» 2008 » November

There were and still are many people wondering if the new Bond game Quantum of Solace would beat the best Bond game of all time – the GoldenEye 007 from the classic Nintendo 64. I haven’t bought this game…yet, still debating unfortunately. But really, let’s drop the comparison for a second and look at Quantum of Solace on its own for a second. In my point of view, you can’t go wrong this next / current gen console Bond game. Since it uses the engine from the widely popular game Call of Duty , the graphics will be just as good, if not better than Call of Duty 4. This should be worth playing for die hard Bond fans as well.

One major draw back for me to buy this game is the fact that, based on Gametrailers’ review, the single player only last for roughly 4 hours. That’s even less than Heavenly Sword. This MIGHT be the main factor why people are waiting for a price drop for this game. And the multiplayer isn’t really a surprise but decent based on what I’ve seen. Current Call of Duty 4 and World at War players might skip this as a result due to similarities, I might be one of them. But for those that haven’t played COD yet, I recommend giving Quantum of Solace a try.

Too bad they didn’t release a demo eh?

Here is the review from Gametrailers, hopefully this will convince you whether you should buy the game or not. I apologize for not buying the game because I am not convinced, at least not yet. And as for if Quantum of Solace is better than GoldenEye, I think you already know the answer.

Ever since I have started and finished the Digital Building a week ago, I have been itching to design and start building another structure. I’ve been digging through countless number of architectural pictures to get some ideas on this design and I have stumbled upon Zaha Hadid, an extremely talented architect who creates impressive looking structures. I am amazed and inspired by her designs, jaw dropping, literally. Her Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Vilnius for its organic design as well as the BMW Central Building in Germany for its sharp and futuristic design.

  

I believe Zaha Hadid’s fan count has just increased by one. I’m sure I will fall in love with other architects’ designs as I study along the way but Zaha’s is my first.

Anyway, back to my own design.

The exterior design isn’t really based on anything in particular this time, it just popped out of my head all of a sudden. I guess this is like a by product of studying all kinds of designs from different architects. At first I couldn’t think of a name for this build but since it looks technical, at least from the outside, I have decided to call it Technical. People without reading this blog will most likely think I’ve built fighting pick-up truck.

  

In this design, I’ve used large one piece drop down windows from second floor all the way to the first floor. The main entrance in the middle separates the two sides with large pillars/columns. They are my attempt to create a more striking, bold and structured feel to the overall design. Sort of like a skeleton supporting the skin. I’ve decided not to wrap the skeleton with glass infront but I might change my mind on this. It shows striking, bold and structured feel clearer without glass but I also like the idea of being “revealing” where you can see it but not clearly.

  

For the interior, I based a little on one of Zaha’s interior designs but nothing close to “copycat” like, just some minor concepts. As usual, there is a lift that will connect both first and second floor. I have trimmed the surface area of the second floor in exchange for the ability to looking down to the first floor. I think having more open area also reduces the feeling of crowdedness and thus making the over all interior more relaxing. The lift platform on the second floor connects to the two suspended glass platforms, one on each side that leads to the rest of the area. In the middle are 5 large metallic columns with each suspended by a wire. I have chosen to use silverish metal texture in combination with the “glow” effect to transform the middle into the center of attention, I’m sure it would still be the center of attention even without the “glow” effect but I wanted the middle to be more dramatic.

 

In my previous projects, 95% of the decorations / ornaments were not scripted, meaning they would not move nor react to user input. For the first time, I’ve scripted these 5 columns to rotate in one direction in a slow but noticable speed. I have set a timer of 5 seconds so that the rotation will alternate between clockwise and counter clockwise. I’m pretty happy with the result.

I hope you guys like this one as well and I will be back to the drawing board pretty soon for my next project.

So I saw some trailers from Gametrailers.com regarding the upcoming Square-Enix RPG game The Last Remnant. I was impressed by the new battle system and graphics (you can expect high quality from Square), I’ve even visited its flashy website and checked out the new battle system. And boy I’m pretty much sold after finding out more from the site. With this game, you are not limited to only fighting with just your team but you can give orders to a group called union for support. The distance between your team, your union and the enemies also matter as well. There is also a Morale system that will allow you to hit harder and take less damage if you have high morale. Although some frame rate issue were spotted in one of the recent battle trailers. I don’t think this will be a show stopper, nor it should be in my opinion.

