» 2009 » February

Gametrailers.com released a NY Comic-Con 09: Interview (which I was there myself!) for the soon-to-be-released movie game Wanted: Weapons of Fate. In the second half of the trailer is where the producer Nick Torchia mentioned there is an unlockable female character and claims to be “one of the coolest unlockable character you can play as…..”. This really leads me to believe that the unlockable character is Angelina Jolie since she is so cool and exotic just like in the movie. Please make her the unlockable character! Please!

Hopefully this game will turn out great because almost every single movie-turned-game has been mediocre. I hope this game will break that curse. A demo will be enough for me to decide if this game is wanted or not!

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I’ve actually been playing the three games that are included with the cellphone since I got it a few days ago. The said games are Need for Speed ProStreet, Solitaire and a photo hunting game (forgot the name, the game’s name I have is in Chinese). After playing all three, there is one disappointment and one positive surprise. The photo hunting game is actually not new, its one of the games for my now dead Sony Ericsson K790i.

Need for Speed ProStreet is the disappointment here. I knew it wouldn’t be too enjoyable since its on the cellphone but I didn’t expect to be this bad. I will skip the how good or bad the controls are because its hard to play this type of games using cellphone keys anyway. The major issue I have with this game is graphics. I know graphics is only one of many factors that determine if the game is worthy or not. But I expected something better than the graphics for this mobile version of Need for Speed ProStreet. I closed the game within two minutes. Oh yes the music also sounds horrible.

I honestly did not expect Solitaire to be THIS addictive. This game is not just A game, but rather a series of card games such as Klondike, Freecell, Pyramid, Poker, Spiderette, Flower garden, Scorpion, Yukon, Golf, Calculation, Seven Sisters and Beleaguered Castle. That is an impressive total of 12 card games in one! Klondike is pretty much the classic Solitaire you play in Windows, Pyramid is the one where you take away cards that have a sum of 13 and your goal is to clear all the cards. Finally Poker is not the one which you play with your poker friends, but a grid of 25 cards so you can chain pairs, flushes, 3 or 4 of a kind vertically or horizontally. It forces you to do more thinking because there are now more ways to get good hands. Unfortunately I have never heard of the other 9 games until now.

You think that’s it for this game? Think again! This game also has an RPG element to it. You will start off with a character and you get to choose your gender. You are in a cafe and your goal is to keep playing cards, gain more experience points and ranks. As you gain more experience you will unlock more clothing to customize your character. You will also get trophies and see the cafe gets bigger as your ranks go up.

The photo hunting game will have you take pictures under the sea, there are different types of sea creatures such as fish, obviously, sea horses, turtles etc. As you complete missions you will unlock more missions. The objective is straight forward, you will have to complete missions like taking pictures of given species or capture a group of the same species within your air tank’s limit. Your air tank will be refilled for every 1000 points, for the first time, by 30 seconds, then it will gradually refill less until you reach 10,000 points where it will stop refilling.

Well I think that’s it for this review!

This 4 series review should cover most, if not all of the features for the Sony Ericsson c902i. I hope this will help those that are looking for a new cellphone as well as those that are thinking of getting this cellphone but are unsure if it will suit you or not. In my opinion, the c902i is perfect for those that want to have everything in one but does not need a data plan, much like one you will need when signing up for an iPhone. Although it has a built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera, it CANNOT take quality pictures at a distance like a digital camera can due to lack of optical zoom.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 3)

Whether you are shopping online or offline, most of the time you want to get the best possible deal by comparing prices from store to store. This can often be time consuming when checking one store after another. DealShouter provides information on some of the best shopping deals from well known companies like HP, Dell, Sears, Walmart, just to name a few. It does not only provide great deals on electronics (since you will also that because this is a tech blog) but also items like sports equipments and travel gears. With over 20 different categories to choose from, for sure there will be something for everyone.

Even I found some good deals there, like this Sony Playstation 3 80GB, althought this does not come with any games or HDMI cable, it has a 15% off coupon code which will save you almost USD$60.00, that saving can get you a game (not the newest obviously) and an HDMI cable. Many of you should know by now that Killzone 2 will be out on Feb 27, well guess what? You can get USD$5.00 plus free shipping (unfortunately only people from the States are eligible) from Amazon, which is $56.99 – $5.00 = $51.99 + Free Shipping.

Finally if you are someone who likes to spread the news about the latest and best deals, you can also register on the site. By registering you will gain access to submiting new deals as you discover them.

