I'm moving there. I feel that Blogger is not keeping up with the times, and that its functionality is very limited.
Updates stopped for this blog. Last post 20 August 2013.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
A boring school life, but there was something fun today. At the end of the day, it was Biology lesson. Three cow hearts for us to touch and see! Squishy squishy, sticky sticky, pokey pokey, and it smelled weird too. At least it was more interesting than those stupid monotonous Chemistry practicals. You could stick your finger into a blood vessel, poke the heart walls and muscles, play with the valves... lol.Anyway, I can't wait for the Mid-Year Exams to end... what a burden.
posted @ 10:19 pm
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Saturday, April 21, 2007
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
The third tiberium war is over. After a week of fighting, there was no definite winner.
I got the Kane Edition of C&C3 last Saturday, and I completed the whole game in a week with normal difficulty for most missions. As usual, GDI and NOD are fighting it out, but then an invader comes by, who call themselves the Scrin. I did a review on the demo about a month ago, but that wasn't really a review, its more like a summary of the demo.
The game comes with 3 campaigns, where you will lead the 3 factions. The GDI and NOD campaigns have to be completed first before the Scrin campaign is unlocked. There are only 4 missions in the Scrin campaign, but they're pretty hard and might take some time.
The gameplay for C&C3 hasn't changed very much. You can still build unlimited units, you need a Mobile Construction Yard (MCV) to set up your base, you need power plants, you need to harvest tiberium, and so on. And of course, movies and cut scenes which are all acted out by real people, unlike most games, which use 3D animation. Kane, the leader of the brotherhood of NOD, has been acting for all the 3 C&C games. I'm pretty sure everyone loves his acting and villainous figure. Pretty obviously, you can't act out the Scrin because they're alien. I have to say the movie quality is superb, as good or even better than DVDs.
The storyline isn't continuous, meaning that the game progresses with events of the GDI first, then NOD then Scrin like in Warcraft 3. The storyline is pretty much the same for all three factions. Things that happened in the GDI campaign will most likely happen in the NOD and Scrin campaign, and vice versa. The endings for all three campaigns are all different though, all suited for you to win.
There's going to be some spoilers here, so skip the next three paragraphs if you don't want any.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GDI campaign has alternate endings, making you a person who wins righteously or wins with pretty disastrous consequences. Basically, you manage to "kill" (we all know he never dies, right?) Kane, and you manage to drive out the Scrin. You either do this by destroying them normally with an assault with your units, or with the Tiberium missile, which will result in a chain reaction and resulting in tens of millions of deaths.
For the NOD campaign, Kane manages to defend himself from many setbacks. Attacks from the GDI, traitors of NOD committing treason, and the Scrin. However he has this master plan where he wants to work with the Scrin so that he can gain control over the universe.
For the Scrin campaign, its pretty short because they invade when you are already three quarters into the GDI and NOD campaigns. You invade Earth, and then you have to distract the humans by attacking the civilians, while The Tower is being built. It fails, and then you have to gather all your resources and repel the attacks on the only Tower left. Once accomplished, destruction of Earth can begin.
Some bugs from the demo are gone, like the one where vehicles could go through each other. This bug isn't solved with the harvester yet though. I've also seen the harvester depositing resources into the refinery without even being docked before. The problems and bugs of this game are small and wouldn't harm or benefit anyone greatly.
Some issues I have is that when transmissions come in and show you your targets, the units you have selected would be unselected and if its a big army, its going to be a problem getting them back, especially if you didn’t group your units.
Also, when things are built on the furthest left of the map, the building bar on the left really blocks everything and it kind of pisses me off. Once I also built an air tower on the edge and one of the Vertigo Bombers was out of the screen, and I had to rotate my view in order to select it. We should be able to scroll a little further out of the map, such that the black border on the edge of the map can be seen.
Once the strongest units like mammoth tanks are obtained, the other units become relatively useless. RTS games should be such that majority of the units are useful. Spamming of units also seem to win the game easily. I think RTS games should move in the Company of Heroes direction, where tactics is more important than number.
In terms of balance of power, I think the GDI and NOD are pretty well balanced. Scrin is a little overpowered due to the fact that most of their units can fly, and it poses quite a big problem as the other 2 races don't have very effective anti-air units which can actually go head to head with a Scrin aircraft.
