JunX's Blog: Random blurbs about Hardwares/Games/Gunplas

Dell Vostro V131 review

2012-02-01T23:37:00.001+08:00

It Glows!!

Specification of laptop reviewed:
i3 2350M
4GB RAM
500GB HDD
Back lit keyboard

Vostro V131 sitting next to its 4 year old predecessor

The other Dell is a 4 years old relic. Running on Conroe CPU architecture with the ill fated 6 series nvidia discrete GPU suffering bump gate problem. That setup weights more than 2Kg and couldnt accomplish any thing productive without bringing along its power brick.
Not going to go thru all its specifications and connectivity. I m sure dell official website is good enough for that. =)
4 years like a decade in the world of technology. And you are about to see why.

Performance: 10/10
A dual core sandy bridge running at 2.3GHz is fast enough for every office application, programming IDE and even some simple photoshop. And not to mention strategy games. i5 offers turbo boost which clocks up a few cores when TDP is below the threshold. Could make your MS office open a few second quicker, but in my opinion, not really good for power management as it attempts to use the maximum TDP when given a badly threaded task.
A discrete mid end mobile GPU 4 years ago could hardly run warcraft 3 at max settings. The current GPU integrated into sandy bridge run Portal 2 at high settings and 1366x768 at 40FPS. This is a major accomplishment for the CPU industry. The integrated GPU's performance have improved to the point it starts making low end discrete GPU market obsolete. Forget about anti aliasing though, its simple impossible. Just think about swapping huge texture when both GPU and CPU sharing a 128bit memory bus and powered by 1+Ghz DDR3...
Dell OS configuration takes up about 2GB of RAM at startup. A fresh installation gets it down to 1.5GB and reduces start up time by half.
Temerpature is below 50C in most productivity instances. In gaming, the temperature is at a comfortable 70C. Pretty much proves my worry of combining CPU and GPU into a small size area under 1 heat sink unfounded.
Simply put, CPU performance these days have become "fast enough" for just about everything. In fact i have stopped upgrading my 2 year old workstation based on Lynnfield because i no longer need any higher performance. Just in caseyou think dual core is insufficient for video encoding, sandy bridge have something up their sleeves. Their GPU offers quick sync which takes some of the processing load off the CPU!

Battery Life: 9/10
V131 is powered by a 6 cell battery that protrude out of the chassis. This result in the chassis being lifted about 10 degrees. This actually allows easier typing and better intake of air for cooling. Although it does cause some problem during storage.
On paper the 6 cell battery offers 9.5 hours of battery life. Well, real life isnt as rosy but its a MASSIVE improvement from the 4 year old dell. Below are results:
0% brightness + productivity/internet = 8 hours
50% brightness + productivity/internet = 6 hours
50% brightness + video = 4 hours
50% brightness + lan gaming(C&C zero hour) = 2 hours
You could get all day battery life with lowered brightness. But the screen brightness isnt impressive at all and there will be cases where you require higher brightness for it to be legible. Still really awesome as power brick is now a thing of the past. No more hunting around for wall sockets. In fact, the battery life of sandy bridge is great improvement over last gen Arrendale.
If they could reach my whole day battery life of 8 hours of productive work at 100% brightness, it would be a 10/10.

LCD: 5/10
I really hate glossy screens offered in the consumer line. Yes, they have no matte tax which reduce contrast and brightness. But they are highly reflective making it a real pain in the ass to use.
Matte LCD offered by Vostro is one of the main reason that sealed the deal on this purchase. However, its brightness is really abysmal. Even at 100% brightness and matte coating, the screen is barely legible indoor but with sunlight shinning in through the windows. Not to mention the poor contrast,color and viewing angle. Vostro is a budget business laptop but LCD of such quality is really disappointing.
That being said, i still choose this LCD over a superior glossy LCD with superb brightness, awesome color or obtuse viewing angles any other day.

Really thin chassis even with the protruding battery

Chassis: 7/10
In my region, the backlit keyboard isnt bundled by default. And boy, its the best upgrade to the default configuration made. It improves legibility in poor light condition and allows typing in the dark. There are also 2 brightness mode available to suit your needs or you can simply switch it off.
The chassis is really slim for its price. Even with the protruding battery, the thickest part of the laptop is about 3.5cm only. Not to mention its total weight is about 1.8kg. Any slimmer or lighter and you will be in the ultrabook category which cost significantly higher.
Well, i know this is budget business laptop at all and i didnt expect macbook air chassis quality. But theres some quirks about its construction that left to be desired.
First the LCD hinge. The metal hinge is immobile and acts as a pivot for the screen to swing open. The set i purchase is loose and result in a really shaky screen. I get the technician to replace it but its still slightly shaky on 1 side and living in an asian country, we have really poor return policies and thats the best i could get. The result is a LCD screen that vibrates when the table is knocked.
Next is the inner side of the laptop take house the keyboard and touchpad. It uses really cheap plastic that cause uncomfortable amount of flexing. With some force applied, you could see the chassis bend in to the degree you start worrying if your motherboard are bent in the process.
The LCD is covered by a flimsy board that clicked when pressed lightly. The backplate to access is really hard to remove. The technician that came to replace the hinge have to bend it to remove it, leaving a permanent dent. I'm pretty sure readers living in europe and america wont have any issue getting a new replacement...
Overall i find the built quality lacking and should be improved in their next iteration.

Value: 9/10
Corners are cut. Most evidently in the LCD and chassis department. But for that price, you are hard pressed to get a lightweight 2nd gen Core I laptop with 8 hour battery life. Dont forget about the backlit keyboard. Rarer than asian girls with D cup.

Overal - 8/10
Pros

Performance
Battery life
Matte LCD
Backlit keyboard
Value for money

Cons

Built quality of chassis
LCD quality

On a side note, just transferred my workstation to an old coffee table. Making space for my next speaker upgrade.... =)

MG OZ-13MS Gundam Epyon

2011-08-21T10:36:00.004+08:00

Even the body unit looks intimidating

Difference of applying topcoat.

Guess which part does this belongs to

Main unit+ sword

Overview
Pro
-Malevolent looking gundam
-Wings look like modded suit with plaplates
-Unique leg movement
-Able to transform
-Cool weapons
-Relatively good articulation but...
Con
-Arm joints very loose
-Leg articulation pretty bad
-Leg fin is very fragile
-Weak hands for such a big weapon
-Sword wire too stiff
-Difficult to apply decals

Another childhood fav gets the MG treatment. Previous leaked pictures suggest bad looking head but its a relief the final product turns out very well. Due to work commitments, i was only able to assemble it now. Good thing is subsequent delivery uses maritime shipment instead of air, leading to lower cost.
Epyon is the most nefarious and malevolent looking gundam ever designed. Talons, Sharp Fins and claws decorated every part of this mobile suit. Top it up with MASSIVE energy blade and the heat rod to complete the ultimate killing machine. Building this suit is fun as the suit inner frame is designed to transform and other gimmicks. Something worth mentioned is the skirt, which is designed to let the legs move all the way back during transformation. The legs is also well designed into 4 segments allowing them to bend which no previous MG have accomplished. The wings' fins can be open and close by extending or retracting the largest fin. However it is too tight and i dare not risk breaking another part.
The arm joint is well designed to articulate several extreme poses. However, they could not withstand the weight of either weapon. The blade can still be posed relatively well with the wire attached. The wire provides the additional support required but the downside is the stiffness can get irritating at times.
The decals is just as hard to apply as MG sinanju. In fact the decal design for the leg is pretty similar between both suits. Due to damage to several decals, i removed them eventually.
Accidentally broke one of the knee fin, but its isnt a major issue. Have lots of fun building it but not so during posing.

Exploring some poses.

Transformation!!

DHell vs Epyon!!!

Guide to restore Paradise Island's connection(Android)

2011-08-10T21:35:00.002+08:00

Paradise have internet problems too.

This is a simple guide to restore paradise island connection after restoring your data on a new ROM. Although game data is easily restored using titanium backup, you will lose your ability to login to the sociality features. The game will keep prompting Connection error, misleading one to think their server is down. Below is an exploit to regain the connection

Open the game and go to sociality page
Go to profile tab and change your name
If name change is sucessful, it means your phone have sucessfully connected to the server again
Close the sociality page and you will be charged 10 pastries for the name change service
Close paradise island
Choose restore data only in titanium backup
Open the game and you will realized that your name is unchanged and your pastries returned, while being able to use the sociality feature again

You will notice that the name you changed to will become unavailable, which means the name change did take place and the server may have a log of it. Your friend list and likes will also be reset in the process.
Last checked working on v1.1.3

Tips on cleaning razer mouse

2011-04-01T00:17:00.011+08:00

Bad Mouse

I previously owned a razer krait. Its rubber surface didnt gave me much of a problem during its lifetime. Eventually issues arise from the buttons made me replace it. The rubber surface did wear out though, probably due to normal wear and tear. However that cannot be said for the newer abyssus.
About a few weeks of using, dirt and stains appeared on the mouse surface. I decide then to use a damp cloth to clean it. To my horror, the surface became sticky and rough, as if it is peeling. Luckily, i only started cleaning the right side of the mouse. Since i m clueless what to do, i left it as it is for a few months until the dirt problem became unbearable.
It seems i m not the only one facing this problem and therefore would like to share how i get rid of the stains and cleans the mouse. Searching for solutions online, i come across a few guys talking about using alcohol while others rebutted that it would melt the surface. Since my mouse is in a horrid state to begin with, i decided to give it a try.
I purchased rubbing alcohol from a local pharmacy which contains 70% isopropyl alcohol. Ample amount is poured on a cloth to wipe the mouse. Surprisingly, all the dirt came off easily. But it also created another problem, the surface is now extremely sticky. Hoping it would eventually go away, i leave it as it is. Within days of discomfort and huge amount of dirt attracted to the sticky surface i decide to find a solution.
Remember the right corner of the mouse that i clean with water? I too started cleaning alcohol on that part first. Due to the uneven surface, i spend much more time rubbing that area to smoothen it. Mysterious as it is, that place doesnt suffer the same stickiness as others. It also have a different shade which is darker and less reflective then others.
So i tried reapplying the alcohol again. This time round, each area is clean repeatedly with considerable amount of force. And i m happy to report the mouse surface is clean and no longer sticky. This time however results in each area having a different shade.[Dont say i didnt warn you..] This is probably due to different amount of force and time applied to clean. But i couldnt get it evenly colored after spending alittle more effort on it, or probably i cant be bothered in the first place since i have already got what i initially set out to achieve. The interesting thing to note is after you able to rub till the stickiness is gone, the stickiness wont come back when you apply alcohol again. I m not quite sure what happened, maybe the surface rubber have been partially melted away or something. All i know is the mouse is now clean, smooth and comfortable, albeit alittle ugly.
I hope this helps someone with a similar problem but i m not responsible for any damage caused. =]

[MOD] HG StitchGGuy

2011-03-27T20:25:00.004+08:00

Stitch wanna fight too

WIP can be found [here].

Beargguy release caught my eye, as before even release, adorable mods are aplenty on the net. Beargguy is a mod of acguy, and its screaming to be further modified. Therefore i decide to make it as a anniversary gift for my girl.
I wouldn't say i did i great job as numerous mistakes are present. You can find them at my WIP. I pretty much use this kit as a testbed for recoloring kit and it didnt turn out well. But it doesnt matter since most of the surface will eventually be covered by felt cloth.
The assembly was fun. I learned many things through experimenting with this kit. But the felt cloth is a pain in the ass to attach. This is especially true for its head. Pretty fun experience and i wouldnt rule out making an angel mod sometime in the future. =]

Dragon age 2 review

2011-03-22T00:16:00.001+08:00

Overall-9/10

Interracial porn makes a triumph return to gaming.

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-great story line
-unique narrative
-Great role playing
-more fluid battles
-streamline interactions
Fail
-cliffhanger ending
-main character limited to human
-story remains pretty linear

Visuals-9/10
Win
-Tremendous improvement over first game
-more variety of animations
-great looking spell effects
Fail
-side quest characters still look hideous
-lacks variety in environment
-performance issues at max settings

Bioware newest sex simulator is here. This time round its back to the age of swords, magic and elves.
The first thing you notice about dragon age 2 is its unique narrative. Its about one of your ex crew telling the story of your legendary deeds. It does have its mishap since some future plot is disclosed before it even happened. But it was quite well done, with the overall story satisfying. You play a human refugee from Lothering, displaced by the previous blight. You start with a humble beginning and slowly crawl your way up to fame and power. Wont be giving spoilers here but its gonna be a cliffhanger ending, leaving you with blue balls.
Next is the visuals. It is a massive step forward compared to dragon age. The main characters are detailed and well designed. Once you get the first taste of combat, you will be amazed by the large amount of animations even for melee attacks. The spell animations are gorgeous, albeit alittle overkill. The environment design is improved too, till you realize you are stuck in the same city for the entire game. All this eye candy however come with a huge price in term of hardware requirement. This is especially so at max settings, which utilize DX11 for tesslation.
Combat as mentioned is fast. So fast sometimes you will notice enemy speed hacking. All the options for companion behavior and pause to make tatical decision is still around. So are limitation of unable to stack numerous actions at once.
The speech interaction is also streamlined. Now you get a system similar to mass effect 2 where you get a few generic response. Once its selected, the character will spit some interesting line that align with the selected effect. You can now make quick decisions without reading the entire speech. However, the story have become depressing linear this time round. Regardless of your speech options or actions, the game ends in a pretty similar fashion with little deviation.
Another issue is the gearing. You can no longer gear your companion's armor, although you still get to customize their weapons and trinkets. A welcome change is you can no longer bribe your companion. This makes you think twice of making decision that makes your companion angry as its hard to crawl back their affection afterwards.
The final battle was epic and satisfying. But its difficulty is overshadowed by a side quest. And the side quest is killing the high dragon, which makes you shit bricks even at normal difficulty.
A game not without its flaws and sometimes a step backward compared to the first. But the new combat system and improved visuals made up for it. The original dragon age have so many things done right you can hardly screw it up overnight. The product is a more action oriented RPG that is still highly recommended to fans and newcomers alike.

Even old hag like flemeth looks cool in dragon age 2

You wont find such spell animations anywhere else

The most difficult fight ever

What a mess..

Dead space 2 review

2011-03-14T14:38:00.007+08:00

Score:8/10

Welcome back Isaac. We miss youuuuuu

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-a more streamlined and fast paced game
-creepy atmosphere
-new interesting weapons
-nicely scripted encounters
-events on ishimura continue to impact this game
Fail
-multiplayer sucks
-story didnt live up to its full potential
-linear gameplay
-dislimbing necromorphs getting stale

Visuals-8/10
Win
-Looks better than predecessor
-varied environment
Fail
-awkward physics at times

Isaac is back. He blasts. He burns. He stomps. He simply eats whatever the marker throws at him as breakfast. He is so strong, the marker pales in comparison.
All this imba skills come at a price. He now has mental problem. But the writers didnt flesh this aspect of the story properly. All he sees is a glowing girlfriend haunting him around, which is as lame as it sounds. Although he did converse with her in a "humanly" fashion in later part of the game, which is pretty disturbing. But story writers should make him kill some innocent people with his illness and deepen his guilt. I m seriously, thats the best scenario when you mix some imba killer survivor with mental illness. You are also thrusted into the chaos too quickly. Getting a tour around the uninfected station first would be much appreciated. And maybe throw in a physical manifestation of his girlfriend pregnant with more necromorphs sounds like fun too. Would be a great boss encounter too, you know, spawning necro babies at you while trying to tear your dick off.
Alright, enough whinning with the story. As mentioned, isaac isnt the wet his engineering suit noob you play in the first game. And this bad ass translate into a more action oriented horror game this time round. He recklessly charge into dangerous situation, which makes for great encounters. Even with all the killing and mental illnes, his engineering prowress is still intact and proved useful in many occasion of the game.
But sadly, hes still the lost puppy requiring some random people guiding him through comms. And its downright irritating being ushered from point A to B throughout the whole game.
As of any prequels, expect new environements and weapons to boot. Classic haunted house locations prove to be applicable to space horror genre too. Childcare centers and morgues have been nicely integrated into this space station horror genre.
Dead space 2 comes with multiplayer 2. No, it isnt some co-op horror we are expecting. Just some alien vs human deathmatch that is forgettable and totally detracts from dead space experience. Skip.
The core of Dead space 2 remains the same. Which isnt a bad thing, as minor cosmetic and gameplay improvements is added. What that is done right is so good, most could ignore its shortcomings. Definitely a must buy for horror fans.

Alright, chill bitch...

I guess everyone's crazy on this station

I love kids. Especially when you get to rip their heads off when they cant stop screaming

Ooops, he just stab me...

MG XXXG-01D2 Deathscythe Hell

2011-03-05T01:44:00.015+08:00

Cockpit looks like Mobile pod ball XD

Chest+head

Skirt + mounted on destiny base stand

Interesting leg mechanics

Leg inner frame

One and only weapon

Main unit complete

D-Hell decal are easy to apply since they are on flat surfaces

Overview
Pro
-sharp design
-improvement on the wings is tremendous
-small amount of decal and they are easy to apply
Con
-some shitty positioned nubs(eg. arms)
-some tricky assembly
-loose joints for most limbs
-weak hands for such a big weapon
-No sliding thigh

This gundam and its anime holds a special place during my childhood. Gundam W is my first contact with gundam franchise,more than 10 years ago. Watching on national TV channel with crappy chinese dub, its still amazing seeing these slick machines going around doing what they do best. My first gunpla is Deathscythe Hell, 1/144 TV version. You pretty much guessed my reaction when i hear news of its MG release.
This D-Hell is from the OVA version, Endless Waltz. Featuring over the top gundam designs, angel and batman flying blowing things apart is simply awesome. Although D-Hell weaponary is reduced to a pathetic beam scythe, it makes up for the slick look. If batman have a gundam, it would be D-Hell EW.
Main problem with this kit isnt with the looks, but with the construction. 3 out of 4 limbs are loose and require additional work. Especially bad is its leg, which require 3 layer of glue to tighten it. Building process isnt particularly fun since they come with various quirks and difficulty.
This kit recieves minimal makeover from its NG predecessor. Inner frame and increase articulation from standard MG treatment is there. Its major innovation and improvement is at its wings. The wings are not split into 3 segment, with the ability to extend and bend like never before. Since i m using ikea deltof, a fully extended wing does not fit. Not an issue since possibilty is endless with such flexible wings.
MG from gundam W series is noticeably smaller than other series. Lastly, this is the first MG with no broken parts during consturction. ^^V

With flat topcoat

Samsung UA26C4000PM HDTV review

2010-12-31T17:13:00.002+08:00

This 26" model belongs to samsung 4series of edge lit LED TV. They are tiny televisions that crosses the realm of computer monitors. With resolution of 720p, it didnt even have 1 million pixels in total. Thus most computer monitors are superior to any among the 4series. Growing up to an obscene size of 32" with such resolution, you really wouldnt want to hook it to your computer or 1080p gaming console.
Setting this TV is very easy, with no screws involve if you are using the stand. The stands is a transparent plastic pillar that blend in the overall design as the panel has a transparent border. The exterior may look good but the glassy surface reflects too much light and may affect your viewing.
To create a sexy looking 3cm panel, samsung utilizes edge lit LED backlighting on this TV. In fact huge area of the panel is only 2cm thick. Edge lit LED is featured in all the sexiest HDTV since only the edge is populated with backlight, resulting in further reduction is thickness. However, brightness may not be uniform throughout the screen. Recent innovations also see local dimming available to edge lit but physics and some common sense tells you its no where comparable with full array counterparts.
Edge Lit LED does not suffer from the overbright edges plaguing the larger models. Without local dimming, the black level is similar to latest generation of CCFL ancestors. Brightness did improve significantly. Since this TV is not suitable for computing, users will be seated further away, thus able to enjoy the brigthness without straining the eye.
Contrast is superior to my LG 32LD460, not due to LED lighting but better panel used. No official timing for response time is available but no ghosting occured, so all is good. The internal engine does a decent job upscaling SD contents like broadcasts, but blueray playback isnt impressive at all due to the poor resolution.
At 3cm thickness, i m surprise samsung manage to squeeze 2 speakers in. They are rated at 5W, and is downward firing. But it produces the worst sound i ever hear from TVs. In fact they sound slightly worst than some smart phone's loud speaker, although the TV still beats it in term of loudness. And no, even portable speakers like x-mini outperfroms it in every way. So do yourself a favor and connect to external speakers.
Other normal sets of a/v I/O, you also get 2 HDMI ports and a USB. The TV has a media player that allows you to view photos or videos from the USB interface. The interface is well designed and support an impressive list of formats like divx in mkv container.

Samsung controller is color coded much better than the LG controller. It lacks small keys clustered around the power button to prevent mispress. Theres also dots to identify power, volume and channel buttons, making their identification in the dark easier.
I m not sure how this TV would position itself in the market. Small TV are meant for small rooms. Which means user will be seated pretty close and the poor resolution will rear its ugly head more often. Since most dont use home theatre system in bed rooms, your enjoyment will also be impaired by its poor speakers. Samsung is also charging you a premium due to the great looking chassis. So its really up to you to decide if this TV is for you.

HG GPB-04B BearGGuy CUSTOM WIP

2010-12-22T21:59:00.026+08:00

Completed model found here.

Tamiya Fine surface primer white

Tamiya Light metallic blue

Head on a stick XD

Pseudo inner frame for legs

nose completed with a even darker shade of metalic blue using gundam markers

Not very happy with how the painting turn out. Multiple scratches everywhere and some bubbles from the primer layer affects the painting. Whats worst, the thing i going to mod into cannot be done by pla-plate. Therefore, deciding to use felt to coat most of the outer layers. Thus wasting my effort and money in painting the metallic blue.

Metallic blue parts are now coated with felt using alteco 110.

Its back

Applying felt on head is tedious due to the speherical shape.

Squeeze the excess felt to the location for the ear and cut it.

A print out of the ear is first printed and cut. A middle paper layer is required as directly attaching the paper to felt with Altec 110 causes color to smudge.

Empty face

Eye patch is made using felt with light blue spray paint

Looks kinda cute now x]

Print out for the ear

Supreme Commander 2 DLC: Infinite war Review

2010-12-20T17:56:00.008+08:00

Welcome back to the war.

Its really disappointing seeing developers throw in a few maps, spawn some new units and ask some bucks for it. Thats what supreme commander 2 DLC is all about. Heres a list of changes:

•Way Station Zeta – This installation sits high above the surface of Gradius IV. Decommissioned after the Seraphim invasion, it served as a staging area for Cybran forces during the Infinite War.

◦4 player map on 360 and PC

•Rigs – Many years ago, people harvested organic fuel from pockets beneath the seas of Pegasus II. Companies erected massive rigs that now sit on the surface of the water. It takes a cunning balance of sea and air to control the mass that remains on these ancient platforms.

◦4 player map on 360 and PC

•Etched Desert – As water on this desolate landscape receded due to decades of environmental exploitation on its surface, mass rich deposits were discovered among the remaining eroded mesas. With plenty of area to explore and hide, the battles here have raged for millennia.

◦4 player map on 360 and PC plus exclusive double-size 8 player version on PC.

•Desolatia – This tiny island can be found in the most remote parts of the Hermetic Seas on Trexxa VI. Its average seasonal temperatures reach well below zero, making it uninhabitable by humans. Its mass deposits, however, give it unparalleled military value.

◦2 player map on 360 and PC

•Seraphim Isles – The Isles were discovered by a second group of settlers who made contact with the alien Seraphim race. Legend has it that the two coexisted for many years; others claim the Seraphim eliminated them on sight. Nothing remains today of either race but the mountain in the center of the primary island holds a forgotten mystery for Coalition scientists.

◦4 player map on 360 and PC plus exclusive double-size 8 player version on PC.

•Igneous – The islands called Igneous were named for their strange rock formations. They remain one of the more "alien" regions on Rigel II, and one of the less popular areas for colonizing even though they're rich in mass deposits.

◦4 player map on 360 and 6 player map on PC

•QAI Labs – Located high above the surface of Pollux IV, this is one of the many test environments used by noted technology company Quantum Visionworks, a division of QAI Industries.

◦2 player map on 360 and PC

•Tourneydome – Among relics of a city that stretches to the horizons lies an arena where the Coalition's best do battle. A system long abandoned by the Coalition, when commanders enter, only one leaves.

◦4 player map on 360 and 8 player map on PC.

PC Units include:

•Cybran Monkeylord: Experimental Spider Bot: The beloved SUPREME COMMANDER experimental makes its return with a legged creature that features a powerful laser mounted on top of the body. If this unit makes it to your base, you're already dead.

•UEF Aegis: Experimental Shield Generator: A large bubble shield that covers an entire base. The shield has high health, but if knocked down it has to be manually recharged at a high energy cost.

•UEF Super Triton: Experimental Dreadnought: This ultra-battleship is bristling with humongous cannons but is only able to fire a medium distance, unlike the regular Battleship which has a long range. These weapons do extreme damage, but having to get close enough to use them is its weakness.

•UEF Jackhammer: Experimental Assault Artillery: This hulking, direct fire ‘cannon on wheels’ drives up to an enemy base and must unpack before firing. Once it unpacks it gains advanced defense (like hunker) reducing damage taken and allowing it to fire. The primary cannon has a slow rate of fire, with a long charge up, but does incredible damage (potentially knocking down multiple shields with a single shot)

•UEF Field Engineer: Mobile Repair and Support Unit: The UEF Mobile Repair and Support unit is a mobile engineer that has a basic direct fire turret as well as a repair arm. It is unable to build new structures, reclaim or capture, so its strength lies in its ability to accompany and quickly repair nearby allied units.

•UEF Research Converter: Research Conversion Facility: This structure provides the option to generate Research directly from accumulated mass. It is highly inefficient, but produces an instant boost to research.

•Illuminate Sooprizer: Experimental Gunship: The Illuminate Mega-Gunship offers a devastating direct-fire alternative to the Darkenoid. It does not have any anti-air capabilities focusing on ground based damage and increased survivability against surface threats.

•Illuminate Illuminator: Experimental Intel Gathering Station: The Overhorizon Radar provides flawless Vision and Radar in a huge radius. However, it has a tremendous energy cost to activate, and a long cooldown period.

•Illuminate Buhbledow: Experimental Shield Destroyer: The Shield Smasher is a ballistic EMP missile designed to knock down all enemy shields in a wide area. It has a long enough range that it can cover most of the map. The blast does insignificant damage to structures and units.

•Illuminate Shotja: Sniper Bot: The sniper unit is a medium ranged, mobile hover unit. It has a single, high damage shot with a long cooldown. Its weakness is its low rate of fire and slow movement speed.

