» 2008 » August

Looking back these years playing Second life, an online virtual reality game. Friends come and go, though I’ve gained a few more friends who initially were my customers. The only thing that is missing in my second life is I need to socialize more, I have to admit it plays a huge part in the game. That is also one reason why I don’t have too many friends in there. All I did and still am doing is login, build and logoff. By build, I mean building houses, stores, malls and bunkers you name them. I really love building in SL, because it allows me to release my imaginations through the use of software tools.

When I first started with no money, I didn’t have my own land and thus I didn’t have my own store. I had to rent from someone. The place was called Mobius Village, it drew my attention because my avatar name is Mobius Hashimoto, so it meant something to me. Not sure if it still exist though. Also the rent there was resonable so I had my little store there for about half a year or so. Then I found another place called Armory Island which, as you can guess, sells military related products and is the biggest place for your military needs. There is no rent but AI charges a 25% commission, which is somewhat steep. But with the traffic there, I thought it was worth it and its also good for exposing my products to more people. About a year had passed, my business was stable enough that it would cover the monthly land ownership fee as well as the premium membership fee. I decided, with the help of some friends, to buy my very own piece of land, its a 4096 sq feet of space, which was and still is more than enough to build a relatively spacious store. You have no idea what the feeling was like to own your first piece of virtual land!

So here I am, still building things and running my little business. Although I don’t build as much as I used to, my passion for building and this game overall is still as strong. Lately I’m just occupied with other things that I haven’t built for months until now.

If you are into virtual reality type of games. You should definitely give Second life a try. It is free so you have nothing to lose other than some of our first life. There are just many fun things to do there like clubbing/partying, building like me, or just socialize with others and play many different types of interesting mini games that are built by others in Second Life.

Time flies, its already been 2 years since I’ve joined Second Life. So I have decided to design and build a 2 year anniversary prefab. As usual, I tried different ideas and came up with this. Hope you guys like it!

Mobius

I just read an article on DailyTech and thought I should write my thoughts here. Its been known for a long time that some professional sports athletes use performance enhancing drugs. One recent accusation comes to mind is Roger Clemens, a famous Major League Baseball or MLB player who used to play for the Toronto Blue Jays (I’m from Toronto so that’s how I know him, not that I watch a lot of baseball though), using these drugs.

Back to pro gaming.

Whether its illegal drugs like marijuana, amphetamines or any other ones that I don’t know of, or legal ones such as caffeine pills or sodas. Even if it doesn’t “boost” your gaming skills while in effect, it is still harmful to one’s body. And if these drugs do prove to enhance gamers’ ability to play better then there is an unfair advantage to those that can afford these drugs. As mentioned in the DailyTech article, one immediate and obvious solution that comes to mind is drug testing. But this solution is very expensive to implement in the pro gaming industry.

If money is the problem for implementing this solution, should the Government get involved? This is public health related after all. Since gaming has become a profession, I believe it should be taken look into more seriously like any other business or profession.

I was going to wait til Friday (day off) to get a copy of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice from EB Games, I couldn’t wait and got it yesterday I have been waiting for an RPG game for my PlayStation 3 since I got it last November. Until Final Fantasy 13 comes out, which is hopefully end of this year, I would need some RPG to satisfy my RPG hunger til then. And what can suit me better than a Japanese anime style, level grinding RPG game? None except this game. Obviously I have not finished the game, and most likely I won’t in the foreseeable future. Here are my thoughts so far.

As mentioned, this is a RPG game and turn-based with 2D sprites with 3 camera modes (bird’s-eye view, zoomed in view and really zoomed in view). First thing I noticed about this game is the graphics, which is pretty outdated in my opinion. They remind me of an online RPG gamed called Ragnarok Online, which has been out since 2001 and still remains popular even after it started charging monthly fees instead of being free like in the beta period. This shows that a game can still be a considered a good game even without fancy graphics, a game with fancy graphics but with no game play value is still a bad game, well most of the time. Disgaea 3 is exactly the case, even though its graphics are outdated. Its game play more than made up for the short coming.

