Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Review: Scribblenauts


I know I should've done this review long ago, like when I obtained the game. Scribblenauts is the most original, genius and ambitious game I have ever seen in my life. The concept of the game is so simple, yet so...genius.

The whole game revolves around you punching out words spelling an object and creating them. Type in "spade" and you'll get a spade. Type in "tree" and you'll get a tree. Type in "god" and you get what-seems-to-look-like Jesus. Type in "vampire" and a vampire appears to try to kill stuff around him which will eventually spawn into mindless zombies.

There are two different kinds of levels to this game: Action and Puzzle. Action is basically trying to get from point A to point B, so I shan't dwell upon it too much. The main course of the game is the puzzle levels, which forces you to act creatively.

See, the 'rule' to this game is that your character is not superman. He can't fly, teleport or even fight much. He is only given the ability to create anything (conventional) he wants.


Every level, you will be given an objective like "Catch the butterfly" (one of my favorite earlier levels). As an added challenge, you will be given a bonus if you do it within a certain amount of 'creations'.

See, this is where you will get stumped. The butterfly is hovering well beyond your reach and you cannot jump high enough to reach it. One way to solve it is to create a 'flower' to lure the butterfly down and create a 'net' for your character to catch it. Of course, there are probably many different ways you can try solve it, just need to think creatively and out of the box (something which I'm not really good at lol).

Another cool thing about this game is the item's ability to create cause and effect. Create thermal googles and wear it, the whole place becomes heat vision view. As shown by the video below, you can kill a medusa you created, grab her head and turn living beings to stone.

You can imagine the amount of work that went through for this game. Not just work; GRUNT work. I bet the scripters are chained to their seat to script out every single possible thing they can think of and from various different dicionaries. It's quite insane when you think about it.

Here are the words available in Scribblenauts for those who wants to have a preview.

Hmm, and I still find it amusing that typing in 'gamer' and 'virgin' produces the same thing >.<


Monday, December 28, 2009

Anime: "The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya" & "Nyoron Churuya-san"


It's been some time since I did some anime review. This isn't really an anime either, just ONA (shorts) that Kyoto Animation did on two famous doujin works based on the Haruhi anime/manga/light-novel. If you have been searching online for random Haruhi doujins, you might have come across them several times. Kyoto Animation just brought them to life, preserving the art style for both doujins and throwing them to YouTube.

"Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan" casts Haruhi characters in mostly chibi form. There are some changes in the character's personality based on how most otakus view them from time to time. Yuki, for example, is somehow an otaku in the SOS-dan instead of her usual cool-headedness. There are also many random yaoi-like moments between Kyon and Koizumi. Otherwise, the characters kept their basic personality.


In short, it's mostly just for laughs, with each episode lasting only 2-5 mins long. "Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan" lasts for 25 episodes of randomness and comedy.

You have probably seen the doujin "Nyoron Churuya-san" is based on everywhere. Just typing "Nyoron" on Google Images brings up lots of its doujin strips. Basically, it's how everyone mistreats a chibi-Churuya, making her all emo and going 'nyoron~' at the end of every clip. It's rather funny to see that they preserved the art-style for this (everyone having the '-_-' face).

All they need to do now is to animate 'Kyonko' doujins and everything will be complete ^^

Episode 1 for both ONAs:
"Nyoron Churuya-san" 1


"Melancholy of Suzumiya-chan" 1

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Touhou Christmas!



Well, Christmas just ended and I finally reached home around 10 mins ago. There's a really nice music piece I chanced upon while surfing facebook (thanks Lester!). It's a remix from a Touhou piece called 'U.N Owen was her?", probably more commonly known as Flandre's theme song, and probably even more commonly known as the music behind McRoll videos.

Heck for those who still dunno, here's the original.

Haha, it kinda made my day. I just love how people can turn some music pieces Christmas-y. First one I heard was a remix from OCRemix long long time ago here. Preview at Youtube below:



Well, I hope everyone had a great and enjoyable Christmas! A new year is just ahead!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas 2009!


Well, looking back at this post it's amazing how time flew by so quickly. I remember that Christmas I just POP'ed and dropped out as a commando and was about to enter my life as a signaller. Back then, I was still wishing to become what I am now, and am upset by the fact that I have a year and a half remaining as an NSF.

Now, here I am, wish my ORD date just around the corner (6 more months). It seems so close yet so far. Ah, I'll just leave the reminiscing post for the New Year.

Here's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. Sorry for not texting anyone because if I did I would use up my SMS limit in one go :p

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Haruhi boosters are out!


-updated from the old post now deleted, supposed to be dated yesterday 22/12/2009-

It was supposed to be a normal leave day, spending my time practicing piano at home, going out for driving lesson before heading to Bugis for some Blazblue, spending only 10 bucks before returning home for late dinner.

It's supposed to be normal at least, until I saw like 4 new messages on my handphone all spamming me the same "HARUHI BOOSTER IS OUT" from 3 different people >.<


I honestly didn't think I would spend 25 times of what I expected to (that's a whole $250 aka more than half my NSF pay). When I finally woke up at like 1pm, I kept telling myself "getting 1 box is enough...getting 1 box is enough..." only to pick up a phone call from Chin Yong asking me how many boxes I want to buy which I unwittingly answered "two". When he confirmed with me if I really wanted two, I just gave him a very confident "of course!".

Well it's a good thing I did. Chin Yong opened a few boosters for me at Ishimura (best curry rice offer btw) and landed me this RRR. Omg it feels so good to touch it >.< It costs 3500 yen btw and it's supposedly the most expensive card I have now.

I haven't opened up the rest of the boxes yet, so who knows what I'll get after this post. ^^


Also, my shipment of selected Phantom cards (+2 flonnes cards!) finally arrived to me in the hands of Karlson. Finally I have 4 flonnes ready to be placed in any red deck I have. It's been so long since I ordered those cards that I forgot I actually ordered some cheap yellows to help my deck >.<

Oh well, at least my leave is coming to an end so I can save some money staying in camp. Sunday Neo-Standard Haruhi tourney at Rapid Culture @ Funan! XD

Update: 2nd box got a yuki SR! XD

*sigh* need to spend more on card protectors and albums now >.<

Sunday, December 20, 2009

COD:MW2 knife kill



John mentioned this and I stumbled upon it on Hongfire. It's a COD:MW2 team match, where the winning kill is some crazy blind knife throw over a fence

It's confirmed to be a fluke, but incredibly awesome nonetheless.