Wishing all Mothers of the world, a happy:-
HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Happy Mother's Day!
It's Mother's Day again this year!
Wishing all Mothers of the world, a happy:-
HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!
Wishing all Mothers of the world, a happy:-
HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Infinity Ward Mass Resignations - 18th April
With the firing of Vince Zampella and Jason West from Infinity Ward by Activision over an issue which the gaming community calls as a abomination, the chaos was created by Activision so that they will not have to pay Vince and Jason the royalties that they deserve for the sales of Modern Warfare 2, many other staff of Infinity Ward are now currently in the process of leaving Infinity Ward and more are possibly coming. The video shows people who are currently not in the company anymore.
As a summary, people who have already left:-
Directed By:- Jason West
Engineering Leads:- Francesco Gigliotti
Engineering:- Jon Shirling, Rayme E.Vinson
Design Leads:- Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
Art Leads:- Christopher Cherubini
Animation Leads:- Mark Gringsby, Paul Messerly
Story By:- Jason West, Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
CEO:- Vince Zampella
As a summary, people who have already left:-
Directed By:- Jason West
Engineering Leads:- Francesco Gigliotti
Engineering:- Jon Shirling, Rayme E.Vinson
Design Leads:- Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
Art Leads:- Christopher Cherubini
Animation Leads:- Mark Gringsby, Paul Messerly
Story By:- Jason West, Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
CEO:- Vince Zampella
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Qing Ming Festival - April 6th
Qing Ming Festival is celebrated every year where the living descendants of the departed visit the graves to pay their respects. It is time of year where it is considered to be the Chinese New Year for the departed and the living visit the "homes" of the departed. Last year, Qing Ming was on 4th April, and this year was supposed to be on the 5th of April but made early due to the weekends. My article on last years Qing Ming Festival can be found HERE
But anyways, in comparison from last years difficulty, it wasn't so hard this year, which I'm thankful for. At least, the workouts has been paying off and didn't felt the same tiredness like year but still my thigh muscles still hurt with the extra effort required to scale the non-standard staircases. Well, with prayers done, mountain scaled, and grandparents visited, hopefully this year would bring me again: someone, and new business opportunities and excellent health all-round for everyone!
The view of the hill from my grandparents' grave
My cousin sister placing candles on the altar.
A view of my grandparents' grave
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Starcraft 2 Beta Review - 6th April
Although the beta has been opened for quite a while, I'm doing the review only now as this review must be not be messed up and actually conveys what I actually think of the game from the beta experience only. Due to the fact that this game is widely anticipated, expectations were rather high and being helmed by Blizzard made the game on of the more "must-haves" of the times.
As this game is only in its beta, much of the story is not yet known but the basics is that it starts after the end of Starcraft: Broodwar and the first installment of a 3-part series focuses on the Marines or humans of the game in "Wings of Liberty". Therefore, story is out and the general idea for the beta would be on the balancing issues if the units and also bugs and glitches, whether graphical or the system itself. This review would focus on the graphics, sounds, gameplay and overall of the beta so far.
In terms of graphics, I was not too impressed with what I was looking at. It seems to look like and upgraded version of the Warcraft 3 graphics with some improvements and in space. With addition that the graphics seems so much darker and gloomy. Although the unit graphics have been changed over from 2d to 3d, they, in my opinion do not reflect the older units that most gamers are familiar with. This also goes for the structures as well where they've lost their grandness of design and even the futuristic look has been eliminated by a large amount. I'm not sure if it is a result of being unfamiliar with the new graphics, but due to the graphical changes, unit control felt very unresponsive. Even some of the units look particularly downgraded at this point, and I would like to stress one of the more obvious: why does the Zergling now have wings? They sure do look like small flies now.
I've actually one issue with the sounds department, which is:- Give Me Back the Old Sounds! The truth is, the current sounds for units and structures is very much annoying and not satisfactory. The old coarse sound of the overmind, the human voice of the Marines and the templar sounds of the Protoss bases is being wiped by the annoying Kerrigan sounds for the Zergs, electronic sound of the Marines and weak sound of the Protoss in the new game. Unit response sounds are no longer familiar and sounds like they've been running for ages and so feels so tired. Unit deaths sounds are toned down and felt like "just another unit dead" and not a part of your army. In whole, the game environment just became less lively and more monotonous.
Overall, I would say the experience felt tedious and some what unexpected for a high-profiled game. In fact, even with effort of trying to like the game, there just isn't any mood or excitement of playing it. The whole experience felt forced and pointless. Seriously, I wonder why some games these days felt repetitive and lack of quality. I used to think that Blizzard has a reputation to make addictive and polished games, but now, no longer. Hopefully, the actual game wouldn't be as bad as this game has degraded into in the beta.
As this game is only in its beta, much of the story is not yet known but the basics is that it starts after the end of Starcraft: Broodwar and the first installment of a 3-part series focuses on the Marines or humans of the game in "Wings of Liberty". Therefore, story is out and the general idea for the beta would be on the balancing issues if the units and also bugs and glitches, whether graphical or the system itself. This review would focus on the graphics, sounds, gameplay and overall of the beta so far.
