» 2009 » January

Finally, a new trailer released on Gametrailers that includes new cinematics as well as actual game play. Unfortunately this game won’t be released until end of this year or early next year. After watching this trailer, my desire for this game has reached the roof, I have been drooling for too long. Hopefully when the Blu-ray version of Final Fantasy 7: AC Complete, I will finally get a taste of the game.

Until then, I will keep playing this trailer over and over again until another teaser is released.

Online shopping is very common these days and I’m sure many of you have purchased something online at least once through web sites like ebay or Amazon. Its also common sense and also a good idea to research on the item that you want to purchase from multiple web sites instead of buying right away because you might be able to find a better deal. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a web site that had all you need on a single web site?

ShopWiki is a wiki that allows you to search for a wide range of items and list all the stores that have that item for sale. You have the option to go through the search either by alphanumerically or directly typing in search term(s) in the search box. For example (since this is a tech blog I will use electronics as exampls), if you are looking for Canon PowerShot digital cameras you can type that in the search field and it will list all matches. By default, it will list all items that match the price range between $1 – $max price for the item. If you want to narrow down your matches, you can do so by dragging the left or right arrow in the Price Range section.

One feature I particularly like about shopWiki is the fact that it will show the number of stores that have the item you are looking for. Say you are looking for Sony Vaio labtops, the results will have either a “go to store” button or a “See # stores” where # is the number of stores that have the item. If you mouse over the Price or “See # stores” buttons, it will also list 5 stores in a small popup on the same page. For results that only have a single store available, clicking the title, price or the “go to store” button will forward you to the store directly. The store name is also displayed just below the price.

You can find a lot of items from this wiki, even the recently released Sony Ericsson C905 can also be found on the site. This wiki is specifically aimed for Australian shoppers because the stores are of .au.

I have never been a fan of those Japanese anime style visual novel games where you get to choose different actions for each situation and having a different ending every time. But being a video game fanatic I had to try out everything at least once and that was a long time ago.

Before discovering Tycoon Games, I had no idea there are English versions of such visual novel games. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since some people from the States and Canada or even in Europe are probably into these kind of games too.

Tycoon Games offers anime style adventure games as well as dating sim games. I had a chance to try out one of the adventure games called Heileen: Sail to the New World since they offer a Flash based version of the game with one of the episodes from the full game, a very convenient way to try out games without downloading anything to your hard drive. The downloadable demo includes the first three chapters of the game.

The first thing I noticed was the game’s soothing music and it actually reminded me of the Japanese version of this type of games. The game pretty much starts off as soon as you mouse click the screen. You play as Heileen, the main protagonist of the game and immediately you will be talking to other characters such as Magdalene, Otto and Lora. You will be presented with a few options for the next action, your action will determine which ending you will see. Although the Flash demo is relatively short, you still get to take a glimpse of what kind of story you will be expecting from the full game.

In terms of graphics, characters as well as the background images which basically tell you where you are current at, are very well drawn. The graphic designers have done a great job at drawing the characters, very anime.

Overall the game is pretty decent, the fact that I played through the demo and read through all the conversations shows the game is quite interesting. If you are into visual novel + adventure + anime games then you should check this game out.

The original F.E.A.R was such a great game because it combined first person shooter with horror, perfect for survival horror game fan like me. And I am not talking about cheap scare, the original game did in fact make me jump a few times and so did F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. I can assure you all the Japanese horror movies I have watched have trained me to the point where I am pretty immune to scary moments.

  

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, is the sequel of the original F.E.A.R, once again puts you as one of the members of the F.E.A.R team and the demo starts you off outside of a school right after a helicopter crash. The controls are a bit different than Call of Duty which took me a while to get used to. There were a few annoying moments when I mixed up the controls such as pressing down by accident and wasting medic kits (which you can only carry three at any time) or throwing grenades instead of firing the gun because the functions for R1 and R2 are different for COD and F.E.A.R. Then again its not the game’s fault, its just me, just wanted to rant.

You can carry up to four weapons and four different types of grenades at a time. The demo lets you experience with quite a few weapons. The weapons are the usual sub machine gun, assault rifle, rocket launcher, sniper, shotgun and laser gun. Which is not a bad thing really. Again you can carry up to three medic kits with you at a time. One thing I like and haven’t seen before is the option to kick down a table or open a car door for some extra cover. The AIs are actually pretty fast and smart (or maybe I just getting old and slow), but nothing too hard to take out. Another neat feature is the slow motion, while its not anything new, its been around since the Max Payne time. It never gets old blowing up enemies up close and personal while in slow mo!

  

I’m sure most of you have seen trailers of the ass-kicking Elite Powered Armor Suits in action. And guess what? The last part of the demo lets you pilot this ass-kicking suit and you get to spray some machine gun bullets (the twin gun overheat if you spray non-stop!) plus firing four missiles together which will self reload. I don’t like the fact that you have to fire all four at the same time instead of one at a time. Other than that, the suit fight is the most enjoyable part of the entire demo.

The game also managed to give me a few scared jumps, which is a good sign because that means the game is pretty scary. Like I said I don’t get scared easily.

In the graphics department, compare to Dead Space, which is another great horror shooter (third person), in my opinion, Dead Space has better textures. The lighting is pretty nicely rendered though.

I actually want to point out the special effects are impressive. One that impressed me the most was when you are walking along the school’s hallway, all of a sudden all light bulbs pop and lockers flapping violently. The effects really help create a scary atmosphere. And Alma, well, she’s back and doing a good job scaring us when we least expect!

Overall I think the game is decent, I can’t say its good enough that is worth buying as soon as it comes out. For those haven’t tried the demo, go get it and see for yourself.

