MechWarrior – reboot?

For those gamers who’ve played the old series of Mechwarrior games on the PC from the mid 90s onwards, you’re gonna love this announcement.:)

The MechWarrior Q&A on IGN confirms yesterday’s indications that a new MechWarrior game is in the works, discussing the project with Piranha Games president Russ Bullock and FASA cofounder/MechWarrior creator Jordan Weisman about the Unreal-engine project, which will be simply titled MechWarrior, as it is one of those franchise reboots that the kids are all so wild about these days. This separate IGN article offers a teaser trailer and details about the game, which is in development for Windows and Xbox 360, but does not yet carry a projected release date.

Rest of news article here. Super cool preview: let the audio effects blast ya over!

Frontline Airsoft

“Frontline Airsoft is located at Turf City. We organise airsoft games at our skirmish field daily from 9.00am to 10.00pm. Established in April 2009, Frontline Airsoft operates the first head to head skirmish field in Singapore.”

http://www.airsoft.com.sg/Frontline_Airsft/Home.html

So I came across this website, similar to the concept of paintball. Seems interesting to be bringing virtual games we play all day long to reality heh.
Anyone been there before or even paintball? I think I might just organise one for my class next holidays and own them ;)

Blogs

Well… I think this would be my first post that is not directly related to games (though it does relate to IT)

Well, for blog that are many different kinds of blogs that you can use. The most commonly seen ones are Blogger, WordPress and Live Journal. The one that I like the most is Blogger while WordPress is the one that I don’t like the most…

Blogger is for ease of use for new bloggers as Blogger really helps alot in terms of, well…, everything!! I can just finish a long post WITH pictures included in around 10, 20 minutes. I have around 60 plus posts in my current Blogger blog.

For WordPress, it is quite organised, but I have a few issues with it. First of all, the upload of pictures to WordPress is ridiculously slow and complicated, unlike Blogger’s copy and paste. You have to browse for the picture that you want and wait for a long while, as opposed to just copy and paste the picture in Blogger. I could just upload more than 30 plus pictures in Blogger while waiting for 1 picture to be uploaded in WordPress. Another issue I have with it is that it is laggy sometimes. What I meant by laggy is that sometimes while typing words down, it lags, which really makes it easy to make mistakes. Currenty, I’m only using WordPress because yours truly is blogging in this blog. LOL :)

For Live Journal, I just started a blog where I will put up my stuff there. 1 big issue that I have with LJ is that the password must have at least 1 number/symbol in it. Well, their reason for it was for security reasons, but come on…. you don’t have to put in numbers/symbols to have a strong password which forced me to reset my password… Well, once I use LJ more, I would be able to have a better viewpoint about it.

There are other kinds of blogging systems and also personalised blog addresses. For people who want ease of use of are just lazy, Blogger would be good. For those who do not take many photos and can bear with lag, WordPress suits their need. LJ is still an unknown quality for me so I won’t commen t about it, but those who prefer passwords without any numbers shouldn’t use it.

Blogs can be important for your career, since they can put up ur stuff to show to potential employers, and/or for your job, you can also put up stuff that you’re working on. It can also be personal to you. Well, whatever blog system you’re using it, just make sure you don’t get any trouble with the law… :)

Zhi Xiang

Plants vs Zombies – by Mr. Ng Chongming

Posted for Mr. Ng.:)

It was a dull, tired night when I started surfing some game portals for new games that might recreate a few sparks in my life while I slog through my work. Somehow, the words “Plants vs Zombies” seem to pop up from everywhere. The amazing part of it was the scores that were tagged along the game; easily 8 and above in almost every single review. I skimmed through the reviews but wasn’t at all impressed. “Another Tower Defense game? Casual? Nah.” And I shrugged it off, together with all the crazed user reviews praising the game to the high heavens. That was, until, I saw the music video.

The song easily brought back 80% of the excitement and happiness I felt when I reached the end of Portal. From the music video, the game seemed curiously lively, and resembled something like an overdose of cuteness. I downloaded the trial and voila, I could not stop! And to think I thought I already had my fair share of Tower Defence games.

