A new look, but somethings never change. (And Tetra)

Well, I shifted here even since I found out wordpress has this awesome 'SHIFT HERE' magic button that works for blogger, livejournal, etc. It is able to MERGE everything you every blogged into one big wordpress blog. Pretty nifty. Looking back at old blog posts, many things changed since then like my attitude and my interests, and many things remained the same, like how I feel about Tekken.

If no one read this 2 million-year-old news yet, Wilson Chia aka Tetra was fired for maoing his manager.

My opinions about this was quite simple: The manager deserved to get slapped. I'd only wished Tetra actually rip him apart. Phenic was probably the worst manager I have ever seen/read about. No matter how you twist the story, it will still be at Phenic's fault: He made his mindless button mashing girlfriend play DOA4 alongside Tetra. After 6 months, according to Tetra, she is still a mindless button masher. Although button mashing is bad enough in 2D games (in GG will cause counter hits for big damage example), I play enough DOA4 to know it is worse. Heck I don't even need brains to fight a button masher.

So this fiancee of Phenic insisted that his girlfriend's skills will work out in the end, again according to Tetra. I have to take Tetra's word for this because, well, only Tetra and Phenic knows about this detail and Tetra will be the one telling the world while Phenic will just deny everything. Supposedly, after 6 months of button mashing, Phenic's girlfriend remained the same and eventually, it didn't really work out in the end, causing SG team to lose a potential $2k/month contract (around there I think), and end up with a $500/month one (I think, and lawl it's worse than attachment pay).

So instead of letting other better girl players play at the DOA4 female category (there are, apparently), he let his lousy button mashing girlfriend to play instead. Madpiss.

And was Phenic is lousy ex-PGR Singapore Team player that died to some random uncle?

Review: "Mass Effect" - I will destroy you!

I have been playing tons of Mass Effect lately, like, tons. My weekdays just went by so swiftly everytime.

Mass Effect was very enjoyable for me. Every party member has some character development, combat was FPS-like, thus making it fairly enjoyable, voice acting was good, content/lore was acceptable, a bit of romance and deaths of important characters (spoilers). Too bad the main storyline only lasts for around 10 hours.

Sidequests are barely tolerable. In outdoors sidequests you have to explore the whole damn empty terrain with your vehicle to look for various key items. Indoor sidequests reminds me of City of Heroes quests. Every damn indoor instance looks the same. Everytime you enter a building, you see the same textures, but a different layout. It get really really old after some time.

On the topic of vehicular combat, it is a fucking bitch. Getting down to shoot is at least a hundred times more convenient, and considering that you get more exp that way combat from destroying stuffs from your vehicle, you'd rather stay out.

I would really really love if planets are less mountainous. Some are okay, but there are a few which I felt breathless, the negative kind of 'breathless'. Travelling and bouncing around my Mako is irritating enough, don't make it worse with such irritating terrain. And the camera. God, why do they do this to my eyes?

I wished there were more conversation between party members. And I wished choosing paragon/renegade actually has a meaning, not just dialog and random people hating you or dying. I guess I shouldn't expect much, since paragon/renegade isn't as dratically difference as compared to light/dark side in KOTOR. Plus, I wish being paragon/renegade would grant you special bonuses like in KOTOR, intead of just letting you add more points to dialong skills (charm and intimidate) etc.

I kinda liked their character growth mechanics but it could've been better. Soldiers seemed like complete shit as compared to what the other classes can do. Only good thing about Soldier is that you don't have to suffer problems like choosing what skills to add to, since you don't have much anyway. The only other use for the Soldier class is to unlock the Assult Rifle acheivement.

Lore is good but some parts sounds like Warhammer 40k ripoffs. Just look at Tali's people, the quarian as compared to Eldars:

- Create bad stuff that will drive their race to extinction? Check
- Doesn't live on planets, ie live on ships? Flotila? Craftworld? hmm
- Pilgrimage? Hmm sounds like Rangers!

I wouldn't want to compare the Protheans and Reapers to Necrons and the old race in 40k which I can't remember. The mere mention of the concept between Protheans and Reapers scream "Plagarism!" in my mind.

The story is good enough. It's better than Icewind Dale series. Then again Icewind Dale has shit for story. But at least it has the 'omg so that's what they are for' factor. However, I find the Reaper's (aka the big bad evil boss) reason to destroy really lacking and disappointing.

I expect many many things in Mass Effect 2. If they did the same to ME2 from ME1 as they did to KOTOR2 from KOTOR1, it'd be great.

And I don't want planetary travel anymore please...I'd rather do 15 more Citadel quests than to wander aimlessly around 15 different planets in my crap vehicle (ya it's that bad imo).

Review: "Super Smash Bros: Brawl"

I have been touching on Super Smash Bros Brawl on ZhaoHan's Wii these few weeks. It's incredibly fun, and I feel that this game might make it on the competitive stage, although I shouldn't be the one to judge that since I didn't play SSB: Melee in the first place. There seemed to be many complains by the Smash World community about Brawl, mainly because they felt the competitve level of the game has toned down to a crawl. The creator of SSB series, Sakurai, states that he's trying to "make losers and winners feel happy" (summerized), so the community interprets it (probably correctly) as "I don't want SSB to be hardcore competitive like a SF2".