•Cybran Recycler: Mass Reclaimer: Similar to the Loyalty Gun, the Mass Reclaimer has a medium range and automatically reclaims nearby wreckage. It is unable to reclaim living units, however.

•Cybran Cicada: Experimental Cloak Generator: The Cicada is a mobile mini-experimental that, when activated, hides all units nearby from both vision and radar. This makes the units completely invisible to an opponent. The Cicada has a high energy cost which lasts for less than a minute before recharging. The complex unit lacks only the ability to cloak itself while in operation.

•Cybran Intellitron: Air Scout: Lightly armored and unarmed, but with advanced vision and radar. Allows for quickly scouting remote areas of the map. Very fast to outrun anti-air.

•Cybran Boomerang: Nuclear Missile Defense: This structure is placed in a base to defend against nukes. When incoming nukes get in range, they are reprogrammed and sent back to their origin. It has a low rate of fire and can be overwhelmed. Redirected nukes spoof enemy Anti-Nukes, making this a deadly structure to overlook when scouting for Nuke targets.

Research Boosts/Upgrades (PC)

Research is focused on diversifying the factions while maintaining each faction's identity.

UEF

•Upgrade: Naval Transportation

•This naval tree upgrade allows experimental transports to carry naval units.

•Upgrade: Speed overdrive

•This short duration ability gives select land units a burst of speed for an energy cost.

•Boost: ACU Veterancy Rate Increase

•Boost: Structure Build cost for ACU: decreases cost of structures for ACU.

•Boost: Structure Regeneration

Illuminate

•Upgrade - Tank Torpedo weapon

•Adds a torpedo weapon to the Illuminate tank, allowing it to hit submarines or other naval units from a distance while on water.

•Upgrade: Structure Sacrifice

•Adds an ability to all structures, allowing it to be sacrificed. When sacrificed, all units nearby are instantly healed.

•Upgrade: Amphibious Structures

•Nearly all ground structures can now be built on water.

•Upgrade: Air Teleport

•Adds an ability for air units to teleport short distances.

•Boost: Air Health II

Cybran

•Upgrade - Naval Jump Jets

•The Cybran navy gets even more amazing with the Naval Jump Jet upgrade. At the end of the tree and incredibly costly, this upgrade allows Cybran Naval units to traverse any terrain with ease.

•Upgrade - Vision persistence on Long Range Artillery

•This upgrade adds a vision radius to long range artillery shells. When a shell impacts the ground or a shield, it leaves behind a small vision ring, allowing you to see into the enemy base.

•Boost - ACU Increased Build Rate

•Boost - Air Build Time reduction

The most exciting addition to the list is the return of monkeylord. A robotic reincarnate of death spewing constant laser beam drawing lines of hell on the battlefield. Good news is the build time isnt as long as supreme commander 1 and its still 1 hit ko for pawns. But a little more heat is required to take down other experimentals.

There are a few new maps bundled in the package. Most notable is naval maps that is sorely lacking with the main game. Theres also a 1v1 map where you get to throw experimentals at each other in a tiny choke point.

As you can see most changes are concentrated to final tech levels. Previously, once you tech up to the end, you are left with a single most powerful experimental to spam. If you have a good economy, maybe swing around a nuke or two. With these new additions, there are finally more variety late game. If you are fighting cybran players, scouting is required when firing nuke or he may return the nuke back at your face with Boomerang: Nuclear Missile Defense.

Even then, these new additions dont drastically changes strategies for this game. This DLC is mainly for hardcore supreme commander fans that crave every little addition to their game. The rest of us would probably ignore this expensive DLC.

Score:6/10

Ageis Shield

Return of the Monkeylords

AMD Catalyst 10.12

2010-12-14T22:16:00.008+08:00

Christmas present from AMD

AMD's PR exaggerated “Catalyst 10.12 is going to be HUGE" and everyone knows nothing "HUGE" ever comes in the form of driver release. But AMD did pack some nice changes to their mediocre drivers.
From the screenshot above you can see that the irritating drop down menu navigation is FINALLY gone. It is replaced by a categorized pop up list which expands when you hover your mouse over those self explanatory icons . Tree view drop down list is the default view, which is the way catalyst was before they updated it with that hideous drop down menu. Not shown in the picture is the ability to resize the window, which is really useful if you are using low resolution displays. The downside is the interface would always switch back to its default, forgeting your prefered windows size and list display. Every changes is however cosmetic as no additional settings is introduced. Since the previous GUI totally suck balls and push the bar so low till this new interface feels godsend. Not on par with nvidia GUI yet, but its sure a MAJOR step in the right direction.
Among the boring list of bug fixes with no mention of performance boost, lies a surprise unannounced in the release notes. Holidays are upon us and many have a huge library of movies and anime to clear. Of course not every content is graced with HD treatment nor economical to repurchase them. The good news is DXVA playback with SD content that AMD broke ages ago is finally working again. Not only isnt it mentioned, the hardware decoder seems to be the same version number too. I'm really curious how AMD totally doesnt acknowledge this issue to suddenly fix it suddenly. Every programmer knows its a bitch when working with a large program, therefore i will place my bet that AMD break and "repair" this feature unintentionally.
For HD5XXX users, AMD still didn't add in the new anti aliasing shader, which is promised and enabled in a previous hotfix driver. Not a major deal breaker for me since creating application profile in catalyst is still too much of a hassle. Also this driver apparently doesn't have WHQL certification as windows warned of unsigned driver during installation. Of course such trivial things isnt stopping us from getting the best catalyst driver release this year.
Grab them here:http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
And take a look at the "incomplete" release notes here:http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst1012ReleaseNotes.aspx

Guide to pimp your X10 2.1 eclair

2010-12-06T21:41:00.045+08:00

[Disclaimer: Author of this site is not liable nor responsible for any damage to devices caused by misinterpretation or failure to follow instructions, accidents, power failures or acts of any gods/deities/supernatural entities. ^.^]

[Updated 160111]
Pimp your Performance
Fancy smooth performance without having to reboot your phone every other day? Wants more than 100mb of available memory? Heres how!
*Credits go to developers at xda to make these possible

-Task killers: due to the lack of froyo, 3rd party task killers are still a must on X10. You can consider purchasing AdvanceTaskKiller pro for the lack of loading advertisement online which reduce its memory footprint and power consumption.

-Uninstall bloatware: removing applications you do not use not only save up precious onboard storage and prevent them from running on the background. Startup time for phone may speed up as some of these applications have auto start services.

Download Super one click 1.5.5 from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=906248 to root your phone (works up to 2.0.2.A.0.24)
Download file managers like root explorer from android market that can access root folder. Titanum backup also have similar functions.
Android is built upon linux and every phone application and function is within /system/app. Additional care is required when deleting applications as you may accidentally remove a core process on your phone.
Check out http://www.ccalonnec.fr/wiki/index.php?title=SE_Xperia_X10_:_list_of_default_apps_and_how_to_remove_them. However some applications have their name changed slightly after the 2.1 update.
Recommend removal of moxier, evernote, quadrapop, playNow, trackid and whatever your telecom shove down your throat
After deleting the .apk files you may have weird strings in the application manager where you can safely uninstall to complete the process.

-Install Just In Time compiler that is featured in froyo to improve performance. However it will not be on par as froyo since eclair is not fully optimised. Alternatively you may want to install custom froyo ROM which offers higher performance, but it is currently unreliable with missing features and bootloader have yet to be cracked.

Download JIT from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=885977 and transfer into your sd card
Download xRecovery from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=859571
Installation requires root access
If automatic installation fails(pretty common), you can go to sdcard/Android/data/com.zoz33/xRecoveryInstaller and copy its content to system/bin
reboot your phone and keep pressing back button at the boot screen where white "Sony Ericsson" is displayed
volume rocker to scroll, home to accept, back for...back
clear dalvik cache from advance options
select install custom zip and choose your JIT update file
reboot your phone
Download Quadrant from android market to check your performance. Your score should be around 700+ if JIT is successfully installed

Pimp your Battery Life
Fancy 4 days of dumb phone usage or 2 days of moderate phone usage on 1 charge? Able to last 24hours even after playing hours of angry birds? Heres how!

-Task killers: killing running processes is a good way to reduce power consumption

-Uninstall bloatware: Uninstalling applications works better than killing its auto start process afterwards. Some persistent process would restore itself after being killed, resulting in higher power consumption.

-Automatic Brightness: X10 uses an ancient LCD technology that is extremely power inefficient. Although it is missing from android settings, you can use android default power widget to set the screen to adjust to your ambience.

-Auto Sync: Turn off or reduce frequency of auto sychronisation of your applications like timescape and google account. Constant data usage is one of the main reasons for X10 abysmal battery life.

-Data connection: Unless you must constantly feed your hunger for social networking, a widget can be used to quickly toggle your data connection. Free apps like angry birds will be denied connection and those pesky advertisments will disappear, while increasing battery life at the same time. I recommend Switchpro widget as it doesnt change any APN settings.

-Avoid transferring data through USB port: X10 uses Lit Pol battery where its life expectancy is based by the times it is charged. X10 automatically attempts to charge your phone whenever you plug into a PC. PC charging however is too slow to be used for a full charge. I recommend the use of wifi file transfer like Wifi file explorer on android market to transfer small files over your network.

Pimp your Features
Heres a list of applications used to optimize your phone mentioned above or just some cool productivity apps that really make a difference.

-Advance Task killer pro: used to kill process as mentioned above

-Switchpro widget: offers great range of customization for widgets including the data connection toggle mentioned above, all the features included in android default power widget and many others. Also features a toggle to use your camera flash as a flashlight.

-HTC keyboard: HTC offers one of the most intuitive keyboards. Great guys at xda manage to add so much features that it rivals paid software keyboards out there. Highly recommended unless you use swipe.Sadly this project have been discontinued so we wont be seeing newer HTC keyboards like those featured on Desire HD.http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5475283

-Skyfire: browser that allows X10 to play flash contents like youtube. Websites are processed on skyfire server before being sent to your phone for the accurate layout similar to PC browsers. However performance is sluggish when running multi tabs and pop up blocker is unreliable.

-Quickoffice: edit microsoft documents on the go.

-Acrobat reader: Although Quickoffice allows viewing of .pdf, i find acrobat reader GUI more intuitive to use and performs much faster too.

-Lost Phone: Create a secret sms code to ring, locate and even sent thief SIM information

-handyCalc: scientific calculator which display your input. Comes with converter that does everything from basic length conversions to non base10 numeric system. Currency converter is also included with ability to download newest currency exchange rates.

-Root explorer: Not only does it allows root access after using z4root, it allows you to send any files through bluetooth.

-Titatnium Backup: advance restore and backup application that backup non market applications too

-Contact2Sim Pro: allows you to sync your contacts between sim card and phone in case you are changing platform or returning to dumb phones. However the program takes pretty long to load sim card information.

-Wifi file explorer: simple wifi file server that allows you to access phone sd card on your PC.

-Zedge: free community generated wallpapers and ringtones

Xperia X10i(2.1 eclair update) Review

2010-12-02T19:39:00.054+08:00

Mid-end flagship?

During time of desperation Sony Ericsson went to the build a phone with the latest, fastest, biggest hardware available at its time and the result is Xperia X10. 8 months is a long time in the phone industry, but this phone still hold its ground against recent flagship models from competitors. However, a powerful hardware is only a battle half won...

Physical design
The maiden time you hold the phone in your hands, you will be surprised that it feels light even after housing such a huge screen. Personally prefer gadgets with sharp designs, but they are generally uncomfortable to use. However, X10 brilliantly hide the sexy ergonomic curves behind the sharp frontal design. This result in a device a joy to hold even after extended usage while looking good at the same time.
Glossy plastic is used for the front, while the side is chromed plastic that will may wear off.The back of the phone is made of soft matte plastic for comfortable grip. Caution is required as its 8 megapixel camera is not well protected. Although the phone feels light and comfortably, full plastic construction makes it feel cheap for a flagship phone nowadays.
The massive 4" display takes up the bulk of the frontal estate,requiring regularly cleaning since it is a fingerprint magnet. The screen is scratchproof, but Sony Ericsson thoughtfully applied a screen protector for you. It is so well placed you may not even notice its existence and applied another screen protector. I really hate capacitive keys and X10 offers physical keys. The 3 chromed plastic keys below the screen is situated far enough not to mispress the touch screen when accessing them. However the tactile feedback of the keys feel flimsy and the chrome paint will wear off easily.
3 more keys is situated at the right side of the phone for volume rocker and camera. The side keys feel more solid than the frontal keys and have a gentle contour to easily identify them without looking obstructive. The top house the 3.5" audio output ,a large lock/power key and the USB port. The lock key position result in mispress when using the phone in landscape mode but works great in portrait mode.
The USB port is the achilles heels in X10 design. Instead of employing a slider cover to protect the usb port,it features a flimsy flap instead. To connect the usb port results in the flap being turned to uncomfortable angles. A quick search in the web can find numerous cases of broken flap in less than a month, with no hope of replacement flap manufactured by sony.

Hardware
X10 features a 1ghz snapdragon with 384MB main memory and it is a technological wonder during its launch. 8 months later, X10 still decent enough to run any application available on android market. However its 1GB internal storage greatly limits the application storage since X10 has no froyo in the pipeline. In the imaging department, 8MP is probably the best camera you can get in the android line up. With Sony Ericsson reputation of implementing phone camera, this is one of the key feature many choosed this phone over its competitors.
All this computing prowess is displayed on a massive 4" LCD with 854x480 resolution. The screen is capable to display 16Million color but is currently running on 65K for reasons only god knows why. Since sony manufactures SuperLCD, really makes one wonder why it isnt featured in their own flagship mobile. LCD is a pretty obsolete technology and is slowly being phrase out from flagship mobile devices due to poor performance and high power consumption.
Mulitouch is not supported so no pinch to zoom and limiting the library of games availabe. However a compromise is in the works, slated to be released on 2011. Even single touch is pretty inaccurate at times, resulting in fustruating moments typing on the virtual keyboard.
Powering the device is a 1500mah lithium polymer. Although Lit Pol has no battery memory, it is still advisable to drain full cycle a few times. By default, the battery life of half a day is pretty horrendous for such a huge capacity. A few steps like removing timescape automatic connection to social feeds and changing the ancient LCD to automatic brightness mode increases it to a full day of moderate use. I went further by removing bloatwares, using task killer and using a widget to switch off my internet connection when not required. This result in 2 days of battery life with moderate use or 1 day of heavy use when stuck in some boring social events.
SD card hotswap is impossible since it is blocked by the battery. The loudspeaker and earphone seems to come from the same source, and its performance is abmysal. Not only will you have difficulty hearing your phone ringing, you probably cant hear the conversation on the phone either. Audio output from 3.5" jack isnt terrific either with contant noise in the background and the soundstage feels tiny.
Camera
With 2.1Eclair, X10 finally unlocks the ability to record video in 720P. However, the hardware isnt optimised with the new workload and the video may occassionally drop to a lower resolution in certain scenarios. Autofocus is still working on 720P due to the ability of reducing resolution when the cpu reaches its bottleneck.
The software implementation in generally good, other than a few weird issues. To enable camera flash, you have to navigate a few layers of menu and you have to enable everytime you use your camera. Theres a 2 second lag when changing orientation of the phone which its caused still a mystery. Since the phone already suffers from poor startup time for the camera, this additional delay simply make things worst.
Camera's picture quality is simply awesome. Auto focus allows decent photos to be taken at a close range of 10cm. There are also various focus mode to choose from, but the leaving it at single point focus mode work greats most of the time. Under great lighting condition, anti shake actually works and auto focus intelligently identify your target. But things get nasty in dark lighting condition. Anti shake and auto focus will start behaving erratically as the camera's ISO and exposure probably adjusted itself to compensate the tiny CCD. Of course, thats a norm in phone cameras and what X10 offers is as good as it gets.
Below are some preview pictures taken on X10

Dayshot

Nightshot

Macro shot @10cm

Macro shot @15cm

Under flourescent lamp

Shots with flash

Software
Thought i may have listed quite a number of negative issues plaguing the hardware, i am largely positive and satisfied with the them. The same cannot be said for its software.
One can partly blame google for this fragmented mess for the android OS, but OEM take the bulk of the blame. They generally concentrate on their new flagship and leaving the older low end models stuck with obsolete android version. Custom OEM skin simply make things worst due to their small developing team but other business factors also comes into play.
Surprisingly, the current flagship from Sony Ericsson is using obsolete version of android throughout its life. Lets put the nightmare of 1.6D behind and concentrate on the "newest" built based on the 2.1E. 2.1E increase the library of applications greatly while adding quite an impressive list of features. After several delays and widespread adoption of 2.2F for every OEM flagship, X10 finally recieves its 2.1E. With 2.1E, you get 720P video recording, more home screen and of course the bug fixes that comes with it. Sony Ericsson updated its horrendous timescape and mediascape software, but it is no where comparable to alternatives on the market. Timescape is one of the least efficient way to display your friends update, not to mention its performance is choppy. Mediascape is a decent media hub, but lacks settings like equalizer and integration of controls on the lockscreen. The X10 lockscreen is updated to a vertical slide action, sliding the opposite action will also silence your phone.
Sounds impressive, but other OEM flagship customers have been enjoying these features of Android 2.X since last october and Sony Ericsson "exclusive" features is just a click away on android market. To add salt to the injury, 2.3G is on the horizon just when X10 recieves its update. The lack of any massive custom skinning on X10 GUI is really puzzling since their developers seems to have such massive problem catching up with the rest of the OEM. No matter how you look at it, timescape and mediascape is not a complex piece of software nor worth the delay.
The only redeeming attribute is the current built of OS is rock solid with no random slowdowns. While other flagship like Samsung galaxy S running the newest 2.2F is still plagued with frequent crashes. With some additional effort, X10 users can attain the snappy GUI enjoyed by 2.2F. This include installing task killers and removing auto start bloatware by rooting your phone. Of course, the lack of flash player and JIT compiler is a real disappointment.
With 2.3G approaching, X10 users can only hope google start imposing some regulations in terms of OS upgrade to end their misery. Alternatively you can stop and stare in awe since 2.1E is probably the only android platform X10 will ever get.

Conclusion
Generally, i would not recommend purchasing this phone even after its 2.1E upgrade. Your phone is stuck at android 2.1E for rest of its life, and the bootloader have not been cracked to allow custom ROM. But if you want a good camera on android platform, you may want to consider the X10. In singapore, ISP will sweeten the deal by subsidizing for almost 400SGD with the cheapest data price plan. This will result in the phone costing only 150SGD. In this case, X10 becomes an attractive offer as it is the only phone at that price range with 4" LCD and 1Ghz CPU. Things are not rosy when purchasing the phone without ISP contract, as its retail price of 600SGD which is similar to phones like HTC desire that offers android 2.2F and some lower end offering on windows 7 mobile platform.

Score:
Physical design-9/10
Hardware-8/10
Camera-9/10
Software-5/10
Overall-7/10

Call of duty 7: Black ops SP

2010-11-14T23:53:00.015+08:00

Welcome to Left 4 Dead 3...

Squeezed a free day out of college schedule for some sinful call of duty fun. No time for mulitplayer, replay at higher difficulty nor review, so heres a short take on single player. First thing you notice about the game is that explosions are attracted to you constantly. Looks cool at first, but after awhile even the michael bay will get sick of it( or maybe not..).
The gameplay mechanics is intact entirely, which isnt a bad thing. Quick time events are back too, now with ridiculous control of Shift+V to strangle someone to death. Evidently any money earn from million of copies moved for MW2 did not end up in developing better AI. Its hideous, non intelligent and loves to kamikaze. I guess they reused the japanese AI from world at war without thinking twice about the context.
The story is a depature from the usual call of duty. Personally, i think its an improvement and provides a "good" reason to thrust you around theatre of war. The start of the campaign feel disjoined like MW2 but as it approaches the end, the plot twist and presentation worth my while. It has a few unique and memorable moments but most of them have the "seen it done that" feeling. As the whole campaign is so noisy, it doesnt built up the tension needed for the final showdown. Most probably, you are numb to the destruction half way through the campaign. Its not a bad campaign, but MW just up the ante so high that no predecessor able to conquer it. Pushing yearly release of call of duty seems to take a toll on the software quality. There are some level design that fails at directing you towards your goal, sometime even misleading you. There are various times where animation glitches occur and you would stumble upon spawn points where enemy materialize right in your face. Such qualities are unforgiveable for a linear game made by high profile developer with sky high budget.Visually, improvements have been made to texture and lighting, but particle is still mediocre looking. Poor quality control seems to rear its ugly head again as there are some drastic difference in quality between scenes. I seems to experience visual issues with alpha texture with intense lighting behind. Problem may lie in driver, but i dont have the time to find out anyway.
Complete the normal difficulty campaign within a day, and my eardrum is still ringing from the nonstop explosions whole day long. Zombie mode is at the end of the campaign, but its time to take a break and continue on some pain in the ass assignments...

Story-9/10
Gameplay-7/10
Visuals-8/10
Audio-8/10

Can i have some wardrobe malfunction please?

After all these years, crysis is still the king

Whats next? Space station? =D

If only all scenes are this good..

Light at the end of my ear tunnel(canal)...

Civilization V review

2010-10-05T21:21:00.017+08:00

Overal-10/10

XXSMM(xtra xtra senior minister mentor) Lee Kuan Yew wants you to ruin mahathir's day on year 2050.

Gameplay-10/10
Win
-extremely adictive and rewarding experience
-unlimited amount of replayability
-various approach to win this game
-numerous customisation to gameplay to suit one's desire
-hexagon tile combat mechanics
-easier on newcomers, while difficult to master
-nice city automation to help new players
Fail
-citystates feature half baked
-requires a beefy CPU for faster processing

Visuals-9/10
Win
-clean, simple GUI
-colorful and detailed world
-utilizes DX11 for tesselation on terain and directCompute
Fail
-severe texture popping if you load up a previous game

Just when i m about to put my gaming addiction behind me to concentrate on my studies, firaxis is here to break my weak resolve. Welcome to a game where a single playthorugh can take at least 5hours and you will keep coming back to experiment new tatics and factions. I played most of the previous installments and i feel the 4th sequel a refreshing enough to revisit it.
For newcomers, its a game where you bring a civilization from 4000BC to 2050AD through military, culture or research domination. Different civilizations have their unique passive abilities that make them more suitable for certain type of gameplay. Unique buildings or units are also available, providing some unique edge during certain time period but they arent game changer like abilities. The game can be set up to suit your day's preference or you can mod it if you dream of commanding an army of godzilla. Thus it has unrivaled replayability even though it lacks a campaign mode.
The major revamp to the franchise is its combat mechanics. No longer do you compete in terms of who can stack the biggest army and lay a trail of destruction. Now every tile can only have 1 combat unit and the tiles have been changed from square to hexagon. This forces player to strategically build defense, and position units in order to emerge victorious. Combat modifiers are display as a hover tooltip which should clear doubt on how they would fare against each other, unlike previous installment where most players are left clueless how the caculations are made.
However, the cultural players previously are left out in the cold with the removal of some cultural features. You could no longer incite unrest and invade cities with cultural advantage. Instead the devs added city states, where you can influence them, providing you with resources or army if you are formed an alliance. But they are pretty forgettable and can be easily ignored or conquered if they stand in your way of expansion.
Playing as a military player, AI behaves in a realistic way, trying not to anger you when you have a military upper edge and backstabing you when you are concentrating your war effort on the other side of your empire. With the new combat mechanics make war extremely enjoyable, and satisfying. However, when played as a more benevolent ruler pursuing research or cultural victory, you will be overwhelmed by how aggresively the AI will try to destroy you. Its that bad that i changed my game plan half way back to military to fend them off, affecting my final score badly on that attempt. Thats not to say the non military victory is impossible, at least i havent figure it out yet.
This is the most newbie friendly civilization yet. Cities can be remotely managed by the AI or even following a specific profile you desire. This really remove most of the headache of controlling a massive empire and worrying about under utilising your cities. That being said, manual control of your cities is still required if you desire to achieve better results or building specialize cities. Therefore, players can simply concentrate on the larger game plan than micromanaging individual aspect of the game if hes clueless. I must emphasize this game is very simple learn the basics but once you start digging, you will be amazed how deep is the game. You could alternatively read online guides, but the most rewarding aspect of this game is to experiment and figure out the equation yourself.
To aid you in world domination, the GUI is clean and have all the statistic layout to you in easy to digest format. There are still some bugs and visual quirks but they arent game breaker and they are to be expected in a game so huge in scale. The visual of the game does a decent jobs of displaying a world worth fighting for with its detailed and colorful artstyle. Surprisingly, this turn based strategy game employs DX11 features to render more detailed terrain and directCompute capability. GPU aside, you will need a very powerful CPU and lots of RAM to play huge game comfortably during the modern age onwards.
Some pacifist may hate this iteration of civilization but as a warmongering ruler, this game is certainly improved in every way you have hoped for. To newcomers that has no idea whats this hype is all about, this is the perfect time to hope in a franchise that have been around for decades. Instead of killing the same boss every week praying to for the 1% chance rare gear, go experience the joy of leading a civilization to risng into a superpower.

My favourite moment in stategy games

A robot make tomodachi proud, sadly it doesnt come with a payload of virus...

An invasion that make hitler's war effort look like child's play

3,2,1, science victory!

Split/Second Review

2010-09-23T23:09:00.008+08:00

Overall-8/10

Looks can be decieving

Gameplay-8/10
Win
-destructive arcade style racing
-easy control and smooth learning curve
-simply yet elegant UI
-5 game mode available
-insanely addictive multiplayer with split screen support
Fail
-require some key mapping for logitech rumblepad 2
-no car customisation

Visuals-7/10
Win
-most destructive racing ever
-nicely done post processing and lighting
Fail
-lack of graphics setting
-abysmal performance with AA

This game is the most destructive and violent racing game ever. By tailgating, air time or doing drifts, you will be awarded points. Instead of showing those point in a worthless score screen after the race, you get to unleash mayhem with them.
When i say things blows up so often that makes some FPS cower in shame, you know this game capture audiences more than just racing fans. From vehicles to buildings to dams, everything is rigged to blow as long as you have enough points to pay for it. Upon maxing your points of 3 bar, you get to unleash 2nd tier attack that unleash destruction that rivals 911 and changes the racing track permanently. There are 3 standard mode like "normal" racing, elimination and time attack. Also available is 2 more unique mode like chopper attack and truck attack. As you have expect at this point of time, all of them come with flashy explosions that you can unleash or meant to destroy you. There are numerous tracks available but they are built around a handful of environments. Most of them require you to play through a few times to learn the locations and avoid those special attacks, before you get humiliated online.
Although the game comes with singleplayer like quick race and campaign, they are mostly forgettable. Blowing your friends or strangers online ass sky high is so much more satisfying than playing with the AI. Split screen mode is also available where you desire yo play with a friend to hit him in the nuts straight away if he throws a exploding school bus on your face. However, you are required to complete most of the campaign to unlock cars and tracks. The cars' performance cannot be customised or upgraded which result in online matches down to players' skills. As an arcade racer, the control is very easy and forgiving. Gamepads are fully supported with vibration working out of the box, but custom mapping is required to play. Coupled with a simple UI that is display as hologram under your car, thus allows you full attention on the carnage around you.
Visually, its up to the expectation of a console racer, complemented with the usual lack of settings. What seperates it from the crowd is the amount of destruction and particles for a racing game. The engine also has an extensive post processing to gloss out those lower quality objects and has some nice lighting to boot. However, the frame rate is cap at 30 and anti aliasing performance on PC is abysmal.
Great casual game for some brotherly bonding with your mates, with lots of swearing guranteed. Easy to learn, violent to play, a sure win receipe for arcade games.