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The game pits zombies against you, right in front of your doorstep, right on top your lawn. Except, you are not the one fending them off, your plants are! This whacky manifestation of pure fun not only breaks down a fast-paced and often gory genre into a simpler offering with lovable characters, but also packs it full of character and charm. As the player, you have to gather Sun credits, be it from Sol, Sunflowers or Fungi, and use these credits to create plants that will help you take down equally well-developed and thought-of zombies, before they step through your front door and have your brains for brunchner.

There are a total of 50 levels in the adventure mode, and the game advances progressively in difficulty and flexibility, unlocking one new plant every level to add into the fray. The 50 levels are adequately divided into 5 arcs of 10 levels each on a different venue. With each advancement, the terrain and conditions change to make some plants obsolete, while the game gives you cool new plants to take care of the situations, keeping the game fresh throughout. As if this wasn’t enough, the game also comes with additional puzzle modes and a staggering 20 mini-games that make use of the same game elements. Each one is varied enough to provide an alternative experience with the same lovable characters in the game.

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Each plant and zombie is suitably named and given a short background description that fits its purpose, giving each one its own charm and character. The artwork is brilliant with much color and sunshine, and is one of the key points that make the game so pleasant to look at and so enjoyable to play. Coupled with a soundtrack that is nothing short of excellent, one cannot help getting his/her heart gently lifted while playing the game, and break into giggles on hearing the hilarious light voice-acting of the zombies, especially when one of them chews on a garlic. Last and most, the messages that the zombies sneakily leave you before each major attack are to die for.

Seriously, plants vs zombies? What? Trust the creators of Bejeweled and Peggle to come up with something as weirdly entertaining as this. I never dreamed that zombies could be cute, and Tower Defence could be casual. But in the end, Popcap managed to do it again, creating this gem of a virtual mass of fun. Give it a try, and I assure you that you will be thinking to yourself: ““Just one more level”, 2 hours past your bedtime!

(Pictures from Gamespot)

WCG 2009 (Competitor’s View)

Well, since Aaron and Nasyirah blogged about WCG 2009 as a spectator and worker respectively, I was thinking,”Maybe I should blog too, but with a competitor’s view?”. Since I did compete in WCG 2009 in FIFA 09…

Well, WCG has been a familar event with me. I’ve been to the WCG National Finals as a spectator since 2005, went to the Grand Finals at Singapore in 2005, which was held in 2005, but never once did I ever went there as a competitor. Well… until this year :) .

I reached Suntec at around 8, near to 9 plus in ther morning… and I had to wait for around 1 hour until I + the other FIFA 09/Blackshot players were allowed to register. Well… there’s always delays in WCG… something that I did not like. Another thing that I did not like is the downsizing of WCG. In 2005, when the whole world was still able to afford big events, there were like 3 (yes,3) convention halls that were used for the Grand Finals. For the National Finals in 2005, there was at least 1 convention hall. Now, let see…. 1 puny little exhibition hall… Well.. what a fall from glory that was…

I played a total of 4 matches. The organisation for the competition was totally screwed, with a total of 2 people playing in my group out of the 4, with another 1 being late. Add this on with the fact that the top 3 qualify and it meant that it was ridiculous… I lost the 2 matches, but still got 2nd in my group… Ridiculous.. but the controller I used then did not allow me to use tackling and through balls, so you could see what a futile waste of time it was. For the next round, I got a Windows Xbox 360 controller, which I was forced to buy, since I couldn’t find other controllers that can interface with the computer asap. I played another 2 matches with 1 guy. 1st match was a draw, 1:1. The second was very close…. me losing 3:4.

I stayed for quite a while, looking around the other exhibitions, which was boring in my sense. However, I did watched a really close DOTA match with the 1 team barely winning it as their frozen throne was also going to be down… I also watched Team Titans (the best CS clan in Singapore) owning another team 16:1, with the 1 a gift from Titans to the team…

I saw some of my course mates (though most of them were my classmates) working at WCG… They were there either slacking or playing the games there… Well, good for them… earning money doing almost nothing but play games and walking around + meals provided.