In terms of graphics, I was not too impressed with what I was looking at. It seems to look like and upgraded version of the Warcraft 3 graphics with some improvements and in space. With addition that the graphics seems so much darker and gloomy. Although the unit graphics have been changed over from 2d to 3d, they, in my opinion do not reflect the older units that most gamers are familiar with. This also goes for the structures as well where they've lost their grandness of design and even the futuristic look has been eliminated by a large amount. I'm not sure if it is a result of being unfamiliar with the new graphics, but due to the graphical changes, unit control felt very unresponsive. Even some of the units look particularly downgraded at this point, and I would like to stress one of the more obvious: why does the Zergling now have wings? They sure do look like small flies now.
I've actually one issue with the sounds department, which is:- Give Me Back the Old Sounds! The truth is, the current sounds for units and structures is very much annoying and not satisfactory. The old coarse sound of the overmind, the human voice of the Marines and the templar sounds of the Protoss bases is being wiped by the annoying Kerrigan sounds for the Zergs, electronic sound of the Marines and weak sound of the Protoss in the new game. Unit response sounds are no longer familiar and sounds like they've been running for ages and so feels so tired. Unit deaths sounds are toned down and felt like "just another unit dead" and not a part of your army. In whole, the game environment just became less lively and more monotonous.
Overall, I would say the experience felt tedious and some what unexpected for a high-profiled game. In fact, even with effort of trying to like the game, there just isn't any mood or excitement of playing it. The whole experience felt forced and pointless. Seriously, I wonder why some games these days felt repetitive and lack of quality. I used to think that Blizzard has a reputation to make addictive and polished games, but now, no longer. Hopefully, the actual game wouldn't be as bad as this game has degraded into in the beta.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Bioshock 2 Review - 28th March
The world of Rapture, in theory, it is an utopia but indeed the human nature is unpredictable and bound to it's true instinct: destruction and rebellious. It's been 10 in-game years since the days of Bioshock and Bioshock 2 now tells of another story. Instead of the human you played in Bioshock, you now are what you've feared the most in Bioshock, a Big Daddy. Actually, I've finished this game a couple of days ago and only today I've decided to write an article about it. As usual, this review will talk briefly about the game on overall, the graphics, and also the gameplay.
The main backbone of the story is on you as the Big Daddy trying to locate back the child under your care, the Little Sister. Earlier in the story, the main antagonist, Sofia Lamb instructed the main character to shoot himself but revived 10 years later with the Bio-Tube. Throughout the game, there will be decisions to be made but most of them involves either saving or killing someone, which will affect the ending. Some of the story elements in the game are pretty standard after Bioshock 1 with someone taking over the helm of the administration of Rapture and the citizens themselves making a mess of everything, although there are small surprises here and there. On the story, I wouldn't say that it is marvelous but rather mediocre, in fact, I had to look up online for the actual story as from the conversations littered throughout the game, I couldn't get the big picture only rough sketches of what was happening in Rapture.
Graphically, the game does portray the city of Rapture rather realistically in the sense of the setting and mood. The timeline of the game which is in the 70's can be felt from the decor, the way the enemies dress and also the furniture. Lights and shadows are well made and sometimes you might look behind you for fear of an enemy due to some shadow of someone running behind you. Although this, I'm not too sure if it is intentional, but the citizens of Rapture has been portrayed to look rather less "spliced" than 10 years ago? In Bioshock 1, the enemies looks much more hideous, grim and of course, much more prone to attacking you but they look like they've become better after 10 years? Not sure on this though. But well, there's no complaints from me on other graphical elements. The underwater scene looks very believable and water looks like water.
It's good that Bioshock 2 did manage to change the gameplay from a human point of view to the Big Daddy. It sure did play differently in the second game. Although this, some of the game elements are seriously not fun, well at least not for me. Getting ADAM now means that you've to snatch the Little Sisters from their respective Big Daddies which is a routine, but what's with the extra ADAM which you've to defend the Little Sisters from the citizens of Rapture? I've seen Little Sisters (un-snatched yet) plunging their needles into any of the corpses while in serenity and no one disturbing but "our" Little Sisters are so selective with the corpse they get the ADAM from and is a sure-fire way of getting the attention of the citizens of Rapture? Hacking the different machines in Rapture requires for you to click with precision, having to click once the needle reaches the green / blue zone which was much simpler than the pipe-mania of Bioshock 1. The other thing of concern would be the lack of sounds of the machines makes me wonder if the machines' sound boxes actually got spoilt after 10 years that they don't make their distinctive sounds anymore. Bioshock 1 machines' each makes memorable sounds that make them somewhat in contrast to the environment which is an experience by itself which is lacking in Bioshock 2.
