It's been quite sometime since I post anything... Mostly it is because there is nothing news worthy to post... Although this might made me looks like a hardcore gamer I just have no other interesting news to tell :pp
The third game post in the row and this one is of 'Evil Genius' *insert evil laugh track here* :))
Like the name suggested in this game you will take on a role of an evil genius set out to conquer the world. You will first select your avatar each with their own perks and looks. The whole game seems to be influence by the Austin Power movie. Or perhaps by the 60s looks in the costume, the style and in just about everything.
The game play will be more about managing your base and your global evil activities. Your minions (the staffs :)) will run around doing their things automatically. Also when you send them on the mission or just to steal money they will do so by time count and without micro management.
When you look pass the facade of planning world conquering and so on, this game is more or less your typical management simulation game with an evil twist.
On to the Chilling part... The cold had comes and gone from Bangkok, not quite in record time but somewhat expected. Either it was less cold than a few years back or I became more tolerated since I did not have to pull out my jacket this year :) It was quite cold for about a week in which I have no need to turn on Any fan on my room as well as gotten myself under 2 blankets and a quilt just to keep warm.
All that is almost gone now... The night time is still quite chilly but not as much. I wish I have a hunk to hold on to at night instead of my long pillow...
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
And then there were...
None :) This is of cause about one of Agatha's classic 'And then there were none' and no I am not talking about the book but the game :)
I guess I would just skip the story part. You can find the book to read I am sure so I will just get into reviewing the game.
This game is done in traditional adventure game with static 2D pre-rendered background and 3D characters. The background scenes are typical quality stuffs, nicely rendered to pictured the moody British weather quite well. The same could not be said for the characters... All the character looks rather rough and did not blend well with the background. It is that bad that at one scene one of the character place both hands on a table and I have to look twice just to make sure that both palms are faced down :ppp
The voice of characters were mediocre and rather inconsistance. Sometimes the character talk in a rather calm voice in not so calm situations... I think the overall voice did not help built up the tension that well...
The game seems mostly stable until it crash on me when I tried to examined an item... I have yet to replicate the crash as I haven't reach that point again yet but we will see... The character also suffers (well not quite) from the 'is that a ladder in yoour pocket' syndrome of adventure games. You got to pick up a Lot of stuffs in this game, some of which are rather sizable such as blownup raft with oars and even full size ladder!!. It would surely looks rather ridiculous in real when you see this guy walking around with a bunch of books, ladder, raft+oars, wheel of cheese, and two buckets of apples.
My Final Words: It is a good story, and the makers add a good plot twist with player as the 11th person stranded on the island. I think it would have been better if more experienced studio produce this game... At least the whole package would be prettier and perhaps looks more professional. Still the game's saving grace is the story itself. Which still make the game playable and quite enjoyable. This game is probabaly the testament that Adventure games are define by being story-driven first and foremost, thus, will stand the test of time and prevail over the mindless FPS games :p
I guess I would just skip the story part. You can find the book to read I am sure so I will just get into reviewing the game.
This game is done in traditional adventure game with static 2D pre-rendered background and 3D characters. The background scenes are typical quality stuffs, nicely rendered to pictured the moody British weather quite well. The same could not be said for the characters... All the character looks rather rough and did not blend well with the background. It is that bad that at one scene one of the character place both hands on a table and I have to look twice just to make sure that both palms are faced down :ppp
The voice of characters were mediocre and rather inconsistance. Sometimes the character talk in a rather calm voice in not so calm situations... I think the overall voice did not help built up the tension that well...
The game seems mostly stable until it crash on me when I tried to examined an item... I have yet to replicate the crash as I haven't reach that point again yet but we will see... The character also suffers (well not quite) from the 'is that a ladder in yoour pocket' syndrome of adventure games. You got to pick up a Lot of stuffs in this game, some of which are rather sizable such as blownup raft with oars and even full size ladder!!. It would surely looks rather ridiculous in real when you see this guy walking around with a bunch of books, ladder, raft+oars, wheel of cheese, and two buckets of apples.
My Final Words: It is a good story, and the makers add a good plot twist with player as the 11th person stranded on the island. I think it would have been better if more experienced studio produce this game... At least the whole package would be prettier and perhaps looks more professional. Still the game's saving grace is the story itself. Which still make the game playable and quite enjoyable. This game is probabaly the testament that Adventure games are define by being story-driven first and foremost, thus, will stand the test of time and prevail over the mindless FPS games :p
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Light! Camera! Action!
