From the point of view of a hikikomori

Mirror's Edge

2008-12-13T16:48:00.010+11:00

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

2008-12-12T22:16:00.030+11:00

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

2008-10-17T18:44:00.004+11:00

Too Human is awful

2008-09-06T02:37:00.005+10:00

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...

2008-08-11T20:24:00.001+10:00

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

2008-08-06T01:28:00.004+10:00

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

2008-08-01T00:21:00.004+10:00

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

2008-07-14T22:14:00.002+10:00

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

I have a job

2008-07-05T22:45:00.003+10:00

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...

2008-06-04T00:10:00.003+10:00

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...

2008-05-25T02:49:00.003+10:00

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...

2008-04-20T12:11:00.002+10:00

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

2008-04-07T23:42:00.003+10:00

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

2008-03-20T23:13:00.003+11:00

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!

2008-03-03T15:04:00.003+11:00

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...

2008-03-01T19:28:00.002+11:00

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

2008-02-24T23:56:00.002+11:00

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

2008-02-15T23:42:00.002+11:00

RX-78 papercraft - day 2

2008-02-13T17:40:00.004+11:00

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

2008-02-13T01:14:00.000+11:00

Papercraft and Japanese

2008-02-12T21:52:00.001+11:00

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!

2008-01-28T01:58:00.000+11:00

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

2008-01-26T01:55:00.000+11:00

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

2008-01-22T01:47:00.000+11:00

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

2008-01-21T04:54:00.001+11:00

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...

2008-01-09T02:46:00.000+11:00

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

2008-01-05T19:16:00.000+11:00

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

2008-01-02T17:18:00.000+11:00

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.

Puzzle Quest

2007-12-26T18:08:00.001+11:00

It's a great game, to much of my personal surprise! It's a puzzle Bejewled-like game combines with RPG items and stats element. It's fun and addicitive, well designed and an awsome game to play for an hour or so. It's quite satisfying to hear the female announcer saying 'You're victorious!' since the game does get unfairly tough at times (or maybe I'm just crap at puzzle games). I'm definately looking forward to next incarnation of this great title, hopefully with online play on the PSP. Hail to this great Aussies developed game!

There is nooooo power... for an hour

2007-12-22T14:52:00.000+11:00

My electricity went down for about an hour today, not because I didn't pay the bill, but there was a fire in the local sub-station. Initially I panicked, quite a bit, so much that I started playing a real guitar! It would have been 2 years (maybe) since I even strum a chord on it. Since it's been so long, I just mucked around on it for a few mins before I put it down again. I also spoked to two of my neighbours about the outage, personal record.

Assassin's Creed

2007-12-16T19:00:00.000+11:00

Or should it be called Jade Raymond's Assassin's Creed... Anyway, I had just completed the game, or so it appears... I hate cliff-hangers, I really do, especially in a game. You play as an assassin named Altair, assigned to kill nine historical figures in three cities; Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem in 1191. The animation of Altair is excellent, you can see him smoothly grab a ledge or window and pull himself up with some effort. The cities look quite good and realistic, except, all of them look pretty much alike with little variety to differ them other than just a colour filter. The most annoying "feature" in this game is however, the beggers and drunks, there are one or both of them every SECOND corner, sometimes more, and they harrass you ALL THE FREAKING TIME! So much that you would want to kill every single one you see, but... there's a penalty for doing it! For god sakes, do they really have to put that many of them in the game!? While the story is decent, the plot twist is quite good other than the non-existing ending. The major flaw of this game is that it's very very repetitive, beyond the point of infinite repetition and rep... you get the idea. To carry out an assassination, you first must gather intelligence on your target, there are a few ways of doing them; you beat them out of a dude, you steal them from a dude, or you sit on a bench and listening in some dudes talking, the whole game is rinse and repeat with no variation what-so-ever. While the sound effects and original scores are above par, the voice acting is stonic and emotionless, just like watching a dub anime. The one-button combat mechanic actually works, most of the time, requiring some precise timing to attack or counter-attack. This is a fairly well presented game, but the major downfall is the lack of variety in many aspects and the inconclusive and somewhat confusing ending.