Welcome to the most violent racing game yet

Truck attack mode!

Better cross it before someone blows it up

First in this game means everyone is aiming their barrel at you...

Grand Theft Auto 4 reveiw

2010-09-01T23:24:00.021+08:00

Overall-9/10

YES! I finally finish this game...

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-most interactive open world
-liberty city is bigger than the country i living in
-interactive soap opera at its best
-hilarious dialogues and cutscene
-Many things to do the in the city
-high replay value
-lots of licensed songs available on radio station
Fail
-minimum quad core CPU to run smoothly
-becomes playable and relatively bug free only after several patches
-limited plot choices
-poor AI
-fustruating helicoptor controls

Visuals-9/10
Win
-extreme amount of attention paid to details
-insane draw distance
-full day/night cycle with weather
Fail
-requires a very fast gpu
-needs more than 1gb vram for max draw distance
-lack of anti aliasing
-visual glitches occasionally

This game is a poor port from console to PC. It couldnt run decently on any cpu or gpu after launch, and it has shit load of bugs to break a main story arc mission repeatedly.
But after 2years, with numerous patches and progress in hardware, its finally time for me to return to liberty city. With everything on high other than water which is highest, 50% draw distance, 75% detail distance and 100% vehicle density, i get an average of 40FPS. Any higher on any settings could cause frequent texture popping and minimum frame rate hitting 30 and below. The game still look drop dead gorgeous on my current setting though. You could see new york city. Oops i mean liberty city in its full glory from slums, highways, sky scrappers, nuclear reactors to statue of liberty herself. Every landmark you see at the background isnt some backdrop but 3d rendered objects where you can visit. The streets littered with denizens of liberty city going about their daily life, ignorant that some psycho maniac from soviet has arrive. The developers seems to have lots of fun designing the city by replacing all the famous brands with their own parody.
The possibilities of playing outside the main mission is tremendous. You could call up your friends or date for various activities like pool or bowling where it features their own mini games. There are more exotic locations like strip pubs too if you so desire. Radio stations while not playing all the great singles will continue to poke fun at american culture,reality shows, politics and sex whenever it has the chance, so driving in this big city is never dull and boring. The game even features a internet with online dating, sex drug scam, exotic cars and email system.
A quick and dirty summary of the main story arc is long soap opera with lots of guns, boobs and drugs. Started out rather slowky and dull with your generic mafia style missions. However, the cutscenes are well done with lots of interesting characters,hilarious dialogue and story behind it. But as you progress, you will get some really outrageous mission like robbing the bank, mid air chopper assassination and kidnapping, just to name a few. In between missions, you can go back to your online lust or whatever you desire if you get bored of the main arc. There are few choices to make in the game, but they come less frequent than a blue moon. Those choices do affect the game in unforseen ways later so you have to replay the game if you are interested in alternate endings. After you get bored of the single player, you could go online and have some mulitplayer ramapage on the poor citizens of liberty city.
Not everything is rosy in liberty city though. Denizens dont react as naturally as you have hope while you are out harrassing them. Combat AI are pretty outdated and stupid, and its frustruating when your friendly AI get in your way and die in the mission, resulting in a reset. The helicopter controls are hideous and its a nightmare whenever it comes to mission with them. There are numerous visual glitches present, maybe due to my 50% draw distance but i doubt many out there could manage better. The game engine produce lots of aliasing and theres no anti aliasing options to smooth them out, instead relying on blur shader which ruins everything.
This is the most ambitious open world sandbox every created featuring a whole damn city bigger than the current one i m living in. Although you cant just enter any building and harrass their occupants, but its the best market has to offer. Until the next GTA arrives, liberty city is going to be my escapade for awhile from my city governed by suppressive authorian dictators. So forget those lengthy taiwan gangster soap opera, create your very own with niko from mother russia!

Pole dancing isnt pretty with all those aliasing dude!

All thanks to your clunky controls!

Bank robber escaping through metro

Boom!

Visually crushes all MMO

Bioshock 2 Review

2010-08-26T01:41:00.003+08:00

Overall-8/10

Gasp...shock...

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-deep lore of the city rapture
-interesting storyline
-moral choices affecting the ending
-lots of combat options with plasmids,tonics and ammo type
-weapons and plasmids can now be upgraded with various interesting abilities
-encourage exploration
-streamlined gameplay mechanics
-multiplayer added with tight integration with story line
Fail
-rapture has lost some of its mysterious atmosphere

Visuals-8/10
Win
-visually unique city
-excellent water shaders
-atmospheric and detailed
Fail
-aging engine

I didnt manage to complete the first bioshock for various reasons i couldnt recall. Even then i m familiar monstrosity lurking in the underwater city called rapture, and some of the ideals behind this failed utopia.
Unlike the first bioshock where you play a unlucky guy that survived a plane crash in the middle of the ocean, and went to activate some suspicious looking lift into rapture. You get to play as a big daddy, those massive metal hulks preventing you from getting your ADAM easily. ADAM are something that can be used like research points to get new plasmids and tonics, which are the supernatural power in rapture that eventually destroy it. Rather than exploring and marvel at the underwater city, you have a very specific objective from the very start, find your little sister. On the way, you can take out other big daddies, and claim their little sister as your own. You are now present with choices to harvest ADAM from them immediately, or adopt them to help you extract ADAM from corpses. This would start a short defense sequence where you have to protect your little sisters from harm during the extraction after which , you can choose to extract EVEN MORE ADAM from them again or release them. Similar to the first bioshock, whatever you do with these cute abominations will have an impact on the game's ending.
The game feels very familiar to its predecessor, but as you spend more time into the game, you will find numerous welcoming changes. Firstly, the water tube hacking is replaced by a real time hacking. Next is the ability to use both weapon and plasmid on each hand, rather than switching to and fro. As you proceed deeper into rapture, you will get access to higher level plasmids where you hold the plasmid button longer to unleash a different type of attack. You will also come across weapon upgrade stations where you first increase generic stats like attack or clip size, but later on you will have ability to add cool add on like tesla coils. This changes streamlined gameplay and allow different variety of approach in combat, which i guess is one of the reasons i couldnt get myself to complete the first game. The world is big and have many blind spots where additional items and story details are hidden, therefore making exploration a rewarding experience.
Unlike the first bioshock where only singleplayer component is present, bioshock 2 has a full fledge multiplayer. Although it only has 2 generic mode, its set before the fall of rupture where a civil war is going on. There are weapons not available in singleplayer, big daddy and plasmids thrown into this chaotic arena. It also allows you to experience bioshock in a different light and actually has story cutscenes woven into it.
Visually, nothing have changed from the previous bioshock. This is where the heavily modified unreal 2 engine starts to show its age. It lacks accurate shadow, high polygon count nor high res texture. The impressive water shader is still great to behold but this game shines in terms of the distinctive art style and atmosphere. The best thing is short few years, current hardware have catch up so drastically that this game runs with silky smooth frame rate.

Even utopia have nail guns!

Get me some ADAM bitch!

Impressive water

Metro 2033 review

2010-08-22T01:07:00.017+08:00

Overall-5/10

Why so harsh on me?

Gameplay-3/10
Win
-story based on a bestselling book
-interesting barter trade
Fail
-poor delivery of the plot
-mutant AI is horrendous
-soldier AI isnt particularly clever either
-english voice over horrible
-buggy stealth mechanics
-confusing loot implementation

Visuals-6/10
Win
-atmospheric environment
-some impressive lighting and particles
-lots of details present in the environment
Fail
-inconsistent quality in environment and model details
-character and mutant animation is downrgiht disgusting
-extremely poor performance
-lack of tweakable visual settings

From the a breakaway group of STALKER developers, their maiden project isnt that different from their previous. Metro 2033 is based on a book of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky, and been translated to several languages.
World ravaged by nuclear explosion? Anamoly? Mutant? You probably seen them in STALKER and they are back in one form or another in Metro 2033. However, in place of a mere localised nuclear reactor accident, is replaced by an international mutual annihilation between nuclear powers. The plot follows survivors of mother russia that went into hiding in their metro stations, creating a very unique community of their own. Thats where a game built on a book start,instead of the other way round,begins to shine. The minor details of environment like how they rear animals for food, their way of life is recreate in an pseudotown from a metro station is breathtaking. They also have an interesting barter system where you trade rare high grade military bullets made before the apocalypse for gears and weapons. Since most survivors are depending on low quality bullets made in their metro, you could load these rare bullets to dish out incredible high damage in dire times. Thats really interesting mechanic where no other post apocalypse game i've played have implemented. It reinforce the atmosphere of the current civilisation as we know it have been destroyed, including our current currency and economy with it.
The visual engine did a decent job recreating the atmosphere and details. Although the developers claim their engine is very advance and can create impressive details, its not always the case. They implemented some impressive accurate lightings and particle effects, which according to them follows a scientifically accurate algorithm. However, some inconsistent amount of details on some characters and environment cause some levels to feel downward bland. However there are moments where you simply stare in awe, showcasing the engine prowess like the polis metro station. The engine supports up to directx11 with tesselation but the performance is horrendous and no current flagship could run them comfortably at decent resolutions. With the engine supporting an impressive list of advance shader effects, you have no way to off individual settings to crawl back some much need FPS.
Well, thats where the developers have done right stop there. The lame linear story telling is outdated. Theres no character development of any sort, sometimes they are simply invincible, but extremely vulnerable requiring your protection without pior notice. Talking to you in horrible monotonous english just isnt making things anymore interesting nor convincing. Theres an option to use russian voice over which to me, sounds more lively with emotions but lack of complete subtitles render it useless. During level loading, instead of summary of what happen previously, they offer you a quick wrap up of the next chapter you are about to play instead, how thoughtful of the developers! So you get ushered from point to point killing mutants, red army and even nazi with their ridiculously bad AI and animations. So notorious worth mentioning is one of the humanoid looking mutant, where they bunny hopping around like some hacker in CS, randomly hitting anyone when you are in a travelling in group. Soldiers didnt fare any better, with their extremely stiff movements and inability to post any serious threat to you. In faact they look like some jokers from amateur youtube video than a hardened soldiers surviving all the horror of a nuclear winter. They are so bad you hope they could at least have the quality and standard of a 6 year old half life 2 in terms of AI, animation, facial expression and story telling.
Level artists seems to be to engross in adding details in the game with many gas masks and guns lying around but some simply couldnt be picked up. Its fustruating to make the extra effort pushing forward to try get a item up ahead only to realize you could loot it at all! There are some level where you could choose to approach and complete the game in stealth. But the unpredictable enemy behavior towards you makes it almost unplayable and i simply give up and rambo away, collecting more ammo and new guns in the process.
Luckily the game can be completed pretty quickly, saving you from one the most disappointing gaming experience in 2010. This is one of the shining example that trying to implement all the shiny new shaders and pushing more pixels doesnt gurantee you a good game. When the credits start rolling and shows THQ Qualtiy Assurance team names coming up, i m wondering what the hell have they been doing...

Cosy station under a nuclear wasteland

Welcome to the surface comrade

Light at the end of the tunnel

Ending the story of a post apocalypse world from a nuclear conflict with a nuclear missle...

Starcraft 2:Wings of liberty Review

2010-08-08T02:08:00.012+08:00

Overall-9/10

YAHOO! Finally get to kill some worms after 12 years!

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-well balanced and familiar gameplay
-all 3 race distinctive in gameplay and strategy
-varied campaign objectives
-epic story
-highly customisable editor
Fail
-no lan connection
-constant b-net connection a hassle
-zerg and protoss campaign not included

Visuals-9/10
Win
-distinctive art style
-great looking particle effects
-no performance problems even in large battles
-large variety of environments
-well made cut scenes
Fail
-no anti aliasing support
-texture and polygon count is mediocre

After a decade, the wait is finally over. Hell, ITS ABOUT TIME...
For those that spend the last 12 years memorizing hotkeys and stats of every starcraft unit, you will feel at home here. Sweeping change have happened in the RTS genre over the past decade, but starcraft 2 is still the traditional RTS where you need to collect resources and built an army to conqeur the enemy.
Following the footstep of the first starcraft, 3 race is offered for galatic annihilation, each having its own unique abilitiess and tatics to suit different player's play style. Unlike other RTS, no units feels like a copy of another, therefore the learning curve to master the game is steep. Further to complicate things is the various upgrades offering some units to have dual role. The upgrades is applied immediately to all units in the battlefield, therefore able to change the tide of battle in some instances. With the right economy and infrastructure, units can be churned out in huge amount, therefore scouting out enemy armies and customise your own to exploit their weakness can be done in a matter of minutes. This creates a very fluid and versatile combat where during late game, one minor mistake can remove all the advatage you accumulataed throughout the game, in a matter of seconds.
You get to learn the basics from tutorial, get more advance tips in challenge mode or try out the skirmish mode to practice before sinking your head into the online massacre. In fact its an easy game to pick up, unless you never play RTS before. However, its extremely difficul to master, and zerg may prove overwhelming to control if you never played the first starcraft.
With all the hype about the competitive online gameplay, dont forget to check out the campaign. Its back to the warcraft 3 days where you yearn for the next cinematic cutscenes. Even then, the in game cutscene is so well directed and rendered, you may even think you are playing FPS. Not going to spoil the story here, but its epic and probably better than some sci fi movies out there. The campaign mission is varied to keep things fresh since its pretty lengthy. In between mission, you get to explore around your capital ship, interacting with your crew, upgrade your troops or play retro arcade game at the bar. The amount of effort put into minor details is staggering, adding more to the sense of involvment which most other RTS lacks. This campaign focus on terran but you do get to play protoss alittle, although rather disappointed of having forced to pay for another 2 expansion, but the campaign itself long enough that put other games to shame.
Blizzard is never a dev that breaks technological barrier in terms of visuals and starcraft 2 is no different. The units itself have a slight cartoonish style to it and the world is extremely colorful, especially when cannons start firing. They did an especially good job creating distinctive style between the 3 race visually, thus not only do they play out differently but visually supporting it too. However, the lack of anti aliasing support is unforgiveable, even the game isnt extremely aliased in the first place.
So this the game most of us been waiting for. But it also have an asking price, every publisher is dreaming for, 100SGD. It broke the bar set by COD modern warfare 2 and become the most expensive PC game ever released, thanks to them, get ready to see more in months to come. Every aspect of the game oozes with the developers ingenius effort and high production budget so its understandable of its high asking price. But the seperating the game into 3 parts while being so expensive really feels like they are milking us too much. But theres nothing much we can do, since nobody wants to miss the best RTS of 2010...

Help plox?

Ohoh, need some help here too...

Zergs are here to help

I hate protoss shield!

But the nuke looks FUGLY

Transformers: war for cybertron review

2010-07-28T01:01:00.005+08:00

Overall-6/10

I hate purple dinosaur...

Gameplay-7/10
Win
-excellent singleplayer story
-interesting gameplay in escalation
-original optimus voiceover
Fail
-retarded AI
-lack of interesting weapons
-shooting mechanics get boring over time
-tedious boss fight

Visuals-5/10
Win
-interesting transformer design
Fail
-uninspiring environments and design
-limited variety of environements
-unreal 3 engine no longer up to standard

Even not being a transformer fan, promise to bring gamers back to where all the shit began in transformer universe, really catch my attention even before its release. But can this relatively unknown developer called high moon deliver the goods?
Lets start with what they done right. Original voiceover for optimus is a great bonus. Realtime transformation of transformer looks cool. The story involving the fall of cybertron is great. Escalation, co op for campaign and a class based multiplayer isnt revolutionary but should last you awhile longer before you start getting bored.
Bored? Well you see, the gameplay mechanic isnt as polish you would come to expect. Ever fancy a transformer that needs to hunt for ammo for their weapons? Personally i dont. The weapon choice itself is very boring and they could have created a system where different class of transformer will be able to employ the same weapon differently. Even though u can transform as often as you like, lack of customisation and nothing to make up for the lost of meele ability in vehicle form makes it pretty useless. Vehicles also lack interesting and important abilities that may make them indispensable in a battle. Therefore vehicle transformation is more of a cosmetic layer and lack any tight intergration with the gameplay.
Next the AI is horrible, both allies and enemies. Think you would stop seeing badly programmed AI by 2010? High moon studio is here to prove you wrong. Blind, slow reaction, stuck in pathfinding and worst of all gaining abilities missing on the real player itself is unforgivable. Guess whats their unique ability that the devs didnt grant you? The type of cover system you see in Mass effect 2 or gears of war and a much welcomed feature if implemented for players. Theres quite a number of boss battles that is noteworthy of being tedious and repeatitive with lame 1 hit ko attacks that irritate the hell out of you.
The next biggest mistake is using Unreal engine 3. Theres some cases where UE3 still produce presentable visuals like Mass effect 2 through nice art direction and some additional effort from the devs. But in this case, be ready to look at the same boring metal waste land with very limited variety. Some transformer and enemy design is unique but ruined by low polygon and resolution.
Good thing this game came out before starcraft 2 or it probably be lost among Blizzard's marketing blitzkrieg. Though not up to my definition of being a polish game but its still playable and nostalgia for those transformer fans out there.

Spot the spider

One of the few scenes that play and look great

Uh oh?

Mass effect 2: Overlord Review

2010-07-20T00:23:00.009+08:00

Overall-8/10

Holy cow, vehicles are back in ME2?!

Gameplay-8/10
Win
-vehicle sequence is back
-satisfying story
-vehicle "platforming" sequence?
Fail
-wheres my variety in enemies?
-over before you know it

Visuals-7/10
Win
-same as ME2?
Fail
-low texture in some outdoor vehicle scene
-low object draw distance in vehicle scene
-lots of clipping in vehicle scene

Finally a DLC that isnt about new armors or characters. However bioware decides they deserve some cash for this, so if you are expecting another free DLC, you are out of luck.
After purchase, you will have a mail send by Illusion man about a research facility went offline. You get to play this DLC even after completing the whole campaign. But i unfortunately got quite a number of team mates killed in the final epic battle, so i have very limited in choices on selecting squad members. Sci fi drama quickly ramp up from there regarding AI experiment went rogue, killing everyone. Sounds TOO familiar? But i assure it does come with some plot twist of its own that make it worth while.
Its a DLC not a expansion so the game mechanic is obviously the standard ME2 affair, with a welcomed addition, vehicles. Instead of that 6 wheel jumping exploration vehicle, cereberus has enough funds to give you a hovercraft for a spin. You get to jump, accelerate and fire missles around a huge area of grassland, and have some fun knocking down indigenous animals. Afterwhich, you will be treated with super mario style platforming on a lava lake. Since the sequence is short, it doesnt suffer from extended exploration from the previous ME1 that bores the hell out of you. However, with ME2 not tailored for vehicles from ground up, the visual engine lags behind the demands. Low res texture, poor draw distance and your hover craft clipping into the ground makes the experience less desirable. But dont get me wrong, its a welcomed features that many thinks ME2 sorely lacks.
In terms of enemies that will engage you, prepare to be disappointed. Excluding the final boss, all you face is all the exotic varieties of geths throughout the whole game. And the last time i checked, geths loves to mass produce only a few variants of multi purpose robots. Consider that i dont particularly find geths interesting since the first ME, this is a pain in the ass. However your pain will only last for approximately 1 hour. This DLC is VERY SHORT but the production quality is there, so its up to you to determine what its worth.

Stop! I want to enjoy the scenery alittle longer...

attack of the geths

I m so excited, i finally get to shoot something else!

Dragon age: Awakening Review

2010-07-18T00:20:00.008+08:00

Overall-7/10

Hey sexy, want to take a look at my ditties?

Gameplay-7/10
Win
-decent storyline but isnt executed as perfectly
-Higher level cap with more customisation
-ability to import all character or start a new one
-ability to respec without using 3rd party mod
Fail
-story feels disconnected from original
-some buggy chat dialogues
-most new enemies feels recycled

Visuals-6/10
Win
-some new interesting environments and enemy design
-pretty much similar with the original
Fail
-awkward animation during dialogue
-human character still look as uninspiring

I love Dragon age. I love it so much i played through the original game twice. I didnt give a shit about those lame DLC but hearing a full expansion coming out, i just couldnt wait to get my mitts on it. So is this expansion up to the high standard set by its predecessor
This expansion picks up where you left off from the first game where grey wardens have a nice new keep given by your joker call alister. Of course nothing went well in a RPG so the moment the game commence, you are thrown into the thick of battle with your imported character from origins or a newly created warden. And guess what, the FIRST dialogue have a repeat loop bug. What a great start isnt it.
This expansion promise an equally epic storyline about how darkspawns gain intelligence and you, the unlucky warden, is there to fix things up. That would be great if you get to repair the world with your old comrades but you will only be given the irritating dwarf warrior, ohgren. Some characters does appear in the world for some chit chat, which really very disappointing. All your previous decisions made in origins doesnt affect awakening in any way which makes this expansion feels very disconnected. This time round, you are a warden commander and also a warhero so NPC will interact with you in a different aspect, which could get sometime to get use too.
Combat is similar with origins, which is great. However, the level cap have been increased with additional spell, sub class, skills and profession, adding more variety on ways to pound your enemies. As of the norm of an expansion, loads of new weapons and armors to loot from the game to keep you happy. To try make you even happier, you get to unleash your new toys on new enemies but they generally dont do anything special from origins. So it feels like bioware is recycling old enemies with new skins. Something worth mentioning is the addition of respec options in game. But theres a bug or maybe intentional decision from the developer where special characters recruited with unique class would lose their class permanently after respec.
This is a great game with some flaws. But with high bar set by origins, awakening looks like a half baked effort. I can ignore some of its flaws to enjoy the game as it is, but would you?

I m really flemmeth with a new skin...

Armored ogre... i m "impressed".

I remember seeing you somewhere...

Shut up Oghren, i m never going to sleep with a dwarf. NEVER.

LG 32LD460 HDTV review

2010-07-07T23:53:00.035+08:00

Size matters.

Before i start, i m not a pro in A/V, so this is simply an from a consumer perspective.
Lets start with my rationale in getting this HDTV. First is HD video format taking off and my cute little 22" couldnt display them in their true glory. Why not bigger, some may ask. Because of the close viewing distance, fear of huge pixel pitch size would degrade the sharpness and introduce excessive aliasing, furniture size constraints and lastly the price. Since 32" recently introduce full HD resolution, it have been added in my wanted list for quite some time.
Now why HDTV and not monitor? 30" monitor comes with 2560x1600 which offers gorgeous picture quality but would create massive problem in getting playable frame rates for current crop of games. Since the resolution is higher, the price of a 30" is also more expensive than its HDTV counterparts. Another issue that plague monitor is their poor viewing angle other than higher end models, but it seems viewing angle has never been an issue for HDTV. For the price i paid for this HDTV, i could barely get a 24"LCD monitor using IPS or VA technology which offers better viewing angle.
I choose HDMI1.3 connection for better picture quality and since its a newer format, hopefully offering a smoother set up. Well i m wrong. 1:1 pixel mapping didnt work out of the box, and i have to adjust overscan settings in my ATI catalyst and turn on the scanning profile called "Just scan" on the TV. Even then, something is amiss, sharpness. Using all the default profiles, all the text is over sharp while play back of movie is alright. To my horror, it does not comes with a profile meant for PC input so i have to calibrate it manually. After 2 days of time consuming effort, i still couldnt achieve the type of crisp and sharpness for text. Colored text seems to bleed to its surrounding making it hard to read, while red color seems to be suffering the most. After poking around some settings, color intensity seems to be causing the color bleed. Unless i intent to use a monotone HDTV, removal of the color text issue seems out of my ability. So any A/V pro input on this issue is very much welcomed.

HDMI color bleeding and poor red color contrast

VGA fix it all =D

UPDATE (080710): Text issue seems to be fixed by naming the HDMI input to PC. However, the color is still off and the red text issue still exist, albeit no longer as bad. Taking advice from others, i also linked up my vga connection and it produced pretty clean image by default. Now before the money i spend on the gold plated 1.3 HDMI goes down the drain, i have to work harder to calibrate to at least match the vga quality...

UPDATE (120710): Gave up hope on calibrating on HDMI and decided to exchange the HDMI cable with the shop. So back to the ancient VGA, which i guess, isnt that bad after all. May invest in a high quality VGA cable some day.

UPDATE (170710): Purchased a DVI to VGA cable with thicker insulation to prevent noise degrading the signal. Composite Sync seems to work on this cable and the color reproduction is gorgeous. Best of all its half the price of the freaking HDMI cable.