The game starts you off with your main character, a netherworld student from Maritsu Evil Academy called Mao, a son of the overlord in the Netherworld. You actually play on the evil side for once as oppose to other games where most of the time you are on the “good” side fighting off evil. Here’s the fun part, in the netherworld school, an honor student is a person who skips class and not doing homework as much as possible, whereas a delinquent is a person who acts the exact opposite. And as you can guess, Mao is an honor student. The story is ok, its more suited for teens since most of the conversations are pretty childish, which is ok because the characters are after all, kids. There are also humor here and there as well and some are pretty funny. There is also an option to skip any story telling and conversation between characters by pressing triangle button which is a huge plus since I don’t find the majority of the story interesting, at least not yet. You can also change the voice over from English back to Japanese, which is yet another big plus since it just feels different having English voice over.

  

Game play of this game is what made me want to buy this game right away as oppose to wait for a couple of months and let the price drop. The play value as well as replay value is amazing. For those of you that are into leveling up your characters, you can level them to level 1000 and each stage can be played repeatedly or you can just play through the game by clearing each level once. Since it is a turn-based game, you get to move and attack/use item and end the turn, then your enemies will do the same. A very noticable difference, or I should say improvement over any other turn-based games is that the enemies move all at once as oppose to one at a time which can be annoying. The game pace is fast even under normal speed setting. Your characters can counter attacks and enemies can do the same randomly, so you can see counter-counter-counter attacks for example. Characters, again enemies as well, can combine attacks and form combos and which also happen randomly. There are also monsters in the game and they can “magichange” which pretty much means morph into weapons and allow human/demon characters to wield them, another fun feature. I’m pretty sure there are other fun features as I play more, but as you can see, this game is packed with so many features. Oh and by the way, I look forward to my first million point damage!

Control is pretty standard and straight forward like any other similar games. You can rotate the map 360 degrees so you don’t miss anything and 3 different views mentioned above.

While I like this game a lot, there is one thing that really bothers me, the music. While the music is very upbeat, it gets boring and down to annoying if you remain in the same area or in the same battle for too long.

That’s all I got to tell you guys for now, I’m sure I have missed something but there are just too much to talk about and I need more time to digest. So if you are an anime fan and are into level grinding, you should really check this game out.

You might save some money by buying on ebay link. I saw some good deals there, even the limited addition version. I would buy games off ebay if there were more Canadian sellers, sending from the US is not worth it and is often more expensive than buying in local stores.

My first non tech related article.

I came to Toronto, Canada when I was one month shy of being 12. Back then, Toronto was a more affordable place to live in compare to now. I’m no expert in politics nor I know much about how our Government functions but with a ridiculous tax that will be effective on Monday September 1st as well as recent decision made by our Prime Minister Stephen Harper just make me think why do we keep on electing incompetent leaders to lead our city.

After the land transfer tax that became effective since Feb 1st of this year, we now have yet another new tax coming that will haunt us for as long as I can foresee. The new vehicle tax, which will be effective on September 1st will be applied to all personal vehicles only. The tax will charge motorists $60 for a car and $30 for a motorcycle every time a license plate has to be renewed. That is on top of $70 something dollars that we have to pay to renew our plates for one year. And you can’t just not pay it, no pay no plate renewed, simple as that. Those who submit for renewal before August 31st and are renewing for two years can escape the fee until 2010.

I just read the news today (August 27), that our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling for an election after being in the office for two and a half years. The first thing that comes to mind, with common sense, is that he is trying to walk away from all these troubles and difficulties that we are facing in Toronto. He stated he has trouble working with the opposition party and that if his office cannot be productive then people should elect someone that can. Yet another irresponsible statement in my opinion.

Finally, what was the point of reducing GST, that was barely noticeable when buying everyday needs? The GST reduction was quickly blanketed by all these taxes that were introduced this year. There was really no tax breaks at all, the government is basically taking some percentage here and put it elsewhere, if not adding more. Living in Toronto is getting so expensive nowadays along with the gas hikes (but I won’t discuss it here since its not just in Toronto, gas prices are rising everywhere). I feel unjust that we have to pay for all these taxes and the government is still having trouble balancing our budget, where did all our money go?

Thank you for hearing my rant and please feel free to correct me as I’m only writing based on what I see and how I feel.

Sony and Spanish based WiFi provider FON have joined forces to provide free WiFi access for PSP owners in Japan. Imagine surfing the net, watching streaming music and movies on the go! But in Japan only, which is somewhat expected since Japan has a history of keeping the goodies to themselves. For those lucky enough to be in Japan and own a PSP, they will also be able to download custom Dissidia: Final Fantasy themes which the game itself will be released in December. I wouldn’t have heard of a new Final Fantasy release if it wasn’t for this WiFi deal.