C&C3 brings back the series to life, but if you are looking for something new, you might be a little disappointed. I still believe all C&C and Red Alert fans would love this game anyway. Someone looking for a new game to play would also be satisfied.
I got the Kane Edition of C&C3 last Saturday, and I completed the whole game in a week with normal difficulty for most missions. As usual, GDI and NOD are fighting it out, but then an invader comes by, who call themselves the Scrin. I did a review on the demo about a month ago, but that wasn't really a review, its more like a summary of the demo.
The game comes with 3 campaigns, where you will lead the 3 factions. The GDI and NOD campaigns have to be completed first before the Scrin campaign is unlocked. There are only 4 missions in the Scrin campaign, but they're pretty hard and might take some time.
The gameplay for C&C3 hasn't changed very much. You can still build unlimited units, you need a Mobile Construction Yard (MCV) to set up your base, you need power plants, you need to harvest tiberium, and so on. And of course, movies and cut scenes which are all acted out by real people, unlike most games, which use 3D animation. Kane, the leader of the brotherhood of NOD, has been acting for all the 3 C&C games. I'm pretty sure everyone loves his acting and villainous figure. Pretty obviously, you can't act out the Scrin because they're alien. I have to say the movie quality is superb, as good or even better than DVDs.
The storyline isn't continuous, meaning that the game progresses with events of the GDI first, then NOD then Scrin like in Warcraft 3. The storyline is pretty much the same for all three factions. Things that happened in the GDI campaign will most likely happen in the NOD and Scrin campaign, and vice versa. The endings for all three campaigns are all different though, all suited for you to win.
There's going to be some spoilers here, so skip the next three paragraphs if you don't want any.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GDI campaign has alternate endings, making you a person who wins righteously or wins with pretty disastrous consequences. Basically, you manage to "kill" (we all know he never dies, right?) Kane, and you manage to drive out the Scrin. You either do this by destroying them normally with an assault with your units, or with the Tiberium missile, which will result in a chain reaction and resulting in tens of millions of deaths.
For the NOD campaign, Kane manages to defend himself from many setbacks. Attacks from the GDI, traitors of NOD committing treason, and the Scrin. However he has this master plan where he wants to work with the Scrin so that he can gain control over the universe.
For the Scrin campaign, its pretty short because they invade when you are already three quarters into the GDI and NOD campaigns. You invade Earth, and then you have to distract the humans by attacking the civilians, while The Tower is being built. It fails, and then you have to gather all your resources and repel the attacks on the only Tower left. Once accomplished, destruction of Earth can begin.
Some bugs from the demo are gone, like the one where vehicles could go through each other. This bug isn't solved with the harvester yet though. I've also seen the harvester depositing resources into the refinery without even being docked before. The problems and bugs of this game are small and wouldn't harm or benefit anyone greatly.
Some issues I have is that when transmissions come in and show you your targets, the units you have selected would be unselected and if its a big army, its going to be a problem getting them back, especially if you didn’t group your units.
Also, when things are built on the furthest left of the map, the building bar on the left really blocks everything and it kind of pisses me off. Once I also built an air tower on the edge and one of the Vertigo Bombers was out of the screen, and I had to rotate my view in order to select it. We should be able to scroll a little further out of the map, such that the black border on the edge of the map can be seen.
Once the strongest units like mammoth tanks are obtained, the other units become relatively useless. RTS games should be such that majority of the units are useful. Spamming of units also seem to win the game easily. I think RTS games should move in the Company of Heroes direction, where tactics is more important than number.
In terms of balance of power, I think the GDI and NOD are pretty well balanced. Scrin is a little overpowered due to the fact that most of their units can fly, and it poses quite a big problem as the other 2 races don't have very effective anti-air units which can actually go head to head with a Scrin aircraft.
C&C3 brings back the series to life, but if you are looking for something new, you might be a little disappointed. I still believe all C&C and Red Alert fans would love this game anyway. Someone looking for a new game to play would also be satisfied.
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Trailer (1:12)
Graphics: 9
Sound: 9
Gameplay: 8.5
Lasting Appeal: 8.5
Overall: 8.7
posted @ 7:01 pm
Friday, April 13, 2007
The Battle for Middle-Earth
This review should have came one month ago. Anyway, 2 days after I continued I completed the game. Overall, the game was good, unique and fun.The game is split into good and bad campaigns. The good campaign follows the events which happened in the Lord of the Rings trilogy closely, bringing you into the heart of battles. The bad campaign, on the other hand, is a lot different, though common battles like the battle of Helms Deep and Minas Tirith were still the same.