With all outstanding issues corrected,now heres the updated report card on image quality.
Reading text at 80cm away is good since the text appears bigger on a HDTV. However, its is no longer as smooth as a high resolution PC monitor. Microsoft Cleartype front would help smooth out some aliasing but if you desire super smooth, high resolution text, HDTV is NOT for you.
Surfing experience is great, if you are like me, ignores the slightly aliased text. Pictures would look bigger too, without losing any visible detail. But low resolution image that have been blown up with lots of pixelation and artefacts going to look very bad. The larger screen estate benefit web browsing pretty little since horizontal resolution did not increase over my previous monitor.
On the gaming front, its more or less a hit and miss. Due to massive amount of physical screen estate of of almost 3m^2, you going to have some trouble keeping track of those tiny GUI spreaded to all 4 corners of the screen. That is especially true in action RTS like supreme commander 2 and C&C franchise to name a few. However, games like FPS and driving sim really enjoy the larger display providing larger view angles and easier to spot further enemies. In terms of rendering quality on larger pixel pitch some noticeable aliasing so you may want to increase your antialiasing multiplier. Since the width of this HDTV width resolution also grow to 1920 from 1680 while the height remain unchange. So more demanding games in my library like Metro2033 and crysis seems to become rather choppy, barely holding its head above 30fps even without increasing anti aliasing.
Next up is video playback, which is simply what HDTV is made for. Fire up a 1080 movie and you will die in orgasmic visual pleasure. 720 looks great while 480 look decent since i enabled some video enhancement for my cpu and gpu to crunch on. But if you have some old school video using 4:3 format at vcd quality, you are gonna puke. The HDTV really multiply the flaws of the low bit rate, low resolution video thousand fold that it become viewable only after i sit at least 2m away.
For my objective of calibrating this TV set is to get natural color and decent image quality across all activities on a PC without switching profile. Something to note is this tv is a pain in the ass to calibrate. Settings would be disabled for different type of input and the expert calibrating mode doesnt seems to unlock them. Worst of all, dedicated mode like VIVID or SPORT adjusted some settings that isnt accessible in the expert mode. In other words, you couldnt reproduce most of the pre tuned picture profile on the expert mode which kind of defeat its purpose isnt it? So i decided to go through all the picture profile and decide for myself which one i like most then tweaked the settings from there. Eventually i choose STANDARD mode since it didnt have oversharp problem like SPORT and not oversaturated color in VIVID. The color temperature and contrast seems to be perfect, which expert mode doesnt seems to be able to reproduce at all. However i have to reduce the backlight significantly to 40% for comfortable viewing and reduce the contrast to 90% for more natural looking color. Next in increasing brightness to 55% to allow seeing in horror games featuring dark environments but sacrifice darker black for better movies. The outcome is clean images in text processing and games while having a softer image during video playback. Video quality of course doesnt look like those super sharp, extremely bright, ultra saturated color and insane contrast you see at electronic store. But it kind of suit my preference althought you may think otherwise.
With picure quality fully calibrated to my liking i decided to mess around with the TV speakers. My GPU support HDMI audio so i decide to give it the TV speakers a try and may be use it as my center of my sound stage. Looks nice on the specs rated at 30W +30W virtual surround sound but its actually horrible that i drop the idea immediately and disable the speakers. Its lucky i drop the idea since i stopped using HDMI input and switch to my newly purchased DVI to VGA which doesnt support bitstreaming making audio connection to the TV slightly more complicated.
Having to wallmount this babe since its height with stand is taller than my table. So lots of wire management to do in preparation for the installation. And gosh, over the years of adding more hardware and just conveniently hiding them behind my monitor, the amount of wires is now brain numbing. Didnt really suceed in clearing the clutter entirely but at least i get to clear the TV area free of any wires.
Overall no regrets but pure visual enjoyment in investing on this HDTV as my PC monitor. The journey to garden of eden starts out pretty sour but rewarding once you get there. Its rather disappointing of the pretty flaky support for PC input using HDMI since this is a new 2010 model. Other issue is having eye fatigue and headache after long hours of usage. I used to energy saving profile to lower the backlight quickly without having to mess around deep in the settings when i m doing text processing and web browsing. It reduces the strain to a rather acceptable level but long hours of video or gaming is still out of question. Actually its pretty good "feature", forcing me to have a more balance lifestyle and spend more time on studying or accompany my significant other. XD

Guess there wont be a 37" for me...

Dead Space review

2010-05-31T23:57:00.009+08:00

Overall-9/10

Dont they look promising? :D

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-strategic dismemberment
-node upgrade system
-zero gravity and vacuum
-wide range of quests and enemies
-some creative weapons improvised from non military tools
-deep story
Fail
-some buggy zero gravity navigation

Visual-8/10
-the most scary,violent and bloody game
-huge amount of environmental details and variety
-replace all gui into a realtime hologram system
-well designed enemies
Fail
-buggy physics interactions
-bugged vertical sync that wasnt patched
-lack of real anti aliasing

I almost forgot about this game after my first few hours of playing this excellent game ended in fustration due to low frame rate and sluggish controls.
However with the announcment of dead space 2, it sparks my interest all over again and i decided to get back into the game 2 years later only to realize my problem have not been patched. A quick search online isolated the problem on the buggy vertical sync but massive screen tearing occur during intense light flickering.
If its any other game, i probably would have just give up and stop playing. But this is different, the amount of gore, violence and the most immersive horror atmosphere ever reproduce on a game with a deep story connected to it. Its so good that you know there will definetly be sequels coming in, and as rare as it can get nowadays, a new francise is actually born.
A horror game relies on atmosphere and this game done it all right. You play as an engineer isaac and hes neither a super soldier from doom nor anything close to it. It is shown in his sluggish movement and lack of fantastic acrobatics capability. And in a horror game that has enemies swarming at you in various shape, sizes and speed, its a massive difference in how you approach this game. Up the ante further, this game is in third person with totally no in game gui other than options to adjust or quit the game. What that replace it is a realtime hologram system for items, quest objectives and weapon ammo. You also have a more traditional HP bar but it is displayed at your spinal cord. This realtime system means u may get attack while reading quest or accessing your items which make this game feels more realistic and makes you think twice before accessing your items in the midst of battle.
Now to the juicy part why we love horror games, the gore. Instead of using headshot to kill kill traditional zombies, spacefaring zombies can still operate without their cranium intact so the best way is to dismemberment limb by limb till they bleed to death. While they come in small numbers at the start of the game to let you enjoy this satisfying killing mechanic. But once you progress deep into the game, be ready to see limbs fly as you panically unleash your ammunitions blindly. To aid you, your suit possess stasis technology to slow objects or zombie down.But chances are, one surviving zombie with broken legs crawled up to you in the midst of confusion and stab you right in your groin. If your hp reaches zero, the strategic dismemberment is displayed on you too, sometimes even meeting worst fate then you could unleash on the zombies, like grabbing your head and tear it away with your spine still intact with your skull. Of course, there are some gorgeous moments for your failure to prevent zombies reaching your temple of god. One delicious example, is tearing away the zombie baby clinging to you with his umbilical cord, smash his head on the ground and kick him away like a soccer ball. The average joe attribute of isaac is shown in close combat too as he behaves in pure rage and fear rather than calculative destruction of a seasoned soldier.
The atmosphere, gameplay and gore is enough to make this a great game but the developers went a step further with a deep and engaging story. Starts out like the other more common horror genre but the game take its time to slowly reveals the web of conspiracy that creates the nightmare you ended up. But it is narrated through conversation and text recording, giving you a glimpse of chaos of the outside universe while being trap in your prison of zombies.
However this game is not without its shortcoming. Most notably is the one i commented at the start of the article. Theres also the lack of anti aliasing for the pc version, with the usage of blur shader to smooth out aliasing which degrades the overall visual quality. The physics system is also pretty primitive and creates numerous glitchy moments which spoil the realism of the game. While the game recreates zero gravity and vacuum moments very well, traveling through a zero gravity area is a pain. You have to right click then press space to jump around as your suit would stick to a surface like a lizard. But many logical area that suppose to be accessable is not available due to a incomplete waypoint caculation of the game itself.
But i m pleased to announced the shortcoming does not spoil the overall experience of this excellent game. Chances is you have completed the game long ahead of me, but by any chance you miss this game, give it a try. But be warn, this game is not for the fainthearted.

My favourite toy!!

big

bigger

biggest

Splinter Cell: Conviction review

2010-05-28T00:15:00.006+08:00

Overall-8/10

How bout a kiss?

Gameplay-9/10
Win
-easy learning curve
-fast and easy stealth mechanics
-swift and fluid cover system
-co op of the story prelude available
Fail
-iraq mission feels disconnected
-interrogation gets repeative

Visuals-6/10
Win
-monotone during stealth and full color when out of cover
Fail
-overhead projection of objective irritating
-poor texture and some bland area design

Disclaimer: I fails at stealth games and couldnt complete a single splinter cell game before this.
Oh wait, this is the ONLY stealth game i ever complete without giving up in fustration.
It is a almost perfect blend of action and stealth into one nice brutal package. First changes to the game mechanics is the HP and stealth gauge. No longer do you need to ration your health carefully now as it adopts the call of duty style heal over time system. The removal of stealyh gauge is the significant game changer here. Rather than staring at the stealth bar where ever you shift through the shadows, it is replaced my a more graphical representation. Once you are in the dark and unnoticed by enemy, the whole world would become monotone, and once you are out of darkness, the color would flood back into screen again. This easy sense of stealth streamlined the gameplay and i hope future stealth genre would employ this system as well.
If you get into trouble by alerting large group of enemies, all is not lost as the game introduces few more nice features to your advantage. First is the simple to use cover system where shifting around covers is extremely easy and if executed carefully, looks right out of james bond movie. Next up is the ability to kill multiple targets quickly called execute, after you melee a guy to death. Although it creates a few problem like shooting through wall during the animation and somewhat imbalance the game but with careful planning, it certainly feels satisfying.
The story is predictable but still serve its purpose in moving you forward. But the objective and cutscenes are flashed on walls, which i presume the developers intent to reduce down time further for a more action oriented game, but i find it offending and irritating. Once in a while you get to interrogate someone, which feels new when you abuse your first victim. But subsequent ones start to feel repeative and boring.
Visually, its a console port so its pretty outdated. Whats worst is the environment lacks little details that makes the world feels alive and realistic. However, since you should be spending most of your time in stealth which means the monotone post processing would cover most of the flaws. Furthermore, since this game is more action orientated and fast, you wouldnt have as much time as other stealth games to marvel at its lack of beauty anyway.
Certainly a right step forward in the stealth genre to capture more audience. However, the gameplay is some different, some fans of the previous splinter cell would hate it. But for me, its the formula of stealth genre that i finally worked for me.

Lincoln will be so proud of me

Why am i here?

What have i done to deserve this dood

Supreme Commander 2 Review

2010-05-17T22:48:00.007+08:00

Overall-8/10

Boomz~

Gameplay-8/10
Win
-massive battles with unit cap of 800/player
-milder learning curve
-research tree replaces cumbersome tier system
-gaming speed streamlined
-faction is now more diverse
-grunt units no longer obselete in late game
Fail
-experimental units lack their original firepower
-economy dumb down significantly
-campaign just as retarded

Visuals-7/10
Win
-plays large battle smoothly
-factions has its own distinctive art style for all units
Fail
-visually inferior to its predecessor
-some weak texture in some maps

Making changes to a venerable franchise is a risky business and sometime you end up with a failure like C&C4. Furthermore Gaspowered games doesnt invoke that kind of trust valve or blizzard evokes.
So here it is, supreme commander 2 , 3 years after the first spiritual sucessor to total annhilation franchise. Promising large scale robotic warfare complement with shield, nuke, artillery and last of all, massive experimental weapons. However the first game is plagued by crashes, poor performance and steep learning curve to name a few major flaws. This turn away many gamer, even some vetern RTS player that couldnt grasp this complicated game.
Therefore, making this game accessible is high on the developers' agenda. First off is the economy that doesnt build units or structure as a one time payment, but require constant resources during the process. Some structures even requires energy during operation and additional benefits having adjacent resource generator close by. All this is removed in favor for the one time payment model as many new players over spend some point in the previous game, causing economic meltdown stalling their war machine and losing their battles. Second is the long construction time of experimental machines and introduction of mini experimental to speed up the process of getting these behemoths into the theatre but result in them being nerfed and lost much of their former glory.
However the faster experimental units do speed up the game significantly which have its own benefit. Next up is the technological tier removed to give way for research as another type of resource crucial to victory. Rather than having the previous tier units obselete, they are constantly upgraded using the research tree. Dont get me wrong, this game is still one of the more complicated variant of RTS out there that is every bit satisfying in its own way. But even previous fans of supreme commander have different views and liking so above changes may break the game or granting your wishes.
Next up is the game performance. Previous game suffer in the performance department badly with 8 players matches close to unplayable even with flagship system of its time. To solve the problem however, the developer streamlined the waypoint caculation although naval and larger units still seems to have problem manoeuvring around. To further improve performance, they dumb down a 3 year game in the visual department. I mean optimising for lower end system is a sound decision but reducing the high end settings? When current single GPU crossing 2 teraflop in single point precision? Not that it totally breaks the game for me, but still something i am deepely unhappy about since i was looking forward to join the fray in a world that at least look just as good as the previous game.
The campaign of the game is forgettable and skirmish with cheating AI dont really do this game any justice. This game is meant to attract new players but if you are stil skeptic, you could go over and try the demo at steam online store. With you are not new and after reading the changes, you probably have decided.

Death from above

Amphibious killers are back

Sucks to be in the middle

I m being pawned...BADLY

Looks bad but i emerge victorious on this one ^^

TT RX-0 Unicorn Gattling Guns

2010-05-03T02:28:00.008+08:00

Worst than HG...

First purchase of a TT gunpla imitation and it probably would be the last. Not that my wallet is too tight or something. But due to bandai clever marketing tatic, those would like to get their paws on a gattling guns for MG Unicorn would have to purchase a volume of Gundam Unicorn novel. At least dengeki magazine or a manga allows you to just skim through and enjoy the artwork. But novel? Forget it dude, total no go. A quick check on the online black market return a staggering 50 to 70SGD asking price for the gattling guns itself which is also not something i m willing to pay.
Therefore i have been eyeing the resin or the bootleg version recast of the gattling gun. Actually i wanted to try my skills on resin but due to explicit warnings from pros out there, i decide to go for the easier option. If the news didnt travel to you, let me break it to you, bandai is filling lawsuit against the major bootlegs, particularly TT which from what i learn have the best quality.
Before TT actually shut it doors, its presence in singapore is already dwindling rapidly, so i decide to get it immediately before i need to fall back to some less desirable options. Costing 19SGD from HAG at sunshine plaza, its obviously overprized, cashing on the fact this is a recast of an limited edition item. Even though people univerally agree TT has the best quality for imitations, it still sucks balls. You could see dried plastic threads, like those cheese that stretches while eating cheese encrasted pizza. The joints either have a hard time fitting, left over plastic or weird scratch marks. Placing the 4 barrel and muzzle for the gattling gun is a FUCKING chore. I having stop swearing on blogs for like ages but this is really getting on my nerves. The joints between 2 simple runner have to be snip off and filled then force my way through. On the other extreme end is joints that refuse to stay in place and have to be glued. Since the gattling gun comes in pair and a gattling gun itselfs have 4 barrels, the inconsistent quality between parts is glaringly obvious. Cursing under my breath while doing something which supposedly an enjoyable hobby is depressing. In fact it comes across my mind, how the hell someone actually could complete entire gundam from TT without quitting this hobby for good and smash the entire kit to fustrate his anger.
Luckily, i am going to hide it behind the shield anyway so it doesnt look half bad.It gives my unicorn slightly more kick ass look when posing beside the uber sinanju. Wouldnt say i regreted this purchase, but i would stay away from TT and pray such ridiculous situation created by bandai doenst arise again.

I have a gattling gun now bitch!

1/48 UNICORN head

2010-04-19T21:53:00.009+08:00

Thats a head that worth 25SGD...

I hope its in a language i understand...

OMG, need to paint the eyes...

This model is very cheap, coming in complementary when you purchase jan issue of dengeki hobby. Another method to obtain it is to buy singapore version of HG unicorn, which i suppose for 1 run only. Comes with 2 runners, 1 white and a small 4 piece red acrylic since its FG. But if you put some effort into it, this kit actually looks damn good.
Firstly is the lack of stickers bundled with the head display. Although i have the option to purchase February issue of dengeki hobby to get my hands on the stickers but it is seriously a waste of money because i couldnt understand a single word from the magazine which cost approx 20+SGD. And so i m forced to paint the eyes of the unicorn myself. Theres some harcore builders painting on 1/100 scale models for the eyes, but doing it on a 1/48 model is close to driving me insane. Once its done i painted the bottom of the base with silver spray can bought from daiso. I taped the edge of the base but some still seep through and i have to use Mr color thinner to clean it off. Then the unexpected happen, the plastic melt. Daiso's paint probably contain some impurity and when mix with the thinner, the solution soften the plastic. When you try to rub it off, its like using a eraser on a damp paper. So i try to sand it as flat as possible and use white paint over it, attempting to reduce the gross flaws.
After painting the V fin like my MG unicorn, i used the stickers from unicorn stand to customize it alittle. After that, the model is done as a unicorn under 10 minutes, took some shots and time to change to destroy mode which i intent to display.
The difficulty of transformation is just as bad as the MG version, problem pushing the top part out enough for the face to close on the unicorn visor. As the first head model i own, it sure looks pretty since i didnt built a high quality resin head before for comparison. It would probably looks so much better with a complete body included but to keep the price low it is sadly absent. Further ruining the look is the cheapo paint i choose from daiso, where you notice the slightly greyer patch i tried to hide.But this make me salivating over the idea of a 1/48 unicorn gundam like the recently released 1/48 RX78. ^^

The crappy transformation for all unicorn

Look at the marvelous 1/48 scale!
>

MG ZGMF-X42S DESTINY: Extreme blast Mode

2010-04-13T23:36:00.025+08:00

OUCH! This kit hurts my wallet big time...

extra transparent figures

Chrome plated joints

omg chrome coated vulcan CWIS + imprint on the V crown!

The Leg interior, why cant all be chrome plated... -.-

Gold decal and stickers + shiny wings +chrome plated parts = epic bling!

physical shield ftw

long, longer, longest

Usually i wouldnt go for extra finish or whatever bandai decides to call the addon because they of their exorbitant prices. Furthermore, you can easily replicate them if you put in the effort to paint your whole gunpla. But sometime, bandai milking department got it right and offer something that we will shell out our extra hard cash for, Destiny extreme blast is one example. Not only do you get plated parts, wings of light and translucent character figurine are included.
Starting with the basic first, articulation and detail wise, Destiny gundam is a huge improvement over MG strike. The waist, shoulder, legs can turn to extreme unnatural post if you desire. The legs even have a switch below the waist to cotrol the angle, allowing the both leg to stretch till the are 180degrees. But the switch for me seems to be kinda lose and doesnt seems to be able to hold on to such position easily. The feet and wings even have piston on them, which is a nice touch and looks really good.A fugly stick to hold the boomerang midair and palm cannon is also included, but instead of having the ability to mount it on both hands, only the right hand can be installed. This is extremely disappointing as the giant anti ship sword can be installed on the right hand only too, whhile the box art hint that you can have both installed at the same time, but in reality its impossible. The wings of light is also extremely difficult to attach, comes off easily and feels very fragile but once its in place, be ready to be dazzled by its beauty. After the hideous decal experience with MG sinanju, applying decal here is easy and the gold decal really looks great and suit the blink blink attitute of this model with the shiny chrome plated parts and rainbow wings. But the amount of decal is depressingly little and the usual places that have decals like front skirt and side of the leg doesnt feature any decal design.
The main attraction for paying this premium is the wings of light, replicated using PET material that acts like a prism that spread light across the huge wing into rainbow colors. The wings is so huge it make the finished model look like PG 1/60 wings attached to a puny MG 1/100 model. Other additions are transparent kira and shinn figures, chrome coated internal parts and gold decal and stickers. However only those that are easily expose is coated, i wish bandai could coat the entire innerframe parts and include clear parts to show off the design since we are already paying that much for the package. The regular destiny gundam can be get at around 70SGD while the extreme burst should be 100SGD or higher. Many wouldnt swallow at such high prices, but i still went forward and numb the pain because of the beautiful wings.

Why doesnt shinn use the long range beam cannon this way =]

Take off!

Wings of light!!!

Can squeeze them together in a ikea deltof cubicle with some patience

Even more difficult to have em in combat pose...

Goliathus alpha: Control edition review

2010-04-11T23:42:00.007+08:00

Overall-9/10

Win
-huge area
-comfortable enough as an arm rest
-do not slide around the table
Fail
-not suitable for laser mouse
-logo not printed well on the goliathus i recieve(doesnt really matter...)

The screeching seems to have reduced for my abyssuss but it seems to dislike my hard mat barracuda lite. Initially i thought its the abyssuss sensor faulty but tracking on my table doesnt seems to have an issue.
I m not a mouse pad fanatic that really cares about the glide, tactile feedback or whatever jargon used by the marketing people. I believed in a great mouse giving better returns in your investment than a high end mousepad. But with more space now for a larger mouse pad, and a chance of getting a oversized 355x444mm goliathus at 24SGD makes me decide on the purchase. The first thing i enjoy is the immense size and best of all it feels good for your arm to rest on it. So i put it in a horizontal manner and used half of the area as arm rest and the other for my mouse. For accuracy of tracking, its a improvement over the bare table i m temporary using but isnt really revolutionary experience over my previous mouse pad paired with a compatible mouse.
The version i got was the control while there is another speed model featured. Control have more friction and have more accurate tracking while speed is extremely smooth for 360 turn during FPS. Both feature anti glide bottom like most gaming surface do to prevent it from sliding around during intense gaming. Theres 3 sizes available, mines the largest while theres a standard size at 355x254mm and a mini at 270x215mm, all is identical in material and thickness. Goliathus is a soft mat so its comfortable to rest on as mentioned above but its not suitable for newer mouse employing laser tracking.Something troubling is the edge of the mouse pad is not reinforce so i suspect wear and tear may destroy the spongy pad. Since this is the first soft mat i m using, i will know the answer and start ranting if it happens sometime in the future.
24SGD for more comfortable right arm and larger mouse area? If you can find one at this price than sure why not,but the retail price is about SGD34 and at that price, you need deeper consideration on spending your money.
And btw i have no idea the difference between the goliathus alpha and goliathus... =]

Look at the size dood. Its HUGE!

X-men Origins: Wolverine review

2010-04-11T12:26:00.002+08:00

Overall-7/10

Finally dont have to find a RPG when you engage a chopper!!!

Gameplay-8/10
Win
-brutal and satisfying combat
-gameplay is true to the nature of wolverine
-some great boss fight like sentinel
Fail
-repeating grunts and boss
-game get repeative
-story wasnt as good as the motion picture
-too many flashback all over the place

Visuals-7/10
Win
-the blood and disembowlment is gorgeous
-wolverine get torn and shredded exposing its adamantium skeleton
-dead enemy dont disappear
Fail
-texture popping issue
-poor facial design
-camera get stuck sometimes

Sick of games nowadays reduce the gore and violence to address wider audience and silent critics? Fear not, wolverine is here to the rescue. This game shortcoming is covered with blood and guts for a explosive violent ride you have been craving for.
I dont think wolverine needs any introduction is his imba regen and adamantium skeleton. This game gives you the chance to be this reckless character that you dont get elsewhere. Strategic planning? Flanking? Get cover when artillery start raining? No way, wolverine charge his way through. And his flesh start getting rip while doing that. Wolverine body reflect the type of punishment he gets accurately, sometimes exposing is adamantium skeleton, not only that, you get to see wolverine miracle regeneration in real time. See a group of heavily entrench african mercenary? No problem just lunge into the fray and let the guts, limbs and heads start falling. Best of all, the remains of the enemy doesnt disolve like resident evil 5 allowing you to see your masterpiece once you are done.No worry of the controls too, you can enjoy the carnage with the most complicated combo easily.
But whats fun with all the violence when you repeatedly kill the same enemy. This games enemy is so limited that theres is less than 20 variety of them. Count in less than 10 bosses present, that end up with about 30 enemy variety to tear apart. The game try to address this with lots of flashback, therefore meeting different enemies but most of them are just cosmetic different. The flashback also come so often that the story becomes disorientated and doesnt feel cohesive. Being tied to the motion picture, the plot is much thinner than the already average movie. Very often you will run into texture popping issues and dont expect to be amaze by the characters' design nor resolution.
A game you wouldnt want to miss if you like wolverine and the X-men universe or just simply violence, lots of it. If you fall into both catagory, good for you, this is the best game on offer to suit your appetite. Else, for the rest, its a unpolished version god of war style action game built under x men franchise.

Even nanosuit dont have such performance

OMG i see my own ribs

Let there be blood for the blood god!

One of the only memorable boss fight

Battlefield Bad Company 2 review

2010-04-09T21:41:00.009+08:00

Overall-7/10

Home sweet home.

Gameplay-8/10
Win
-engaging multiplayer
-player class and 3 new multiplayer mode
-entertaining singleplayer
-destructible world now changes gameplay
Fail
-High ping across all server
-sever browsing experience just as bad as BF2
-does not save your player or server preference
-singleplayer story fails
-singleplayer tries too hard to imitate call of duty

Visual-7/10
Win
-Huge amount of particle rendered
-highly interactive and procedural world looks impressive
-well rendered skybox and backdrop
Fail
-poor shadow draw distance
-brightness and contrast not well calibrated on default
-game generally too bright for comfort

DICE horrendous reputation to release buggy game is back in full force, now lets hope it follow previous trend where the patches to fix them keep flowing in. After leaving the PC market for the console with Bad company, its sequel return to a mulitplatform release with promise of those huge multiplayer battle with vehicles.
The developer seems to be targeting call of duty modern warfare 2 while developing the singleplayer segment of this game. Instead of overtaking or differentiating themself in a postive way, they copied mindlessly. From all the mindless chase around the globe to kill a target, to ridiculous boss kill finale, the only thing different is that you have a bunch of entertaining squadmates from your local circus. The story is just as weak as modern warfare 2, in fact even worst, with you chasing after a imaginary super weapon made by japan falling into the hands of terrorist.
However, it is still entertaining to visit various breathtaking environments with the advance world destruction and physics implemented. Hiding in a building too long while taking shells from a tank and the building structure will be taken out piece by piece till it crumble entirely bringing you down together with it. From buildings, towers to concrete slabs, things fall apart while you shoot, shell and explode your way to zoom in on your kill. This is the kind of physics implementation advertised by physx years ago but failed and clearly surpass crysis.
Visually, you soon realise night looks too bright, day burns your eye, particle or fog ends your life. Expect alot of time wasted on calibrating the game to your viewing needs unless you wear sunglasses during gaming.While particle obscure your vision, your AI enemy still fire at you accurately is a pain in the ass. In multiplayer fights, expect people to lower the particle count intentionally and you will soon follow suit. But this greatly reduce the visual quality and special animation as a whole.
For the environment is well rendered at first sight till you start seeing short shadow redering distance start clipping up,texture isnt that high res and the seemingly great rendering distance is actually made up of well integreted backdrops. But when explosions start rocking the world and see your beloved battlefield start crumbling, the game actually look impressive.
The server browsing issues are back, not showstopping like those from BF2 but still irritating enough to think twice firing up the game. Manage to get a server with decent ping and you will face issues like unbalance team where its possible to have 31 vs 1. Else, the 3 different multiplayer mode is great addition and variation. With the above mentioned world destruction fully implemented in multiplayer too, you will be delighted at the destruction unleashed. The multiplayer have slowly evolve from messy 64 "grab a vehicle" multiplayer into one that is more granular and emphasize more on team work and strategy.
Frankly speaking what make this game great is the well implemented procedural world destruction,seperating bad company 2 from its old predecessor and modern warfare 2. But i m still disappointed at the numerous bugs and poor design decision present but after years of checking out games make by DICE, i m actually come to expect these problems before even installing the game.

