Singaporean accent FTW!!

I was intrigued by an article in the Life section of the Straits Times today about the Singapore accent in a US video game, so I searched the net for the following 2 vids. It sounds pretty damn funny. Some people might find it as an embarrassment but I find it familiar and amusing and we should be proud that Singapore made it into an international game! It's funny because it sounds like my mum or the auntie from the chemistry lab way back in JC giving me a mission briefing or lecture in chemicals and evaporation. Oh and was I imagining things if somebody was trying to take a dig at the PAP with the Panau government? Keke.....anw I was hoping to hear "I will cruuuuush you like a cockroach!!" ala Masters of the Sea though. That would have been totally awesome!

Gameplay footage

L4D Trailer

Crazy trailer! New characters, new storyline, lots more action!

About console gaming

A friend asked me on recommendations to buy a console. Would it be a PS3, an XBox or a Wii? I have never had much experience on console gaming. The closest I got was having a SEGA MegaDrive back in the primary school days and playing Sonic the Hedgehog or spamming the buttons on Double Fury with my bro as we kicked some punk ass.

My personal opinion on purchase as follows:

PS3: Less gaming titles available, so unless you really wanna play specific games limited to the PS3 only (Metal Gear Solid 4 comes to mind), go for it! Also doubles up as the next gen DVD player...aka the Blu-Ray player

XBox: Definitely way more games on this console. It's by Microsoft, wat ya expect? Goes hand in hand with the Windows Live feature where there's quite a bit of exclusive online content to download

Wii: Ultimate family and party gaming console. Most of the games are kid friendly and a favourite for very casual gamers. Having a gathering with friends at a chalet or house party or trying to impress your date for an evening of clean gaming entertainment? Bring on the Wii!

Failing which, there is always another alternative as demonstrated in the video...

WWII renewed interest

Tried this game called Company of Heroes out of curiosity during one of the LAN parties as the guys wanted to try something new. And whenever we mean something new, it always has to be a game that all of us would be unfamiliar with, so that there would be no unfair advantage. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this RTS game which is so heavily based on military tactics. All of a sudden, terms like suppressive fire, flanking manoeuvres, artillery barrages and kill zones made more sense than it did in the army. Compared to the RTS of old where a popular strategy would be to amass large numbers of tanks to steam-roll over another player or large numbers of cheap early units to "rush" an opponent, COH limits this with different counters and limited resources. Totally satisfying to see a mediocre infantry man, armed with a Panzerschreck (big bad Nazi bazooka) and a good cover, giving hell to a bad-ass tank / tanks without infantry support. And have you ever wondered just how ridiculous it is in some RTS games for a vehicle to get blown apart only after numerous tank shots? Over here, all it takes is a well-placed anti-tank cannon to ruin your armoured forces. And best of all, it just takes a 3 man infantry crew to man it! Hurray infantry! (If you haven't guessed by now, my support for these mobile guys stems from me being in the infantry division previously) :p

Anw the game led to a renewed interest in the WWII genre as I read up further on the history and battles. (yep, I totally love history classes and particularly the WWII history back in secondary school. Always looked forward to one of those black and white war documentaries shown during lessons.) Re-watched Band of Brothers as I did not fully grasp alot of things back then when I first watched it. (For example, I did not know that episode 9 was, in a small way, a depiction of the Holocaust when the soldiers liberated a concentration camp. Always merely thought of it as an episode lacking in action, yet it was so full of emotion when I re-watched it. Must have been that visit to Auschwitz in Poland that made me appreciate it better now) My best memories of BoB when it first aired in Singapore was its coincidental showing on the weekends right before booking in to Tekong. Oh the noob recruit days 6 years ago! And so the show served as an adrenaline and morale boost before it was back to "chiong suah" in camp, well actually it was more of the action in the show. However, re-watching the series brought about greater curiosity in the battles and operations, and of course ideas of the balance between heroism in the common man with the violence and terror of a war, and eventually the Holocaust. What was refreshing was watching the view points of soldiers in the movie and eventually the actual veterans themselves in the aptly named documentary "We Stand Alone Together" that was never shown on TV.