It would be great if this offer became available to us in North America, but chances are pretty slim in my opinion, at least it won’t be free. One reason is that Japan is much smaller than say, Canada, so setting up those hot spots is much easier and less costly. They are already setup in Japan which made the setup even easier. Its just a matter of integrating with each other’s system.

Although we will most likely not get this free WiFi access anytime soon. It is still good news to those living in Japan, again the Japanese always gets the goodies. Think I have one more reason to go to Japan since I have a Japanese version PSP.

At last, after such a long wait, I finally got my hands on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo. The demo starts you off with the young apprentice having a conversation with Darth Vader (I spelled it Dark Vader before, oops) and facial expression is top notch. Then you start the level inside a ship, no surprise there. You are presented with a bunch of containers right in front of you in which the auto aim will target one of them for you, you can also lock-on to a target. You get to dash, defend, the saber attack, jump and 3 forces – Force Lightning, Force Grip and Force Push. Force Grip is extremely fun. I spent the first 20 minutes just to play around with Force Grip, grabbing every object I could and just toss them around, it was that fun! The environment is very destructible, you can literally break the windows and shutters will be down to stop air from escaping or you can hit the wall and parts of it will break apart. Force Push is another fun force to play with, you will be using it to “open” large doors which I’m sure will take you awhile to get bored of. I have not used Force Ligtning in any special occasion except shocking and frying storm troopers. Almost forgot, you can also chain and discover new combo attacks as you progress.

  

Near the end of the demo, you get to go head to head with an AT-ST, it wil not be an easy task though! I almost died fighting it lol. You get to finish it by following a set of button clicks similar to Heavenly Sword. If you get it wrong you have to start over again, but its not a show stopper.

  

Graphics-wise, its just amazing, I have nothing negative to say, facial expression like the way the young apprentice talks is very realistic as well as special effects like explosions and things getting sucked out of a broken window. The character movement is also silky smooth and fluid! Control-wise and game play, being able to chain and discover new attack combo isn’t new. But given the 3 forces, you will have hours of fun chaining different combos, shocking enemies and opening doors by “force”.

  

So if you have not had a chance to get the demo or you are hesitating, which you shouldn’t be, you should get the demo now and feel the FORCE.

 

As I am eagerly waiti for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo to finish downloading, I’ve downloaded The Last Guy demo. I knew it is going to be a fun game because I’ve seen trailer for this game before.

The goal of this game is simple, rescue at least the amount of people based on the mission within a given time. That’s it! You will be navigating through a detailed Google-Earth-like map from a top down view. There will be monsters and zombies roaming around waiting for you to get close. Its a one hit kill so don’t go too close to them. With a press of a button you can use the thermal imaging and check shortcuts that are otherwise too hard to see under the normal view and to find where people are hiding. The trade off is you won’t see the monsters using this view. You can also dash to make yourself and the people following you move faster, but the stamina get drained pretty fast. Luckily there are recovery, time stop and invisible items scattered all around the map, there’s only one stamina recharge item in the demo though but its not really needed.

 
 

Overall the demo is fun and I will probably play it again. The game really makes you think a bit before trying to rescue the people inside. You to (patiently) wait until the area is clear, otherwise you draw out the people and if a monster is near, it will kill them and that’s not good!

The demo takes place in Japan, the full version will let you rescue people from different cities around the world. What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

 
 

As we are approaching the end of analog signal for television which will happen on the 17th of February 2009. There is no better time and excuse to get yourself an HD ready TV. But there are so many options to choose from, it can be overwhelming for some to figure out which TV to buy. Often people will end up buying something different than what they were originally looking for. So I have decided to write this guide to help those who are interested in or are planning to purchase an HD TV. I’m no professional mind you, I just want to transfer any knowledge that I’ve gathered during my research and ultimately a purchase of my first TV. Feel free to correct me!