Cant see dood!

I remember doing this somewhere

expect some epic battles

Fake draw distance with well implemented backdrop

Resident evil 5 review

2010-04-04T02:27:00.022+08:00

Overall-7/10
I m bored of killing zombies,lets go clubbing dude!!

Gameplay-7/10
Win
-action packed zombie genocide at its best
-survive the infection with a friend in co op
-well designed levels
-high replay value
Fail
-no longer a horror surviving genre
-too much quick time event
-AI companion waste bullet freely
-lame story
-poor voice acting for some characters

Visuals-8/10
Win
-looks good while performing well on older systems
-well directed cut scenes
-3D supported
Fail
-weird liquid simulation
-daylight zombie killing sucks

This is the first resident evil franchise i played and it leaves me with mix feelings. Although it wasnt the stalker or dead space type of slow, pyschological punishing horror surviving game i orginally expect, resident evil 5 is a action packed zombie slaugtering fun with over the roof bosses, vehicle manslaughter to even orbital strike!
Although it is more action oriented game than its predecessor, resident evil 5 still has some mechanics to slow you down and prevent becoming another doom replicate. You cant move while you shoot or reloading and the amount of ammo is pretty limited. Totally cant believe the top agent of the world anti bio threat agency couldnt even shoot a pistol while walking but it increase the sense of vulnerability and difficulty to make the game more enjoyable but at the expense of realism. Accompanying you will be Sheva,an AI partner or your friend in co op mode to watch your back during the painful days ahead. The AI did a good job in pathfinding and developers has specially design the game levels that requiring special coordination to achieve the objective together. Most would probably fall in love with her until you realise in horror that she spray bullet so freely that you will start starving her of any ammo to stay alive yourself. So most of the time, she will end up a slave to help you carry items and only giving her some of your scarce ammo when absolutely neccessary. During your journey, capcom is back with its cinematic, well designed cut scene to let the plot unfold or just to show some kung fu. It would be perfect until numerous nonsensical, irritating quick time event littered the cutscenes to disrupt your little drama session. By nonsensical, its like pressing different combination of A, D ,F ,Z just to push a boulder. Best of all is they comes unexpectedly, one amount ago you dodge the boss attack, the second attempt the boss tried to caress you, the quick time event pops up and congragulations, your grade just drop from S to A because you died in the cinematic. YAY! -.-
Another unexpected is the zombies design. Since this is the first game i play, i was expecting slow mindless zombies with highly evolved boss like nemesis featured in the movies. What welcome me is fast, gun firing, motorcycle riding and venus trap looking mouth zombies that totally shatter my ideal day of apocalypse. Not to forget the controversy some "human right group" complaining about economically superior westerner killing and looting poor africans in games. So capcom added more westerner into a native african town to defuse the situation, which makes the game atmosphere feel unauthentic. Way to go to those activist because according to their theory, its ok to kill westerners,nazis, chinese, muslims in the virtual world but not zombified african with no political involvement in the plot.
Capcom also miss the chance to make the game more atmospheric and realistic.Fighting zombies in bright daylight remove much of the fear factor which i was eagerly hoping.Next is about your companion Sheva. If she whines more, break down when infection reach her home town or even better a family member falling victim would seriously boost the sympathising rating and makes you feel attached to whats going on in the story. Instead she gives the generic response which dont give a damn about her own people, so why should you? The plot becomes too cheesy, and to an extent lame when side characters fall like flies, enemies talk like clowns and you and sheva kill so well that makes you wonder why they dont make a bio weapon based on you two instead.
I usually dont whine and rant about the sound department but theres some flaws here that further break the atmosphere of the game. "Combat" music start playing before the enemy even start engaging you or you noticed them thus giving you an early warning of the fight ahead, which further destroy the horror atmosphere that suppose to come with a zombie game? Next is that capcom really have tight budget for voice acting as some character voice over sucks so bad, you want to shoot him not for what virus hes going to unleash but his voice getting on your nerves.
Visually, other than my desire to have night scenes, it look admiringly well. African slum, tribal village, industrial areas, ancient ruin, underground lab and even volcano is well rendered. Enemy animation can look floating at times, and may get stuck but the best thing is this game can run max at 16x15 with 2x AA at mostly 60fps on my previous 8800gt.
After you complete the game you get outfits, chance to play as sheva and unlock survival mode. If you are a perfectionist, there are tons of hidden treasures to hunt to keep you entertained, increasing the time to complete a mission significantly. Even when you think such amount of post campaign content is sufficient, 2 DLC have been released on the consoles and may come to PC to give you another excuse to return. If you are like me that already have a certain expectation of the resident evil franchise from its motion pictures or its previous installments, you will be very disappointed. However, if you keep an open mind, resident evil 5 is actually a pretty satisfying action game that isnt that bad afterall.

So far so good!!

Alittle agile for a zombie but still acceptable

OMG now thats wrong...

Press F to touch my chest...

Dawn of war 2 Chaos rising review

2010-03-27T16:16:00.011+08:00

Overall- 8/10
Hey stop that, we are brothers now...

Gameplay-9/10
Woots
-everything you like or hate about dawn of war 2 is still intact
-satisfing and challenging campaign
-replay value for campaign with different ending
-realistic tatical choices that may lead you down the path of chaos
-Chaos marine?
Fugly
-campaign is pretty short

Visuals-8/10
Woots
-increase amount of units on screen
-still look and perform great
Fugly
-some new units have parts clipping into environment

Continue with relic trend of milking their game and franchise since the first dawn of war, dawn of war 2 expansion comes with 1 new race and campaign. But the amount of effort put in by the developers is commendable resulting in the campaign actually plays out much exciting and original which expansions usually doesnt offer.
In warhammer 40k universe, war never ends, so before the tyranid corpse finsih decomposed from your victory during dawn of war 2, your old brother come knocking on the door, with a planet. A planet previously being pulled into the warp reappear in normal space with a blood raven distress signal planted by chaos. And things conveniently onfold the usual sci fi style, with a little twist not seen in previous blood raven field trips.
Most important is the corruption system where tempting choices will be presented to you during the course of the crusade. Fall for it and you will be on your way to becoming the very thing you are fighting all your life. All is not lost as your god emperor will cleanse you if you perform above your duty for his glory or continue down the wretched path and gain supernatural power granted by the dark gods. This system sounds like fun and those playing rpg will be familiar with it, but the implementations doesnt seems to be well integreted to the story. Other than the dreadnaught captain thule not be available for deployment after you max out your corruption meter, it will not have any affect to the story till the ending. A fully corrupted character wearing corruption gear doesnt become chaos marine cosmetically is also disappointing. The campaign is very short compared to the original because it doesnt have filler mission that is repeative, which is good, but you just cant get enough of more. But fear not, if your first playthrough is pure in the eyes of your emperor then its time to be lost in the dark gods madness to unlock a different ending.
The difficulty of the primarch level is legendary and i personally feels it is infact more challenging then the original. Enemy now comes is such huge amount that simple crowd controlling and micro managment those obscenely high HP and damage enemy no longer produce the same effect, especially at the start of the campaign. In fact i find it impossible without joining the chaos to exploit special abilites from the dark gods to overcome the enemy at primarch level unless you dont mind keep losing a mission and come back with a higher level units as experience and items still remain after you fail the mission.
The multiplayer will feature chaos as a playable race while the rest have much more customisation on upgrade and a new unit each. The mechanics of the game still remain the same and tha arrival of the tainted ones doesnt upset the balance of this delicate bloodletting festival.
Visually, no technology advancement have been made. Just adding the new objects and art from chaos, increase the amount of enemy on screen during campaign, its very much the way it have been 1 year ago. But that isnt half bad, dawn of war 2 still holding on as one of the most impressive RTS engine in the market.
Ultimately, this game isnt here to attract new audience but for those that love the original dawn of war 2 and cant get enough of the carnage. The high price may be a barrier for some, but this are after all small compared to the joy of serving the dark gods once more.

Defend mission just got tougher

Home alone at the space hulk...

Election for the next Hive mind under way

Intel Core I5 750 and P55 review

2010-03-13T01:59:00.011+08:00

This review is 6 months late because i postpone it due to contact pin issue with foxconn socket and forget after the issue is kept under control. But even after this extremely long period of time in the ever changing IT hardware industry, this cpu is still very much relevant for some time to come. Something interesting to note is that the IT hardware have started to slow down during 2009 due to various reasons. Firstly is the economic meltdown during that period causing massive drop in consumer purchase capability thus reduce purchase for luxury goods like high end computer. Second is lack of competition in both cpu and gpu sector due to lackluster performance from AMD cpu and lack of any new flagship product from nvidia gpu architecture for a depressing 14 months and counting...
Now back to Core I5 itself. I5 750 is based on lynnfield architecture which also featured in I7...?! Yes, I7 have 2 architecture which is the original bloomfield and the newcomer lynnfield while I5 is lynnfield only... I m sorry, thats 6 months ago and the naming scheme is now a massive nightmare that i have to dedicate at least a whole blogpost clearing the doubt from less IT savvy people which i have no intention or patience to do it. So below is the hopefully simpler version.

Wecolme to the wonderful paradise of intel marketing:
I7 980X=Gulftown, 6/12 core. TB. 3x memory channel
I7 9xx(excluding 980X)=Bloomfield, 4/8 core. TB. 3x memory channel
I7 8xx=lynnfield, 4/8 core. TB. 2x memory channel
I5 7xx=lynnfield, 4/4 core. TB. 2x memory channel
I5 6xx=Clarkdale, 2/4 core TB. 2x memory channel. Integreted GPU
I3 5xx=Clarkdale, 2/4 core. no TB. 2x memory channel. Integreted GPU
*(x/y)core x=physical core. y= computation thread
**TB = Turbo boost

Now lets start the review proper...

Overall-9/10

Performance-8/10
No way it could match the recent released 6 core 32nm monster based on gulftown, but the problem now is few applications could efficently multi thread its workload. Without hyper threading, 750 have 4 physical core and processing threads which gives is a disadvantage in applications that could scale up to 8 working threads like video encoding or final rendering. If you are one of the user working on above applications or have done research regarding your applications' mulit threading capability it is best you get I7 8xx and above.By any chance you are a gamer, 750 actually provides performance on par or even better due to hyper threading causing lower performance in huge amount of games. But as game developers start to grasp the ability to code games to process in multi thread environment, 750 will take a observable hit if that time comes. Having said that, I5 750 still can crunch codes come its way efficently from what most general users can throw at it, and still hold true 6 months after its release.
Due to cost reduction is one of the key design criterial in designing lynnfield, it only have 2 memory channel to communicate with RAM and only has 16 PCIE lane for the gpu. The memory channel reduce the bandwidth to 2/3 of bloomfiel but have no real impact on real life scenario. While the 16 PCIE lane will be split to 8x/8x in dual GPU configuration which will hurt the performance pretty bad, so if you going to get SLI or crossfire, P55 series isnt your cup of tea.

Thermal-6/10
Mentioned 6 months earlier, the heatsink fan provided by lynnfield is UNACCEPTABLE. The cpu isnt a thermal nuclear reactor like pentium 4 prescott but the miniature heatsink provided by intel is going to make it look and behave like one. Aftermarket HSF is a MUST for overclocking or tight, small enclosure.

Overclocking-9/10
Almost every sample could hit at least 4ghz, thats about where bloomfield maximum frequency ends too.In fact, I5 750 could hit higher speed, reducing the amount of voltage required and heat dissipated, due to the lack of hyper threading. So that means this CPU could match the performance of high end bloomfield in non Hyper threading scenario...
But dont go too extreme if you are early adopters like me using foxconn manufactured cpu retention clips which doesnt lock the cpu pins tight enough for insane power loads. If you are unsure if your socket is affected, just keep the voltage below 1.4v and you would be fine.

Value-10/10
Currently the cpu itself cost 300+SGD, while you pay 100+SGD more for a hyper threading enabled lynnfield. P55 which is the platform for lynnfield and clarkdale cost significantly cheaper than X58 which is required for bloomfield and gulftown.So expect to save at least 300sgd in total just for motherboard and cpu only compared to I7 930+ X58 mobo.The cost get lower if you consider that X58 require 3 stick of RAM for triple channel while P55 require only 2 sick of RAM. And i did mention it can match the flagship in applications like games after overclocking, so if you are a gamer that dont require multi GPU setup, look no further than I5 750.

STALKER: Call of pripyat review

2010-02-20T15:37:00.010+08:00

Overall-8/10
Dont play this game if you love dogs

Gameplay-8/10
Woots
-Most stable client
-immersive breathing world
-Great sense of progress
-Well designed upgrade system for gears
-unforgiving realistic combat system
Fugly
-Bad voice over
-erratic NPC behavior
-text quest with no voice over
-forgetable multiplayer
-lack of plot during first part of game
-tension music plays too early

Visuals-7/10
Woots
-DirectX11 engine
-Great environmental ambience
-Better performance than previous STALKER
Fugly
-engine showing its age
-tesselation not used to full potential
-inefficient engine with high requirements

This is the third installment of STALKER and its the first version that is stable and doesnt corrupt game save randomly.Developed by a russian developer and a designed to be a russian game, the voiceover is lackluster and the subtitles are all over the place.As a RPG/shooter hybrid, its a lackluster when quest are given out like diablo2 style text communication while npc spurts a few random strings of conversation repeatedly.It makes this game feel even more dated especially after the release of Mass effect 2 recently with it full voice over as mentioned on previous post.
Not having completing the first STALKER due to game file corrupting deep into the game and not played Clear sky, i return to the zone skeptically. Surprising the client didnt crash till the credits rolling and no game file corruption is encountered.All is left is the dangerously beautiful zone to explore with your hair standing at its end. The depressing wasteland filled with equally depressing occupants makes simper exploration a chore and if the sun set before you accomplish your goal, you are about to spend some time with your most primitive fear.Its not the enemy spawning or deliberate gore or ridiculous flashlight mechanics you get from doom3 or dead space.Its the vast emptiness, ambush from wondering mutants you couldnt see in the thick foilage and the fear of switching on your flashlight needlessly to attract attention. It is this that makes you double check every corner, shine at every movement of the foilage and make your adrenaline pump at every shriek that is caused miles away.
This sense of dread and vulnerability is reinforce by the unforgiving combat system, non level character progress and weak armor you starts the game with.With the great sense of progress in terms of gears with the discovery of more advance western built reliable weapons to upgrading various feature to your armor like nightvision makes this game addictive even without a strong plot.The sense of progressiveness also extends to artifact hunting where you only have the device to locate and obtain the simplest but as you progress and obtain high end equipment you even have the ability to detect life threatening anamoly.
The upgrade system is well designed where you can customise your weapons to the role or style you use them while armor can be installed with systems to protect against the anamoly you are worst at evading or simply just increase your armor to fend off melee attacks. Gears have durability and it deteriorate as armor got hit by bullets or weapons when fired.As it deteriorate, weapons will start to jam and armor will reduce in stats, and if you didnt repair in time the gear will IA too often or no longer provide tangible benefit that you will have trouble surving in the zone.However, no matter if you are wearing the fully upgraded exoskeleton or firing a experimental gauss rifle, you will not survive long playing like you do in modern warfare 2 or other shooters. Other than maintaining your gears, you have to maintain yourself. As you get shot, you will bleed and have to bandage up, absorb too much radiation and you have to take rad medicine and you will get hungry from time to time. This add a additional layer of realism to this post apocalypse sim.
Unlike the treasure hunting Stalker you are playing in the first game, you are now a major working for russian military.Artifact hunting is no longer the main objective, but since their market price is high and they can be equip for many benefits so you will hunt it anyway. As mentioned above, the plot is thin until you reach pripyat which is at the last portion of the game.Pripyat is a urban wasteland which is a refreshing change from zaton or jupiter but the game suddenly become very linear and you are simply following the tightly scripted storyline. As you complete the game, a series of image will flash by showing you the outcome of the gameworld, depending on how you complete the missions or lack of. Since the outcome is only happen after you complete the game, your action lacks impact on the game world while you are playing.
To accomplish all the dread atmosphere, the xr engine that have been powering the first game have been ugraded to version 1.6 with directx 11 feature.As the first directx11 feature that i play, it already offer a positive impression.Simply by running the game in this new codepath provide more than 10% performance benefit without lowering graphics quality.However the new directx features are not well implemented like the tesselation. Tesselation automatically duplicate and increase polygon in a less performance hungry manner and allow rendering of perfect spherical shapes. But in STALKER, it is only implemented to gas mask while the rest of the game objects is still rendered in parallex mapping. The engine still look dated nontherless with its low draw distance and poor texture, although the texture problem is less obvious in cases where parallex mapping is used.However after spending time with the game, you will realise the engine excels in producing realistic urban landscape in bright day light where it would showcase it impressive global shadow and parallex mapping works best on bricks and walls. But the bad news is you rarely get to see such scene in the depressing zone with stormy weathers every other day and the lack of standing structures. The processing power required is still disproportionate high and reduce the audience for this game greatly.
Other than the bad voice over, i also mentioned the lack of it too.Another serious sound issue is the tension music when fighting enemy plays too fast.It sometime warn you of upcoming ambush from an unspotted enemy taking away alot of tension from the game after you know how to exploit it to your advantage.
After so many years, the STALKER that is meant to be is finally produced. If you are like me who gives up on previous version due to instability or the hardcore zone explorer that put up with previous version will find this new STALKER attrative. The zone provides the most unique experience that you will never find in other game, and deserve a chance even with its design faults.

A place you call home

Thats another homey place in the wasteland

OMG, a flying chopper in the zone!

Some impressive scenes rendered by an aging engine

Mass effect 2 review

2010-02-14T01:08:00.011+08:00

Overall- 9/10
Space age god of war boss

Gameplay-10/10
Woots
-Improved combat system
-captivating story
-huge replayability
-highly interactive game world
-numerous tough moral choices
-satisfying role playing
-ability to import previous mass effect decisions
-epic story
-voice over for every conversation and codex
-cinematic and polished experience
Fugly
-boring resource gathering
-infrequent crashes and sound dropping

Visual-9/10
Woots
-varied environments
-improved lighting and particle effects
-character detail and texture increased
-clean gui
Fugly
-No anti aliasing option
-fugly full screen lens flare
-occasional clipping

Second installment to the trilogy,the developers obviously listened to the complains and shortcoming,and fix them on this sequel.Mass effect 2 up the ante in terms of roleplaying, combat mechanics and visuals.
Mass effect is a sci fi role playing with story and cast that rivaling hoolywood.Jedi powers? Imminent catastrophe from a imba race? Imba ancient technology from extinct aliens? Politicking even at the face of galatic extinction? If this dont get you interested, you probably better role playing with trees hugging elves fighting recklessly polluting dwarves.Having the ability to import the previous mass effect save file is a great feature that actually mould the political landscape differenetly depending on previous decisions.The roleplaying is similar to bioware previous title, dragon age but with real time interactions like punching someone in the face during confrontation or hugging a devastated mother.The respective icon of either good or bad will appear and you must click the corresponding mouse button or you can simply ignore and let that bitch continue whinning.Executing these actions and other major decisions in the game will affect the plot and outcome of the game while increasing your "good" or "bad" meter.Building up the meter will open up to additional conversation options which can be beneficial in trading or just for the fun of insulting someone.
The gameplay is more action orientated with minimal item management and idiot proof leveling system.The combat is a fusion of gears of war covering system plus dragon age pausing system to give tatical orders and abilites.You fight in a team of 3, without the ability to directly control your other 2 squad members.The squad members are recruited doesnt walk out if you keep doing things against their ethics and you can easily gain their loyalty by successfully help them do a personal side quest.The vehicle sequence is removed and gone are the days having to drive endlessly to explore planets and do side quest.Almost any thing can be upgraded, from armor, weapons, prototype research to even upgrading your ship.However,resources is required to upgrade is so astronomical that simply looting from crates is definitely insufficient.You have to buy probes and mine planets which is a boring mini game which will eat up much of your time.
Visually, its a massive improvement over the first Mass effect but anti aliasing option is still missing and requires you to force through your driver.The extensive use of lens flare is still an irritation sometimes and the film grain effect is unwelcomed.A little thing to note is that even thought the character rendered at real time during conversation is the most detailed UE3 engine have showcased in a game but its still inferior to the demo pictures promoting the engine few years back.The variety of enivronment have also been increase and there is lesser corridor shooting experience presented previously.The city or hub is well designed with their distinct art style and populated with lively and interactive citizens.Having voice over for codex which explains the backstory of locations and alien civilization is also a impressive feat.
With all the above mentioned features and improvement, mass effecr 2 feels polish and breathtaking.Although the game still suffers some crash and missing conversation occasionally,it doesnt happen often enough to ruin the overall experience.With multiple classes, sex and behavior to choose from that will affect the plot greatly, this game has even more replay value than dragon age.With Mass effect 2, it is a step in the right direction for a easily enjoyable sci fi role playing experience without complicated RPG element the mass population cant understand.A little piece of advise is to keep Mass effect 2 save file for a more personal experience for the final installment in the trilogy.

Looks familiar

Zergling pods

Lens flare everywhere...

Even jedi cant do this!

IKEA Detolf

2010-01-02T15:31:00.011+08:00

With the addition of MG sinanju, my display space located above my desktop exhausted. Furthermore, displaying gunpla out naked isnt the most dust friendly solution so i decided to get a glass cabinet. Ikea detolf fits nicely into my requirement because all 4 side made of glass for more possible viewing angele best of all,its cheap.
As mentioned early, the 4 side panels are made of tempered safety glass of about 160cmx30cm, but extra care is still required when handling them anyway.The top and the base uses wood and mine is painted black brown while beech color is also available. The 3 side panels is fastened using a rubber strip and the wood at both end.Additional support is given to the top wood plate using 4 metal beam that act as shelf support too. The shelf material is also made of glass, thus increase visability for models place at the bottom shelf too some extent.However the entire structure still feels rather flimsy and the glass door couldnt close properly too. Not sure if its due to assembly mistake or manufacture faults but it isnt bad to the extent i would ask for a exchange or refund.Furthermore, this cabinet weight more than 40kg making me think twice too.
The internal space is about 35x40cm which make posing of 2 gundam in 1 shelf extremely challenging.The bulky display stand from bandai isnt making things any simpler either.The height of each shelf is around 40cm is adequate for my gunpla collection, but those with more extravagent design like destiny extreme blast mode may have some trouble.The shelf has a opening at the top for lighting which can be purchased seperately at 25sgd or you can install your own custom fancy ligthing if you wish too. For a asking price of 99SGD, this shelf is decent and presentable but since its make of glass, i wouldnt mind paying more for a more solid construction.

Glass too reflective for phototaking...

HG 1/144 W-Gundam Zero custom

2009-12-27T01:58:00.004+08:00

This kit have been hanging around so long that the wings got yellow.End a year or two in my closet due to the above issue but while doing some house keeping in preparation for CNY, i saw it lying sadly in a corner and i decide to give a try restoring it.
Firstly i spray paint the wings silver to cover those yellowing runners and then panel the wings, face and legs.Removed some stickers too and painted them in respective colors like the shoulder and the mouth piece.During the process of dismantling parts for painting, broke its cheek but it still holding up nicely if you dont move it around, so i didnt apply Tamiya cement.The end result looks presentable to be displayed again, but some previous mistake i made years ago while building this kit is still glaringly fugly upon close inspection...

switching on the flash to hide its flaws in overexposure =x

Borderlands : Zombie island of Dr Ned Review

2009-12-23T14:27:00.006+08:00

Overall - 8/10
Welcome to zombieland sponsored by Jakobs corporation

Gameplay-9/10
Pro
-more entertaining story than the original(although still kinda stupid)
-Various challenging enemy behavior to overcome
-satisfing among zombie horde decending upon you
-better boss encounter
Fugly
-What the F is wrong with single start point for the whole DLC game area...
-enemy and boss still get stuck randomly making your kill supreme easy

Visuals-7/10
Pro
-refreshing change of environment and enemy
Fugly
-No new technological update to the engine other than higher enemy count

A short, satisfing and cheap DLC is probably the best desciption.
This DLC introduced a entirely new game area linked by various other area but with only one spawn point makes you think twice before quiting the game because you will end up far far away from yor quest area when you get back in.The gameplay is pushed forward by a story about Dr Zed brother, Dr Ned creating zombies for recreation purpose and you are obviously suppose to stop him.The game throws huge horde of seemingly slow lumdering zombies but they have various abilities that can bring you down quickly.The most basic, slowest zombie can spit goo to slow you down and blur your vision if you tries to escape which is a real pain in the ass if you wants to fall back when you get over run. To make your trip more pleasant in this infected swarmp, there are Boomer like zombie which keep spamming the above mentioned goo like machine gun, undead pyscho that activate trans-am when too much lead got shaft into him without killing him, undead midget that can stun you with his leap, suicide zombie , frankenstein , werewolves,infected birdies, just to name a few.The amount of mini boss and boss ecounter got scripted more tightly to make this DLC a tighter experience then the original,so you wont get bored for too long killing small fry.
But sadly, the loot is the same old random stuff and boss drop items that isnt significantly different in stats nor look.There will be some nice conversations and audio tape that make you giggle abit but you probably get bored after listening to yourself spamming lead at a rate never before just to stay alive.Visually, its nice to release some stress in swampy forest , haunted hospital and abandoned factory.Although nothing is done to improve the graphics engine, the amount of enemy on screen can cause some frame drop on some older machine, and remember rule #36: Keep frame rate above 30 when you are being chased by zombies. =D
If you enjoy L4D survivor play style, with some RPG elements from borderlands, do check it out. Expect to see many more DLC for borderlands to come and i hope they maintain with such quality for future releases.

First you get overrun

Next you get thrown by pumpkins

Lastly you burn in hell

Razer Abyssus review

2009-12-21T22:27:00.019+08:00

Overall-4/10

Further issues and cleaning guide detailed [here].