Speaking of the Holocaust, also watched the Pianist and Schindler's List. Interestingly, these are movies I have heard that were great or won some award during the time they were made, but somehow never bothered or found the time to sit down and watch. Both tell a great and moving story, though I tend to empathise more with the lead in the Pianist as it is more of his personal story through those troubled times and thus more focused on the individual.

To end off, decided to put up some photos that I took in black and white during my summer trip to Auschwitz in Poland last year. Though I felt the impact would have been bigger if the camp was visited in the cold harsh winter, it was nevertheless a sobering and moving experience. To all the Holocaust deniers, I mean seriously...wtf?!? There's no way millions of Jews disappear without a trace of evidence and there's so much of it remaining despite efforts by the S.S to conceal their crimes. Whatever that goes on in their minds is beyond me. It is pure racism, simple as that.

Iron gate at the entrance of Auschwitz I with the motto Arbeit macht frei (Work brings freedom)...an ironic one for those imprisoned are doomed to a horrific fate


Beyond this lies the death wall where countless were lined up against the wall and shot






Electric perimeter fences

Fences lining the exterior of the much larger Auschwitz II (Birkenau) complex

Prisoners would arrive by rail through here and then either marked for extermination or forced labour


Remnants of a gas chamber. German forces in retreat tried to destroy and cover up any incriminating evidence

E3 Updates

Came across some pretty cool content from the E3. The sequel for Left 4 Dead coming out just barely a year after the first was released with loads more stuff. Damn they should make more campaigns and maps though. As for Star Wars, let's just say it's one of the more cooler lightsaber fight scenes I have watched. The time of the Old Republic is certainly a new point of interest and a milking cash cow for LucasArts in time to come. Heck I mean there's a whole 3000 years worth of timeline between the Old Republic and the present movies to fill, so that's where the ideas will start running wild here. Personally I've always thought that the story from the Old Republic timeline from the videogames were very much detailed and well fleshed out as compared to the recent movie trilogy.

Mama says pray harder!


Axe chopper!


Taking the frying pan to a whole new level....ownage!!


Matrix style jedi fight. How come everything seems wayyyy cooler 3000 years ago?!?

SC2 - Some commentary

Not really a fan of Starcraft, but I remember it as one of the games that my sec. sch classmates went crazy over. Who could ever forget the times when we had a computer lab for our classroom, and after lessons most of the class was hooked up to the game, XK the pro gamer, WW and ZY screaming "zergling rush!" while others were curious spectators egging the battle on. The comp lab was practically our safe haven.

Anw just kinda amazed that the gaming commentaries nowadays are pretty good and quite similar to those football commentaries. Actually makes a match more worth watching. Heck...I hear that in Korea, Starcraft matches are also broadcast onto the stadium screens complete with commentaries and fans at the stadium. That's how serious these players are.

Left 4K Dead

A surprising find. Somebody actually released an online Java game on Left 4 Dead that is like 4kb in size! Refreshingly innovative and to satisfy zombie fragging at home, but gimme the real stuff anytime instead!

http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4kd/

On the other hand, also found something really crappy for Left 4 Dead too. This was done by combining the various in-game voices for the characters (mainly Bill's) and then matched together. Pretty disturbing stuff!

Good ol' LAN-ing

After a series of mostly down and bummer events for the previous week, it was gr8 that I finally caught up with HH over dinner. This was followed with an overnight LAN marathon, with XK joining in our party, something which we used to do in our 4D days. Of course the sore difference is our gaming numbers weren't as large as they used to be (Damn I still can remember the times when half my class would crash the LAN shop in Coronation Plaza!) and it's so hard to play with friends nowadays (work commitment plus the idea that guys our age shldn't be doing this cos it's the world for teenagers!!). And rightly so cos it was army boys and kids who dominated the scene. But I really needed this break or any sort of break...perhaps to forget just how shitty, practical and troubled the real world is or maybe perhaps to re-live the good ol' days in sec. sch of carefree-ness that have long been lost.

