The Gamer’s Litter Box

Even though I’ve a magazine to finish, I still make time for diversions such as this visual novel newly localized by a new ero-game company from Europe, Manga Gamer. Now, I’m quite aware of the controversies surrounding the quality of their releases, though for this title it was noted that a patch was recently released to address some of these issues. With nothing else better to do and a curious mind to feed, I thought I’d give this a purchase and see if it’s truly worth a buy among visual novel fans.

I haven’t started playing it yet as I’m still rushing to close the magazine. I have, however, recently finished Yin-Yang! X-Change Alternative, which I hope to post up its review on the blog soon. The review for Yin-Yang is more or less done; I’m still cleaning up in terms of details and grammar.

This weekend I’ll be in Singapore for the GetAmped World Fest @ Marina Square, so I doubt I’ll have time to actually post a review of Hinata Bokko (literally, “Basking in the Sun”, not “Which girl should I choose”, the title that Manga Gamer has so erroneously chosen). The graphics look really nice, so I’m looking forward to playing it.

Over the weekend, the latest news to raise eyebrows in the international gaming community was about the July 2008 issue of PC Gamer Malaysia, which had a cover story on GTA IV with the byline “Now on console, soon on PC”. Several popular gaming sites picked up the story before it was eventually debunked by Rockstar themselves.

Normally this would be a great scoop of a cover story, but when the article itself doesn’t have any details about the PC title - no release dates, no changes, no upgrades - then the cover story feels misleading. While the latest gaffe by PCGM brings publicity, it reflects poorly on the editorial integrity of the magazine as well as the rest of the gaming press in the country, judging from the remarks of readers and other gaming sites editorial staff.  Even PC Gamer US editors commented on their podcast (21st minute onwards) that they thought it was “hilarious” for PCGM to jump the gun, with the team likening PCGM to “A few tacos short of a combo plate”.

As a fellow videogame magazine editor, I’ve great respect for Alicia Mak, the current editor for PC Gamer Malaysia. But I do feel that putting a cover story on GTA IV without any confirmation or official word seem like a disingenuous move. While our industry thrives on rumors and early game news leaks, it’s one thing to report it as a rumor in box story. It’s another to publish it as a full-blown cover story.

Just when you thought you’ve seen everything, something like this monstrosity turns up. Truly, truly terrifying. XD Anime Fest 2008 in pictures, after the jump. Continue Reading »

A week ago, a topic on the declining competitive scene in Malaysia at the Multiplay blog attracted quite a number of comments from players, sponsors, and even experienced gamers. I myself also commented on the situation in the topic. It’s an interesting read, so hopefully you don’t mind the numerous ‘karangans’ among the comments (including mine, lol).

As I’m currently tasked with putting out a message for the WCG supplement for our upcoming GameAxis August issue, I was thinking of a topic to write on when I recalled the discussion on the Multiplay blog entry. So I came up with this little editorial, which is partly a response to the debate that was sparked by the original Multiplay article.

Malaysian gamers are a very talented lot. Every time I visit a cybercafé or arcade, I’m astounded by the incredible caliber and potential of the players. You know which kind of gamers I’m talking about: the expert gamers who play with such reflexes and skill that you cannot peel your eyes away from their screens. Whether it is a well-placed headshot, a long string of combo hits, or a perfectly executed play that sees the opponent become decimated, watching a good game can be highly entertaining and fun to watch.

With so many Malaysians today being so good at playing videogames, you’d expect high turnouts for major e-Sports competitions. Instead, we get merely ‘okay’ turnouts and most of the time, we see the same faces or teams taking part. This often strikes me as a rather strange matter: You’d think winning lucrative prizes and cash for doing something that you like doing everyday in your spare time would attract larger crowds or fresh blood.

So why aren’t more Malaysians taking part in competitive gaming?

Continue Reading »

I must admit that I haven’t read a lot of the School Rumble manga chapters, but I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of stuff that the recently released OVA did not cover. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of overseas trip with the School Rumble gang? Or confrontation with Eri’s suitor? The director decides to ignore all of them and skip to the last few dozen chapters or so, where Karasuma is leaving for America and Harima proceeds to bring Tenma to the airport so she can join him. WTF? Were there other School Rumble episodes that I somehow missed after the second season?

Okay, my StreamyX connection has been very erratic the last few days. Some nights, my connection either times out or I can’t login whatsoever. Other times, it’s butter smooth. It’s very, very annoying and frustrating not being able to check my mail, news, or downloads.

And when I call up the service center, the operator would say that there’s nothing wrong with their servers and proceed to run through their inane SOP: is your modem switched on? Have you rebooted your modem/router? Have you tried connecting directly to your phoneline? Have you flushed your DNS? Did you switch off your antivirus? Yadda, yadda, yadda. For goodness sake don’t treat me like I’m some damn imbecile new to computers. Something is definitely screwed up somewhere, as evident by this thread here on the LowYat forums.

TMNet, if you still have your balls and admit that there’s something wrong with your system or you’re upgrading or WHATEVER and post it online, instead of sticking your head in the sand. Pretending there’s nothing wrong only pisses us off even more, which also makes us more inclined to switch to another ISP. I’m already planning to move to a wireless provider at the end of the year if this keeps up.

Seeing how I tend to be really busy during production week and not blog about anything until the end of the month, I thought I’d quickly blog about the upcoming Anime Fest 2008. Taylor’s University College will be holding the event at their main campus this Saturday. Apparently all the doujin booths have been taken up, so it looks like it’s going to be pretty packed.

Place: MPH Hall Taylor’s University College, Main Campus, Subang Jaya
Date: 26/07/2008 (Saturday)
Time: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Address: No. 1, Jalan SS 15/8, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor

I’ll be dropping by this weekend to take pictures and oogle at Kev’s figurines display. I’m quite keen on picking up one of his figurines there on that day… :B

Fuck you, Jin Kobayashi. Fuck you. What a shitty ending to your series. God, it was made of so much EPIC FAIL that not even a hodgepodge of Epic Fail Guy, Pool’s Closed, AIDS, and Face Palm can compare.

APIIT College at Technology Park will be holding the ICCG 2008 tomorrow, which will see a number of tournaments being played and competed. The games being contested are Call of Duty 4, DotA, Counter-Strike 1.6, and FIFA 08. If you’re up for an afternoon of friendly competition and some nice prizes, you can get down over to Bukit Jalil tomorrow.

If you prefer the more technical side of game development, Wan Hazmer of Easy Only! Games (interviewed by us in GameAxis June 2008 issue) will be there as well in the morning. In the afternoon, Csaba Berenyi of Codemasters will be present as well. There’s a nice mix of game competition and development talks, so I might drop by in the afternoon for a visit.

Multiplay - Inter-College Battles At APIIT ICCG’08 Tomorrow

ICCG 2008 official website

Okay, I only just saw the latest issue of PC Gamer Malaysia today (yeah, yeah. Slowpoke.jpg) and I’m terribly confused. Their July cover story is GTA IV, yet nowhere in the feature article does it mention anything about the various improvements that the PC version will receive. It’s just a general rundown of the game for Xbox 360 and PS3. Even the box story talks about the Xbox 360 version.

Now, I’m not discounting the possibility that GTA IV will arrive on PC; after all, GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas have all been ported to PC. So it’s more or less a sure bet that GTA IV will appear on Windows. But to see it appear on PC Gamer Malaysia without any mention about a release date, gameplay changes, or upgrades is very strange. All it says on the cover is that the PC version is “soon”. So…how soon will that be?