Pro
-cheapest 3500dpi mouse
-simple design with no extra macro button
-mechanical switch for dpi and signal control at the bottom of the mouse
Fugly
-still using infrared tech
-feels warm during usage
-no gold plated usb
-not working with hard surface mouse pads
-squeaky scroll

Searching for a replacement for my razer krait is tough.My old krait has wire breakage issue and the holding the right button to zoom would cause the left button continue to be press due to the edge of the left button blocking it.Therefore i would like to find a mouse with the edge of the right and left button seperated unlike krait's design.Of course, one wouldnt want a mouse that has the same specification as the one you replace do you?
After the some research, the answer is Razer Abyssus. Featuring top end 3.5g infrared and the button design i want without breaking the wallet.The price is reduced by removing macro buttons,using the cheaper infrared sensor instead of laser and least fancy led lightings in razer line up.Abyssus surprisingly feature hardware adjustment for signalling and resolution for different genres or guns. Under normal usage with max signalling and resolution which is 1khz and 3500dpi respectively, the mouse feels slightly warm which i kind of dislike. The USB connection is also not gold plated, not that i believe gold connections would improve singalling but paying a premium for gaming mouse, i would expect the best with all materials.On the driver side, its options and memory footprint is similar to krait which isnt a bad thing but the On the fly process is still active even you disable in the gui, which i presume similar to all razer mouse driver as krait also have similar bug.
The only game breaker is the universal scroll.Something that never gone wrong even on budget office mouse like microsoft is miraculously present on a gaming mouse. The scroll on my first set is loose and gives a high pitch noise while the second set produces squeaky noise when you scrolls too fast.It may only affects the initial batch of the mouse but it is unforgiveable mistake nontherless, tarnishing razer high quality image i had for it.
Theres also issues with hard surface mousepad like barracuda lite which is meant for laser mouse. Changing to soft mat like razer goliathus will fix the issue.
A mouse that i would not recommend to anyone unless you having hearing problem, dont use scroll at all or you are desperate for a affordable high dpi gaming mouse.

The mouse

Manual dpi and signal adjustments

MG MSN-06S SINANJU

2009-12-14T22:10:00.033+08:00

My first one eye monster...

This extremely expensive gunpla set is actually given to me, partially, wrongly assembled by my significant other. Meant as a 21st birthday present, she didnt manage to complete it on time so both of us work on completing and correcting this magnificent gunpla while trying to paint those freaking gold design.Used 2 gold decal due to the painting difficulty on the shiled and chest while others is hand painted tediously, clean with thinner then try again.
MG Sinanju is without doubt a fantastic piece of work done by the same Katoki which designed GX-0 Unicorn too. Same reason as why i didnt plunge into Unicorn gundam till i went hongkong, this gunpla is even more expensive at a staggering 125+ SGD street price. Grand as it is, the amount of painting mandatory to complete the basic detail on the Master grade gunpla is...STAGGERING! Well you have the choice of using decals or stickers to complete those gold detail but decals is just as difficult to work with and they do not cover the entirely piece entirely.While the sticker option used on this gunpla...should be the last resort on certain difficult parts. Of course that left me with the painting option with some decal to cut corners.The outcome isnt ideal but still look great without close scrutiny from a pro.Added most of the zeon logo as stickers and tried to add the line decal that is suppose to be for the wings, shoulder and leg, but give up half way due to huge amount of broken decal or alignment issues.If i can find a sinanju decal selling in a local store, i may get it and give the decal another try .Finally i painted all yellow parts with gold paint to match the rest of the color scheme creating a marvelous red gold black color combi.Thought all the work is done till i saw this ugly red blob, which is actually sinanju head.Instead of the lineart having a green cyclop eye like zaku, the gunpla is too small to reveal this detail and the head looks too simple to suit the rest of the MS.
Decided to paint the rim of his sculp, antenna and face plate gold. The vulcan cannon or whatever it is which i presume for CIWS is painted black while paneling its facial plate.Such simple touch make wonder to the default boring head and some touch of customisation to the otherwise, extremely popular gunpla which is posted everywhere like virus on the net.
Structually, it has quite a few structural flaws too.Although it does not suffer the squeakyness of Unicorn gundam,but its leg joint and fingers is too weak.The leg joint can only be fixed after 2 layer of tamiya extra thick cement. The weak finger cannot carry the long rifle properly even with the palm having a lock to attach to the gun.Create massive issue with posing and can only use position the gun in such a way that it leans on the lower arm to maintain a stable grip.Next comes the massive shield, imagine a shield larger and heavier than IWSP gattling gun and you get the idea. Just to mount it, it neeeds to be attach to the arm rocket pack and a clip that clamp weakly on its arm. So you get articulation that even my HG 1/144 models embarrassing able to achieve.But issues aside, the detail of this gunpla is breathtaking.The amount of detail edges close to a Perfect great after all the finger numbing painting at a 1/100 form factor is probably the best way to descript this set.The design of Sinanju is also pretty close to Unicorn gundam which is based to mobility with crazy amount of propulsion. Guess what, i count not less than 22 freaking exhaust on sinanju is how crazy this unit is.Looks like a High mobility zaku with strike aile pack and some imperial kick ass design if you ask me.
Having a more expensive hobby which is high performance computing to feed, gunpla is usually pushed to second place when come to distributing my spending on hobbies. But now i finally understand what the hype is all about this gunpla model , thanks to dear!

This is the first time i see a shield being held this way...

Test firing

Urgh Flash bang!

I feel someone behind me...

Tomahawk~

I guess you probably seen this coming...
RX-0 Unicorn vs MSN-06 Sinanju!!!

Borderlands review

2009-12-13T03:20:00.004+08:00

Overall-8/10
I have jaws but couldnt bite...

Gameplay-8/10
Pro
-great sense of humor
-The hybrid FPS RPG we looking for in hellgate london
-deep character and weapon customisation
-nice interface with no backpack micromanagement nightmare
-impressive boss scripting
Fugly
-Forgettable story
-lack of NPC interaction

Visuals-7/10
Pro
-cel shading rendering provides a refreshing change
Fugly
-suffer texture popping like all Unreal3 engine
-Higher texture resolution would be appreciated since its cel shading

A decent multiplayer FPS RPG is here, and below its funny, casual style lies deep customisation that probably make the new world of warcraft system looks like child play.
Yes i mentioned funny and casual, its story fails and so forgettable you just dont even know why you are here killing the bitch.Since the story is definetely not the thing that compel you to move forward in this game, it is make up to you with character customisation and loot.Although there is only 4 classes to choose from, each have 3 talent tree to spec into other than the main ability and the talent are mainly passive ability that augment your main ability or base stats. Next comes the loot part, you will first notice that there is not armor to equip and the only visual customisation is color of your default costume.But dont let that fool you for a simple item system in this game.First the weapons come in numerous classes like sniper, machine gun,sub auto,shotgun,revolver, pistol and even alien.Other than just damage difference there is other stats like accuracy,fire rate, reload time, zoom distance,magazine size and other special abilities.Another noteworthy stats is elemental damage, they not only look pretty but serve numerous purpose like static damage can overload shield easily and stun enemy while toxic will weaken the enemy and cause DOT just to name a few.Second there is class mod that give you another level of customisation to your character specialisation over your talent tree.Third is grenade mod,it alters the way your grenade behave and the type and amount of elemental damge it does.There is also a force field have item ability like AOE when your shield reaches 0 or immune to certain elemental damage.Above all these is manufacturer of these items which specialize in specific ability like insane fire rate or reload speed.Luckily, with that much customisation is a decievingly simple and easy to use GUI that allows minimum hassle to allow you to unleash your creative destruction.
On the visual side, to suit the retarded story, it is powered by cel shading technology on unreal 3 engine.It render everything like a comic book pages unfolding in real time is probably the best way to descript this rendering technique.Suit this game atmosphere pretty well, seeing enemies die comically and screaming while they burn or melt is satisfying.It have nice render distance , sharp dynamic texture and decent particle effects but have some muddy texture.As a cel shading game, it matters alot and higher resolution texture would have made a bigger impact on this game.
So nice multiplayer experience tackling huge horde of enemies and boss together, with deep character customisation plus cartoony visuals with some sadistic sense of humor we gamers always love.There pretty nothing much to hate about this game other than the retarded story that makes the game alittle of a level and loot grinding.A game worth checking it out and there is upcoming DLC too for this game to keep things occupied for a decent amount of time this holiday.

Thats right, theres vehicular manslaughter to be had!

You look fat, which means more uber loot?? =p

Dragon age: origins review

2009-11-29T00:33:00.195+08:00

Overall-8/10
I think the first mod for this game is to remove her nipple shield...

Gameplay-9/10
Pro
-epic story
-"origin" story for all races/classes
-fully customiseable characters
-decisions you make have real impact and outcome of the story
-higly addictive and replayability
Fugly
-combat system that rely to much on constantly pausing to outmacro the AI
-bribing team mates with gifts breaks the game
-racism disappeared after you complete the "origin" arc and proceed to the main story
-boring sex scene or lack of it actually

Visuals-6/10
Pro
-Get the job done and atmosphere right
-low end system friendly
-seeing your characters all blood bathed after battles is a nice touch
Fugly
-technologically dated in terms of polygon count and shader effect
-numerous and long loading time between areas
-memory leak

Bioware helming a fantasy RPG got most of us excited.With Mass effect 2 slated to release next year and lack of blockbuster non MMO fantasy RPG recently, Dragon Age Origns is our only hope.Elves, dwarfs, humans, talking trees, retarded blood hungry orcs given another random fancy name and you get a story akin to lord of the rings, but this time you are in control.
Rather than spoiling the fun about the rich plot, i will instead descript what you could manipulate about the plot.Infact i could only spoil 2 plots possible in the story even if i wanted too, because of the numerous outcomes possible.And when i say manipulate the plot, it is major events that will shake the game world called ferelden forever.From violently deciding who is the dwarven king to the birth of an old god to the mortal world , this decisions never come without a twist with tempting bargain offered to sway you to the dark side.Every action or decision you make will either come back to haunt you later or have immediate effect of pissing your team mates off. Regarding the pissing part, worry not, a game breaking imbal feature called gifts will bribe your way through even the most inhumane things you do like commanding a genocide of magic users infront of your mage partner.Another issue is all the prejudice against elves , magic users and dwarfs disappear when you enter the main story arc without any explanation which really spoil the atmosphere.But the "origins" arc for all the story is well told and would tempt you to replay almost every race to check it out and would still continue to complete the main story since it has multiple endings.Another much anticipated feature is sex since bioware developers say they like sex in videogame and this story carries strong mature theme but trust me,it is disappointing and not worth the effort to get laid in dragon age.
Combat system is a hit and miss.Since you have a party of four and can only control one character one at a time or pause the game every second to give all of them precise instruction, bioware introduced a feature called tatical slot.It let you create profile of conditions for your AI controlled partners to execute certain actions.Investing into tatical talent allow more tatical slots for more complicated instructions as your characters gain more spell.But when it comes to gang bang session or boss battle, tatical slot wouldnt be enough and you find yourself pausing the game every second to macro all your characters or you will be overwhelm in no time.
Visually, it get the job done.No showstopper like popping texture and crappy camera to haunt you.But looks underwhelming dated for a blockbuster title.Currently, the game have a issue where after prolong playing, loading of levels will become extremly lengthly and require you to restart the game unless you enjoying staring at game tips or plot summaries.
This is the game that makes me come back and make me want to replay the story with all the classes and races, be a entirely different personality, curious to know how the plot ends up.And that means this game is a exceeding sucessful RPG, the last time i remeber this feeling, its World of warcraft. Though some may feel lonely and awkward but to many of us, a singleplayer RPG also means no bloody kids with vocabulary limited expressing how they like to have sex with everyone's mother to ruin your gaming experience.Anyway, this game is a must have for fantasy RPG fans and till mass effect 2 or bioshock 2 release next year, Dragon Age: origin shall be our main fix for good ole RPG gaming.

Wanto to join my army?

You wont be killing many dragons although the game name states otherwise.

Although do you get to see nice sync kills if you kill one =D

Call of duty 6 Modern warfare 2 review

2009-11-23T22:29:00.010+08:00

Overall-9/10
So help here buddy...

Gameplay-9/10
Pro
-Tightly scripted adrenaline pumping action in campaign
-civilians involvement is a realistic touch
-deeper and more strategic multiplayer
-brand new co-op mode
Fugly
-short singleplayer campaign
-maximum multiplayer cap at 18
-no dedicated server
-possibly no mod support for pc community

Visuals-8/10
Pro
-claustrophobic hotspots in real life recreated realistically
-Doesnt need a powerful system to render at full glory
Fugly
-muddy textures at some places
-over application of post processing at some instances
-missle exhaust trail still look aweful...

The one of the most anticipated game that didnt get pushed back to 2010 due to financial crisis gone gold.Amid all the criticism and high expectations it delivered with the goods indeed.
Call of duty signature singleplayer campaign which is tightly scripted and linear but offering unmatched adrenaline pack experience is back.In fact, "its back" is a gross understatment, it got more intense, darker and visceral than all its predecessors.Unlike modern warfare, where you is a heroic prince riding into the conflict with white shiny armor and calvary.This time you are a dark knight which will get your hands dirty to get the job done.Of course, this is came under fire by the state controlled media across the globe and cause some discomfort to morally right game reviewers at some sites.But it actually offers a more reality aligned modern anti-terror campaign being wage as we speak while enjoying killing those ultranationalist at the comfort in our home.The only complain is how exciting and glued to the campaign only to realize it have ended without getting the orgasm.Yes, its actually that short it feels like a DLC chapter and most of us probably sue the company if it carries the same package as previous call of duty.
Fear not, for the SGD80 they extort from you, they actually offers 2 more game mode.A severely under populated multiplayer with new perks and depth and a brand new attraction.The Secial ops mode.A campaign style action with no storyline, but can be played with a buddy for some l4d type of goodness.
Visually,dont expect it to set a new benchmark, but it still get the job done nontherless.Where it shines with this engine is it could render pratically every location with realistic atmosphere.From Russian winter, medieval castle, war torn afghanistan,beseiged american capital to slum porn south america.Unfortunately, the spider web like missle exhaust is still present in the engine which looks aweful.
With the steep price, it bolds down to what type of gamer you are.If you only enjoy singleplayer campign, Call of duty 6 is pretty hard to swallow.However if you are dedicated to the competitive multiplayer or have a buddy to tag along for some profanity exchanging session in special ops mode, Modern warfare 2 offer so much more value that justify the purchase.What if you enjoy both the offline and online experience?Call of duty modern warfare 2 instantly feels like First person shooter of 2009.

Slum dog millionaire 2

Playing World in conflict at first person perspective

Black hawk down in our motherland? NOOOO~

Shut up price, just boot up your time machine and get me out of here!

Call of duty 6 Modern warfare 2 impression

2009-11-14T02:17:00.008+08:00

The most hotly anticipated game of the year is finally here.Still trying to squeeze time to complete by this weekend hopefully, here is some pics to tempt those still considering. ^^V

Some controversial sequence to attract attention

Cant wait for them to bring the story to singapore and watch esplanade burn

Movie like cinematic experience

OMG captain price is everywhere...

Windows 7 review

2009-10-24T23:25:00.005+08:00

Compatibility 9/10
Before the official release date on october 2009 for windows 7, the RTM have already been released to the tech community for testing.But the drivers is already stable, most non driver level application is already working without modification.Its a far cry from Windows xp at launch and of course the more recent nightmare for redmond,vista.Those that have issue could either work by running compatibility mode or patched by its author or microsoft compatability patches during the RTM testing period.It actually shows microsoft have finally understand what is the most important factor when consumers consider a OS migration.Or it could also result of a OS closely similar to Vista...

User Interface 5/10
Imma big fan of all the bell and whistle on my desktop.Having a highend system idling isnt best way to reap benefits of those hefty investment i made into my hardware.Technically, the UI have not advanced other than tweaking of its response time, which is superior to all previous OS.
Newly introduced is the new taskbar which i m no big fan of.Yes i know some poor sod is still using mini 15" LCD somewhere and those mobile warriors with 12" laptop.But by grouping all those related application into 1 single textless tab become extremely counterproductive to plain irritation.Image you open 2 InternetExplorer tab in a single instance of IE application.Normally you could just click on the tab on the taskbar and IE would be restored on your screen estate.If you wants to switch between the 2 IE pages, you do it within IE interface.Now you dont, everytime you try to minimize your IE whenever your significant other enter your room and you hide your adult webchat(just an example,lol), you have to hover over the IE tab on the taskbar, wait for the 2 pages preview appear, then click on them to select.May be useful if you want to jump between different IE pages while switching different applications too, but that dont happen often does it?Next is all WindowsLiveMessenger is group into 1 tab too.A textless one that is, where the main contacts windows and your chat windows got lump together.So if you have 10 chats going on,and when you recieve a message,the tab would blink for attention, but you no idea who text you.Luckily, you could revert to a certain extent to the old taskbar, but the show desktop icon still a pathetic little translucent rectangle at the extreme corner of the taskbar beside the time and date, excellent design concept indeed.Its so bloody small, a gaming mouse designed for RTS from razer and a average FPS gamer like me have 15% of clicking the time and date applet instead of the show desktop rectangle, now think of your poor folks with far sighted and shaky hand will ya.Yes they are trying to make life of small screen estate user alittle easier but soem of them is totally impratical and have major impact on power users like me.Yes ME, the type of people at the forefront of technological advances and the target group most likely to migrate to your OS early.
Something that vista did right is its game explorer, which group all your games together with tons of management tools.One of the most useful feature is allow you to dictate the application run when you click on the game icon.Things like forcing resolution or directx renderer command line can be done in a nice gui interface and selected as default executon or a simple option accessible with a right click.Welcome to Windows7 , the 7th version of windows, because its gone!
There are alot of fails in windows 7 interface but they can be easily changed back to the older, more pratical previous version of getting things done other than the 2 issues mentioned above.Those that can be altered is done with GUI options or the new GroupPolicy editor.Its something that look and use like regedit with description and tooltip to change how microsoft component behave.But wait, its only limited to higher versions of win7, so students upgraded to windows7 home will be so happy to realize they are limited to GUI options only and some options like returning the control panel to classic look can only be done through GPedit.msc, so unless someone found the magic registry controlling that particular function, you are screwed dood!

Peformance 9/10
Probably the best reason to upgrade to windows7.Gone are the days of staring at windows xp green bar disappearing to the left and emerging from the right for a minute or vista loading to the desktop quick but still unusable for more than a minute when you just boot up your system.Windows 7 boot up fast with drivers fully loaded and usable in less than 10 second after you see the desktop appear.
As mentioned earlier, interface reaction is responsive to the state that its closed to instantaneous.RAM usage have fallen slightly compared to vista but still monstrous compared to XP.Remember superfetch? The feature that loads all your available RAM with all the junk on your HDD to load your application faster but ended up so aggressive that it causes HDD overhead every boot up and seconds of delay when running memory intensive applications as vista have to free up all those junks to make space for what you really wants to run.Good news , now its fixed but i dont really dont know if it really work though.With 4gb of RAM, i could open most application quickly but all those negative effects of superfetch seems to have be fixed and it have not caused any slow down to my desktop experience so i will be keeping it on for awhile till i do a thorough test to see if it really carries real benefits.
CPU and GPU performance remain typically around vista lates built, which is pretty competitive at its worst compared to XP.But whats best is vista and 7 is built to take advantage of multi cpu system, so if the application is multi threaded, XP is usually 10% slower in those instance.Yes 10% performance increase with a OS for the most demanding multi threaded applications, if thats not enough to convince you to upgrade, i dont know what will.

Overall-8/10
Vista took 1 year from official release and a service pack release to make it stable and compatible enough to become my main OS.WIndows 7 did it the moment it becomes RTM, which is extremely remarkable.If you have vista, you probably have 99% chance of migrating successfully with all your applications working smoothly.Windows XP have to ensure you have all your drivers downloaded and some research on other legacy programs before making your move.But my recommendation is that if you have no foreseenable compatibility issues, move to windows7 now to reap the benefits.This is what Vista should be,after 9 years of wait,3 years late,but its here.

Sapphire Radeon HD5850 review

2009-10-24T01:54:00.007+08:00

Performance-7/10
Probably what ever matters and main reason for its existance.After all the reviews start streaming out using beta drivers and still showed rather admirable performance.
With performance on par with GTX285 from nvidia,with a mainstream card, you may think AMD have executed this generation smoothly. Unfortunately things isnt as rosy as it seems from the surface.Yes the pricing for its performance is unreachable by competitors but one have to delve deeper into its architecture.
More than double amount of transitors compared to previous AMD flagship and at least 175% more than GTX285, it has 1600 processing units, in fact it has double of everything from texture units to raster unit, except... The memory controller.With AMD marketing machine promising a double performance level of previous generation parts, one would expect a 4870x2 performance.Reading the way i lead you to this point, yes you are right, it didnt.It is especially glaring to see the performance benefit from this theortical computing power showing depressing returns from flaghip derive from this new architecture, which is the HD5870.With almost close to 30% theortical performance cut from its flagship,little HD5850 performed much closer to its marketed computation power in real application.No, i m not the first person in the world complaining about the performance of HD5800.It could run everything in the market like a dream, other than some inefficient coding frankenstein like crysis.Its just, they arent performing as expected,somewhere deep within this 2billion silicon powerhouse, theres a huge bottleneck.It could be the 256bit memory controller,1gb of memory,unmature drivers or the processor logic could no longer efficently distribute workload among its 1600 units.
As mentioned earlier,the 2 teraflop 5850 performed closely with a 2.7teraflop 5870 which either solution you choose, still offer the best performance single card configuration in the market.Its just, after all the ranting, disappointing...

Features-9/10
Supersampling antialiasing is back.Eyefinity for multi monitor gaming on windows at DRIVER level.Newest Directx, which no other company is capable to produce.Other minor features given pretty jargons but doesnt do anything significant for you to notice, so what more do we need?Free 3d stripper desktop rendered on DX11 and tessalation?(i dont mind actually :3 )

Thermal-8/10
Auto fan works pretty well where it idle at 22% and load up to 37%.Anything above 40% fan speed is unbearable and 100% makes you nostalgic of FX5800(no i m just kidding).Max out at 80C in most intensive gaming and idle at 48C.Furmark and OCCT still makes AMD cards go crazy at close to 90C while the GPU VRM report a smoldering hot 100C in less than 5mins.But you didnt plan to get this card just to play furmark, or did you...
This is probably the coolest high end card make in recent memory and here is a chart to prove it, LOL.

Value-10/10
399SGD for HD5850 while 600SGD for HD5870, which means HD5850 cost 66% while performing 80% in contrast of HD5870.Nuff said make your own choices.

Package-8/10
Its a reference design, every vendor is carrying it with only stickers to deffrentiate.And sapphire probably got the most fugly of them all.But who cares, it has the basic wires you expect to recieve and a cdkey for dirt2 when its out.

Overall-9/10
After all the complains and disappointment, its still the best card to get in its price range.And it have many thanks to it competitor's failure to bring any directx11 card to the market in time.At 399SGD, it crushes GTX285 in every games and have some much more value added features and future proofing.To know whether this hardware is executed efficently we have to wait for the release of competing DX11 solutions, but till then, AMD have win the war this christmas.

The card

Pretty long card, get alittle messy while installing

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus review

2009-10-11T15:15:00.016+08:00

root of all problem

i suddenly miss push pins...

it just got fatter

at least its cooler now

upskirt view...

Overall-8/10

Assembly-6/10

Not that i buy this product hoping that it would be a breeze to install,but getting this 600gram beauty installed is harder than expected. Small pictorial diagram and limited english wouldnt make things more pleasant. Get it in and you probably would have to give up your side intake fan like me, unless you have a super spacious full atx casing.But as expected, the design have high pressure for optimal temperature transfer and giving 4 fan brackets for push-pull fan configuration is very sweet of them.

Value-9/10

At 59SGD, for a 3 heatpipe direct contact interface and 120mm fan, is almost a steal.

Performance-9/10

xx = idle/load(30mins linpack) All value in Celsius

2.66ghz -1.2v
stock = 41/76
212+ = 34/58

3.15ghz -1.2v
stock = 46/87
212+ = 37/67

3.6ghz -1.3v
stock = 50/fail
212+ = 41/78

4ghz -1.4v
stock = 59/fail
212+ = 42/94

Hyper 212+ sweetspot is pretty much around 3.6ghz at 1.3v.Moving on to 3.8ghz brings it to 85C, while at 4ghz its pulling down its white panties and wavering around in surrender.For those concern with noise,coolermaster default fan have anti vibration pads but is still very noisy above 1400rpm, grab a low noise 12cm fan like me if you are building a silent system. But as with all tower designs, the power regulator would become hotter due to lack of air flow in those areas.With reports of some P55 boards having their power regulators burn or melted, lets take a look at the temp from my temperature diode reading from the heatsink.

xx = stock/212+ All value in celsius and read during load condition similar as above

2.66ghz = 43/49

3.15ghz = 45/51

3.6ghz = 50/54

4ghz = 56/61

As mentioned, this is read from the heatsink itself, the actual temperature of the chip could be 20C above the taken data.Although 81C is within specification, but long term use is not reccommended.Interesting to note is that stock intel cooler designed to provide airflow to surrounding components have its advantages quickly negated at higher cpu speed due to extremely hot air exhaust from its puny little heatfins. Although Asus and gigabyte boards doesnt seems to be affected with blowing power phrases, but with other consideration like cpu temp and voltage offsets required to stabalise the chip, i deem 4ghz lynnfield incapable of running 24/7 on air cooling.
Coolermaster hyper 212+ is one of the best price/performance ratio tower heatsink available in the market with LGA1156 support.Compared to its more expensive competitors,it defended remarkably with less than 8C delta from those monstrously huge and obviously expensive solutions.If you are searching for a lynnfield aftermarket cooler,which you most probably will, this is highly reccommended.For those who wants push pins for easier installation, you may consider coolermaster TX3.

Sapphire HD5850

2009-10-04T02:21:00.007+08:00

Wads with her glasses...

fugly sticker

woot real PCB, unlike fermi...

peek a boo!

"i love to be shafted by 2 rods in 1 hole!" cypress,evergreen. LOL

"This puppy here, is NOT Fermi". Jen-Hsun, Nvidia CEO

2009-10-03T01:34:00.017+08:00

Image from xbit labs, which is actually from PC Watch.LOL

FYI,FERMI, is some ghey codename for GT300.The successor of GT200,will be the first DX11 card from nvidia and supposedly the direct competitor of HD5800.No i m not gonna copy paste and hail the technolgical advancement.I m here to ,well...look at the PCB. =D
Ok, i designed simple PCB before nothing too complicated , but seen more graphics cards then camel toes and something was amiss when i look at it. Look at the end of the PCB with the power connectors, it just looks... cut off at the edge.You may think it is some new breakthrough from china to solder components all the way to the edge of the PCB and i really want to think it that way...Till you see 2 barcode stickers that got cut off too.The 2 power connectors soldering layout is all wrong too, or is it even soldered? Thats not all, the backplate covering the core looks fishy doesnt it? Look carefully and you will see it actually blocks the SLI connector at the top.Wireless SLI have arrived?I dont think so...
When Jen-Hsun shaking and shoving this baby harder than micheal jackson during the tech conference in california.My heart wavered alittle, all the uber nice specs and promises on how revolutionary this architecture, which is nvidia plan to rain on amd's HD5800 orgy party.But now after the PCB picture got snapped and got released into the web, they got blue balls instead.We r gonna buy the new HD5800 and give up waiting on GT300, if it ever comes out.