So here I am searching for more free games online again. This time I stumble upon iWin. Instead of playing the games on your browser, you actually download games to your computer. Before you can actually download any games, you will need to download a small program called iWin Games Manager which is a very nice program to organize the download queue for the games. You can also use the manager to browse through the games just like you do on your browser.

iWin has over 100 free game downloads to choose from. These games have ads that last for 15 seconds before you can play, you can purchase the ad free version for as low as $6.99. There are also many games in the Steals & Deals section for much cheaper games. Consider the quality of these games are pretty decent, the 15 seconds is worth the wait.

There are different types of games to play, ranging from puzzle games , action games, board/card games and a kids section where the games are for kids of all ages.

I like how they have an info page for each game with actual screen shots of the game. This gives a better idea of how the game is like before actually downloading it. You can also sign up for iCoin, its basically a membership. There are three memberships for you to choose from which you can save up to 65% and you will also get bonus games with any type of membership as well.

So if you and/or your children are looking for casual games that are cheap and fun, pay iWin a visit!

If you are looking for UK based web hosting services that is both cheap AND reliable, then look no further. Pickaweb.co.uk is your choice for UK based web hosting company that has been hosting thousands of web sites since 2000.

Pickweb’s hosting plans are very competitive compare to other hosting services out there with standard features like free domain name, free online web site builder, plenty of hosting space and supports all kinds of scripts like CGI, PHP, mySQL and Fantastico. One difference I noticed is the fact that Pickaweb gives you unlimited email accounts, whether this is useful will depend on the person but I just wanted to point that out. Pickaweb also has Live Help which you have the option to talk to a sales or a technical support rep real time. Not many web hosting companies have this feature as far as I know.

The Starter Plan, the company’s cheapest web hosting plan is £2.98 per month, which roughly translates to USD$4.10 which is pretty competitive compare to others. This plan has 1gb of web hosting space and is more than enough for many average users. And incase you are not satisfied for some reason, you can always ask for your money back within 30 days of purchase.

If you are interested hosting resell, Pickaweb also provides resell plans. And finally, if you are not familiar with how to design your own web site, they have a team of web designers that can provide you with just the web site you have in mind or alternatively you can pick from many ready made web site templates as well.

Just got news from Wired that the Blu-ray version of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete will be released in Japan on April 16th. There will be two versions, the regular edition will come with the movie only and one that will be bundled with the long awaited Final Fantasy 13 demo. The regular version is approximately $54 where as the bundle will be an $11 extra ($65).

Here’s the problem, I don’t really care if people in Japan are paying much higher than us for DVDs and Blu-rays. Not that I can do anything about that anyway. But at the $54 price point I can get 2 Blu-ray movies. Square Enix might as well release only the version with the demo bundled with the movie because for a mere $11 extra, we get a first taste of FF13, which by the way is delayed until 2010. Hopefully the prices will be adjusted when they hit American.

If I do decide to, which I probably will for the sake of the demo (assuming there are no price adjustments), pay so much for the decent-but-not-great movie, I might as well fork an extra 20% to get the demo. For your information, the Blu-ray version of Resident Evil: Degeneration which I recommend checking it out, is only 32.99 +tax on Futureshop and 34.99 +tax on BestBuy.ca, which is still expensive but acceptable.

Sigh, looks like I need to start saving up.

So last night I got some time to try out GTI Club + while downloading the demo for Skate 2.

So today, I talked about this game at work with my co-worker and he said the first game was pretty good so I was even more excited to give this a try after work. The demo offers single player game as well as a party demo which allows you go party together with up to 3 other players (offline not online) which I didn’t get a chance to try since I only have one controller (still!) and I couldn’t call any of my friends right at that moment. But after playing the single player and was impressed, I thought to myself this MIGHT just be the first skateboard game I will purchase!

 

I also want to point out that the demo is time based, you can extend the time by performing tricks to earn more points. Before you actually go out there and start boarding you get to customize your character. You can customize from a wide range of features like gender, hair type/color, eye color, facial hair etc. The customization can easily drain 30 minutes of your game time if you go crazy with your character. You also start off with $300 which is used to purchase different clothes or skateboards, which I didn’t. Finally you get to choose your stance, goofy means your right foot in front and regular means left foot in front. I’m a regular, just like in snowboarding.

Once you are done with your character, you will start off in the neighborhood. Similar to the popular GTA 4, Skate 2 has a “sand box” style world and you can skateboard/move freely within the neighborhood. Then again you can’t really do that in this demo since you only have a few minutes, unless you start performing tricks and earn points in order to extend the timer.

Honestly as a first time Skate player, I had some trouble trying to memorize all the controls because there are quite a few to remember. But in time you will get used to the controls. Since the demo is time based, you don’t really have too much time to test out the controls and each “trick”. During the game, you have to jump across a gap which you have to first pick up speed, then pull the right analog stick back and then forward to make your character jump. The whole process was harder than I thought. If you fail, the tips screen will play and explain to you how to do execute jump properly. The tips screen is great, for the first time because the explanation is very clear combined with demonstration. But every time you miss the jump, you are forced to see the same screen over and over again until you make it across. Very annoying!

If you don’t feel like boarding, you can pick up the board and walk instead.

Graphics wise, I’m very impressed with the environment and the structures but quite disappointed with the character designs. Particularly character facial textures and lip-synching is poorly done in my opinion. But I guess the focus of this game isn’t the characters but executing tricks. By the way, the game supports 1080p full HD.

So my final words for this game, GET IT. If you are unsure, get the demo and find out. This game is coming out at the end of this month. Skateboarders, this game is a must, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you guys about that!

Image Source: GameSpot