Mass Effect

2007-12-05T22:35:00.001+11:00

Mass Effect is a Bioware RPG, on the Xbox 360, which I finally received on Monday. Having kind of rushed the game on the first play, I'm definately going to spend more time on the second play thru. It has, by far the most seamless character interaction of any game I've ever play so far. The characters are professionally voiced and modeled, and the dialog system flows very smoothly and naturally. The combat system works very well, being a hybrid shooter/turn based rpg. The soundtrack is top notch and feels just like you're watching a great sci-fi flick. But it also has some very minor yet annoying bugs/glitches, and they stop the game being one of the greatest RPG ever created. The vehicle driving is insanely idiotic and handles horribly, it appears that no one in Bioware plays any driving games, ever. Also sometimes the texture loads very slowly, at few instances it didn't load fast enough for fast transition scenes. And what's the deal with the slow arse elevators?? So the human race has mastered faster-than-light travel and yet they are obviously lacking in that department. The menu interface is also not very intuitive and feels very clumsy. The tutorial (or lack of it) is short and not informative. Overall, the game has an excellent presentation, with a great story and high replayability, anyone who owns a 360 and likes action/rpg genre should try it out.

Dragonforce? More like Trashforce

2007-12-03T05:34:00.000+11:00

I came to know Dragonforce from Guitar Hero 3, their song, 'Through the Fire and Flames' is no doubt the hardest song ever in the Guitar Hero series, so far. So I decided to Youtube their live videos, and the disappointment begins. They can't play in time, their guitarists 'attempts' to dual solo in unison with out-of-tune guitars, all they can do is play really fast, but not very accurate at all. The singer is average at best, the band made him looked foolish since they can't play in time and he seems lost half way thru the song, very trashy power-metal wanna-be studio band.

Insomnia count - 1

2007-11-27T08:00:00.001+11:00

Play-Asia took my money

2007-11-23T03:45:00.000+11:00

Not once, but twice, before I even receive the products. This better be someone's mistake because I'm pretty careful with using my credit card online. I'm so deperately wanting to play Mass Effect and Assasin's Creed, should have just gone to JB and get them, sigh. The looooonnnggg wait is not over yet.

A few things...

2007-11-19T03:56:00.000+11:00

Been a while since my last update, mostly because my internet is currently capped, so I just didn't bother, and that I've been playing a shit load of games, while enjoying the cricket. It's all thanks to Valve/Steam, that I blew pretty much all of my bandwidth allowance for a month in 12 days. The main culprit being buying Call of Duty 4 over on Steam. The game that Steam informed me that was fully pre-loaded, turn out wasn't complete, so I had to download the missing 2gb or so file. But it didn't stop there, the game refused to activate eventhought everything was in my hard drive and offically released on Steam. So I checked the forum for 'fixes' and it all went down hill from there. I think I have probably downloaded the game twice, in a 10 hour gap. The file size is around 6.25gb. So the result? I kissed my normal 230kbps download speed goodbye for the rest of the month.

However, Call of Duty 4 is a fantastic game, it was the Call of Duty style that I enjoyed when I played the series for the first time. Single player is as intense as it could possibly be, and had a good story. The story alternate from the point of view of a British SAS and American USMC sergeant. The non stop action drives the linear story combine with a nice relaxing level call 'Death from above'. It's being said that it is the most realistic video game moment in history so far. You basically take a point of view from a gunner in an aircraft, with one of those black and white infra-red vision one would often see when you watch the news coverage on modern warfare. The music is scored beautifully by Harry Gergson-Williams, his style of music is a perfect match for this game. Althought I have not play the multiplayer component much so far, mostly because of my onboard soundcard caused multiplayer to run at 10 fps. I had to remedied with calling someone with Skype before I load a multiplayer map (as insane as it sounds, it's actually true and works for me).

Now onto Crysis, which I just finished not long ago, it's by far, have the best single player campaign of any FPS I've ever played. From the open sandbox style at the early levels, to the action packed more linear story telling in the latter stage, they are all designed so perfectly. Boy, I would love to have one of those Nanosuits. It is a system killer, there is no doubt about it, quite literally. The graphic is by far the best there is right now. My high end computer was running it at quite acceptable frame rate with high settings, except right at the final boss fight where I most needed it to perform, it cluggs along quite baddly.

To my own surprise, I found myself enjoying Carcassonne on Xbox 360, a Live Arcade game, maybe because it was free. It's quite a nice and relaxing game to play in between of all those action packed FPS.

Guitar Hero 3, and my left wrist...