What? Non working PCB and probably dont even have the GT300 core soldered on too.
So? nvidia dont have a working prototype on october 2009.
Then? We can all stop waiting because its never gonna make it before Q1 2010.
Really? Yes its fake and nvidia is screwed.
Lies! Yes i lied, i m just a hardcore AMD fanboy.

O wait, all my previous cards are nvidia...ROFLMAO

+1 for Epic fail of 2009.

Wire management!!

2009-09-23T18:17:00.006+08:00

No. I didnt get any more hardworking then any other day. Its just... the new HD5800 series is so damn expensive??!! So what can i do to soften the impact on my wallet? i have to sell my beloved Core2duo system. And as a guy with integrity,AHEM, i always make sure the other guy get the full package.While sorting out all the shit i accumulated through the years as a hardware enthusiast, i realize my 3 year old sata wire from the old mobo is still sticking around my spanking new rig.

Look at thos filthy curvy orange thing!Now u know why i missed it out...My brain auto filters that part out so i wont start pulling my hair out till i look like someone fresh out from SAF corrective camp. Guess what? Asus thoughtfully included black sata wires to solve this thorn in my ass!2 conventional sata wires and 2 90" sata wires all in smexy black.Have some problem getting both 90" wires to work as i have 2 hard disk and one of them would get its wire bent due to similar position of the sata connector.Switched the bottom hard disk upside down and problem solved!

AHHH~ no more ghey orange wires!

red alert!

LGA1156 platform impression

2009-09-19T02:26:00.005+08:00

Intel's attempt to make nahalem architecture cheap.Perform great, priced reasonable but its not without its issues.
My greatest concern is the flood of reviews out there, with most of them reporting lynnfield temperature using aftermarket HSF and not intel's default.Because those who really get these new chips back into their rig, with no aftermarket HSF available locally(singapore) during purchase, will get the shock of their life.Intel stock HSF is probably 50% smaller than LGA775 for dual core. Slim, small and tiny, isnt something to look for in any HSF,couldnt even get the job done even without overclock. If 80C for i5 750 and 95C for i7 870 is normal for intel, then i think it needs to wake up their bloody idea.Whats even more surprising is the intensive cover up or lack of report by tech reviews globally, making one not think that something fishy is going on.
LGA1366 which is for the "real" nahalem platform got its fan mounting hole layout change, due to large increase in cpu size compared to LGA775.But changing the mounting hole again for LGA1156?WTFOMGBBQ.Bribe from aftermarket HSF companies?We dont know and most probably never will.All we definitely know is it obsoletes all aftermarket HSF even from LGA1366 and forces you to buy a brand new HSF because the stock cooling suck balls.
As emphasized by intel, lynnfield greatest strength other than its a cheaper platform is the more aggresive turbo boost technology that allows +4 multiplier during single thread operations.I admit this is the first nahalem cpu i own after it being released for more than a year,mainly due to financial problem as a slave in the singapore armed forces.But such highly advertise feature, should be activated by default, or so i thought.Many vendors of motherboard, including mine(asus), have it partially enabled only which result in a maximum of +1 multiplier boost even in single thread scenario.Only after hours of digging for similar problems did i find the root of the problem, you have to enable c state options pretty deep in the bios configuration...
LGA1156 is a "budget" nahalem so feature reduction and corners being cut is meant to happen, but above mentioned problesm isnt unacceptable.But sucks to be us consummer living in a period where theres no competition at the high end sector,all we can do, like in SAF, is SUCK THUMB.

Core I5 750 and Asus P7P55D is here!!!

2009-09-13T11:38:00.005+08:00

Asus P7P55D box

Guess who is behind the I5 box?

Installing the processor

Shafting this fat bitch into my sexy casing

Installing all the other crap i have...

Initial testing show 44Gflops of goodness and with the same ancient graphics card, GTA4 jump from 20fps to an insanly silky smooth 50fps with the same setting!Wanted to resit my heat sink fan beacause my temp is pretty high but i have problem getting that intel heatsink out...now u know why i hate plastic pins for fuck sake! If problem continue, i may have to pull that whole motherboard out from my casing and push the pin out from behind.Other then worrying temp, lynnfield seems to be the ultimate mainstream cpu you can get right now.

3 months without PC gaming!!!!

2009-09-01T22:21:00.006+08:00

Benchmark that come together with new dawn of war 2 patch that produce the most kick ass in game scene ever with super uber orbital cannon!!!

Tons of games piling up on my hard drive but my bloody nvidia chip that have underfilling problem is dying.Giving nvdisp.dll error after every screen flashing isnt how i imagine my venerable system would fail on me.All is not lost though, with some major release of lynfield cpu and evergreen gpu coming later this month. I may finally have a full system overhaul in the very immediate future. ^^

The last remnant review

2009-06-16T22:18:00.005+08:00

Overall-4/10
You reminds me of freedom faildam

Gameplay-5/10
Pro
-union battle system creates a deeper tatical depth
Fugly
-random boss behavior
-random proc of uber ability
-lame story line
-extremely restrictive city exploration
-tons of loading downtime

Visual-4/10
Pro
-rather old UT3 engine on display here
Fugly
-Bad performance on huge battle
-texture popping, LOTS of it

Another game i reviewed without finishing the game.Not that i m jumping to conclusion, but just had enough of it.Get raped because boss ocassionally spam his ultimate move?Check. Bondage back the same boss because your ultimate got activated? Check. If this is online poker or casino, fine. But luck on almost every aspect of the game for a rpg?FAIL!
Furthermore this game is plague by tons of technical difficulty that you could easily google about.With icing of shit on your cake, you get the most horrendous city exploration for a rpg,lame storyline, and a voice acting your mum can do better.Before i lose all respect for square enix that bring us great gamesS like star ocean, i better stop playing this pile of shit...

So little cleavage shown for a M rating game?BAD!! =x

WEE!LOOK MUM I KILLED A DRAGON!!!because of luck...=..=

Sins of a solar empire Entrenchment review

2009-05-20T22:25:00.011+08:00

Overall-8/10
Moving starbase ftw

Gameplay-9/10
Pro
-retain all the fun from the original
-adds tons of defense options to spice things up
-entirely different starbase for different race
-crazily addictive
Fugly
-some imbalance needs to be sort out
-still no story campaign??

Visuals-7/10
Pro
-Still looks pretty good after a year
-star base looks majestic
Fugly
-Antialiasing cause massive performance hit
-No major improvement over the predeccesor
-overkill animation on starbase weaponary

The first expansion to the immensely popular 4X space simulation last year finally arrive.Dont let the price and little additional content fool you, those small little additions actually change the gameplay radically.
The first additions is space mines.Deploying space mine on your defending planet can create a disaster for attacking enemies without mine sensors.Mine sensors are bulit into scout frigates making them more useful and crucial then before.However reckless spamming of them still able to overwhelm the sensors and cause a complete wipe of incoming assault forces.So some tweaking and balancing needs to sort out here.
The next major addition which is the star attraction for this expansion is the starbase.They are huge fortification that takes huge amount of resource and time to construct.Even then, its pretty weak unless fully upgraded which takes even longer than the initial construction.However once fully upgraded, its a force to be recon with and without the new structure assault cruisers, taking these behemoth down is almost impossible.Although all of them have general upgrades like weapons and hit points, they have other upgrades that are race specific and needs to be researched before given access to them.With other factors bringing in to the equation, all 3 starbase play out differently for the 3 classes just like supreme commanders experimental unit.Fortunately , without the dreaded up to an hour built time that is...
Research tree have been tweaked and a defense research tree have been created mainly for static defense upgrades which includes the starbase of course.Something that lacks for this awesome game is an enagaging storyline.Guess what is their sad excuss of all the 3 major superpower in the universe wasting all their resources building starbases.Because the war is getting too long and they are playing defensive.OMG thats it?Although its understandable its hard to create a campaign for a 4x game of this scale, but whats promised by its developer 1 year ago during the interview have yet to materialise.And check out their website lore for sins of solar empire, its shorter than those no brainer fighting game from capcom and bandai...
Ultimately this is still a great game and you can see the developers putting in lots of effort.With its low price, it looks more like a DLC than a expansion but it doesnt matter.What does is the game that force you spending hours into the night leaving your girlfriend out in the cold just got more addictive than ever.
Oops...

Its melting...

Thats what happen when you are too close

Spamming drones still a good idea!!!

Why no death star

FEAR 2 review

2009-05-05T17:13:00.013+08:00

Overall-5/10
FEAR 2 mascot...

Gameplay-5/10
Pro
-bullet time is back
-some nice horror atmosphere in a few levels
-more variety in environment than its precedessor
-great vehicular levels
Fugly
-alma scare sequence is expected and irritating
-alma look like a old hag than a scary pyschic
-unsatisfactory storyline
-AI inferior even to the previous version

Visual-6/10
Pro
-Great performance on my aging system
-booast some nice lighting
Fugly
-environment looks bland
-ragdoll physics unrealistic
-sub par explosion effects

Having skiped all those stupid expansion from the original FEAR, i had high hopes when the original developer is back to develop the sequel. But it fail to impress me even though you can feel they tried very hard to.
Rely on scripted scares and a AI that actually inferior to its predecessor isnt going to make this a great game. They does manage to pull off some nice sequence like the vehicle combat showing off some impressive destuctiblity and in the elementary school where the hallway is totally dark and you are haunted by spctres which you can see every 1 second only when a dim light blinks. Alma involvment in the game is a total joke and seeing her pregnant in at the final part of the game makes you feel disgusted.The level design is too linear and art design is horrible. A abandoned nuclear plants have metal grills and walls look like a army camp being cleaned by punished confinees everyday.With a horror game like this, it just plain wrong.Having blood smeared in ordered chaos makes this game feels like mirrir edge having a horror mod from the community.Yes its that bad.Having spoilt by choices like Dead space, this looks like PG cartoon horror ...
The graphic engine does reder some impressive lighting and effects but i think it is not fully unleashed in potential by artist in the development team.They seriously dont think they can make a good game by simply pushing the processing complexity and expect it to turn out like a masterpiece.Many developer out there have already proved that they can achieve impressive environment even without insane polygon counts.
Bullet time can be cool but it can hardly be someting to be recommended just to buy this game since many games have already incorporated.With ailing economy and rising prices of retail games, its better to skip this title and save your money for something else.

I LOVE THIS!!I AM PAEDOPHILE!

My undying love for nukes exploding in the middle of the city

My godlike mecha that have regenerative armor and unlimited ammo

Bullet time expose some badly made explosion effects...

Demigod review

2009-05-03T10:28:00.005+08:00

Overall-8/10
Why no sexy babe as angel??? =[

Gameplay-8/10
Pro
-DOTA gameplay
-Highly costomise demigod
-God damn addictive
Fugly
-game is still broken after tons of patch
-8 demigod and maps only

Visual-7/10
Pro
-uses supreme commander engine
-great looking demigods
Fugly
-performance drop at late game
-not enough variety in environment

"OMG this is DOTA" will be the first thing u say when u play the maiden run.But as the game continues, you will realize the game mechanic is deeper than you first thought.
Although there is only 8 demigods and maps, every demigod can be spec in to different builts for different game style. Equip with the right items, 2 same hero may plays out entirely differently.Minion are spawned by portals and can be captured.The minions can be upgraded in terms of armor or damage, so can better units be called in.All this is done by paying gold making you think twice before splurging all your gold on your demigod armor only. This is only the tip of the iceberg as many other things from more tower HP to more exp for all demigod on the team can be purchased.With the right upgrades, it could have more significant impact than the meanest badass item in the game can provide.Of course, it boils down to the selfish question.Who among the 5 in a team would need to pay for the upgrades.And how the fuck would you get money to upgrade if you are badly geared and cant kill opposing demigod at all.With several game modes like conquest or domination having different objective to win the game, these really spices up the game.
Since this game as its core is based on DOTA, multiplayer is where it belongs.But the battlefield2 saga is back again.With day0 patches and frustrating netcode issues, gamers need to rely on 3rd party programs like hamachi and gameranger on the first few days of release to enjoy a decent online match.But unlike EA games, which ignores you and take their own sweet time to fix the problem after they get your money, Stardocks have excellent PR that updates the community on the problem and patches are gradually fixing the problem within weeks.But it is inexcusable to release games in such state, and have tarnished this excellent game with a bad start.

Gods' eye view for demigods

Unreal arena?

Call of duty 5 World at war review

2009-04-27T22:36:00.011+08:00

Overall-7/10
Sarge, the samurais have laser gun!Permission to fall back!!!

Gameplay-7/10
Pro
-taking the war theatre to the pacific
-nazi and empire soldiers require different tatic
-PBY Catalina mission is terrific
-nazi zombie ftw
Fugly
-OMG another WWII shooter
-repeative AI audio script get irritating
-expected outcome(DUH..)
-automatic lovers look somewhere else

Visuals-8/10
Pro
-different locations keep missions interesting
-not a resource hog
Fugly
-particle effect start to look unimpressive compared to recent titles

Great another WWII shooter that stay true to histroy with no time machine twist or whatso ever.After swearing not to touch another bloody WWII shooter, i still play call of duty 5.Craving for more call of duty after their epic COD4 modern combat, i hope COD5 can be at least on par or even better than its predecessor.Of course, without saying most will be disappointed.It lacks the unexpected twist and climax in the storyline, doesnt relate to a war that is very real in the current political climate.Instead showcasing another histroy lesson taking down the axis power all over again, simply in another perceptive and theatre.I must admit it is one of the best WWII shooter developed in recent years, but COD4 have up the ante so high it pales in comparison.Everyone was speculative when COD franchise step into modern high tech warfare, away from its previous WWII roots.But when it delivered and proved a major sucess, everyone thought WWII material finally dried up and we no longer need to walk that same old bloody berlin streets simply rendered in higher polygon and more complex shader effect anymore.We are wrong obviously.
Before i continue whinning why i have to play another WWII shooter when i volunteered to install and play, lets get into the review itself.COD5 features red army pushing back the nazi and crushing them back to their fatherland while showcasing american struggling with the kamikaze rising sun.Sounds interesting? Yes it does, bombarding you with new location beautifully rendered lush pacific island and devastated berlin streets in never posible high resolution real time rendered master piece.The game run beautifully on my aging machine but its also because the engine is aging itself.It lacks all the bell and whistle from more recent titles that features from sun shaft to fast fourier caculated water, but the developer did a great job using all the resources offered by the engine making this game look on par with the competitors.
The game mission switch between the pacific and russian front to and fro like COD.However, the enemies require entirely different approach to take down your target.Nazi needs no introduction,but samurai counterpart is an different story. Orgasm from sacrificing themselves and their breathen, bring the anti nazi tatic with you into the pacific will quick end up with a kamikaze attack succeeding on you and thrashing your keyboard in frustration.There is also a tank mission and on top of that there is a PBY mission!Crawling around the tight metal bird shooting missle boats and zero fighter while rescuing survivors is an epic and intense moment that is the most unforgettable mission in the entire game.After you complete the game with a slowmo showdown in berlin planting a lame looking communist flag, you get to shoot nazi zombies!Kill zombies and repair fortifications to earn points for buying weapons and gaining acess to previous blocked location result in hours of fun before you finally get over run by the zombies.
All right my rating is a little low because i m simply bias against WWII shooters, but it still manage to impress me nontheless, so kudos to its developer,Treyarch.When i complete the game, i still have the "omg no more WWII shooters plox" playing at the back of my brain.But mortal like me rotting in national service will still succumb to temptation if another famous developer take up this cursed genre again... =.=

Look Mom, my engine can render thick vegetation too!!!

Fake static sun shaft ftl...

D day replaying on the other end of the planet

Shut up bitch, before i burn you too

Guardian 921 update

2009-04-19T22:51:00.004+08:00

Yahoo, back in SLS today with my dick taking over the thinking again.But luckily only buy a vantec UV fan for my guardian's side panel.Move the current dimmer fan to the rear exhaust, while the new fan take over the side panel.While replacing the side panel, the metal grill meant to reduce dust scratch the bloody pixie glass!!
ZOMG NOOO.MY NEW TECH PORN IS RUINED!!=.=
Dont think my camera could show the difference, but this new UV fan is able to light up the pixie glass while keeping the light polution to an acceptable level.

Guardian 921 review

2009-04-19T01:43:00.006+08:00

Overall-8/10

Look-8/10
Good
-every gamer wet dream
Fugly
-side panel expose HDD tray and that ugly bunch of wires
-power button too small
-default side led fan too bloody bright to my liking

Construction
Good
-all 3 12cm fan included
-front panel construction is marvelous
-E SATA connection available
-water cooling friendly
Fugly
-transparent side panel feels brittle

Installation-8/10
Good
-mostly toolest installation
-convinent HDD installation
Fugly
-wire management a nightmare
-difficuly access to front fan
-living hell just to keep the 3 temperature probe in place
-manual doesnt explain anything USEFUL at all...

Installation is pretty straight forward, pretty spacious to work with but a long gpu may block 2 of the 3.5" slot.HDD installation isnt as pleasant as the cable managent is hell and a transparent side panel showing the mess isnt helping.Changing of front intake fan requires removal of the HDD cage and thus mess up my wires AGAIN.But those that swap HDD often and dont give a damn about fugly wires sticking out from your beloved tech porn gonna love this design. Decided to change the side panel intake fan as the LED is so bright i couldnt sleep with my PC running.The pixie glass is poorly attached to the metal panel and feels brittle by gently touching it.However changing the side fan is a breeze as they are attached by push pins which is easy to remove and reattached.Having replace the bright LED fan with my old UV fan but now its too dim to my liking, so i probably going to hunt for a new fan soon.This casing features temperature display using 3 physical temperature probes.Pretty neat feature, but getting them to stick where you want it is a pain in the ass.Attach them to my cpu, chipset and graphics card's heatsink to get a rough idea on the temperature on their exhaust. Display on a lcd screen at the top, which look damn bad ass if you ask me.
A casing that sure to turn heads and make those that buy PC from dell and other OEM drool due to its sleek design and cool lighting.The built quality definetly isnt up to some enthusiast standards, but for its reasonable price, i m satisfied with it.

OMG look at the HDD area. I M GONNA TEAR MY HAIR OFF IF I LOOK AT IT ANY LONGER

looking at the front panel now so i can stop pulling my hair...

Default led fan

using my old UV fan

Upgrading PSU and casing

2009-04-19T01:24:00.007+08:00

Recently my gpu start acting weird and randomly boot up with half the performance level.Decided to change my 500w PSU to prepare for further rig upgrade and suspect my aging PSU no longer able to provide enough juice to my G92.Since i m changing my PSu why not get a new casing too right?
Lol, just a stupid reason to spend on a casing i have been eyeing for quite some time,but heck, since i think with my dick when i m in SLS so forget it.Have been drooling over NZXT lexa blackline for quite awhile but after realize its too tall for my work desk, i search for my next love, NZXT guardian 921.Decided to choose ANdyson F650 for my next PSU as i dont think i will be running dual GPU setup in the nearest future, and it has 80plus efficiency at reasonable price.I know it sounds like a fucked up china exploding powersupply, but it actually a contracting company that make PSU for other wellknown brand like BFG.Both casing and PSU is 130SGD each will is 260SGD for both and actually 65% of my NS allowance.Luckily i have some savings before i become a slave of the government, but its running rather dry after 7 months in slavery and i m crazy over the new RV790...
Anyway my gpu started working great again after upgrading to Andyson f650, and hopefully it stays that way before a non reference HD4890 is released so i can finally clock to 1ghz on gpu =p

Andyson F650

NZXT guardian 921

Up anad running!

Fallout 3:Anchorage review

2009-03-30T21:44:00.010+08:00

Overall - 8/10
Yahoo, its snowing in fallout 3!!

Gameplay - 8/10
Good
-refreshing change of gameplay apart from the original fallout3
-feature the war before the nuclear fallout
-great sense of humor
Fugly
-Playtime too short even thought this is a DLC
-Cant play anchorage again unless you create a new game or have a backup save file

Visuals - 7/10
Good
-anything but dusty waste land is welcome is fallout3
Fugly
-All the flaws found on original fallout3 engine still caries over

A game featuring a game simulation within it, and poking fun at the very genre?IMBA sidekick, instant disappearing corpse, visible area barrier, stupid looking health and ammo dispenser and dialogue options telling the AI that they are actually living in a simulation?OMGWTFBBQROFLCOPTOR!!
No i m not trying to be sacarstic at criticizing the game flaws, but it is actually a intended feature to make the player to laugh at themself playing the exact same type of flaws ridden simulations while your main character is whinning why the fuck he/she has to go through such hell.Humor aside, the visual change drastically is like from a barren sandy waste land of the totally annihilated iran to beautiful snowing christmas in russia.Ok you get the idea. After depleting more than 40 hours of my life on fallout3 and still counting as i still cant bare to complete its main story line as the game would end and my life would be meaningless, Anchorage DLC keeps things interesting after you have massacre so many cities, the only populated town is the ten penny tower...
As you already know, this is about a simulation, and its regarding the war on alaska before the nukes start falling like candies.Instead of our beloved mother russia, father peasants of china is taking the war to uncle sam.And of course, its up to you, the non existant guy that pop up from thin air to stop them.Take down the 3 massive orbital cannon like artillery and you will be brought to a american general so you can persuadehim that he is in a simulation and why he souldnt be so serious about this war.Obviously he is programmed to ignore you and give you the order to kill those peasant strongholds anyway, so there you go.Promotion to an officer with no fatter payroll and needs to take out 3 more poorly guarded encampment filled with some cool made in china armor that fails epically.In this simulation, ammo and health is extremely abundant allowing you to blaze through in 2 hours time and you will be rewarded...with gears in the real world!
OMG, oops. The real world is still a post apocalyptic simulation called, fallout3...NOOOOO!!!!

Bla bla bla...

All right maybe a little too cold, so lets warm up with some mini nukes...

Commissar wannabe...wheres your imperial guards dude?

Dawn of war 2 review

2009-03-01T01:19:00.009+08:00

Overall-9/10
No dawn of war is complete without orbital cannon.

Gameplay-9/10
Good
-engaging singleplayer campaign with rpg element
-skirmish mode using tweaked company of heroes gameplay
-fully destructable world
-4 races played out entirely differently
Fugly
-no chaos?!!
-campaign only space marine

Visuals-10/10
Good
-dawn of war never looks this good
-fucking efficient
Fugly
-really nothing to complain about

It took them long enough,but it happened.For relic to upgrade Dawn of war visual engine and releasing its sequel.Rather than just sticking to the formula, relic tweaked almost every aspect of dawn of war gameplay.
An entirely new campaign concept never seen before in any RTS.A beautiful mixture of RTS and RPG,bleed together to make spilling blood with blood raven chapter ever so fun and addictive.Moving from battle to battle using the campaign map first used by dawn of war soulstorm, you could choose to fight the main storyline or pursue your own personal goals.Every mission would have a known wargear reward, while killing bosses or even normal xenos would have a chance for wargear to drop.These wargear have level and rarity with stats and special buffs that reminds you of world of warcraft.Every unit can level up to a limit of 20, each level allow investing 2 point on a stats system to customise your space marine to your fullest desire.However, only space marine is playable in the campaign and i hope more races will be added in further expansion.
Skirmish battle is now even more simplified without the need to build any structures at all. All construction and research is handled by your HQ, emphasizing now on strategic battles.Capturing different strategic points will give you different resources required to churn out units.The 4 races each has 3 heroes, choosing them at the start of the game will give you different ability to suit different playing styles.Furthermore, all races already played out differently from each other in the first place, adding these 3 unique command units create huge amount of variety in the battleground.Worth mentioning is the destructable world, which work great with the cover system.Destroying a cover used by an enemy may make your unit no where to hide later during the battle.
Powering this beast is an upgraded company of heroes visual engine, with obscene amount of shaders and post processing but somehow still able to run beautifully on an average system.
This game really up the ante on RTS and prove those twitchy fingers FPS fanatics that RTS genre is far from dead.Whether you love or loath warhammer 4000 universe, this game is probably one of the most enjoyable RTS title to bless PC this year.

OMG Eldar and Human sharing the same power point??!!

Burn the faithful.Kill the innocent.

LFG sunwell with space marine plox.

MG GAT-X105 STRIKE + IWSP

2009-01-26T15:49:00.018+08:00

One fine day, prior to chinese new year, i stare up at my gunpla display and mumbled..."OMFG I DONT HAVE A STRIKE GUNDAM!!"
The main machine fighting in gundam seed while the anime is at its peak.No instangib enemies, No overpowered gundam and the good guys is cornered and on the run.Started out as a powerful hardware with fucked up OS written by Microsoft, you see this metallic duckling transform into a swan with some help of open source goodness.
Thats when i get all sexcited to see this classic unit docked with a new striker pack,IWSP.If not mistaken this striker pack is introduce in the fail series called gundam seed destiny but as long as it looks good, who gives a fuck.And so i rush down to sunshine plaza on CNY eve to satisfy my horny fingers during this long holiday ahead.
Assembling Strike main unit is exactly the same as previous MG strike releases, with some minor changes to the color to its chest.Desperately needs paneling to get its facial details out but i doesnt have any gunpla pen and i doesnt want to just stare at it throught the long lonely holiday, so i assemble it anyway.The IWSP unit is huge and would make the strike to lean backward due to its weight, therefore a display stand is a must.Luckily its included in the package but the stand isnt as sturdy as the stands you purchased seperately.Its engine intake is also disappointing as painting is requird.
Other than that it is a rather magnificent gunpla to behold without painting as long as you dont look close enough...

Strike Gundam with 57mm rifle

Strike with Integrated Weapons Striker Pack

As you see something is missing! Thats panel lining!Part that benefit most is obviously the head, followed by weapons.MG Strike main unit have pretty much all the detail you can ask for,so minimal improvement.IWSP came a huge challenge,entirely giving up working on the engine intake/exhaust due to complexity and hard to reach area.
While dismantling the strike for paneling, i take this opportunity to decal the model with more detail and it looka notch better than it previously is.^^

weapons

I think i will slim down carrying such heavy backpack...

Grand Slam babe!

I m IMBA...