Yeap I got a brand spanking new game called 'The Movies' This is another product from the same maker as Fable: The Lost Chapter and Black and White series Lionhead studio.
This game is more or less serve two purposes in one software as a typical business tycoon and a rather immersive movie making software. In game mode you will get to play as movie studio boss beginning from the year 1920. You get to manage from hiring actors and studio crews. You get to assign a movie making process and release them. You get to hire a bunch of scriptwriters to literally churn out movie scripts to be make or sell (you should get the writers to work non-stop as they have do not get tired and they will gain experince from working.) Since pretty early in the game you will get a 'Custom Script Maker' facilities. Which will begin the process of making the move by yourself.
I must handg it to the makers since the process is relatively easy to master. Add this to the 'Post Production Office' and you can add soundtrack, lipsync, and even edit the movie. This section can be pretty extensive... If you dig that kind of thing :)
However, the thing that bug me the most is the complete lag of people to be hired to be the crew. Especially, after the actors became really famous and they want assistance... When you have a big enough lot you cannot get by with just 7 builders to maintain all the set and buildings. And you can not really get by with just 2 janitors :ppp Plus, with the film crew that seems to be available with just 7-8 people as well as the number of stars, you can only make two films at the same time.
I wondered if LH will release a patch to make the people became more available... I know that this is a business tycoon game and resource management is one of the key factor. But it is rather ridiculous to manage the studio and when they asking more and more and more people. All of which you cannot spare... And this is only the year 1965 in my game... Darn it...
This game is more or less serve two purposes in one software as a typical business tycoon and a rather immersive movie making software. In game mode you will get to play as movie studio boss beginning from the year 1920. You get to manage from hiring actors and studio crews. You get to assign a movie making process and release them. You get to hire a bunch of scriptwriters to literally churn out movie scripts to be make or sell (you should get the writers to work non-stop as they have do not get tired and they will gain experince from working.) Since pretty early in the game you will get a 'Custom Script Maker' facilities. Which will begin the process of making the move by yourself.
I must handg it to the makers since the process is relatively easy to master. Add this to the 'Post Production Office' and you can add soundtrack, lipsync, and even edit the movie. This section can be pretty extensive... If you dig that kind of thing :)
However, the thing that bug me the most is the complete lag of people to be hired to be the crew. Especially, after the actors became really famous and they want assistance... When you have a big enough lot you cannot get by with just 7 builders to maintain all the set and buildings. And you can not really get by with just 2 janitors :ppp Plus, with the film crew that seems to be available with just 7-8 people as well as the number of stars, you can only make two films at the same time.
I wondered if LH will release a patch to make the people became more available... I know that this is a business tycoon game and resource management is one of the key factor. But it is rather ridiculous to manage the studio and when they asking more and more and more people. All of which you cannot spare... And this is only the year 1965 in my game... Darn it...
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Moving Castle and Strange Passerbys
I had just finish watching Howl's Moving Castle today and boy I like this animation. Besides the well-drawn characters the story is quite intriguing.
The main protagonist, Sophie, a simple girl whose family own a hat shop had a chance encounter and fallen in love with a handsome wizard, Howl. The pursuer of Howl, The Witch of the Wastes, did not like this one bit and put a curse on the girl, turning her into an elderly woman as well as she would not be able to tell anyone that she has been cursed.
Sophie, despite being cursed into elderly state, seems to cope with the situation quite well and set out to see Howl at his moving castle. After found it with the help of a scarecrow that she had rescued, she put herself into the position of cleaning lady of the castle and thus her adventure begins.
All I can say is that this Sophie gal rockss!! She is all heart and solid determination that surely impress not just the people around her but the audience as well :) Perhaps I should looking into getting the previous work of this studio 'Spirited Away' to see...
Recently I get several googled from people looking for information about the game Indiego Prophecy. Or to be more specific, how to play it without the CD or in this case it would be DVD. The fact that these people use 'Indiego Prophecy' in their keyword mean that they get the US version of the game. One thing though... The game industry, just like the movie and the music industry, they love their product protections. But so far it only prove that it did not really working. One person's lock is another person's challenge and I guess, in a way, it work out rather beautifully. Eventually these so called CD protection scheme did not work as a safeguard against illegal copied but rather preventing the game to be play unless they have the legitimate CD in the computer. This also means that you cannot play the same game using one copy in more than one computer.
