» 2008 » November

Its almost holiday season and I’m sure everyone’s looking for great games to play during that time. I have composed a list of top 10 games that I think its worth buying. Hope you guys will find the list helpful. They are not in any particular order.

Dead Space – This has to be one of the best single player horror X sci-fi game I’ve ever played in years if not in my life. With innovative holographic menu system that is “real time” which means enemies can still attack you because the game is not paused, you don’t see any HP or ammo being displayed on the screen, instead you will see them on your character’s armor and the weapons. With this menu system, you can basically This makes the game more enjoyable because there is now nothing distracting you from the monster limb chopping you will surely enjoy. Audio is also nicely composed which really further makes the atmosphere even scarier.

Buy Dead Space on ebay

Fallout 3 – Similar to Oblivion released years back, this time taking place in post-apolcalyptic Washington D.C. in the year 2277. You will fight your way through raiders, mutants and ghouls. Killing anyone on your path including innocent people and become an evil or gain as much positive karma as you can to become a saviour or in between good and evil. Your karma will have direct affect between you and anyone you interact with. Aside from being able to switch between first and third person, Fallout 3 also introduces Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System or VATS which helps you “auto aim” at certain body parts or the same part (with the chance of hitting displayed) in bullet time style. Using VATS will drain your AP or Action Points which can be regained in time or by using items.

Finally, the world you are in is huge, and provide you many areas both up on the hills all the way to the underground into abandoned subway stations and caves to explore .

Buy Fallout 3

Rock Band 2 / Guitar Hero World Tour – Two of the best musical / party / rock band game, play with up to three of your friends with mic, guitar and/or the drum. Some people prefer Rock Band while others say Guitar Hero World Tour is better. Well….guess it all depends on the person. I only have Guitar Hero and I’ve played Rock Band before at my friend’s house. I prefer the songs from Guitar Hero to be honest.

Buy Rock Band 2 on ebay
Buy Guitar Hero World Tour on ebay

 

Left 4 Dead – I would say this is yet one of the best games of this year. You can play with up to 3 other players, bots or human and fight your way through zombie infested maps. The best feature of this game is that zombies can randomly pop out at you when you are least expected and the level of difficult is auto adjusted based on your performance. You can also have the option to play on the “dead” side as well. This game is very fast paced and really gives you the “rush/desperate” feel. Unfortunately this game is only for XBox 360 and PC owners.

Buy Left 4 Dead on ebay

 

 

Call of Duty: World at War – If you are into first person shooter, you should have played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by now. If not then something is obviously wrong with you in my opinion. COD: WAW takes place back in World War 2, I personally prefer modern time so I didn’t get this game. But COD: WAW offers 4 player co-op game play, a deadly flame thrower and you can unlock an extremely fun and increasingly difficult zombie stage after beating the game. This is a must for first person and/or World War fans, getting COD 4 is another safe buy as well. I’ve been playing COD 4 for over a year and I’m still not bored of it, this should tell you how good the COD series really is.

Buy Call of Duty World at War on ebay

World of Warcraft: Lich King – One of the best MMORPG to date. I haven’t played WOW before and not planning to because I worry that I will get too addicted to it. I used to play and was hooked on Final Fantasy 11 for slightly less than 2 years in which it used up a lot of my time and so I had to call it a quit and said goodbye to my level 65 TaruTaru Dark knight…sigh. If you are a Warcraft fan, existing WOW player AND you have the time, I don’t see any reason why you should skip this expansion.

Buy World of Warcraft: Lich King on ebay

 

 

 

Gears of War 2 – One of the best sci-fi third person shooter, unfortunately only available for the Xbox 360. Wish it would be ported over to the PlayStation 3 but I highly doubt it. I think this game is just as good as Call of Duty.

Buy Gears of War 2 on ebay

 

 

 

 

 

Chrono Trigger – One of the best RPG classic orginally released for the Super Nintendo. This turn based RPG created by SquareEnix has a rich story plot as well as amazing graphics (at the time of original release) and audio. RPG fans cannot miss this one!