Anw rantings aside, some crap stuff on that night. Firstly, I noticed there were quite a number of obese guys in the LAN shop, whom I swear are the perfect embodiment of Eric Cartman and the hard-core obese WoW player in the South Park episode of "Make Love, Not Warcraft"!! HH and I cldn't help but chuckle at that. A short clip to show what I mean...

Secondly, tried my hand in playing Red Alert 3. Always liked trying out new stuff at LAN centres! Crazy non-too-serious C&C fun as always expected from the franchise..


The other game that got us hooked was Left 4 Dead, this new recently released FPS which is incredibly satisfying and engaging. Definitely one of the best games I have tried in terms of multi-player online playing experience. (erm...exclude MMORPGS pls) And of course, who doesn't like blowing up zombies especially after watching movies like Dawn of the Dead and 28 Weeks Later?


A good review which accurately sums up my thoughts on the game

Total War!!!

My bro just got Medieval II Total War Gold Edition as it runs fairly smoothly on his laptop...been wanting to play this game and I highly recommend it..Love the combination of the strategic element upon a campaign map that resembles playing the boardgame "Risk" and a real-time strategic placement of troops upon the battlefield for simulation and warfare. To properly explain this, here's introducing a series of design diary clips from the designers themselves...

Cities, castles...it's a bit like Risk eh?


The importance of religion in Total War....elements that need to be micromanaged in the game...


Siege Warfare...the real-time strategy element kicks in here....


Introducing what comprises of a typical medieval army...


And now showing what happens on the open battlefield...continuing the real-time strategy element here....


The Britannia Campaign..(English, Scottish, Vikings, forts, castles, war museums...was so glad that I managed to experience all of it during my SEP :p)


The Crusades..reference this to the Kingdom of Heaven clip at the bottom...

Was brought into the Total War series by first starting on Rome Total War...and that led to an increased interest in Roman history (stuff like its society, military tactics) and that was why I was so excited when I actually got to go to Rome and Italy during my SEP trip. (slight digress :p) Interestingly, I also remembered how one of my JC classmates, Po-lung, would tell me so much about the Shogun and the predecessor Total War series too during our JC days...and I would go nodding my head and half-acknowledging his words (obviously I sounded totally sian and clueless to what he was talking about at that time!!!)......but had I played these games back in those days, I guess I would have appreciated more of his words.

The Total War series has been revolutionary in terms of gaming and bringing up interest in history. In fact, some interesting facts to share here...

1) The game engine for the strategy map was used in 2 series of TV programmes (Decisive Battles by the History Channel and Time Commanders by BBC2) where it was used to recreate famous battles on TV with certain fine-tunes by real military historians and academics to maximise history accuracy. These programmes are really interesting documentaries on their own.

2) Perhaps the most powerful effect has been the increased interest in military history, whether it is in the Roman times or the medieval times. So much so that even Hollywood came in with many big budget epic movies.....think Gladiator, Troy, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven and 300. Actually, Gladiator came in before all of these and the effect of increased interest in Roman and classical history was dubbed the "Gladiator Effect" by the New York Times. The Total War series happened to run through this time period and served to reinforce this interest.

And presenting the very defining moment in cinematic history from Gladiator....one of my favourite cinematic battles...the one that started the Gladiator Effect


Another favourite....the battle for Jerusalem in the Crusades...

Don't steal my car!!

Chanced upon this video feature for the Grand Theft Auto series which describes the influence of real-life cars on the car designs within the game franchise. Interesting....how I wish I can play GTA IV on my PC.....oh w8....my PC died on me.......sighz.....and it's not even released on the PC yet...

WoW...porn!!