Again, if you want to find best shopping deals and bargains, look no further, check out DealShouter.com right now!

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Most of us have cable these days and are basically paying more than these providers have to offer because we are in a monopoly. Fortunately there are more sensible companies out there that will provide just as good, if not better, TV services at more reasonable prices. One such company is Direct Sat TV which provides DirecTV offers at competitive prices.

One of its DirecTV deals currently in promotion right now offers a saving of USD$23.00 for 12 months which includes 3 months free for channels like HBO, STARZ, SHOWTIME and SPORTSPACK, when ordering the Premier package. In the end you will get over 265 channels. There are a total of 6 packages to choose from which ranges from the most affordable Family package that includes 45 channels to the Premier package that was mentioned before.

All packages come with DirectTV standard 2 room system, standard satellite receiver along with free shipping and standard installation. You can also add individual premium services such as the channels mentioned before plus more. You can easily order online or call them with the number provided on the site.

With the competitive pricing for these DirectTV providers like Direct Sat TV, those cable providers better reevaluate their pricing in order to stay in the game.

Resident Evil……..5… That familiar opening quickly reminded me the very first Resident Evil or Bio Hazard. After waiting for a week after the Xbox 360 users got their hands on the demo, we PS3 users finally got to try out this long awaited and hyped up survival horror game which is scheduled to be released on March 13th for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

I got a chance to play one of the two levels included in the demo, Shanty Town (the other one is Public Assembly) and I’m sure we have seen a lot of trailers from these two levels from GameTrailers.com. This level is pretty simple, you explore buildings along the way and you don’t have to wait long before you encounter your very first zombie from RE5, or rather a group of zombies. Just like Resident Evil 4, you play this game through a locked third person view, meaning you cannot rotate and see your face. One thing I really need to get used to and I really dislike is the fact that you cannot move while you are in the middle of a gun fight. I know the developers have made the zombies move really slow to compensate for that but this really makes the game unrealistic. If the style is more towards the Dead Space style then I think this game is perfect, even if that means they have to reprogram the AIs to move in a more realistic way.

That is pretty much my only rant for this game. The characters, the zombies, the buildings (both inside and out) and the lighting are very detailed. The game runs on 720p max for those wondering if it will run on full 1080p HD.

Now for the game play, again beside the controls, I really love the online/offline co-op features. Even the demo offers the Shanty Town online co-op or split screen on a single PS3. After dying from the infamous chainsaw dude’s bloody chainsaw I decided to try out the online co-op. The experience was simply different, in a VERY positive way. Although my human partner could have been a little smarter when I kept on requesting for the rifle ammo which he doesn’t need at all and he kept on giving me handgun ammo. The fact that you can give your inventory to your co-op partner as well as using healing item on each other makes the game even more enjoyable because now the two are really playing as a team. So finally he figured out I needed RIFLE ammo and we proceeded to fight the chainsaw dude, I knew without the rifle ammos we pretty much wouldn’t stand a chance. In the end, the rifle ammo saved the day and chainsaw dude was no more.

Resident Evil 5 is definitely a must-buy for those hardcore survival horror fans, the online and offline co-op features make this game worth the 59.99 we will be paying for. But given Killzone 2 is coming out 2 weeks before Resident Evil 5, I think I might have to pass for now, at least until the end of this year or unless Killzone 2 turns out to be a disaster which I highly doubt. This shouldn’t be a problem for Xbox 360 users though unless they happen to have the PS3 as well!

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As promised, I had a chance to play with the built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera for the Sony Ericsson c902i. After going through the menus of the camera, its pretty safe to say it has most, if not all the commonly used features as you see in a real digital camera. Functions such as Normal, BestPic, Panorama, Frames (wrapping the actual picture inside 1 of 18 preset frames), timer, movie mode, flash on/off and face recognition etc. After all it IS branded as a Cyber-shot camera so having those functions should not be a surprise.

Although it does pretty much what a real digital camera can do, it does not offer optical zoom but only digital zoom. You will quickly notice “noise” as soon as you start zooming in. Then again that is the case for all cellphones’ built-in cameras. Even though it has 5 megapixel, picture quality is only good if you don’t zoom in. I don’t think these built-in cameras are meant for taking pictures at a distance anyway.

I recently downloaded WipEout HD (yes capital E) and I thought it was perfect opportunity for testing the camera’s strength, at least close range. By default, the picture is 2592×1944 averaging about 1.3mb in size. I’m no photographer but the picture quality is as good as pictures taken from my 4 megapixel Canon SD400 (I know its old!) if not better. See for yourself!