I had an okay experience with WCG 2009, though there’s much room for improvement compared to the last few years (not counting WCG 2005). I do hope that they can improve it, though I think it might be impossible due to the current recession.

ZX :D

WCG 2009

Hi readers, been a while since I last blogged huh? Well anyways, I will be writing on WCG. I know Aaron has blogged about the WCG event he attended however, I would love to share my experience with you too. I was given the opportunity to be a student helper for WCG during those 3 days. So I was there practically the whole day, from early morning to night. The event stretched from 10am to 10pm for the first 2 days so it was really tiring since I had to be there even earlier and leave later to be debriefed for the next day. The last day ended at 7pm but I still had to stay behind to help in “teardown” in the convention hall which took about 3 to 4 hours.

I was in charge of various positions but mainly for Alienware booth during the 3 day span. So basically, my job was to promote Alienware laptops with the use of games. The two games available were Call of Duty 4 and Grid. It was a really nice experience although it was tiring to be standing around and helping out those who were playing the games. We had an hourly competition going on everyday to encourage people to try the laptops with the winning prize being a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook.

WCG2

What caught me by surprise was this young boy who was in his school uniform, dropped by to WCG, decided to play Grid for fun and walks back home with a Netbook. He apparently had the fastest time in the Grid challenge and no one else was able to beat his timing. After that I saw a trend slowly emerging, it seems that more and more younger gamers are getting better at games then those who have been playing it far longer then they had. Probably a stereotype but I always assume younger kids to be a “noob” at playing games like COD4 for that matter. Our competition for COD4 was based on team death-match whereby 2 players would versus another 2 players. And on one fine afternoon, two really young boys approached me wishing to join the competition and people were staring at them amused thinking they could never beat the other 2 players who were in their 20’s perhaps. Boy were they wrong, everyone watching  (including me) were shocked at how well they were maneuvering around in the game and eventually won the match. It was really cool haha.

Oh I had another surprise too, our very own course manager for GET, Mr. Peter Choy, was there playing COD4 on the second day. Hope you had fun Mr Choy!

WCG3

I was also able to catch a glimpse of the main WCG event and have seen the amount of hard work and dedication both players and organisers had put in to make this event a successful one. It was really an eye opener too as being part of the team had made me realise and personally experience the difficulty in organising a big event such a this, especially with the case of H1N1 going around and the fact that visitors from all over Asia were there. I would really love to be part of WCG again, probably opt to be a game marshal and who knows you might just see me next year watching over you during your DOTA match. ;)

Overlord

Overlord. From GameSpy.com

Overlord. From GameSpy.com

Considering that Overlord 2 had just come out at the beginning of this month, I’d thought I’d go back and revisit the prequel. One thing that struck me as strangely fun was how you could just smack most characters in the game with abandon until they kick it. Be they innocent bystanders, your ever-loyal minions or the various enemies you encounter, a few swings of your weapon never fails to send them sprawling across the ground.

Of course, considering that there’s not really a lot that the game offers in the way of personal combat other than a few interesting spells and the ever-identical swings of your weapon, the “smacking things around” part tends to get dull after a little while. As such, I sometimes find that I leave most encounters with the enemy to my minions, who never pass up a chance to cause death and destruction.

One thing about getting minions is that they require lifeforce in order to be summoned, created, or whatever you want to call it. Lifeforce is gathered by killing sheep, enemies, or peasants. There are four different types of lifeforce we can collect, and different creatures drop lifeforce of different colors.

As such, there are four different minions that we can summon for our army. Brown minion, Green minions, Red minion, and Blue minions. Each type of minion plays a different role in our army.

Well, nobody said Browns were smart... From GameSpot.com.

Well, nobody said Browns were smart... From GameSpot.com.