Another clip that sent me laughing like siao...I mentioned about World of Warcraft (fondly referred to as WoW by many gamers) in a previous few posts....and now introducing.....the World of Whorecraft!!! Omg this is absolutely WTF again and appeals to the geekiest of the geeks who's seriously interested in watching elves "doing the dirty"!!

Check this out...and no this is not exactly a porno but a TV show for gaming that talks about it....but still must caution...

WARNING: This video is not suitable for minors and contain explicit,vulgar content that may offend....so unless you are of legal age and mature enough to deal with this shit, pls pls PLS don't watch if you feel offended.

I think the host's comments are seriously funny! Laughed as hard as those dudes on the show!! XD

Red Alert 3 = A wacky cast and game?!

The 100th post of my blog...gonna dedicate this to some gaming stuff that I came across recently..in case whoever's reading this blog is wondering, my aim is not only to keep a little journal entry of my mundane life, articulate my thoughts, but to also keep the blog alive by putting in stuff that I enjoy doing and checking out anything that looks interesting, crappy or anything nonsensical to me, and of course to update on my SEP travels (darn...when will I ever sit down to finish this?)

So I'm gonna comment a bit on this game that KW recently brought to my attention...Red Alert 3....OMG....the franchise has extended to the third installment liaoz! Not sure I am exactly too excited abt this...but the original first Red Alert was one of the first few games I played when it first came out 10 yrs ago...(that and the C&C original series) While gameplay was your usual strategy shit, the main attraction was the in-game FMVs which featured real acting by a cast to propel the story and drive home certain points (oh...like our base is being attacked!!...we need reinforcements down here tt kinda shit) But I always found them corny and seriously LOL and WTF at times....ok..most of the time.

Now this time...the corniness has upped several levels and I can't help but laugh myself off when I saw the latest trailers for Red Alert 3. Check these out to see what I mean..XD

Wow....to sum it up...

1) Einstein is electrocuted due to a time-travel attack by the Soviets (think it's gonna make his hair even more stand out!!)
2) Japanese running amok, Japanese units transforming tank to mecha (?!?)
3) Jenny McCarthy the former Playboy Playmate of the Year staring as Tanya the babe for the Allied side, together with yet another busty girl with a British accent
4) Gina Carana a real Muay Thai fighting star and Ivana Milicevic from Casino Royale for the Soviets (wow more cleavage shown yet again)
5) Kelly Hu for the Japs!! :p:p:p
6) Corny liners from the Allied commanders and possibly from each and every cast member (send the commies to their mummies!!!)....oh btw the guy who said that is the loud and mean newspaper editor from Spiderman!!
7) Straight-faced and deadpan Japanese actor who plays the Emperor (maybe they should have gotten Ken Watanabe to play this?)
8) Crazy cast of characters, obviously sponsored by the muscle gaming giant which is known as EA (usually puts up a good show and lotsa hype, but the end result may be a gameplay which isn't exactly too gr8)
9) Ultimate cheesy acting at work here!!!

Think this is gonna be one wacky, hilarious and corny game. Seriously WTF!!

Rise of the Lich King

Totally blown away by this cinematic....oh...I've always loved cinematics from Blizzard as well as their games. Right down from Warcraft to Diablo, their opening cinematic is always a piece of art and bound to excite.

FYI, I don't play World of Warcraft,think a MMORPG is a serious life-sucker and heavy investment (wastage?!) in time, but I have always loved the story of Warcraft, right down to its intricate details. That's why when ppl started buying Warcraft III to feed their DOTA playing habits, I felt that it was a bit of a pity that full justice was not made to the original core of the game.

Anw....not just the details of the trailer was exciting (the Lich King and the summoning of his Frost Wyrm), but most of all I loved the narration behind the trailer. The voice is that of Arthas' (aka the new Lich King) father
reminding him to be just to his people, yet the boy has fallen so far that he now takes his throne amongst the undead. Oh he killed his pa btw...tt in-game cinematic was gr8 too and was the turning point in the original WCIII. Oh just love the irony of the whole meaning behind this.