Luckily for the Xbox 360 owners, this game will be released in less than 2 weeks and unfortunately for the PlayStation 3 owners, we have to wait until they have decided to release it for us. At first I had no idea this game would only be releasing for Xbox 360 and so I was quite excited to get my hands on this when its released. Then I found out its only for Xbox 360 for the November 20th launch. I’m pretty upset as this could pretty well be the next best RPG for the next / current gen consoles before Final Fantasy 13 decides to make itself available for God knows when next year. I thought this game would be the perfect RPG to get our attnetion away from FF 13 until its released.

Again I envy you Xbox 360 users..hmmm Gears of War 2….

Here is the trailer that shows some FPS issues: (Source: Gametrailers)

I find most of the pre-order bonuses garbage most of the time. T-shirts, caps and key chains are pretty useless in my opinion. But some games do offer useful bonuses such as LittleBigPlanet’s exclusive costumes, which I made a huge and irreversible mistake by pre-ordering it 2 days too late! I was checking out EBGames.com and I found the soon-to-be-released Tomb Raider: Underworld comes with a nicely packaged art book (looks like hardcover based on image from EBGames.com). I’m a fan of collecting game art books (I’ve also bought the Final Fantasy X-2 and 12 art books as well) by the way. I’m really a sucker for these books i guess.

Apparently there is also a demo available for the PC incase any of you are interested.

Good news Hotmail users! NOT! Microsoft is now forcing us Hotmail users to adapt to the redesigned interface. Why break something that’s been working great for so many years? The first time I logged into Hotmail yesterday, I thought my page wasn’t loaded completely. But it was “done” so the only thing that could explain this was they changed the look and feel again.

Some people said Microsoft products are generally hated and bashed by when they first come out, but frankly I disagree because I’ve had no problem with Hotmail (most of the time) until now and I had no problem surfing the net with Internet Explorer until I made the mistake of giving the buggy IE 8 Beta a try but that’s beta so bugs are expected and luckily I got a new computer and now using IE 7 instead. Finally, I have no complains using Windows XP either and no I am NOT a MS fanboy.

Microsoft better get that option of going back to classic mode as soon as possible, I know a lot of people that are getting annoyed by the new design.

Thank you for listening to my daily rant I feel much better now.

So finally I got LittleBigPlanet yesterday, it was probably in the mailbox on Monday but I was too busy to check. I wanted to play a bit more before writing this review and the game was just too damn fun to let go of the controller last night. And I’m still trying to figure out how on earth to get my Nariko costume since my game didn’t come with the a card with the promotion code. I’ve sent an email to Futureshop and haven’t received a reply yet.

[update]:Turns out the promo was between Oct 3rd and Oct 9th, I pre-ordered mine on 11th, sigh. There goes my Nariko costume.

  

Story and controls
There isn’t really a solid story for LittleBigPlanet, you will be exploring and venturing out in different places and planets. The controls are straight forward and easy to get used to. Basically you can jump (hold down to jump higher and further) and pull or push objects. There are also these new and interesting actions such as smile, frown, angry and scared, each with 3 levels, so you can smile lightly, bigger smile and a crazy smile all executed using the directional buttons. You can also make your sackboy or sackgirl’s head move based on your SIXAXIS controller as well as making their hands move using L2, R2, L3 and R3. Such innovative features really help bring emotion and expression to the sack people. And one more thing, you can drag your L3 or R3 real fast from left to right or right to left to perform slaps (at people obviously!), which I haven’t got bored of doing yet. Then again, when you are actually going through a level you most likely will be too occupied to even bother playing with the expressions.

  

Gameplay, Graphics and physics
FUN, that’s the word that came to my mind when I played it for the first time. I found it particularly fun because I’ve used to play shoot’em up games for far too long, Call of Duty 4 for example, not that I’m complaining, I will never get bored of that game just that its just nice to play something that’s completely different for a change. Most of the time, this game is relaxing, but, maybe I just suck and/or impatient, I had to play some of the levels a few times before I could pass them in order to unlock the next area(s). I guess I should be glad that the game offers some level of difficulties, I mean after all, it won’t be fun if its too easy right?