Buy Chrono Trigger on ebay

 

 

 

The Last Remnant – Many people will probably disagree on this one. Even after seeing the all the graphical issues like texture popping and laggy frame rate during battles. I still think this is a great game, again by Square Enix, and its a perfect Japanese RPG game to play until Final Fantasy 13 comes out. I particularly like the new battle system where you are not just fighting with your group but also have the ablity to give simple commands to your ally groups. As a result battles are much bigger and longer. Too bad its only for XBox 360, PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait and hopefully those graphical issues will be resolved by then.

Buy The Last Remnant on ebay

 

I’m sure there are many other games that you think are worth buying, feel free to add to my list in the comments.

 

With so many web hosting providers out there, it has become really time consuming trying to go through each provider’s services, compare them and hopefully THEN you can decide which one is the one that fits your the most. Web Hosting Pal offers a summary of the top 10 web hosting providers with BlueHost as the best of all followed by WebHostingPad, both offering unlimited bandwidth and host unlimited domains. The summary provides an overview of the 10 providers with monthly price, setup fee (which are all free), monthly disk space and bandwidth. Finally, the summary also contains links to each provider’s site if you want more details.

There is also a “Beginners Guide” section dedicated to people new to web hosting. It is separated into three sub sections – Introduction to Web Hosting, Introduction to Domain Name and Email Hosting. Each one has very detail and helpful information related to each topic which is more than enough for beginners to read and get them started.

Aside from the top 10 web hosting providers, there are also a few recommended ones such as Dot5Hosting, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Lunar Pages, midPhase, Hostony and WebsiteSource.

Overall Web Hosting Pal has most, if not all, the information people need to decide which provider they should purchase from. The information is also very helpful and informative for people new to web hosting as well as existing web site owners.

If you have heard of or played Dynasty Warrior, Samurai Warriors or the more recent Warriors Orochi for the PlayStation 2 and PSP, Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin (Warriors Orochi 2) is the newest edition to the Dynasty Warriors cross Samurai Warriors series. Developed by Koei, you are again going to cut your way through literally hundreds of enemies that just seem to stand there like the previous series. The Japanese / Europe version has been released, but no words for American release yet but I’m sure it will get here sooner than you think.

Gameplay
One major difference for Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin though is the fact that you are now in control of a team of three, chosen from a wide selection of familiar characters like Cao Cao and Lu Bei as well as some characters from the Samurai Warriors series.

  

I found this particular team with Dong Zhuo, a sexy looking lady (not sure her English name) and what looks like Lu Bu but with a longer name which also has a Lu in it, I could be wrong though. Even if that’s not really him, let me tell ya this dude is just as powerful as Lu Bu! I switched Dong Zhuo out and replaced with some cool demon looking character (probably from Samurai Warriors? I didn’t play that series unfortunately) after I unlocked him from progress through the story.

I stopped playing the series until now so I am not sure if the options to forge weapons and combining them have been in the previous series or not. You can basically create a stronger weapon by combining multiple weapons (2 at a time) or create from scratch using items and ingredients. Each weapon can also have special attributes like water, fire, lightning elements and many other ones. The number of special attributes that a weapon can hold can be modified as well. Weapon manipulations are done with the use of special items, ingredients and exp that you will find and earn during battle. You can also equip up to 7 special equipments that will boost your attributes such as more exp or more powerful special attacks.

  

Leveling is a breeze, just hack and slash your way through countless number of enemies. You can gain levels while in battle as well as before or after each mission where you can distribute your exp earned from previous missions to different characters. I like this feature because this allows you to level grind one character and still be able to level up your other characters. You can also choose a different team before each mission so you are not always stuck with the same one until you finish the game. Different team also has different characters for substitutions, there are TONS of characters to choose from!

Gameplay is basically the same old hack’n slash and countless number of hours of level grinding, but I think the leveling part is much easier consider, as mentioned before, you can gain exp during battle as well as distributing exp points to your characters before/after each mission. You also have the option to pick from four difficulties for each mission – Easy, Normal, Hard and EXTREMELY Hard.