Mini anti ship sword =/

The last defense...Boomerang~

Red alert 3 review

2008-12-06T20:14:00.008+08:00

Overall-6/10
One word: FUGLY

Gameplay-7/10
Good
-improved naval combat
-good old hot air balloon assaulting statue of liberty
-new fraction called japan
-all 3 classes played out differently
Fugly
-gameplay still rather unbalance
-camera distance remains too close
-no upgrades for units or structures
-omfg mummy wheres my nuke?!
-FMV getting boring and repeatitive

Visuals-6/10
Good
-Great water shaders
-improved particles effect
Fugly
-art design leaned on the "cute" side -.-
-selected units have a ugly outline
-pathetic infantry models
-performance is not optimised

Before the arrival of World in conflict, red alert universe is one of the best games about alternate history of the cold war.Filled with time machines, tesla troopers and war dolphins,it lies more to the sci fic side compared to the more realistic world in conflict.Another time travel from the soviet which screwed up the world, once again, and caused the rise of the rising sun to be the next superpower.There isnt nuke or weather control machine anymore since they killed einstein in their little field trip, which really sux.
The gameplay is still generally unchanged from the command&conquer but with enhanced naval combat system, which is sorely lacking in other games too.Lots of land units have amphibious capabilities and you have the choice to bulit your bases entirely on water. But it feels as if the developers spent too much time improving naval combat that they forgot about land and sea afterall.The new fraction japan, have tranformable mecha units which proved versatile and deadly, giving a totally different play style compared to the other fractions.The camera angle remain as close as the previous C&C games which is depressing and cause the air units to look as if they are flying just above the buildings only.The removal of upgrades for units and bulidings also caused the game to become a earn money and spam units affair.
Visually, it seems the developers have neglected the land too.However the water shader have been totally upgraded with better reflection, refraction and ripples.Red alert 3 looks kidish and have a ugly solid color glow when you selct your units or buildings.Not to mention the bad infantry models and generally improportionate.In fact, other than the sea, the engine actually took a step back, rather than an improvement from tiberian war.Team fortress 2 seems to have a success in making a cute looking game from the aging source engine but red alert 3 failed in mimicking it.
Although it contains some innovation which i hope stay with all other upcoming command&conquer series, but i feel this game is rushed to meet the hectic deadline from EA games.It simply look as if EA is desperate to make some profit and turn to the red alert universe for some milking.After several years of waiting as a red alert fan, this is just plain disappointing...

Sink you fishes!

Naval combat

Dont you miss tesla coils?

Need for speed Undercover review

2008-11-24T16:55:00.006+08:00

Overall- 1/10
Racing SIM at its worst

Gameplay - 2/10
Good
-police chase is back
-flawless controls with rumblepad2
Fugly
-Open world exploration is bullshit here
-wheelman level is a joke
-Car controls is unnatural
-FMV is just for showing some babe skin

Visuals-0/10
Good
-NONE!
Fugly
-Lots of pop up and glitches
-Bad frame rate
-Horrible car rendering
-Uses post processing too sparingly to try cover its flaws
-no dynamic weather nor day/night system
-feels like driving in a dead city

One of the greatest most popular racing titles speeding down the garbage chute.Very rare does gaming become a chore and you rather kill it and go to sleep in less than 10 minutes.NFS undercover is that game.With a sour taste left from the previous NFS Prostreet, this game is just a sour warhead to make things worst.
Its mechanics and graphics sux so much there is no point introducing and criticizing any longer.Simply, just avoid this game like plague and play the other great titles released recently.

Did the graphics just become uglier than it predecessor?

Spore review

2008-10-27T01:24:00.011+08:00

Overall-7/10
Lets get in and start invading babe!

Gameplay-8/10
Good
-5 stages to work your little species toward galatic domination
-5 stages played out differently with totally different but sensible objective
-huge customisation options that is only limited by your creativity
-ambitious game
-great replayability
Fugly
-space stage is draggy and repetitive
-inconsistent control between stages

Visuals-7/10
Good
-crazy detail on your custom little creations
-bright and sharp visuals
Fugly
-no ingame vsync , AA and AF settings

Its the holy grail for SIMS genre fetish out there, where you control every aspect of how your species dominate the universe.I am never a SIM lover,but this game is so ambitious and out of this world that i gave it a shot.And it is a really refreshing experience and live up to its hype and promise.
Games start with a asteroid crashing into earth and that piece of thrash miraculous carried building blocks for live.And you are that guy behind the bible of your new species, and led them to galatic domination in the glory of your name.Starting out as single organism in the sea consuming food to mate and grow, to hopefully get enough DNA to grow a leg and conquer the lands.After which, you entered creature stage, where you lead continue to eat more food but in packs of your own species.Since growing more legs isnt gonna make any real progression, your holiness decides to nurture the brain with these new DNA.To which , a certan point where your species become a sentient being to preach your name in the tribal mode. Unfortunately, a new religion demoting you to a mere prophet emerged, so you called for holy war to annihilate those infidels and unite the species again in your holy name. Of course, it failed and those pests exist even as your choosen ones advance to civilisation stage.And so war break loose till all the infidels got burn to hell with your glorious nuclear missles.Thinking everlasting peace have finally come to your promised land, discovery of aliens ruined your little naive dream.And so you lead your little mindless crusaders till star wars episode XXIII.Of course, u may want to be a birdman and believe in protoculture, using singing to dominate the universe in peace...
Being such a ambitious game and a pioneer in pushing SIMS to such absurb level, is of course filled with some flaws.DRM, bugs, inconsistent control scheme and poor space stage design really make the experience rather sour initially.But if you can forgive these mistakes, this is one creative game with almost limitless replayability and hellishly addictive.And hell, this statement coming from a trigger happy ADHD guy with rig powerful enough to churn out pixels for crysis, really is a complement.

No..You cant eat apples yet

Ok..lets start eating that apple as planned shall we?

The price of eating that apple

Crysis warhead review

2008-10-26T00:01:00.010+08:00

Overall-8/10
Freeze babe freezeeeee~

Gameplay-6/10
Good
-sandbox system
-more aggressive action
-better AI system for aliens
-new aliens weaponary to fear from
Fugly
-Singleplayer too short
-Story as crappy as ever

Visuals-9/10
Good
-The best gaming renderer just got better
-new interesting locations
-No performance degradion from previous cry engine2
Fugly
-hardware requirement still rather steep
-some visual bugs still exist

Crysis failed in the story department, and warhead isnt gonna change that anytime soon.Although it make an infant step in the right direction, its best to treat it as a mindless futuristic warshooter with tech-demo like visuals.
The infantry enemy still behave similarly, although they now spam in larger waves now to keep your trigger happy fingers occupied.But the once boring aliens where you wonder how the fuck those puny brains actually thought of conquering earth,have luckily, became a little more intelligent.Those elite suicide bomber division from Allah have finally learn their lessons in the sphere with Nomad and have reprogram their frozen thinking cans to create a more tatical approach with Pyscho this time round.Adding to the mix is freeze beam,shield generator and artillery in desperation to prevent their inevitable defeat, as intended by the great Yerli vi Britannia.
The world too have been reshape and improve by the God-emperor, with better particle system,lighting post processing and lesser lag from intense visual overload.With special travel passes issued to you for a visit to swamps, frozen aircraft carrier and the usual forrest trekking.But of course, even a god is not perfect, some visual bugs from previous cry engine 2 still remains.Hardware requirement is still rather steep for steady market penetration to DPRK and PRC, and recently to a certain extent, USA too.
So even with its cheap retail price for crysis warhead, only a few corrupted bankers and officials could ever enjoy it in full glory on a 30incher.ALL HAIL YERLI!!

The day after the day before

The day before tomorrow

The day after tomorrow

Crysis Warhead first impression

2008-09-28T11:12:00.005+08:00

Getting exiled into a government funded forest resort is bad enough.When i got out of it after 14 days of imprisonment, i quickly found myself ended up in a similar resort again.But of course this resort is different.Fully funded by KPA and have the blessing of Kim jung il.With 1 million man strong of meat shields, nanosuit, no 7 years DB for misfires,dont have to clean your rifle and best of all you are not a fucking recruit...
Doesnt have much time on hand but the first run are impressive.No more washed down dx9 mode where you have to enable its full feature using configuration files.Many of the eye candy have been improved significantly. Better sunshaft, more natural post processing, realistic particles and explosions, whats best, its remain absolutely as playable as the original crysis.
The action is great, with a much better balance of action and force you to use your nanosuit to its limit on the fly.With those slow and boring procedure i went through in handling firearms at Singapore arms forces, obvious i chose to rush head on into enemy fortification and blow the hell out of everything here.The enemy contact is much frequent than in crysis which keep the action going non stop.But the story line still isnt as good as COD4 but is still a great improvement over the original.
Unable to reach the finish line with the limited time i have now...See you next weekend!

better post processing on the lightings

Better particle system

MY BUNK!!!

Flatout Ultimate Carnage review

2008-09-07T01:45:00.004+08:00

Overall-7/10

Gameplay-8/10
Good
-Healthy balance of arcade vs realism
-Derby mode is hell lot of fun
-Interesting racing locations
Fugly
-Horrible default control for gamepads
-Unable to change looks for your car
-you always start at last position is singleplayer mode
-total lack of a plot in singleplayer

Visuals-7/10
Good
-Perform rather efficiently
-Major upgrade from its previous version
Fugly
-Looks pretty bad against GRID
-unrealistc car destruction model

Didnt play Flatout2 or any of its predecessors, but looking from some screenshots, this is indeed a massive visual update to bring it on par with the big guns.
Unlike the realistic GRID, this offer a more arcade like action racing, where killing your driver simply respawn you in the track in no time.ALthough you do get killed permanently from the race, its is barely possible unless your opponent intentionally tries to crush you.Which of course leads to me pulling off pervetic stunts in impossible driving tracks, ranging from plane junk yards to shopping mall.
And there is the derby mode, which objective is to kill every other driver in a deathmatch like map.Although it get boring and repetitive after a few matches, you will still return for more another day to taste this new innovative and brutal way of driving.There is also the stunt mode, which is pretty lame and forgetable so i will skip on explaining it.
Since i play it on a rumblepad2, the driving is pleasant and makes me crave for burnout on pc even more.And this will probably satisfy your thirst for road rage for alittle while waiting for burnout hit pc this christmas season.Theres some complain of this game being just a cosmetic upgrade for FLatout2, but i couldnt testify this statement since this is the first game i played in this franchise.Great for some explosive mindless driving, but if you are about to go for driving test tomorrow, i suggest you play GRID.

Is it me , or the race track looks like a di.........

Not your normal racing game in derby mode...

Average visuals

Geforce accelerated PhysX

2008-08-13T22:54:00.007+08:00

I always know PhysX hardware would fail, and of course it did.Physics processing core on a PCI interface? HELL NO.It ended up hoping to be purchased by some big companies as its not doing well, which nvidia eventually did.Nvidia purchasing PhysX promised acceleration using its own Geforce GPU using CUDA.Which is a good news to me, even i hate PhysX religiously and dont think GPU should be doing anything else other than churning out pixels during gaming.But who would complain when new features come knocking at your doorstep with a simple driver upgrade?
So i decided to give it a run,checking out its performance and experiencing physX capabilites. Come in at a hefty 100MB driver installation package, which include forceware 177.84 and physx driver 8.07,installation when well for me even though many reported problems.Even though GPU is the fastest component in your enitre PC, sharing physics and pixels crunching doesnt look like a good idea to me.

3Dmark Vantage
HIGH
No physX-6.86 steps , 100% cpu cycle
PhysX-103.57steps , 80% cpu cycle

15x performance against a dual core allendale with previous generation card is sure impressive for nvidia.But the cpu cycle is very troubling.Since this test is purely on physics caculation, and who take care off the physics? GPU. So why 80% cpu cycle?Rendering the simple low resolution planes flying around? Never. So 2 simple theories.GPU acclerated PhysX, which is currently done through CUDA has a high CPU overhead. Or Nvidia make BOTH cpu and gpu handle the physics caculation together to get a higher score,which is highly possible IF they have the capability to do so, since they are "VERY" honest for past few years...

UT3 max setting at 1680x1050
Heatray map
No physX-51fps AVG , 15second loading
PhysX-27fps AVG , 59second loading

Framerate took a big drop which is expected since pixels and physics is processed on my 1 and only 8800gt,but the loading time sure look depressing.PhysX create a constant irritating barrage of ice hail which in no way makes the experience more realistic.Noticed some extra destructible objects but still doesnt impress me at ALL.Tried the other 2 PhysX enabled maps in UT3 , nothing really impressive to make me come back for more.But PhysX promised something current CPU couldnt achieve, cloth stimulation.
So i downloaded a small little demo call nurien at its alpha stage.The cloth physics is extremely advance compare to current physics implemented in game with models' clothes moving according to the wearers' movement,although it still look rather unnatural.With the demo only able to run at 1024x768, the average frame rate is 35FPS and the loading is a hair-pulling 2 minutes.Of course one can argue its a alpha build,but performance sure dont look good at the moment.
Using your old graphics card in SLI to caculate PhysX seperatly may be a good idea, but with its not as rosy as nvidia have hope for.Firstly, i does not and will not buy a nvidia motherboard, since any NForce is technically inferior to its competitors in every aspect.Second, what PhysX currently offers doesnt worth the extra power consumption.Pushing my GPU to produce the most photo realistic visuals is my goal rather than extremely realistic physics, and i think many gamers have similar mindset.
Finally,I am not impressed by PhysX at all, and think physics should be caculated by CPU ,since most games barely utilised beyond the second core while quad core CPU have become mainstream.But i still support what nvidia is doing, as long as they keep it free of charge throughout its lifetime.

I dont think ths tornado worth 20 fps..

Looking foward to physX accelerated boobs anyone?

Vista x64 SP1 review

2008-07-31T16:02:00.008+08:00

Overall-6/10
Pro
-easier network setup
-aero interface
-able to turn on AHCI after installation
-improved windows update
-shadow volume
-better security
-DX10?
-fast shutdown(usually)
Fugly
-some hardware problem still exist
-useless services just got more...
-unsigned driver limitations
-dont even think about it without 4gb ram
-lots of tweaking to be done
-defrag program just got worst
-start menu difficult to navigate
-superfetch is USELESS
-high CPU cycle while playing songs due to DRM
-wierd bug where shutdown takes 5 minutes
-bug where GUI is not refreshed properly

Congragulations microsoft.After 19 months, you finally make vista a "useable" OS for me.First, i must emphasize, vista have not brought any new feature that worth purchasing an upgrade.The time to tweak it to let it work with all hardware and software is a long and frustrating journey.At the end of the day, all you get is a cosmetically spice up OS.
Now lets get to what it matters,gaming.The performance drop from windows XP is non existance,but the memory consumption for the game application increased.That holds true for Directx9, but directx10 performance is still a massive drop compared to directx9 with no visual improvement.That is very bad indeed,since directx10 is suppose to improve efficency over directx9 as it uses unified shader,however after 1 year, the performance is still going south.Of course, time will tell who is at fault, may it be hardware vendor or microsoft,but to a consumer, its the performance that matters.Furthermore many considered vista just because of directx10 support, which make this new OS more unappealing than ever.
For memory consumption,its unsightly high.At up to 1.8gb memory conumption at desktop and after shutting down useless services, it still hover above 1gb.And here comes the super aggressive caching,superfetch.It created heavy HDD thrashing when u startup your PC and it doesnt offer any observable benefit over windows xp.Not to mention starting up applications that you doesnt use often cause a massive slow loading which shouldnt exist on a 4GB system.Furthermore, i have encounter out of memory situation once while running crysis 64bit.Of course, every new OS would ALWAYS consume more memory, but this is way too bloated.In fact i would suggest 4GB as minimum system requirement for running vista and the sweetspot should be 8GB or more.
The extra features are Aero interface,which isnt truely essential.Improved security is much welcomed and have pretty much proven since the security vulnerabe alert is considerably lower than windows xp,in fact no major security breach is yet to be announce as of yet.Other than that, no other new features is visible to the end user, which is hard to justify the high cost of vista.
In conclusion, dont waste money upgrade to vista.If it comes with your new system, and doesnt have the choice to downgrade to XP, its still a decent OS,if you have the memory to let it consume of course.And lastly avoid Ultimate edition as plague, their ultimate "only" features is a total joke...

Vista ultimate x64 sp1 initial impression

2008-07-17T23:11:00.009+08:00

To start off with, vista is 18 month old and it still sux, no doubt about it.Why do i install it when it sucks?Because i m curious what sp1 have done to this fail product.FYI, windows xp is just like vista at its release, maybe even worst, because of its barrage of security breach at its infancy.But with all the infinite amount of patches and 3 service packs, XP have become the dominant OS it is now.And although i dont want to like it, but i believe vista will be like XP few year down the raod.
The setup is a breeze, it detected and automatically connect to my isp, although how the hell it gets my login info is beyond me.But once i entered the desktop itself, its a hellhole once again...

Problem-Display stuck at 1280x1024
Blame-Microsoft and Samsung
Issue-Many monitors,even recent models does not come with proper EDID.EDID is a information stored in the monitor to tell the OS what resolution and frequency it can operate.In windows xp, most EDID can be ignored by installing monitor drivers.But in vista, micorosft only allow EDID as a reference and thus, the driver method no longer work.Since EDID is stored in a ROM, editing it is difficult, comes with high risk and needs a paid program to get the job done.So in my case, my 22" widescreen is flashed with a EDID that states that it only support up to 1280x1024, so no matter what you do to your device manager and display driver, i will not get my native 1680x1050 resolution.
Solution-Of course if you know how to dump, edit and flash EDID go ahead, its the best solution to this problem.For those who dont,or want a less risky approach, you can cut off the EDID transmission pin from your DVI cable.

Problem-Peerguardian doesnt run(AGAIN!!)
Blame-Microsoft
Issue-Driver protection x64 version from microsoft prevent peerguardian driver to load.
Solution-Boot up everytime manually changing to disable driver signature enforcement mode or use Readydriver plus

Problem-Wierd color when viewing photo
Blame-Samsung
Issue-Viewing photos in any and every program produce a yellowish effect applied to the entire screen.It is caused by faulty color profile installed together with samsung monitor driver.
Solution-Control Panel>Personalization>Display settings>Advance Settings>Color Management>Add sRGB IEC61966-2.1>set new profile as default>check use my setting for this device>reboot.

Thats about it.Since this is the thrid time i tested vista, 3 issues is HELL lot of improvement although the EDID problem almost broke my sanity while i struggle to solve the problem with my LCD runing at a horrible 1024x768 resolution.
My main concern like network bugs and slow HDD transfer are gone.The performance drop on GPU is less significant as long as you stay clear from dx10.All of my apps didnt have compatability issues at all, which show the maturation of vista, finally...
I switched on Superfetch features too, since offing it doesnt prevent vista from caching up hideous amount of free RAM.The used RAM is high, and flactuate MASSIVELY at 1.5 to 2gb at desktop and a crysis x64 make the total system consumption soar close to my 4gb RAM.So unless i step upon a new bug that is unfixable and prevent me from using my system convinently, vista may finally become my main OS after all, after 3rd try of course and 18 months...

Devil May Cry 4 review

2008-07-12T16:50:00.007+08:00

Overall-8/10

Gameplay-8/10
Good
-non stop stylish action
-lots of replay value
-zomfg, dark knight mode mayhem
-turbo mode for ~2x speed action
-boss fight ftw
-sacarstic jokes from dante
Fugly
-bad navigation in menu
-boss specific combo from nero alittle overpowered
-Bad camera angles
-long loading breaks the momentum of this fast action game

Visuals-9/10
Good
-Great cutscenes
-stylish animation
-performs extremely great,max setting at 4x AA, and never drop from the v.sync cap
Fugly
-ingame cutscene much lesser quality than cutscene
-load,load,more loading!

All right.My confession, i have not played any prior DMC at all.So i m not a dante fan, noob at the weird keyboard control for such a fast console action and i seriously do not know how this 4th sequel compare to its predecessors.
Style.Thats the first obvious and only thing i notice in this game.Average storyline, average controls, bad loading, bad camera angles but the stylish action make me come back for more despite its irritating flaws.You get to play 2 characters, dante and nero.I did my homework and know nero is new to the franchise, while dante is the old dick in the block.Since i have no emotional attachment to the old dick, i actually prefer the new comer more.They look surprisingly similar which cause me to be confused at the start of the game with fast action cutscenes.Of course i didnt choose nero because hes younger, but the devil grip. Unlike Dante which is a evade/slash/shoot affair,nero offer some nice opportunites to use the devil grip to pull yourself towards/behind the enemy, or throw enemy specific specials which you must figure it out yourself.It make this rather repetitious gameplay some life.
Visually, its impressive for the little resources it uses.I place my bet its a upgraded Lost planet engine as they bear similarities, minus the disgusting motion blur and overbright.Dark knight mode, which is unlocked after completing the game once, push you to the edge of sanity by giving you more than 10x the amount of enemies.And surprisingly , my 1 generation old rig can still hold up the hellish amount of polygons charging towards my ass.
Although its dumb, and all you need is fast reflexes to beat this game, its still worth it.Its also a good example how to port console games.Within the time lag, capcom added new modes and improved graphic engine for the pc version.With the high replayability nature of this game, you can be assured that you wont regret buying this game.

Hi i m here to show my boobs and will not contribute to the story line.

You will love cutscenes more than you love this game.

Demon have positron cannon?? @.@

I am an angel.Get your filty blade of me!

Alright.Since you doesnt like my blade, i shall use yours.

Dark knight mode depression

Lost Planet Colonies review

2008-07-06T15:32:00.003+08:00

Overall-5/10

Gameplay-5/10
Good
-non stop adrenaline arcade action
-arcade type boss fight
-T-eng is a great concept
-mech action ftw
Fugly
-if you cant find the weakness of the boss, you will be raped for hours till you find it
-mindless killing and action get boring over sometime
-cutscenes too long?
-not worth getting at all if you have the original Lost planet

Visuals-7/10
Good
-look pretty good even though its an old engine
-impressive explosions and snow particle
Fugly
-motion blur looks bad in many situations
-HDR overbright effect is set too high
-texture arent sharp when seen closeup
-when u have lots of cutscenes, u better do facial expression right...

A re-release of Lost planet port with some extra game modes which imo, should have been present in the original game package.Or at the very least, released as a free patch, not re-release it as a platinum edition or whatever fuck they call it.But for someone that have not tried Lost planet before, it may be quite interesting game to pick up in such a boring month with no AAA releases...
Background for story is the first colonised planet by humans being resisted by local bugs and got push back real hard due to large number of bug phobia in their space marines.Starts out where you get bash real hard on the head by some green bug,get knock unconscious and have your dad killed by some other mysterious events.Conveniently, you become some amnesia dude wondering in snowy waste land picked up by yuri from mother russia.Well, with yuri being seperated from his mind control hat and have grown some nice silver hair, trap far away from motherland , you can bet that hes real pissed.So with angry cockroaches,commies running wild on a new colonial planet, you get a nice mindless action game.Ok fine, i confess the commies part is my bullshit, i m having periodic red alert 3 illusion while writing this... XD
Since i cant talk about the story line as i will unconsciously write time travel machine from einstein into the fray lets talk about the gameplay.Although you have a life bar, it will be replenish automatically with T-ENG when you are hurt.But the catch is that your T-ENG will slowly deplete even without being leaded.Although you can earn T-ENG from fallen enemies and capturing points but its still insufficient if you proceed like you do in tatical shooters or u are just some cowards that camp kill AIs.So you get a nice arcade style game that encourage you to kamikaze from start to finish point.At every finish point, you be warmly welcomed by a boss that has its own characteristic and weakness.I prefer Akrid bosses as they are unique in its own ways and much harder to take down.Mech bosses are easy as you just watch from their actions before carrying out an attack, memorise, evade and spam him.
You get lots of cutscenes before and after a mission, thats tells you the story, but its facial engine is totally horrible compared to a 3 years old half life2 engine, which makes it pretty unenjoyable...
Its using a enigne which is more than a year old now, but it still render impressive visuals.In fact it has most of the technologies implemented in current engines but some of them isnt implemented properly.Mainly, the motion blur and HDR.HDR is the most irritating of the lot since the overbright makes some locations almost unplayable.And since its an arcade style game, it has linear progression and you can never find an alternate route to ease your searing eyes.Other than some weak textures here and there, this engine still gets the job done to give u a ratehr enjoyable experience most of the time.
As stated above, if you played the original Lost planet dont bother getting this no matter how hardcore and fanboy you are.Even you havent, which is like me, this game may ease your gaming itch while waiting for devil may cry 4 to be released on pc.

Chiou bu is always welcomed.

Sobx, why no golden crown with green eyes for mech designs...

I love spiders.

I love flies too.

MG RX-0 UNICORN

2008-06-24T18:22:00.036+08:00

Its a unicorn? A gundam? Its BOTH!!
Seen this gunpla lying around while trolling around sg, it caught my eye with its unique design but never considered getting it due to its high price. But after seeing this set for sale in hongkong for 60SGD? It utterly destroy my pefect record of not doing anymore gunpla for at least 2 years.
Building this is refreshing and really shows how far master grade gunpla have progressed, its complexity have surpassed everything i have built in the past.But the outcome is rather flimsy and its articulation is about the standard of a HG.Transformation is entirely different from previous gundam design but the flimsy design did hamper the experience as it is a squeaky affair and you seriously wouldnt want to do it often.But looks wise, it is god damn impressive with no need for paneling to bring out the details but do require little painting like bazooka ammo to bring out minor details if you are perfectionist.

Unicorn mode just after assembly

i cant believe i stick all the stickers...

Bought the unicorn stand to display aerial stance, but unicorn limited leg articulation becomes very obvious.

I m flying

Charge!!

Decided to do something stupid with my unicorn which is to have the right side in unicorn mode while the left side is destroyer mode.Working on unicorn is obviously a nightmare again which i must emphasize again and... AGAIN.Accidentally broke the bazooka's dock while attaching it to the backpack.Changed to the rifle instead but it still couldnt fit in entirely without using force. Having to glue back the bazooka the previous time i messed with it still leave some aftershock.But no matter how gentle i am with it, it still produce squeaky sound nontheless and some transformation process require some strength but it turn out the way i wanted luckily.

Yay i manage to glue back the bazooka handle...but it broke again anyway=.=

Thats something only a MG can do ^^

Previously i am reluctant to display my unicorn in destroyer mode due to the V fin of the expose gundam is using gold sticker to produce the color. With some additional paint left over from my previous work on Sinanju, i applied gold paint on the V fin and it looks horrific pretty. Below are some pics to show what my orgasm is all about.

Crap...Got to cut my nails before i book in

Blink blink

Sinanju spotted!

Engaging target!