drum beat, by pressing a sequence in time with the music the game is playing, your small army perform actions such as march forward, defence or attack. Chain enough combos and you will go into FEVER mode, with twice the damage and able call up a special ability. The simplistic game design made this game very appealing to just about anyone and it's really fun to play. The excellent and very the addictive music soundtrack is the best there is for a portable system, the subtle variations of different drum beats fits the background music perfectly. I did played the Japanese version, so I did stumble a bit during the beginning, but once I got the hang of it, it's easy to understand. I very much look forward to the US release of this game at the end of the month since I want more of it!

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

This is the sequel of Advance Wars: Dual Strike on the Nintendo DS and the latest game in the Advance Wars series from Nintendo. I've been 'enjoying' it for the last few days since I got it to work on my flash cart.
The general theme of this game has change from some punk kid who wears awful a headphone to a post-apocalypse war survival (of which the main character is still a kid) is definitely a positive change for the series. I found this game more enjoyable than all of Advance Wars game that came out before it. The story line, although is still quite simple to follow and understand, portray the characters' emotion well. The game's AI is somewhat uneven and unpredictable at times, it either gets overly hard or stupidly easy. The music is nothing breath taking, just the usual distortion guitar riff with some synth and drums. I like the inclusion of wireless play over Nintendo Wifi and able to use the built-in mic to chat during games. Hopefully I will finish the game this time around since I never finish other games in the series.

Running out of moolah

I was frantically trying to get Advance Wars: Days of Ruin to work with my somewhat dinosaur flash cart for my Nintendo DS, for quite a few hours. All of the methods I try had failed, so I went to plan B (broke), I decided to by a new flash cart which should (hopefully) better than my current one and less painful to use. So I have to spent my money, which is running dangerously low. Centerlink HERE I COME!

This ain't easy

Blog writing is harder than I thought... At least it appears that I have running out of things to write about. There isn't anything worth writing about at the moment, dammit. >_<
For some reason, I have completely stop playing games, other than Warcraft 3 DotA. Personally, I'm baffled by the occasional frustration it caused to me to which hasn't stop me playing it everyday. While it's fun, by no means it's Team Fortress 2, which I haven't play for over a month. As I'm writing this, I'm running out of things to write about, again.
My friend, Jer, asked me to level his Blood Elf priest in World of Warcraft, for a split second, I did consider it. Except after 2 years of basically spending hours everyday yielding no reward resulted from repetitive grinding, I really cannot stomach another MMO (or WoW, for that matter) which is base on it ever again. I WANT ADVANCE WARS: DAYS OF RUIN, NOW!

I love sleep, but can't...

I don't get a good sleep anymore, at least it rarely happens, all thanks to my canine underling. She always barks at the right time of the day, which is whenever she hears anything. Why didn't I spent more time training her not to bark... Well, the other reason could be my aging mattress, it's been around longer than I've been in this country, if only I have the money to replace it *sad fase*.

This week in Stargate Atlantis

HOLY CRAP! I'd have to say this is by far the best developed episode of the whole serie so far besides the pilot. 'This Mortal Coil' ended a bit too adruptly for my personal likings, but 'Be All My Sins Remember'd' is a classic example of a great sci-fi tv show episode. The pre-epic space battle of all those ships from different allegiance coming together reminds me of 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi', and the battle itself kick so much Replicator asses! It's great to see Larrin (Jill Wagner) return and the some-what awkward and uncomfortable reaction that Sheppard has towards her. I love the small bits of humor here and there thru out the episode, this is what Stargate is all about.

The Casuals

During my trip with my friends to Vincentia a few days ago, my friends brought along their DS, Wii and PS2. I was a bit surprised on how much people enjoys racing each other (often slowly) in Mario Kart DS, stretching their arms to play Wii Sports and wearing themselves out with Eye Toy. Most of them do not generally play any games for a long period of time and none of the games they'd played are 'Game of the Year' materials, yet the interactivity of these games produce insanely amounts of mindless fun and slaying countless hours of boredom.


Having not played Mario Kart DS for a while, I did not fair very well againist my friends. The simple mechanics of the gameplay make it really easy to pick up to play and friendly to those who just play it for the first time. I just don't have to luck required to pwnt people.


It was a first for me to play the Eye Toy on the PS2. It's a camera attachment that connects to the PS2 and the game uses it to track body movement. It generally does a good job, but by no means it's perfect. Personally I was quite worn out from swinging my arms and legs around, they are still sore days later!


The Guitar Hero series has this magical power that people get addicted to its gameplay after playing it for first few minutes. It seems like there is a wanna-be-notes-shredding-guitarist in every one of us. Oh... and to Dennis, you suck horribly at it.