Aside from Story Mode, there is the familiar Free Mode where you pick a map that you have finished from Story Mode and play through it, nothing new there. Dramatic Mode where you choose a map, again need to unlock through Story Mode, play through it and instead of picking your own team, you will have to play using the preset team and without the option to save. There is also Survival Mode, basically you pick a team of three and fight other team, Soul Calibur style, not exactly the same but you get my idea. Each member on your team has a life bar, you will have to alternative among them because as soon as any one of their life bar runs out you lose, doesn’t matter if the other two members have full life bars. Overall its pretty easy to pass the earlier stages until you get knocked out of the arena and you lose immediately in the higher levels!

  

Graphics and Audio
Graphics are slightly better than the previous series, if not the same. You can’t really expect too much from a PSP game to be honest. Graphics alone don’t determine if the game is good or bad anyway. I love the drawings of each character when you are on the character selection screen though. The CG cut scenes are also amazing and once unlocked you can view them again in the Gallery.

I apologize again for not being able to provide more during-battle images. But you can find them on IGN.

And as for audio, nothing new really.

  

Final Verdict
So is it worth buying this game? Yes and no I would say. Hardcore fans should not and will probably not miss this one. People that haven’t played the series for a while, like me, should give this a try. For those not into level grinding this might not be for you because this game is pretty much about that as well as obtaining all the special items, ingredients for weapons and skills and unlocking characters. As for me, I can foresee that sooner or later, the hack’n slash will be boring, but I shall enjoy it while it lasts.

7.5/10

I found this on Tech-On! and they had tear down a fake iPhone made from, you guessed right, China! I’m Chinese and I feel really embarrased for all these copy cat electronics and not just electronics, practically anything China can and will copy if there’s a market for it.

As explained in the said story, it is a lot easier to break the fake iPhone, or the ciPhone as they called it and the internal parts are all simplified as to cut down the manufacturing cost obviously. Based on looking at the image from the article, even the size is different with the fake one slightly longer but then again it won’t be noticeable unless you put it side by side with the real iPhone. Looking closely you can also see the text at the back of the phones are different as well.

In terms of hardware, the chip used in the fake iPhone “is widely used for general no-name mobile phones in China and it costs about US$6 per set”. An engineer from Tech-On! estimated that the total manufacturing cost is “roughly ¥3,000 to 5,000″ and is sold for ¥16,000 a pop (approx US$170), that’s at least ¥11,000 in profit!

The article also reported the “slow response” from the touch panel which isn’t a surprise really given that the fake phone uses a generic low cost chip.

 

Source: Tech-On!

Fallout 3 has been released for almost a month now and having just finished the game last night I thought I would write my thoughts about this game instead of an actual review. Oh by the way I actually finished the game a little too fast, I still have tons of unexplored places and quests to check out I just didn’t expect to end so fast. Still, I would say I have spent more than 20 hours by going through some of the sub quests along the way.

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout 3 is really similar to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion except this time the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States in the year 2277 instead of in the medieval time. So you will be fighting your way through using guns most of the time and occasionally melee weapons like swords, sledgehammer and baseball bats. Graphicwise, while Oblivion looked amazing I think its safe to say that Fallout 3 looks even better because I can really feel I’m in a post-apocalyptic world with almost everything in rubbles, ashes and more than 50% of the time you will be exploring underground places. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be anyway given one was released more than 2 years ago.

  

Let’s forget about the graphics for a second, I still prefer Fallout 3 over Oblivion because of the time period the story takes place. I much prefer modern to future than going back in time and also prefer guns over magic. So if you don’t have these preferences and you have played Oblivion before then its pretty safe to say you will like Fallout 3 for sure. What I also like about Fallout 3 is the fact that there’s a VAT System which allows you to aim at specific body parts, it also tells you the percentage of success. At first when I saw the trailers demonstrating this system I thought it was going to be an overpowered feature. I can assure you its not because using the system will drain your AP (Action Points) so you can’t really use it again and again over a short period of time without replenishing your AP by using AP healing items. Normally you will have to wait for AP to naturally replenish itself. It might be a bit of an overpowered feature if you are playing on very easy to easy mode. When you are playing in harder difficulties you will need this feature when fighting against multiple enemies.

