The Gamer’s Litter Box

Really busy with work at the moment so here’s an outdoor shot that I took this morning of Alter’s Miyafuji Yoshika from Strike Witches. As expected, she really looks like she belongs in the air…

An actual update? Good grief, what is the world coming to?!

But I digress. A lot has happened to me over the last few months. From getting new responsibilities at work to ending a relationship, it seems one thing came after the other and soon enough, I felt overwhelmed; I was too tired to update my blogs. But I miss blogging about my life and what I’ve done so far. Although Twitter is nice, I often felt limited by Twitter’s 140 characters limit.

So what have I been up to lately? Good question. As you can roughly guess from the above picture, I’ve recently bought myself a new figurine cabinet. Previously, most of my figurines were either lying around collecting dust or in boxes. I felt a little sad for my figurines for neglecting them, so I decided to buy a proper display cabinet from Ikea for my beauties.

I like the cabinet, though the initial setup was a hassle. If you’ve been following my tweets, you may have already read of my problems encountered with Ikea over some missing rubber footers for the glass panels. Thankfully, the parts aren’t crucial to its installation, so I just went ahead without the rubber footers. The Ikea Klingsbo is a decent glass door cabinet (definitely sturdier than the flimsy-looking Detolf model) but it’s a pity I can’t accommodate my Igniz and Iroha figurines - they’re too tall for the shelves. So that’s why I moved them to the top. Looks like I’ll have to dust these two figurines more often…

I also bought for myself a full Nendoroid Petite: Vocaloid #01 set, which stars the all-stars cast of the Vocaloid series. Normally I don’t buy full sets but they’re just so gosh darn adorable!

Although I’m going to be more busy with my work due to my increased responsibilities, I’ll try to update my blog more often. I have a visual novel review that’s still work in progress, and I’d like to do a podcast of the said review. Again if you follow my tweets, you may have seen (and heard) of my brief 30 secs talk of Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ (NSFW). But it sounded too stiff, so I’m going to redo it with a more natural tone.

Oh BTW, Happy 28th Birthday to me. Gosh, I feel super old already.

 

Sure, everyone knows that the British Academy Film and Television (BAFTA) Award looks like a theatrical mask. But have you ever wondered how it looks from behind, or why nobody bothered to show its back? No? Well, who’s to stop me from indulging you with some worthless trivia that you can use on your snooty friends and relatives who think they’re so smart? I managed to capture the surprising truth behind the mask when Codemasters Malaysia brought back the award last month to highlight its win in the Best Sports Game (2009) category with Race Driver: GRID. Click the jump for the shocking truth. Continue Reading »

Finally updated my Wordpress platform and everything looks fine. Back to drinking tea with Tsumugi~

Tomorrow’s Earth Hour, where 1 billion homes will switch off the lights for one hour from 8:30 p.m. I won’t be able to participate since I’m rushing for the deadline, but I’ll switch off my computer at home (normally I leave it on the whole day for anime and ‘mature reading materials’ torrents), not play any video games in return, and switch off the lights at my cubicle.

What will you be doing for Earth Hour tomorrow?

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.

So I finally finished Fallout 3 last night. My final thoughts?

“Is that it?”

Wow, talk about underwhelming. I don’t care so much about my character dying in the end. I know some sites and many gamers have complained about the ending feeling that they had a proverbial gun pointed at their head when they were asked to make the decision about entering the airlock chamber alone. No, I don’t mind dying. I’ve played enough JRPGs and watched enough anime/movies where the hero sacrifices himself for the betterment of humankind and his loved ones. I was kinda expecting this kind of ending.

What I’m more upset about is that the ending feels disappointingly shallow. Continue Reading »

Picking up Guitar Hero World Tour tonight from Gamer’s Hideout. And I’ve borrowed my office’s Xbox 360 for the weekend.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssss *pumps fists into the air*

I’m now in Tokyo, Japan. Just a few days ago, me and my friends were visiting various places in Kyoto, including this small shrine that we came across while visiting the Imperial Palace (didn’t go in though; couldn’t book the pass in time). What was quite amazing was the presence of these two senbazuru, which I can imagine must have taken ages to make. The wish behind these senbazuru must have been pretty strong to prompted two of them to be hung there.

I wish I can blog more and post more pictures but unfortunately for the last few days I’ve been without Internet access in Kyoto. Right now, I’m using a friend’s travel adapter and he’ll want it back after his shower. Once I visit Akiba tomorrow, I’ll buy a travel adapter. Also tomorrow, we plan to visit the famous Washinomiya Shrine. Hopefully I can get pictures up of my visit soon!

This month, our cover for the September 2008 issue of GameAxis Malaysia is just bursting with color. It’s a relief as I was getting tired of all those dreary brown palette typical of next-gen ‘HD’ games, which I’m seeing a lot now in Mercenaries 2 on the PS3. The game is incredibly buggy too, and the voice work can get ridiculously repetitive. But there’s a certain guilty pleasure at being able to blow up just about anything in the whole game, and the explosions are grand and a sight to watch.

You’ll also note that we have a special ‘burst’ balloon on the cover, announcing the details of the PS3 launch. I’m really glad that we managed to put the news of the launch on the cover in time, even though the original price for the bundle has since been slightly revised. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming PS3 launch party as it’s further recognition of the growing game community and industry in the country. Now we’ll just have to see how Microsoft will respond to this latest development.

I’ll be rushing to finish our October issue as I’ll be leaving for my Japan trip at the end of the month. Of course we won’t be compromising on the quality of the articles; we’ll just be stepping up our production flow this month. Our October issue is going to be awash with a different set of colors - one that I’m sure you’ll be seeing red all over.