It is not fair to say that Bioshock 2 is a bad game, it is not too bad but in comparison to its prequel, it does not match up in terms of quality and gameplay. There are spooky elements in Bioshock 1 that just doesn't cut it Bioshock 2 which results in a rather tad plain experience and not the kind of awe generated by Bioshock 1. My score for this game:- 8/10
Graphically, the game does portray the city of Rapture rather realistically in the sense of the setting and mood. The timeline of the game which is in the 70's can be felt from the decor, the way the enemies dress and also the furniture. Lights and shadows are well made and sometimes you might look behind you for fear of an enemy due to some shadow of someone running behind you. Although this, I'm not too sure if it is intentional, but the citizens of Rapture has been portrayed to look rather less "spliced" than 10 years ago? In Bioshock 1, the enemies looks much more hideous, grim and of course, much more prone to attacking you but they look like they've become better after 10 years? Not sure on this though. But well, there's no complaints from me on other graphical elements. The underwater scene looks very believable and water looks like water.
It is not fair to say that Bioshock 2 is a bad game, it is not too bad but in comparison to its prequel, it does not match up in terms of quality and gameplay. There are spooky elements in Bioshock 1 that just doesn't cut it Bioshock 2 which results in a rather tad plain experience and not the kind of awe generated by Bioshock 1. My score for this game:- 8/10
Friday, March 26, 2010
HD 5850 With NF-M2PV motherboard - 26th March
It's been a while since I last posted on this blog and so, I've decided today to make a couple of postings to continue the life of this blog (although I doubt that many people actually read it) but anyways, changing to a HD 5850 is relatively easy but in a mother board like NF-M2PV, there maybe problems arising.
The Sapphire HD 5850 looks like the image below:-
As you can see, the horizontal orange slot is the PCI-e slot, and in the right (black passive cooler) is for the chipset. The cooler was too high and was blocking the GPU's rear. The solution was indeed fairly simple, replacement of the cooler. Fortunately, all you need is to obtain another chipset cooler which was having a lower depth than the one shown, recommended is a Abit Fatal1ty board chipset cooler like the one shown in the image below which solves the problem:-
Having done so, the Power Supply Unit would then have to be replaced. The PSU that can be used is the Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 650W. In contrary to what most reviews say, the Cooler Master PSU is quite a moderate unit and it is able to power a HD 5850 unlike what most people on the Net say. Although, I would complain on the low 120mm PSU fan speed which does not do much in transferring heat from the case to the external areas.
The Sapphire HD 5850 looks like the image below:-
It is a great card actually, running at approximately 50C when idle and 60+C when on load. BFBC2 is nor playable with High settings without a lot of lags. The thing is that, the installation process was not smooth at first considering that the motherboard is a Abit NF-M2PV where the PCI-e slot is being blocked by the chipset cooler at the rear of the card slot. The Abit NF-M2PV board looks like the image below:-
As you can see, the horizontal orange slot is the PCI-e slot, and in the right (black passive cooler) is for the chipset. The cooler was too high and was blocking the GPU's rear. The solution was indeed fairly simple, replacement of the cooler. Fortunately, all you need is to obtain another chipset cooler which was having a lower depth than the one shown, recommended is a Abit Fatal1ty board chipset cooler like the one shown in the image below which solves the problem:-
Having done so, the Power Supply Unit would then have to be replaced. The PSU that can be used is the Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 650W. In contrary to what most reviews say, the Cooler Master PSU is quite a moderate unit and it is able to power a HD 5850 unlike what most people on the Net say. Although, I would complain on the low 120mm PSU fan speed which does not do much in transferring heat from the case to the external areas.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Straw Pudding - 1st March
I found this in a coffee shop / eating place in my kampung, Jerantut.
(Credits: My Brother who took this photo)
Who wants some "Straw Pudding"? (Actual:- Strawberry Pudding)
(Credits: My Brother who took this photo)
Who wants some "Straw Pudding"? (Actual:- Strawberry Pudding)
Chap Goh Meh - 1st March
Anyways, what marks the end of CNY is the Lantern Festival (not associated with Mid-Autumn Festival) where lanterns and lights are all lit up and temples are usually full with decorations. I remember watching in a Stephen Chow movie on ancient Chinese times where there will be sort of a night festival in the nearest city square where there will be games and such. The husbands would "compete" among themselves to earn lanterns for their wives. Accordingly, husbands who get the biggest and most beautiful lantern for their wives would generally mean that he loves his wife very much. Not too sure how much of that is true.
Which reminds me of a another customs today in the modern world. Not sure whether is it practiced anywhere else, but here in Malaysia, on Chap Goh Meh day, the single-ladies would go to a place where there's water which is where she will throw mandarin oranges with their contact and names written on it in hopes that some nice guy would pick it up. It is hoped then that would turn into a happy ending story.
Come to think of it, I sure won't mind any of these 'oranges'
come floating to me in form of comments for this article. I think it's about time.
Well, anyways, Happy belated CHAP GOH MEH and wishes for a great year ahead!
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