The Gamer’s Litter Box

Sony has officially confirmed that the 120GB PS3 Slim will be coming this September…and it’ll cost US$299 (~RM1100). Incidentally, that will be the same price for the old PS3 Phat beginning from tomorrow. Apparently the model design is the same one that was leaked back in May.

The question that now remains is when will Sony Malaysia bring it over to Malaysia, and how much it will cost; the console is currently selling at RM1599 (~USD450). When the PS3 Slim eventually comes to Malaysia, I estimate that the unit will likely be priced around RM1300~RM1400.  I’ll see if I can dig up some answers from Sony Malaysia in the following days…

I’ve to admit - I do feel a tinge of regret for not holding out longer for the PS3 Slim. But I don’t really mind. I still got my PS3 Phat bundle at a great price (USD310), and the console itself look mighty impressive in my living room alongside my Xbox 360. Not to mention I still have an old PS2 Phat from yesteryears, so it’ll complement each other.

lol whut? 772 MB for a ‘patch’? That’s a whole freaking PS1 game! The worst part is that if the patch download fails, I need to restart ALL. OVER. AGAIN. WTF?

As much as I love KOF, this game was clearly released unfinished. And I don’t understand why it took them so long to release such barebones gameplay features when BlazBlue has tons more stuff in it…and more eye candy too. Perhaps they were too busy spending their resources on Witch Tits Touching 2.

The huge patch update is giving me Summer Days deja vu.

Earlier today, I took part in a mini Rock Band competition which was held at Sony’s booth at the Games & Gadget event in MidValley. I came in 2nd place, so I won myself a Sony PlayStation Portable. Since I don’t really game much on the go, I asked the prize sponsor if I could sell back the PSP and get a discount instead for a Sony PlayStation 3 instead. Luckily, Sony PS3 Evangelist Teoh Wah Keong was there and I managed to get a discount for the Sony PS3 bundle, which was selling at RM1699. I bought inFamous for RM209, and they threw in a free DualShock 3 controller.

Total cost? RM1088 (USD310). That’s some massive savings there for a brand new game console which can also play high-def Blu-ray movies. I can’t deny that if I weren’t a videogame magazine editor, I probably would not have gotten the discount. So many thanks Sony Malaysia and Tan Electronics! I’m now off to set up my PSN account and start playing inFamous! :3

Update: My PSN name is FatCatLim. Add me!

I’m now at CyberFusion 2009 at CyberJaya, where nearly 200 gamers are attempting to break the Guinness World Record for longest LAN party with a record of 38 hours. The record will begin at approximately one hour’s time at 12 Midnight, and will end at Sunday 2 p.m.

Right now I’m just updating some drivers and chillin’. I’m kinda kicking myself since I forgot to bring my copy of Call of Duty 4 to the event, but I reckon Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Sudden Attack, and Dawn of War II will keep me awake for the duration of the record.

I will be twittering every now and then, so keep an eye on my Twitter page @fatcatlim

Tomorrow I’ll be at the CyberFusion 2009 event at Cyberjaya MMU, where I’ll be one of over 200 Malaysian gamers attempting to break the world record for Longest LAN party. The current record was achieved during the NVISION event last year with a record of 36 hours. From Friday 11 p.m. tomorrow, we’ll attempt to stay up for 38 hours to break the world record.

To record my progress, I’ll be posting on my Twitter homepage as often as I can. That was the main reason why I recently integrated my Twitter account to my blog here. At the same time, I’ll try to cover as much as I can of the event here and on GameAxis.com.

Frankly speaking, most of my colleagues and family members think I’m crazy to take part in the event. Even though I’m only 27, I find that I can’t stay up as late compared to my Uni days. But I feel like I want to achieve something in my lifetime, even though this record will eventually be broken by another energetic mass of gamers.

Another reason why I decided to take part in it may be that I miss the camaderie that one gets when playing with like-minded friends. The last time I ever did anything of the sorts was in college, when I hung around the arcades and met up with friends for an evening of DDR and KOF. Or perhaps I want to do something where later in life I can start spinning yarns to friends and/or children and go “Ah…I remember that event: I actually took part in it.” and start relating to them the trials of gaming nearly non-stop for such a long stretch of time.

Whatever my reasons may be, I’ll find out tomorrow night. Wish me luck.

Busy weekend as I attended two anime and game events - the Anime Comics Games Convention event at Tropican City Mall, and Hotlink Games and Anime Festival at Berjaya Times Square. I’m pretty tired and I’ve a backlog of work to sift through in the office, so I probably won’t be posting here until the end of the month.