Browns are the fighters. They are the strongest and most common type of minion, all-round fighters and able to take the most damage.They’re basically cannon fodder, for the lack of a better term. Green minions are the assassins, capable of sneaking up behind their opponent and striking with their razor sharp claws.

Red minions are the archers, capable of throwing fireballs over distances. They’re incapable of melee combat, though, so keep them away. Finally, the Blue Minions are the healers, using magic to deal damage, as well as resurrect fallen minions. Kinda like a motley bunch of misfits, if you told me… Ah well, whatever works.

One rather annying thing that I’d found about the game was that it sometimes requires to revisit areas. That, combined with the way the game seems to require us solving puzzles, means that things can get rather frustrating quickly. A little dull, too, but that’s besides the point. The main problem to this, I would think, is that some map can get confusingly large.

...Haven't I been here before? From GameSpot.com.

...Haven't I been here before? From GameSpot.com.

As a result, you sometimes never realise that you’d already fully explored an area, because the area links to several others, some that you’ve already explored. I remembering spending the better part of a few hours wandering around a certain map because I could never remember where I’d already gone, and thought there was more to the map than I’d found.

In the game, there are items that we can, and sometimes are required, to find. These items allow the game to progress, and some allow your Overlord to get stronger, too. These objects include the smelters of the Tower Forge, which allows you to forge new weapons and armor, and several “power-up” objects that benefit you someway or another.

Oh...treasure! From GameSpot.com.

Oh...treasure! From GameSpot.com.

These “power-up” objects can benefit you in four ways. The first two, most obvious one would be to increase your maximum health and mana by a certain amount. An integral part of any game, I’m sure. One other would be to provide you with spells. These spells come in four different categories, with four(three, really) levels to each of them. The last would be to increase the maximum size of the army that you can have with you at any one time.

The Tower Forge allows you to create armor and weapons (one you’ve found the smelters, that is). Armor and weapons come in three different kinds of metals, each stronger than the last. You also have the choice of imbuing the lives of your minions into your armor and weapons, giving them unique powers. More minions imbued mean more powerful…. powers, but do remember, doing so takes lifeforce.

Burn, baby, burn!!! From GameSpot.com.

Burn, baby, burn!!! From GameSpot.com.


Spells, as I’ve mentioned above, come in four different catogeries. Fire spells, which, as their name suggests, burn things; Domination spells, which allow you to control opponents and turn the battle to your favour; Shield spells that protect you, and finally, Minion spells that allow you to power-up your minions, at the price of losing control of them for periods of time.

Now, I’d said that each category of spells have four levels, but in actual fact, we can only have a maximum of three at any one time. The last two levels are actually choices decided for you by how evil you really are. If you’ve got a low corruption rating, you get the “Uncorrupted” version of the spell, and if your corruption’s high, the “Corrupted” version. Don’t ask me what happens if your corrution level’s at 50%. Never done that before.

Well, I guess that’s it for today. Am I missing anything? Ah, heck. I’ll see you guys… whenever…

-Jonathan Tiang

TGX & WCG 2009

TGX (The Games Expo) & WCG (World Cyber Games) 2009 was held recently at Suntec City Convention Hall 404 from the 3-5th july. Hosted by Games Exchange Alliance (GXA), a trade industry body in Singapore along with the Singapore Cosplay Club and Virtualand, it showcased a plethora of the latest games, gizmos and gadgets along with cosplay activities.

A couple of competitions were held in conjunction with the event under as part of the WCG 2009. A couple of the featured ones are the DOTA league and a SF4 tournament. With the Finals of WCG 2009 being held at Chengdu, China this year, the WCG has really grown to become an international event spanning locations across the globe as well as drawing competitors from all around.

Other than games, a few other highlights of the expo was the presence of arcade machines featuring games like Tekken, Arcana Heart and of course, SF4. Also, Blazblue: Calamity Trigger and KOF XII were launched, both being fighting games. (Launched by TKA Virtualand)

An especially nice touch I saw at the event was a band playing music from final fantasy, reminding me of the recent events featuring video game music, e.g: Video Games Live and Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. It was really a crowd pleaser with a huge crowd amassing around the band and video screen. It really shows the integration of the music and gaming industries and from this and the recent performances, I won’t be surprised to see more such events popping up.