2007-11-09T14:22:00.000+11:00

So after jumping out from bed resulted from a somewhat unexpected but hopeful delivery from Australian Post for my Guitar Hero 3 and Metroid Prime 3 that I have ordered online weeks ago, I was up at 8:30am and started playing Guitar Hero 3, for 4 hours.
My only comment so far for GH3 is, my left wrist really hurts, alot. I never ever remembered playing a real guitar for 4 hours straight so long that my left wrist hurts, but here I was slugging on the fake one like a wanna-be rocker (not for the first time either). Looks like I won't be playing Metroid Prime 3 for a while.

skate.

2007-11-05T15:35:00.000+11:00

Apparently that's how you suppose to spell out this game... right EA... I'd been completely hook for a few days in this game, not that because it's really addicitive, it's just sometimes this game frustrate the hell out of you. In general the 'Flickt' control works really well, except when the game ask you to do a specific trick follow another, because the analog stick can be not that responsive sometimes, it is quite difficult to pull them off. The other problem I've had with is the camera angle, it's suppose to emulate from a point of view of a camera-man following you, from a low angle. At times I have problem seeing what is in front of me because my skater blocks the view and does not go transparent more often than he should, I wasted many hours retrying races and trying to grind on certain rail. The loading time is also quite hideous and feels like that part of the game is poorly coded. Load time is way too long for its own good, at times when you moved off from 30m of where you originally started and you retry to start from your original spot, the games goes into a loading screen, I spent alot of times retrying and the loading just doesn't help the cause.

Overall, it's a very solid game and offer something new to the skating genre that's been dominated by Tony Hawk. This game will likely have a sequel and I hope the problems above will be fix in the near future.

My Xbox 360

2007-11-01T15:27:00.000+11:00

Got it today, yah! I'm loving it so far.

Skate is the only game I've been playing the most. The game's very unique control scheme does take sometime to get use to. It is very different from the Tony Hawks games I've been playing over the years. The realism of the game makes it completely different than Tony Hawk.

Endless frustrations of online gaming

2007-10-30T21:29:00.000+11:00

Well the couple of games I've been playing the most recently are the Warcraft 3 mod, DotA (Defence of the Ancients) and Team Fortress 2. Since it's online and being only half good (or half bad, depends on how you'd look at it), sometimes they frustrates the hell out of me.

DotA has one of the worst online community I've ever encountered. If I get a dollar everytime someone talk trash on about how godlike/uber pwnage/'IM SO PRO' they are, I'd be pretty damn rich. Sure with anonymity of internet, people say whatever they like without any consequences, so they just keep talking shit until the game is over. It pisses the hell out of me on how lack of any sportsmanship people playing this game has, they just can't stfu and play the god damn game. So when I get fed up with DotA, I moved onto Team Fortress 2.

Since Team Fortress 2 is relatively new, there are alot of noobs in the game. People who doesn't know what the objective of the map is, constantly calling for medics when there isn't a single one in the team or even know what key to press to built a damn sentry gun. When you die, you wait around til you respawn again, while you're dead, you can observe what you team mates are doing. It gets frustrating watching noobs, makes you kinda feel like pulling your hair out. When I get to that stage, I usually go back to DotA, thus the endless cycle of repetitiveness.

But afterall, they're only games, you're meant to have fun, just make the most of it when you are having it.

A routine Saturday

2007-10-28T01:00:00.000+10:00

My Saturday usually look like this - sleep deprived while waiting the latest Stargate Atlantis episode to air and then to download, and generally following that, video games and more video games.

This week is no different of course, 'Travelers' is the new episode aired today. I quite enjoyed it, Larrin (played by Jill Wagner) is the leader of this new advanced human race who call themselves 'Travelers' introduced in season 4. They live on space ships that's capable of hyper space travel to avoid the Wraith. Larrin is sexy, beautiful and smart, did I mentioned sexy? She has great chemistry with Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) and it seems like there is quite a bit of sexual tension between them. I look forward seeing her again in the near future.

Clive Barker's Jericho is a squad based FPS with horror elements. Visually the game is average, the colour in this game is so dull, the whole game's texture has a very grey element to it. Even the blood is not bright red, just a dull maroon colour. Graphics isn't bad, but not the best either, it gets the job done. The atmosphere of the game feels quite good, at times it is a bit scary, like you're in a dark room and monsters jumps out from beneath trying to grab you. The music is quite good, help creates the horror themed atmosphere, but the voice acting is a bit average at times. It seems like I'm about 1/3 into the game since I heard the game is quite short.