  

This game is point based, meaning you get points by obtaining blue orbs. But that’s not very rewarding isn’t it? You can also obtain outfits, decorations, stickers etc. You can place stickers and decorations pretty much anywhere and sometimes they are used to solve puzzles to unlock more items. I believe one of the biggest selling feature of this game is the amount of outfits you can obtain and customize your sackboys or girls. You have the options to edit each part of your sackboys or girls such as head, face, back, neck, eyes, upper outfit, lower outfit etc. You can even choose to have the system randomly generate a look as well and you can imagine the number of combinations there can be as you obtain more outfits! You can save your look for a quick change as well as deleting them.

  

Graphics are top notch as well, I think the word I would use is, surreal. Its dreamlike and cartoonish but at the same time realistic with great lighting effects, vibrant colors and detailed textures of the surroundings. As mentioned before, the facial expression of your sackboys and girls are eye candies. Although it only supports up to 720p which most of us can probably not tell the difference between 1080p and 720p anyway so its not really an issue.

Aside from the normal beat-the-level kind of game, there are also challenges that you can unlock by obtaining keys. One example of challange will be to continuously jump up and down and get as many blue orbs (for points) as you can while avoiding the fire.

As you can see, this game packs TONS of features and I have yet to discover them all. I’ve had a chance to play a bit online last night and the online feature just makes this game easily worth 10 times more than the $59.99. You can play levels online with others (by the way some areas require others’ help to unlock) or you can play on your own. You can also pick the Quick Play option and you will be joining someone random and play whatever they are playing. The number of levels in LittleBigPlanet is pretty much infinite as long as people keep creating levels and sharing them, there will be new levels to play for as long as this game remains popular, which I am confident it will. You can also “hearted” your favorite levels and your friends on PlayStation Network can see them.

Aside from the graphics, the physics, yes this is my first time having a section, or rather one third of a section, dedicated to game physics. There are many obstacles through out the game, sometimes you will have to push or pull blocks in order to proceed to the next area. On the other hand you can, for example, be pulling a string left and right to shake the blue orbs or items down for you to obtain.

  

Sound
So far I have heard many different types of music, some are up beat, some are spooky and some are down right classical. I also like the commentary that is spoken in English with British accent, just love that accent. There aren’t any other types of sound worth mentioning. Let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Final verdict
I’m pretty sure I have not tapped into everything about LittleBigPlanet, but as you can see, the amount of contents this game has is incredible. The amount of customization of your sack characters is one of the greatest feature this game has to offer, I think personalization is what makes a good game….a good game! With personalization you can have a unique presence instead of looking the same as other people. Unlike some of the games that mainly target specific groups of gamers, LittleBigPlanet suits all types of gamers, even non gamers in my opinion. Finally, the fact that you can create your own levels and share them with everyone else online makes this game even better. This is what I would call a Web 2.0 game, correct me if I’m wrong though.

Finally after Resistance, Heavenly Sword and Metal Gear Solid 4, the PlayStation 3 has another worthy exclusive game.

9.5/10

I finally had the time to get back to my architecture/interior design hobby recently. I’m actually not too happy with the exterior design of my previous design – Basic Blocks – Contemporary Home. It was just way too plain and I admit I didn’t put too much thoughts into it and spent nearly 100% to interior design.

  

This time I focused on the exterior just as much as the interior and based my idea on the Digital Beijing Building by the talented Studio Pei-Zhu.

I love how the blue lights are “escaping” from the gaps between the columns which really gives the digital as well as the “Matrix” impression to the whole design. In addition to having those blue lights on both sides, they are also visible and extend from the front of the building all the way to the back of the building.

  

The building consists of two floors with each floor measuring approximately 40m long, 20m wide and 10m high. The prim count (the number of objects) is a bit more than usual mainly because of the “digital” design on the two walls on the sides. The two entrances are well hidden so people will not be able to see them and makes the “digital” flow from front to back without the entrances interrupting it. I have also made heavy use of the “glow” effect both inside and out for the extra lighting effect.

Overall I am very pleased with this design (finally) and hopefully my next project will be just as fun and satisfying to design and build as this one. Hope you guys like this one as well!

Comments and feedbacks are always welcome