With more and more gaming related events and tie-ins with other media like movies, music and even cosplay, the transformation of Singapore into a gaming and media hub is slowly turning into a reality. The future does seem bright for gamers and game developers alike.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Aaron and Zulhelmi’s review for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has been published on the New Era web site (the print version should be in this month’s Gamers’ Choice magazine). Link here.


 

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

AARON KRISH & Muhammad Zulhelmi Bin Zainal

Temasek Polytechnic / Temasek Informatics & IT School – Game & Entertainment Technology

blog-transformers2Revenge of the Fallen features two faction campaigns; the benevolent Autobots, and the deadly Decepticons. This third person shooter expands beyond the movie plot with bonus missions and characters. Unlike the first Transformers game, Revenge of the Fallen allows the player to select which missions they would like to accomplish and in any order.

In the Autobots campaign, the player starts off as Bumblebee, starting with a tutorial of the controls and capabilities of playing as a Transformer, while the Decepticons play their tutorial as Sideway. Every Cybertronian has two modes: a vehicle mode which allows players to transform into their vehicles to move faster, and weapon mode which the Transformer unsheathes their firearms to access their primary and secondary weapons. They each also have unique offensive or defensive abilities for more strategic battle tactics. For example Ratchet/Long Haul provides their team with accelerated healing for added survivability.

The game awards players with points for advanced techniques like taking down an enemy that is climbing a building, scoring a headshot or even timing a transformation just right so that the momentum of your car mode transfers into a robot attack. Using these techniques builds up the player’s Overdrive meter. Once it is full, Overdrive mode can be activated, which grants temporary invulnerability, increased damage and disables weapon overheating. This allows the robot to clear large groups of enemies easily.

Each mission has the main objective and two other bonus objectives, and completing each provides players with a hefty amount of energon (The in-game currency). These energons are used to buy upgrades which enhance the abilities of the faction. This in turn makes players stronger and last longer in combat. The missions mostly focus on specific objectives like escort/protect targets, searching for a goal and destroying targets.

The bulk of the gameplay focuses on combat and that’s not a bad thing as the combat is quite exhilarating once you’ve mastered the art of transforming. Speeding around in your vehicle mode at top speed and morphing into your weapon mode, then immediately blasting away when you encounter enemies is a fun experience.

The challenge level isn’t too high once you’ve got the hang of the controls although trying to get Platinum status on every mission will take a number of tries. That, plus the multiple missions and two factions means that there’s quite an amount of replayability.

As far as graphics goes, the level of detail on each Transformer is great. You can see the outstanding parts of each robot character and how they fit onto their vehicle modes. However the enemies you’re facing are slightly more generic, with a car, helicopter and truck Transformer making up the bulk of the opposition. The sound is standard here too, except that the voice acting for Starscream is rather distorted that it would have been useful if subtitles were provided.

Overall, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comes off as a unique 3rd person shooter game that stands out from the rest due to its innovative design and gameplay.

MDA to fully fund game projects

… that can be marketed overseas!

Quite a bit of good news for game development in Singapore too. The news was reported in The Straits Times today, with excerpt below:

SINGAPORE wants to take on the world gaming industry and is inviting those with a penchant for game design here to come up with creative ideas.

For the first time, the Media Development Authority (MDA) is calling for proposals for games marketable overseas.

The game designs will need to be versatile enough to be published on most platforms so that the games can be played on both desktop computers and mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPod.

Four local game publishers will partner with designers to publish the games.

MDA and the four developers will fully fund the ventures. MDA declined to reveal the amount, saying it depends on the quality of the proposals. However IAH Games said it is prepared to spend $50,000 to $500,000 per project. Industry sources say each publisher will receive 50 per cent of funding from MDA to invest in game developments.

News article here too.:)