The Gamer’s Litter Box

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*

When I was in Tokyo last month, I had the opportunity to interview Danny Choo, popular anime and figurine blogger. It was really neat to meet him in person, and he was generous enough to even bring some free figurines for me and Solomon Freeman, a mate who helped to arrange the interview. So for those who’ll be attending the Animax blog workshop this November 19th, you’re definitely going to have a great time since he’s going to be giving away freebies. I’ll actually be in Singapore on the same day due to another event, but I’ll be going back to Malaysia in the afternoon, so I can’t make it for the workshop nor meet him. :/

As promised in my earlier post, I’ve uploaded the 2-page interview from our November 2008 issue so check it out if you’ve the time. It’s basically an interview to introduce new readers to DannyChoo.com and to shed some light on why Danny blogs the way he does.

Rising Sun Trooper - Danny Choo Interview (PDF - 280KB)

The November 2008 issue of GameAxis Malaysia should be out by now and this month, we bring to you the latest videogame previews and reviews from the Tokyo Game Show 2008 and elsewhere. Also this month, I manage to interview Danny Choo from DannyChoo.com in which he reveals his plans for a new short movie clip staring the Tokyo Trooper as a salary man. For those who just want to read the interview with Danny, I’ll be putting up a PDF version of the interview soon. But those who want to read our TGS2008 cover story will have to support the mag by buying it.

I recently played through Rhapsody for the DS and I enjoyed it, even though the gameplay is ridiculously simple. It’s a charming little RPG for players new to the genre, and to a certain extent it’s also very appealing for girl gamers for its light-hearted theme (the main character uses a horn to summon various desserts to attack her enemies). I’m now going through another NIS game - Disgaea DS - which is the total opposite of Rhapsody. While Rhapsody took me less than 10 hours to complete, Disgaea is going to take me a long, long time to complete, according to my experience with the PS2 version.

Misae’s arc comes to a nice close. Kurogane thinks it deserved another episode, but I think 2 episodes is just nice since it was a mini route. Anyway, instead of discussing the episode I thought I’d just point out the various character cameos instead since every other anime blogger will be blogging about the episode.

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I think my Xbox 360 is dying. Recently, my Xbox 360 has been getting more RRoD flashes whenever I start it up. Although it usually resolves itself after I restart it, I’m concern that these signs are indicative of a permanent hardware failure.

If it does die in the end, I’m not too concerned. First, there’s that 3 year warranty program. Ever since I bought it last year, I had a great time gaming on it. I don’t regret my purchase; I wouldn’t buying another new model to replace it.

Update: My worst fears have come true. Upon reaching home from work, I can’t start up my console and I keep getting the RRoD. Sigh…guess I’ll be sending it to Gamer’s Hideout for repairs tonight…

It’s that time again - the time when all the year’s top AAA games are released to take advantage of the Christmas holidays. While it’s neat that so many great games are being released at the same time, it’s also problematic as (1) my wallet can’t afford them all and (2), it’s going to be a headache trying to squeeze in so many game reviews in the magazine.

For example this month, we have Resistance 2, Gears of War 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Red Alert 3, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War, Little Big Planet, Need for Speed: Undercover, Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and the list just goes on and on. Worse still, some of them are being released in the middle of the month, which gives us reviewers little time to properly play through and review the game. I don’t even have time to blog about the games and anime that I’ve consumed in the last few days (Kannagi is awesome BTW, and so are Red Alert 3 and Fallout 3).

I think Penny Arcade’s comic nicely sums up the current situation.

In other news, we’ve managed to collate the results of the survey that we ran in the magazine and also at roadshows. While some of the results that we got were expected (most Malaysian gamers own a desktop and a PS2), a few results were surprising, such as there were more PS3 owners compared to Xbox 360 owners who participated in the survey. Note that while our survey sample is rather limited, I’d say it’s testament to the strength of the PlayStation brand name in Malaysia.

Hopefully if we’ve enough space for our December 2008 issue, we’ll publish the full results. I’d love to do something like this again since it provides a small glimpse into our Malaysian gamer community.

Results

有効コードがある票の順位
1位　1037票　柊かがみ＠らき☆すた [Hiiragi Kagami @ Lucky Star]
2位　976票　柊つかさ＠らき☆すた [Hiiragi Tsukasa @ Lucky Star]

Woohoo! Go Kagami! In commemoration of Kagami winning SaiMoe 2008, here’s my most favorite Kagami picture from my collection. Fresh from her victory, Kagami flashes the biggest, brightest smile from her heart. Congratulations Kagami!