Category: Gaming

Singapore Toy Game & Comic Convention 2011

I made a trip down to the 2011 Singapore Toy Game & Comic Convention (STGCC) which is an annual event for all geeks to gather under one roof to do all things geeky. Oddly, for an event which is probably inspired by the famous San Diego Comic Con, the localised version seems more like an anime cosplay event instead.

The whole event hall was hardly packed on a Sunday afternoon and there is definitely a need to gather more shops and organisations to be more involved in future conventions.

Let me break down the catergories for you :

Toys – There are quite a few booths for this but nothing more than stuff that you can see on a Sunday afternoon at the Chinasquare flea market…and in fact there are MORE stalls selling toys there.

That being said, it is really great to see Hong Kong’s Hot Toys setting up a booth and displaying their awesome collection which some are available for pre-order.  The sight of Bespin Luke Skywalker really made me wanna whip out my credit card and buy  it…although it’s really cool for me to see the Christopher Reeves Superman which is coming out at the end of the year…which I’ve pre-ordered.  heh heh heh…

Games – The big boy of this category would definitely go to Nintendo’s 3DS booth which offered attendees some hands-on with the new console.  Unfortunately though, that is pretty much it.  The other stuff that can be grouped under this category are some anime card game and some Tamiya toy car thingy.  I know. WTF right?

Comics – WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE GODAMM COMICS?!?

This is the most disappointing aspect of it.  The only comics I do see are from Planerds (which is from Harris) and Kinokouniya did something, although I can’t remember what now.  And this dude who sells vintage comics really gets my thumbs up.  This is what comics cons should have. Comic fucking books!

Best of the Rest –

Singpost somehow managed to tie-in with something relevant.  Marvel comic stamps! OMG, I liked the idea, but too bad, I don’t really keep stamps. Cool idea though.

Popcornpop  – this is one of my fav shops in Singapore. They sell lots of posters and Japanese small sheet posters which usually have some alternative but cooler designs.  Located at the Esplanade. Go check them out.

Overall, it could really do much much better, but lets be honest…10 years ago, we do not even have anything close to this, so I guess 1/10 of a comic con is better than no con at all.  I just wish though, they could combine all these different ones (like the anime convention and..dunno what ) as ONE.  Its pretty boring to see the same booths two different conventions and all that cosplayers really need to brush up and do something out of the box.

Took some pics though.  Enjoy! 🙂

At least he’s not kung fu fightin’

Gamescom Coverage : WTF is Tera Online?

Normally MMORPGes don’t interest me in the slightest, but this caught my eye, if only for the simply superb Haters Gonna Hate strut that beardogbeaver thing has going for it. It also seems to take a more dynamic, arcade-ish approach to combat, which can only be a good thing in a dreary crowd of WoW clones. While the art assets, animation and texture work are technically great, the art direction for the human characters seem straight out of the NCSoft playbook, even though this isn’t a NCS product. The genre really needs to take bigger design risks now that player numbers are reaching saturation levels, and I don’t mean pauldrons.

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World Video Mashup

I really really really loved the soundtrack.  The movie, I think is pretty good.

But the track from t his mashup which samples both is mind-blasting-ly awesome! (yes, I made up a word)

SCOTT PILGRIM - Fight! (1-Year Anniversary Video Remix)

As good as the video editing was, it was the track that really stood out for me.  The sampling of Eye of the Tiger, You gotta fight for your right (to party), Cheryl Cole(!!!) Fight for this love into Metric’s  “Black Sheep” is pretty much genius and totally sold it for me.

Ironically, I wish the track were a little shorter and tighter by dropping some of the repeated dialogue, which would make this even more awesome, but kudos to Osymyso, who’s remix is very much like a 85 hit combo move in my opinion.

Original Source : http://vimeo.com/27292220

flickchart

After watching the gang at the ‘The Totally Rad Show‘ (for those who don’t know, they are a trio of of video podcasters who IMHO created one of the best video podcast out there) play the game ‘Flickchart‘, I couldn’t resist signing up my own account to see how accurate Flickchart would be.

The premise of flickchart is pretty simple.  Two movies will be randomly presented to you (which you can customise, but what’s the fun in that) and all you need to do is just choose Left vs Right.  If either or both movies had not been seen by you, you can regenerate a new movie.  Flickchart will then stack and rank your choices.

Decisions…decisions!

Now I must confess, this is THE perfect game for me, and I am highly addicted to this game right now.  I pride myself to be a pretty huge movie buff and is taking the task of ranking the movies very seriously.  So in many cases, it’s like choosing which finger to chop off… or better yet, when TWO bad movies are pitted against one another, and you have to choose one it’s even tougher than choosing one good movie over the other.

That being said, the game is definitely flawed.  For one thing, sometimes a bad movie keeps getting repeated and to make things worse, pitted against a movie I despise even more, and this results in bad movie going up the charts. WTF!

Case in point : Mission Impossible II is now #11 on my chart out of 300 movies. Don’t see how ridiculous this is? Well, it’s ranked 9 spots above The Godfather.  Also, No country for old men, one of the best movies I’ve seen…is on my worst list, ranked at #12.

Clearly the algorithm needs further tweaking.  But hell, this is still one of the most fun I’ve spent my time on. Although half-way through the game, I wondered how come nobody has ever thought of stacking a babe vs another babe…and then I remembered, Mark Zuckerberg has already done this in Facemash, as shown in my favourite movie of 2010, The Social Network, which sadly is nowhere to be found amongst my 300 movies.

Skyrim Watch, Part 2

Lots of new information available since my last post about Skyrim, but it is only at Quakecon that we got actual live gameplay footage.

(Quakecon 2011) Elder Scrolls V Skyrim 35 Min Gameplay Fixed Audio [HD 720p]

What I got from this video:

  • The draw distances are amazing. No more trees and structures popping up out of nowhere.
  • At the same time, great detailing on the little things like logs, small plants.
  • The spell effects look good, which fixes one of my pet peeves from Oblivion. I wonder how moddable they are. Hopefully Bethesda is including OBSE-esque hooks for extra scriptability.
  • While the one weapon or spell per hand mechanic looks like it’ll add whole new dimensions to game play (it looks like a super-charged version of what we got in BioShock), it looks like parrying with weapons is off the table, perhaps in the interest of game balance.
  • The areas demoed are the same as in the previously released game play trailer. Would have preferred to see something new.
  • Obnoxious audience is obnoxious.

The Collector’s Edition was also announced at QuakeCon. I’m sorry, but while I am a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls series, USD150 for a PVC sculpture, a making of DVD and an art book is just a rip off.

Edit: the video was taken off. Will be updating the post once a better version is available.

Spaceward Ho!

Finally got around to Mass Effect 2 (which isn’t as good as the first, which I’m not that fond of in the first place). I was doing Jacob’s loyalty mission and came across this sculpture that the natives propped up to worship:

One thing came to my mind immediately.

The Tori no Hito (Bird Human) statues from Macross Zero, of course. I mean, tropical island paradise, the shape…

Probably all just a coincidence though.