The first thing on your list should be your budget, just like purchasing a house or a car. How much are you willing to pay for a fancy TV? I suggest buying from one of the more known and popular brands like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung and LG. Why? These brands have been around longer than another other small brands that just popped out recently so buying known brands are safter in terms of quality and reliability. And you can justify that because, say you are spending $2000 on a new TV, most of you will be watching this same TV for at least 10 years. Therefore if you spread the money into 10 years, you are only paying $200 per year or roughly $17 a month! So when purchasing TV, or any other electronics, please try not to be TOO cheap or there will be a chance the TV will haunt you with broken this and broken that. For now, the average you can expect is somewhere around $1000 for a 37 inch.

Second on the list will be the size, this can also be factored in when you are deciding on a budget though. Size matters but that does not mean the bigger the better. Say you are living in a normal size apartment, with 20 feet or less between where you sit and the wall where you will be putting your new TV in the living room, it doesn’t make sense to purchase a 52 inch LCD or Plasma TV. With that viewing distance, chances are you won’t be enjoying watching TV because its almost the same feeling as going to theatre and watch a 3 hour movie sitting at the front row! The recommended TV size should be roughly 7 to 8 feet away from you and make sure you can view the entire TV without too much eye movement as that will just stress out your eyes by looking all over the screen.

This next item on the list can also be tied into budget and size – HD or Full HD. HD stands for high definition as most of you should know by now. HD ranges from 720p to 1080i and Full HD is 1080p which is the best quality there is in the market right now. Without going into too technical about i (interlaced) and p (progressive), I will pick 1080p as an example. 1080p means 1920 horizontal x 1080 vertical resolution in a 16:9 aspect. To simply put, you have 1080 horizontal scan lines covering each frame, so the more lines you have, the finer the image.

Aside from the size of the TV, you should also know a bit on the technical side. You should ask yourself questions like these:

- Do I watch these mostly for sports or anything with fast movement?
- Am I planning to get other electronics that are HD capable?

I think the first question isn’t as important but its good to point out. In general, HD TVs nowadays, except the newer models run in 60Hz, which is the refresh rate for displaying. So the faster it is, the smoother the transition between frames. 60Hz is the most common speed right now in the market, you can also get 120Hz with the newer models but the price will be higher, obviously. I believe 60Hz is more than enough for most people.

Second question is more critical because you should always plan ahead for the future and again the TV you will buy soon should last you roughly 10 years, there are what they are called HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) inputs. HDMI is basically the HD version of your components cable and normal AV cable (remember the yellow/white/red cables?) that can output 1080p quality. Say you have a PlayStation 3, which supports 1080p output, that will take up one HDMI input from your TV, you should think ahead of how many you need and will need. In general, having three inputs should be sufficient. Again, you should really think about this because buying an HDMI router/switch with 3-4 inputs now will cause you hundreds of dollars on top!

Last but not least, although these are not really questions to ask yourself, but rather to watch out for. Generally you want an HD TV with high contrast ratio. The bigger the contrast ratio, the greater is the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks which means better display quality. But you don’t need extremely high number as you will hardly be able to notice any difference, I suggest anywhere around 10,000 to 15,000:1 ratio is more than enough, at least for now.

And finally, please pay attention to HD and Full HD TVs, HD only goes up to 1080i while Full HD supports up to 1080p. Don’t be fooled by salesmen lying to you about a Full HD TV with 720p for example.

Now that you have a budget and you know what kind of TV you want, I suggest paying an actual visit to store like BestBuy. It has tons of TVs on display so you can really compare side by side the quality of the TVs. Its really hard to just look at one and judge if its good because you have nothing to compare it with. Again I recommend buying one of the five brands I mentioned if possible. You should also consider buying a TV with at least 1080i since I still cannot find any noticeable differences between 1080i and 1080p on my own Sony Bravia 40 inch LCD (for those interested to know the model number, its KDL-40W3000), because again you won’t be buying a TV every year, it is good to invest on something better. The difference in prices is minimal these days. But try not to buy yet, I know you are now all hyped up and want that TV more than ever. But unless you know exactly what you want, I suggest you don’t rush into getting it just yet. Take some time to “digest” what you have seen in the store and be sure to take down notes for each model just in case you forget about each one’s specs.

Now you should be ready to finalize and choose which TV suits you the most in terms of style, pricing and capabilities. After reading this, I hope this guide has helped you, at least a bit, regarding how to buy an HD TV.

Special thanks to Charlie Bradley for giving me ideas for this article!