However, it just a mute point, since the cracker can be found all over the net. The treat by the companies that these sites are littered with dangerous stuffs are no big fuzz to the tech savvy generation.
As I read recently on cnet.com about Sony's invasive tactic of protecting their music has been view as way out of line. The editor put it quite well in the article that if the company keep acting like this people will stop buying their crappy product and just turn to P2P which in my opinion much easier than travelling to record store and spend money on the company that did not care about their customer. And people should be concern with this news since it is 'Rootkit' tech and it installed and run active on your machine just like the spyware and adware (read scumware).
The main protagonist, Sophie, a simple girl whose family own a hat shop had a chance encounter and fallen in love with a handsome wizard, Howl. The pursuer of Howl, The Witch of the Wastes, did not like this one bit and put a curse on the girl, turning her into an elderly woman as well as she would not be able to tell anyone that she has been cursed.
Sophie, despite being cursed into elderly state, seems to cope with the situation quite well and set out to see Howl at his moving castle. After found it with the help of a scarecrow that she had rescued, she put herself into the position of cleaning lady of the castle and thus her adventure begins.
All I can say is that this Sophie gal rockss!! She is all heart and solid determination that surely impress not just the people around her but the audience as well :) Perhaps I should looking into getting the previous work of this studio 'Spirited Away' to see...
Recently I get several googled from people looking for information about the game Indiego Prophecy. Or to be more specific, how to play it without the CD or in this case it would be DVD. The fact that these people use 'Indiego Prophecy' in their keyword mean that they get the US version of the game. One thing though... The game industry, just like the movie and the music industry, they love their product protections. But so far it only prove that it did not really working. One person's lock is another person's challenge and I guess, in a way, it work out rather beautifully. Eventually these so called CD protection scheme did not work as a safeguard against illegal copied but rather preventing the game to be play unless they have the legitimate CD in the computer. This also means that you cannot play the same game using one copy in more than one computer.
However, it just a mute point, since the cracker can be found all over the net. The treat by the companies that these sites are littered with dangerous stuffs are no big fuzz to the tech savvy generation.
As I read recently on cnet.com about Sony's invasive tactic of protecting their music has been view as way out of line. The editor put it quite well in the article that if the company keep acting like this people will stop buying their crappy product and just turn to P2P which in my opinion much easier than travelling to record store and spend money on the company that did not care about their customer. And people should be concern with this news since it is 'Rootkit' tech and it installed and run active on your machine just like the spyware and adware (read scumware).
Monday, November 07, 2005
Envy as you have never seen before
I suppose there are many miage depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. I found this particular take of 'Envy' on deviantart.com. I can guaranteed this is Envy as you have never seen before :))
The artist is windy999 at deviantart.com. If you like your comedy subtle British style you will like this guy's sense of humour :) I know I did ;) So be sure to check out his gallery at http://windy999.deviantart.com/ You won't be disappointed.
The artist is windy999 at deviantart.com. If you like your comedy subtle British style you will like this guy's sense of humour :) I know I did ;) So be sure to check out his gallery at http://windy999.deviantart.com/ You won't be disappointed.
Friday, November 04, 2005
The Bride with No Pulse
Despite to my tiring condition (just have 15 hrs shift from afternoon till almost dawn), I did went to see Corpse Bride today.
Eventhough it is somewhat too short it is still very good. The animation is definately improve since 'Nightmare Before Christmas' time, the bridal showl move fluidly in the wind just like in real time that made me wondered if it was short seperately. And in the very Tim Burton's way, the underworld folks are much more kind, frinedly, and lively than the living folks. Not to mention a lot more colourful.
I would love to see the overview shorts of the underworld town though... But since it was stop-motion animation it might be too much to ask for such views.
Anyhow, the animation is crisp and very fluid, a big step up compare to Nightmare..., I would highly recommend this movie :)
Eventhough it is somewhat too short it is still very good. The animation is definately improve since 'Nightmare Before Christmas' time, the bridal showl move fluidly in the wind just like in real time that made me wondered if it was short seperately. And in the very Tim Burton's way, the underworld folks are much more kind, frinedly, and lively than the living folks. Not to mention a lot more colourful.
I would love to see the overview shorts of the underworld town though... But since it was stop-motion animation it might be too much to ask for such views.
Anyhow, the animation is crisp and very fluid, a big step up compare to Nightmare..., I would highly recommend this movie :)
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