  

So I guess my point really boils down to whether you are into this time period or not, provided you played and actually liked Oblivion. Fallout 3 is a must for you if you liked it and either have no preference or are into modern-future time period and/or you prefer guns over magic.

  

I hope this little article will help you in deciding whether to get this game or not. And I always wonder if there will be a MMO version of either Oblivion or Fallout in the future.

  

Previous Gundam related games like Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable, Gundam Battle Royale and Gundam Battle Tactics were all great games, specially Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable that had, at the time, the latest mobile suits from the Gundam Seed series. Now, Gundam vs Gundam, the newest Gundam game has released for the PlayStation Portable in Japan (no date for North American release yet). Is this one worth buying at all? Read on…..

For those that haven’t played the games or even heard of Gundams before, they are basically transformers but only look 100x better. The games mentioned above basically put you in one of the mobile suits, not necessary Gundams because there are different robots in the series. You will be controlling and fighting against one of the other sides, usually two sides each with different mobile suits and mobile armor (these are not necessary robots but can be fighter planes etc). Its really a third person shooter, just replace human/monsters with robots.

  

If I remember correctly, this game was originally from the arcade and it was ported over to the PlayStation 2, then to the PSP. Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable was a great game that offered hours of play time and great replay value because you can upgrade many of your mobile suits’ stats such as how fast the weapon can fire, more ammo, more fire power as well as more health, jump higher and more booster power etc. This is pretty much level grinding though, which I think was necessary in order to pass some of the harder levels.

Game play
Gundam vs Gundam is really just the arcade version ported over to the PSP. At first I thought there was a story mode just like Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable. I should have figured that out from the name of the game, stupid me. The controls are basically the same or really similar to the other games though – jump, boost, shoot, melee, shoot 2, special shot, special melee and special. The three specials are hard to execute because you have to hold triangle, plus either the shoot or melee. The special move is slightly easier and its executed by pressing triangle, square and cross (might as well press your right thumb onto all four buttons)
I have yet to even execute any of them. How did I even figure out how to execute these hard to do moves? They are actually mentioned in one of the game options. I will update once I figure out how to execute them. I have never had such frustration over special moves from previous Gundam games.

[Update: I have finally managed to execute the special attack (only when your special gauge is full) by pressing.....L and R together twice]

  

Aside from the standards, now you can assign orders to your computer teammate, commands like attack, dodge and surprise attack. You can also call in support where an additional mobile suit for a second and throw in a few more shots at your current target, as usual, the calls for support can be recharged with time just like recharging your gun’s ammo. I find the support useful because, if I remember correctly it was able to take the hits for me as well as acting as a decoy for a short time.

Enough with the controls, the game has three game modes – “normal” mode (I call it the normal mode, was going to say story mode but its not a story) where you fight through 8 stages with the last stage as boss stage, quick play and multiplayer that supports 2 on 2 battles. I think the 2 on 2 is the selling point here, just like the arcade version, the fun is from shooting and slashing other human piloted mobile suits. Once you have selected a mobile suit from the list with 20+ of them and more can be unlocked by completing the “normal” mode. They range from the oldest 0079 series all the way to the newest ones from the Gundam 00 series. The objective of any of these game mode is the same, you and your enemies both have a life bar, you will lose if your side’s life bar reaches 0. When you and/or your teammate dies (same goes for enemies), the amount of life your team loses is based on the mobile suit you picked. The stronger the mobile suit, the higher points its worth, which means when it blows up, your team loses a bigger amount of life. So that means its not always better to pick the strongest from the list. I picked my favorite Freedom Gundam and its worth 3000GP, I lost one of the games once by dying only twice!