I do feel that Sakurai managed to accomplish that though I've never actually played Melee to make a comparision and make a judgement. I had a blast playing 4 FFA with all items on. Items are goddamn fun, fun because they are damn random and some of them are very creative (eg football). Stages are well designed too. I mean, only Nintendo can come up with such unique stages. I liked the Sonic stage, mainly because I totally recognize it from the first Sonic game I played about 15 years ago when I was just a small boy. Nostalgia is fuck awesome. Too bad I don't think I ever completed the game. Good thing I still have my 16-bit sega in my uncle's house :D...I hope -.-

There are many characters in the game, featuring characters from games like Fire Emblem (Marth, Ike), Kirby, Sonic, Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Metal Gear (Snake), and of course, Mario Bros themselves. There is no doubt that this game has their fair share of tiers. Characters like Pit is arguably better than Wario, but from what many people feel, the game is more balanced than it was in Melee. They are only afraid that the ultimate strategy in brawl, in the end, is to camp and wait instead of advancing and chasing down an opponent. In short, many feel that this game will favor people with no 'O'ffence. A thread has been created suggesting to do a 'Heavy Brawl', which is to increase the gravity of the game, since Brawl is very much slower (and more floaty) as compared to Melee (from what I experienced within 10mins of Melee long ago).

Well, my group of friends playing Brawl isn't really at that level of expertise yet, so I don't really care or feel what they felt. Right now, we are just playing the game for fun, and slowly exploring the details the game engine and the characters.

I'm awaiting the next Brawl get together. I hope my arms heal up then (seems to take a long time to heal, 4th day and it just got worse).

[Random]Happy Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year Everyone!

[Random] Thai Pusam?

Throughout the 20 years in my life, I have not heard of this...festival.

So I simply ran headfirst into the middle of it. The middle of Thambiland. At its peak.

It was incredibly crowded. In fact it was so crowded I can't see shit. This is a totally different kind of 'can't see shit because its crowded'. This is darkness we are talking about. How the hell do people actually see what's going on on the road. I can barely see some random guy dancing around in front of some banner. It was really really hard to see. Not much of a surprise there though, considering the amount of times I walked past this place and almost missed them completely.

I think these Hindus have darkvision, or something. And I think they identify each other by smell. Holy crap, I think they do! All of them have the same bloody haircut, as if they only went to a singular barber. The ones WHICH don't are probably gays. Yes I spotted a couple and it was fairly significant. They looked less...of their kind.

But the topic here is Thai Pusam. The roadblocks made of steel and flesh everywhere, stretching from the start of Little India (the road towards SLS) all the way to Race Course Road (safe point).

To be honest, I felt a little scared. I'm afraid to speak about anything that has to do with them. What if I let slip a silly comment and a stupid one misinterprets it and starts beating me up. All of them will zerg me and the police can't do shit. They will probably cut up my body and sell them back in form of a mutabak. Paranoid? Better safe than sorry.

I should've snapped a shot, I really should, but I'm now using a camera-less phone. A zerg of the Hindu people is madness. I have seen zergs of chinese in Shanghai, large tourist groups of Eurasians, and probably zergs of blacks and all. They all looked different from each other, somehow (although botak people always gives me problems most of the time). The Little India crowd was...wow. I'd always felt I lost my way because I thought I passed by the same person trice.

Lesson, stay away from Little India. God I bet the drain along the way home was filled with stuff.

[Random] First weeks of Jan

Its been a pretty fun week. Learning japanese now is rather fun, and attending lessons makes me feel happy, although I'm not that keen on learning katakana (katakana vocab test next week?! katakana VOCAB? >. all other builds that do better at what I'm doing". Ignoring him seems to work. So far.

I just ordered my X360 from Oldman. He'd better pick me good games or I'll fry him. YH and Dom were quarreling about the possession of Travis' X360 I heard...good thing I wasn't there. Seems that after 3 months of attachment, things aren't going so well. I mean it's quite a strange situation sometimes. Dom can be so damned blur at times, but he is much more reasonable than YH can be. While YH is damn aware of things around him, but he has shit for logic sometimes.

Why am I the only passive intern around in the company. Sadly, I don't really plan to stay in the company. I no longer find joy in making big huge 3D games anymore. I spent too much time making them, staying up late to produce results and rushing every weekly deadline. I guess I'm one who loses interest easily if I don't see any REAL progress for myself. Actually, no. I guess I just hate building engines. I'm okay with doing them, SIMPLE versions of them, but once you start adding maths and crazy requirements, I'm out. I want to use tools, not make them. I want to use a hammer, not create one.

That's why I enjoy 2D games. That's why I like to script and play with editors. That's why I love DnD. Ok here we go again :p

Its getting late now. I guess I'd better sleep.

Happy New Year!

It's been a new year and I felt old, again.

I just passed my japanese testto skip elementary course...but I'm not sure if I should join. NS may be up sooner than I expect.

I have been playing too much DnD for the past couple of weeks. I can taste the mushroom swiss double in my mouth now...

Hmm, to join or not to join?