Although the walk-in crowd at ACGC Tropicana wasn’t that great, I found it a lot more varied and interesting compared to the Hotlink Games and Anime Festival at Berjaya. Actually, the “anime” part at the Hotlink event was erroneous because I didn’t see any related anime events or activities there, except for a couple hired cosplayers and the cosplay competition on the 2nd day, which I didn’t attend. It was cool to see the Malaysia-Singapore matchup at the Sudden Attack booth though.

Sometimes I can’t help but admire the endless energy that cosplayers seem to have for their series and craft. I can’t see myself exhibiting the same enthusiasm, like going on stage to do the Caramelldansen performance when the song plays. Probably I’m just an oldfag who can’t adapt to the new generation of anime and videogame fans.

Keen-eyed Malaysian gamers who have been following the development of building sim Cities XL might spot a familiar landmark amongst the various buildings that one can build in the upcoming title. In particular, one building has a remarkable resemblance to Wisma Tun Sambanthan, a 27-storey office building located in KL. Perhaps one of the designers or developers was a Malaysian and decided to pay homage?

Cities XL screens

Wisma Tun Sambanthan @ Flickr

As much as I don’t like reading the News Strait Times for their pro-government news, at least they propagated the message that ultimately, parents are responsible for making sure what their children are playing. The piece, which was apparently front page news in the NST yesterday, highlighted the common knowledge that most Malaysian parents do not monitor what videogames their children are playing. Likewise, local retailers don’t care about rules and ratings when selling videogames since there’s no law or enforcement preventing them from doing so.

“The onus is on parents. Just as many failed to realise the dangers posed by junk food, today’s parents are also failing to realise the dangers of violent video games and television shows,” - unnamed consumer advocate.

The article, however, could have been improved by arguing that such violent videogames are normally intended for mature adult audiences. At least it didn’t try to blame videogames for the spate of violence in the country - our crappy economy and poor law enforcement is doing a heckuva job already, thank you very much.

NST - Video Games: Fighting Violence

The main website for DaiCon has gone LIVE. What’s DaiCon? It’s the brainchild of the EMINA club, the same group of people who brought the GACC in MMU Melaka, which saw two notable seiyuus such as Masakazu Morita (voice of Kurosaki Ichigo of Bleach) paying a visit to Malaysia and giving a Q&A session to anime fans.

Will DaiCon be any different? Inviting a special VIP to the event? Perhaps. I’ll leave it to the organizers to reveal it themselves.

DaiCon Main Website

I’ve finished Resident Evil 5 over the weekend and I’ve been replaying the game to get the achievements and extra weapons/figurines/costumes/etc.

Is it a good game? Yes, it is.

Is it a good Resident Evil game? I’m not quite sure.

Resident Evil 5 is basically Resident Evil 4 with a shiny new coat of HD graphics. That’s not a bad thing, but there’re a couple elements missing in RE5 that makes the series so memorable - suspense and horror. The introduction of coop is great for playing the game with a friend, but it makes the game less scary since you always have your partner to back you up. And the numerous sunny and bright-lit areas also reduces the scare factor. Ammo is also never really a problem because you can always replay a chapter and save the items and weapons in your inventory - when you have nearly a hundred shotgun shells in your inventory brought over from your previous replays, I don’t need to worry about running out of ammo anytime soon.

To call RE5 a survival-horror game would be misleading - it’s more of an action game. If anything, the only game in the market right now that’s faithful to the survivor-horror genre would be Left 4 Dead. In L4D, you really feel the suspense all around when you and your teammates enter an area devoid of zombies. When is the next onslaught coming? Do I have enough ammo? Will these painkillers be able to last me to the next safe room? Oh shit - is that a Tank I hear in the horizon?

Let me make it clear that even with the lack of tension and suspense, I still like RE5. It’s a great game, and it’s a lot of fun to play through over and over. And the ending nicely ties up the Umbrella arc and Albert Wesker’s involvement. But I’m a bit undecided over whether this makes it a good game in the RE series. Perhaps I should have seen it coming with RE4, when in later chapters Leon fights against enemies who can use crossbows and at one point, even a gatling gun.

It’s ironic that the latest instalment of the Resident Evil series is so unlike the genre that was spawned from its first game. News of a ‘reboot’ to the Resident Evil series may be a good thing. Capcom could start anew and craft a new story that’s more faithful to the survivor-horror genre. The new game might reinvent the survivor-horror genre, or even create a new one. There’s only so much one can build around the “virus turns human beings into zombies” theme until it becomes old - or dead.