  

In “normal” mode, you will fight in random locations and you will have a random computer mobile suit to fight along side with you. There are a total of 8 stages with the last one being the boss stage. The boss is huge, relative to your mobile suit and it took me 2 tries to beat it, I was one hit away from losing the game for the second time! I guess I just need to practice more with the controls, a training mode would be a perfect game mode for this game.

Quick play is no brainer, you pick your mobile suit and pick up to 3 other computer to fight with or against you. You can modify options like how long the match lasts for, how fast your special gauge fills up or different stages/music.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to try out the multiplayer.

  

So as you can see, there isn’t any level grinding here. Although you can still unlock more mobile suits, intro movies, endings and images for the multimedia galleries.

Graphics and audio
Graphics are again, PSP quality, the mobile suits are nicely detailed, environments are plain but the game is so fast paced you won’t have time to appreciate or pay attention to, not that there is anything to appreciate here. Music is actually real sound tracks from the Gundam series, so based on which Gundam series’ stage you are fighting in, you will be listening to that series’ soundtrack. The soundtracks bring back a lot of memories by the way.

Final verdict
Overall I think this game is OK. I still prefer Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable because it has a story mode and level grinding although you can still unlock more mobile suits, maybe its just me. For those that are looking for fast paced arcade style game play, Gundam vs Gundam should suit your needs. Skills really matter in this game since there’s no level grinding where you can easily overpower your enemies by powering up your mobile suits and weapons. If you have lots of Gundam loving friends with PSP, I suggest convincing them to get a copy so up to 4 of you and your friends can fight each other anytime without going to the arcade.

7.0/10

With ever increasing operation costs that businesses need to endure these days, every dollar saved is a still a dollar saved. For businesses that operate with a fleet of cars, trucks and vans for example, which can be very daunting tasks and the operation costs can increase as there are more vehicles to manage. With GPS Fleet Tracking solutions, which allow businesses to monitor all their vehicles and other assets from a single computer. This will greatly reduce the operating costs for them and eliminating unnecessary cost and wasted time. There are a lot of benefits of using these fleet tracking systems with with different features but the common feature is they can all monitor fleets of vehicles with ease.

Some key features are:

- location updates with option to pick update interval (2-15 minutes)
- breadcrumbs trail, trails of visited locations can be displayed on the map so the owners know where their employees have been to
- vehicle maintenance monitoring such as vehicle check up reminders
- vehicles’ idle times, engine on/off monitoring

As you can see, these GPS Fleet Tracking systems are pretty much “Big Brother” for the businesses. I think employees of a business should not feel that their privacies have been or will be violated. Although the systems track your performance of driving a truck, for example. They are not meant for tracking their personal privacies if used properly. I believe the reason why business owners with working ethics is soley for monitoring their cost of operating their fleets. If someone feels violated by driving vehicles that have one of these “Big Brother” systems installed, he or she should not agree to the job offer in the first place anyway. And besides, why should he or she have problems with being monitored by these systems for operating the owners’ assets unless that person has something to hide. Its not like someone is sitting beside the person and monitoring him or her!

What if I was the owner of a fleet of a thousand trucks? Certainly I think GPS Fleet Tracking systems will certainly reduce my operation costs. Its common sense really because, again, I can monitor my entire fleet with a single computer. Although it probably makes more sense to monitor them with a few computers because I think its more efficient for mulitple people to monitor when I have a large fleet. But either way, I don’t need to personally keep track of all of them one by one by say, calling on them? Now I can track multiple of them all at once.

These systems also work for parents tracking where and how their teenage kids drive. I mean if they don’t like being monitored, then they don’t get to drive, simple as that! Parents really just want to make sure their kids are not speeding and/or driving to somewhere their parents don’t know about. Then again to each of its own. This is going to sound contradicting but I would feel uncomfortable being monitored while driving. But then again I guess the systems are more suitable for teenage kids that HAVE to be monitored.