PS: GOD DAMN TINY MOTHS, one just flew right across my notebook screen while I was typing this, almost scare the shit out of me, I had to grab this PSP case near by and squash it. There are so many of them lately...

SGA RENEWED!!

2007-10-25T08:15:00.001+10:00

FUCK YES! I'm glad I was wrong! 100 episodes, WOOT!!

Frets on Fire

2007-10-24T02:00:00.001+10:00

Bascially it's a Guitar Hero clone on PC, it's a freeware and comes with 3 songs. I've downloaded it from its offical site http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net. Somethings to get me by til Guitar Hero 3 comes out on Wii. I'm downloading the one with more songs off Blackcats. Man I'm rusty, haven't play like this since I played Guitar Hero at Jason's house in Burnaby, Canada. On the side note, I feel a bit silly holding the wireless bluetooth keyboard upright and use it like a guitar =/

Stargate Atlantis

2007-10-23T15:20:00.000+10:00

My gut feeling is telling me that SGA will likely meet the fate of SG-1. The ratings hasn't been good since there are these things call TiVO in this country call USA, apparently it's quite popular there. Instead the network trying find a solution take advantage of TiVO or trying to establish a reason why their network rating is in decline, they just try to find the cheapest cost cutting method, which is to cancel a show. Now I haven't seen many shows on SCI-FI, but I'm presuming that many of SCI-FI's original production aren't much better, in ratings or qualities. The Stargate franchise has one thing for it thought, a huge international fanbase. Sure I download the show since Australia is so much further behind, but I do buy the DVDs when they come out. SCI-FI really shouldn't ever had locked SG1 up for the 11th season so the producers couldn't make the show with another network. This deal probably has extended to SGA, so if it does get cancel, this would be it. Let's hope the new series that's currently in development find its way to another network that is more supportive other than SCI-FI.

Xbox 360

2007-10-22T01:36:00.000+10:00

Mostly likely get a Xbox 360 sometime in November or December the latest. List of games which will likely get: Halo 3, Forza 2, Skate, Mass Effect and Assasin's Creed. Looks like it'll be around $1000 if I get the Elite version. The wireless network adapter is ONE HUNDERED AND SEVENTY FUCKING dollar, WTF is it so expensive. Good thing I can connect it to my notebook next to the plasma and get wireless via ICS.

The next gen consoles

2007-10-17T07:19:00.001+10:00

The way I see it, Playstation 3 is by far the weakest system thanks to lack of good games available right now, and the bunch of shitty lies Sony is feeding to consumers. For examples, from a promised worldwide launch to a 'worldwide' launch of North America and Japan; 'OMGWTFBBQ rumble is so last gen, motion is the next gen!!!!111' to releasing Dual Shock 3 which is pretty much a wireless Dual Shock 2; 'PS2 backwards compatibility is a core value of our believes' to no backwards compatibility in the 40gb PS3 (not that I personally care much about BC), so one year later all the 'core value' just goes out the window. Sad fact is, they expect people to continue to believe their lies. Sure I want a PS3, and I'll probably buy one in the future, but they are alienating their potential customers by doing this kind of shit. I do however, wants to get a Xbox 360 probably by the end of the year. There are enough interesting games on the console right now and in the future. I think Wii is awsome, but there are just too many casual games aim at mass market and those games are pretty crap as well. Developers needs to use their creativitiy to produce games that doesn't make the wiimote feature feels tack-on to their games, create games with enough depth to keep playing, and Nintendo needs to make their online feature better.

First entry

2007-10-16T10:51:00.000+10:00

Woot.

Bleh, not like anyone gonna read this anyway.

Portal - fantastic, intriguing and mind twisting. (The cake is a lie...)
Half Life 2 - talk about twisitng, the damn game made my stomach twist in more than just one way. I hardly had any problem with motion sickness in all the games I'd play, but this game is one of them. Saddly I cannot even enjoy it without feeling like crap after 5 mins, maybe I should turn the graphics settings down so it looks less realistic.
Team Fortress 2 - Awsome multiplayer game, reminds me of good old Enemy Territory days. I remembered I used to play it alot and very much enjoy every moment of it.

I can't believe I gave in and made a Facebook account, what the hell was I thinking.

2007-10-08T20:46:00.000+10:00

Test

2007-10-08T20:40:00.001+10:00

Test