  

Finally, what one feature that makes this camera phone stand out from the rest of the camera phones out there is the 8 blue backlit touch sensitive buttons surrounding the screen (4 on each side) and when you press any of them the phone will vibrate a little so you know you pressed something. The keypad will also be backlit by blue light as well and when you are not in camera mode, the keypad is backlit by white light instead. These buttons are basically the functions I mentioned from above but I still find it very cool and I have yet to get bored of pressing them. I know you iPhone users are probably laughing at me right now about this touch sensitive feature. Oh well, I would love to get one but I just can’t justify paying for data plan as I don’t really need to use any.

Stay tuned on Friday for the games review. See what kind of games this phone has to offer! I probably cannot write the review since I will be out for Winterlicious.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)

First I want to apologize for not taking the protective sticker off the screen because I haven’t had a chance to buy a real screen protector yet.

Today I had a chance to play around the c902′s interface. One thing I want to point out is that instead of having two rows of buttons surrounding the center Navigation key like the T616 and k790i, the c902 actually has 3 rows of keys or buttons (the manual calls them keys). The top row has “Selection” keys and they function based on what are displayed on the screen. As for the middle row, you have the “Call” Key which also displaying the call history and “End” key on the opposite side which also acts as a on/off key as well as closing all the menus. Finally the last row has the “Toolbar” key as well as the “Clear” or cancel key. There are more on the right side of the phone but I will cover that tomorrow when I review the camera.

Honestly I am still trying to get used to these three rows of keys and I still press the wrong key once in a while. I don’t recommend this phone for those with big fingers because the keys are rather narrow. I’m not a big person myself but I’ve hit the wrong key before because of the narrowness as well as the little space in between them.

First thing I noticed when navigating through the Grid layout (default style) menu is how fast the screen saver gets activated for inactivity, roughly 20 seconds. I have no luck finding the option to extend the screen’s active time. There are four styles for the menu layout – Grid, Rotating, Single icon and From theme. I am unable to test the last one because I don’t have a theme that supports menu layout yet. After testing the other three styles I still prefer the classic Grid style that displays all 16 icons.

The menu is pretty standard with the only a few additions comparing to my T616 and K790i. The PlayNow, Radio and the Alarm function is now on its own separate icon as oppose to having it as part of the Organizer. The PlayNow allows you to buy and then download music to your phone. For more information, visit the Sony Ericsson page I found.

Basically the menu offers functions that are pretty common among other cellphones out there, nothing special in particular which is fine because I think the real strength of this phone is the 5 megapixel Cyber-shot digital camera as well as the games. Stay tuned for my camera review tomorrow and games the day after!

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)

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After one and a half weeks of frustration with the UPS (I might turn my frustration into another blog post when I have a chance), my Sony Ericsson c902i has arrived to my work place. You have no idea how happy I was and still am, when I unwrapped my new phone. As far as I know, the c902i is not available from any service provides such as Rogers, Fido or Telus. I am not sure about the US but this 3G phone has been available in Europe and Asia for quite some time. We, in America, are always the last group of people to get our hands on the newest gadgets.

The reason why I purchased the c902i is the fact that it has the looks of the K850i which I was extremely close to getting towards the end of last year. I changed my mind because it was just too bulky, specifically how “thick” it is. The c902i fits me perfectly because it has relatively the same design with its blueish lights but packaged in a much slimmer, thinner and glossy black body surrounded by matte black/silver. And it also has a 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera as well.

Sony Ericsson has also released a James Bond edition which features an attractive titanium silver color housing, obviously you have to pay more.

Click here for full specifications.

I will divide up the review into parts and I will write about my impression of the c902i as I go.

Day 1:

First thing first I don’t like is the box. Yes I know why should I even care, its just a box its not like I will be calling people and carrying around with it. But I’m a presentation person, the previous two Sony Ericsson phone boxes (T616 and K790i) were much nicer compare to this one. I’m not sure if its because its boxed by Vodafone or not. As you can see from the picture, you can clearly see the k790i box is nicest among the three.

In terms of size, it is a clear win for the relatively new c902i. It is as tall as the K790i and taller than the T616 by a little. The T616 is the slimest of all but not by much. And finally the c902i beats both phones hands down with its ultra thin design. Although it is the heaviest among all three but that is because the T616 and K790i are very light weight to begin with therefore the extra weight on the c902i isn’t too noticeable.

Tomorrow, I will play around with the phone’s interface. Stay tuned!

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 3)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 4)

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