GPS Fleet Tracking Systems are definitely great ways to monitoring businesses’ fleet of vehicles by tracking them from a single point, a computer in this case. With the extensive features offered by these systems, businesses can no doubt benefit and greatly reduce their operation costs.

Image source: GPS Fleet Tracking Systems

  

I haven’t played another snowboarding game since the SSX 3 from the PlayStation 2, that was one addictive game…while it lasted. What a perfect time to release another snowboarding game during or I should say near Winter time. Shaun White Snowboarding, available for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable. As a beginner snowboarder myself, its time for me to play another snowboarding game to get me warmed up…well at least mentally.

Story and controls
Well there isn’t really a story, you choose a character out of the initial 3 and there are 6 unlockable characters. Then you will be basically snowboarding your way through 5 different slopes with increasing difficulties, you unlock the next one by completing the current one’s objectives and challenges. Each slope has its own quests and the first slope’s quests are basically tutorials that teach you about 4 basic skills – Speed, Carving, Rail riding and Jump/Grabs. Speed is obvious, basically you collect more points by going as fast as you can, without crashing of course. Carving is, in car term, drifting, but in snow and you get more points by performing near misses such as carving really close to a tree. Rail riding is riding on rails or broken tree branches and performing tricks while keeping yourself balanced by tilting left and right. Finally Jump/Grabs is jumping over ramps and perform tricks. This last skill is the trickiest and hardest to master because it has TONS of combinations. While in the air, you can rotate in all 4 directions, you can grab your board with your left hand, right hand or even both hands. You can combine them and perform something complicated such as rotate left while grabbing the board with your right hand and then rotate back wards while grabbing your board with both hands etc. Of course the trickier stun you can execute, the more points you get.

  

After each quest, you gain XP, as experience for each skill you have executed, so if you executed Speed skill, you get XP for skill etc. You can then use these XP to either upgrade your current skill level or buy new boards that will boost your skill levels plus other positive or negative boost for other skills. Why negative? If your Carve skill is level 4, some boards will bring your Carve skill back to 3 for example. So choose your board wisely when tackling on a particular slope or quest.

There is a main objective for each quest and 2 sub objectives which I highly suggest you complete as they unlock new boards with new boost bonuses and they aren’t really that much harder to do, at least for the first 2 slopes.

The game also supports multiplayer which I have not had a chance to try out unfortunately. But basically there are two modes – Co-op and competitive and I’m sure I don’t have to explain too much here.

Gameplay, Graphics
Controls are very easy to get used to, at least in terms of executing basic moves and tricks. Like I said, it will take a bit to master or even get a hang of executing combo moves for LOTS Of POINTS, as the game’s tutorial explains. You can find your fingers pretty busy most of the time, even more so when you are attempting tricky tricks! Overall I think its pretty addictive since there are skills to level up and boards to purchase, collect them all anyone?

  

Graphics are your typical PSP quality, at least it looks or at least I think its better than Spider-man: Web of Shadows. The game uses “blur” effects to simulate the sense of speed but didn’t quite do as good of a job as Burnout. Burnout is the only game so far that can give me the great sense of speed that I crave for. Your character is very alive though on the other hand, very energetic.

I wish I could take more in-game pictures but its just too blurry to take them while actually snowboarding. I apologize but you can check out the images for the PSP version at IGN.

Sound
Also your typical snowboarding music, some rock and some techno ones. Gotta love them and would be perfect in combination with the sense of speed if it was done better. Environmental sound is also nicely designed, with the board scratching sound to bird singing but the music is pretty loud so most of the time you will only hear the music and the occasional bumping sound or ice/snow scraping sound.

Final verdict
If you are into games and snowboarding, I think Shaun White Snowboarding will not disappoint. With different boards with different attributes to unlock and character leveling, you will have hours upon hours of snowboarding fun…..on a PSP. You might also consider getting this game on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 for better graphics and other features, but if you are looking for on-the-go gaming fun like me, this game should be another worthy game to purchase for your PSP.

8/10