Having said this, the game brings you deep into the spirit of LOTR, with the soundtracks straight from the movie itself, and the voices of heroes all came from the original actors themselves.
Gameplay is not bad, though there are several balance issues. Fire arrows seemed to be too powerful, especially when used in the masses. The command points needed for trolls are way too little, and when massed, seems like an unstoppable force. The balance is definitely better than Battle for Middle-Earth 2 though. Upgraded arrows in BFME 2 are even stronger, and horses hardly suffered any damage when trampling. Trolls are weaker in BFME 2 though.
The graphics are good, and the sound is nice too. However when there's a giant army or battle going on, the frame rate dips drastically, causing some slow-mo action, also known as lag.
One issue I had was with the campaigns. About 75% of battles in campaigns involve just attacking enemy territories, making it very repetitive. Just choose a territory to attack, build up a base, build up your army, then attack. The army you use moves as a group, so they are retained and brought along when you attack. Army upgrades are also retained, but things like grouped units and the trees which the trolls already have don't get retained, so this is a pretty irritating problem for me. I have to find a forest for my 60 trolls to uproot trees from.
Evil races can become unbelievably rich, because they have the deforestation power (turn trees into resources), industry power (double resources earned for selected industries), and the scavenger power (earn resources for every kill). So I often end up with over 50,000 gold, not because I took a long time, but because of these powers.
Gandalf, balrog and the army of the dead are undoubtedly the best units in the game. The balrog is summoned and does devastating damage to everything, killing any unit in one or two hits, and buildings in usually 3 hits. Its breathe fire ability destroys buildings in a blow. Its fire whip is pretty hilarious, especially the sound. I whipped Aragon and it had this really funny whipping sound, and Aragon started to flying through the air towards me. The balrog doesn't die easily, and I think only Gandalf and the army of the dead can kill it. The balrog doesn't last very long though, but the damage it can do makes up for it.
The army of the dead is as good as the balrog, killing units effortlessly. Its damage against buildings is rather weak though. This army is also a good anti-balrog weapon.
Gandalf is a hero you can recruit. His power doesn't lie in his melee attacks, but instead his spells. His wizard blast easily kills groups of armies. And who doesn't love the word of power? A level 10 spell, Gandalf concentrates all his energy, and lets it all out in a pretty big radius around him, killing everything smaller than trolls. It looks nice, it sounds nice, and the way everyone flys away from Gandalf is just cool. Gandalf has the lightning sword spell, which is his anti-balrog spell. It easily takes away half if the balrog's health, and recharges pretty quickly for the kill.
There's two trailers for this game, because they're both equally good. One of them has Gandalf's word of power spell in it.
Battle for Middle-Earth Trailer 1 (1:33)
Battle for Middle-Earth Trailer 2 (2:13)
Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 8.5
Gameplay: 7.8
Lasting appeal: 7.5
Overall: 8.5
Nothing much as happened in the past week, except that both Math teachers all went crazy and gave us 2 exam papers to do. 2 for E-Math, 2 for A-Math.
I decided to give Need for Speed: Underground 2 a second chance, so its back on my computer and I'm going to see if anything crappy happens again.
BB has officially ended, so I'll be free after school on Fridays this Friday onwards. Yay.
Happy International Friendship Day =)
posted @ 4:33 pm
0 comments
Saturday, April 07, 2007
After C&C3 got officially released, the official logo for Scrin was revealed. So, I edited my previous signature to put the official logo in. This signature just looks so damn nice and its my best, that's why I just have to show it.
Oh well, not much difference.Anyway, I just tried Need for Speed: Underground 2. I was really expecting some good gameplay, but the game just kind of disappoints me. The game is way too dry. And the cutscenes were bad because they were made up of just static images. Overall, the amount of content and the modes of racing were good. Many different modes like drift mode, the ability to design and tune your car was a very good feature. Interesting things like being able to make it on magazine covers, the outrun mode, all these were new and pretty good stuff. And the police wasn't there to piss you off.
So what killed the game for me? The way that you had to find your races, and the drag races were crap. Let me rant about the dumbness of drag races. Lets look at it this way. I jammed the accelerator from beginning till the end, I avoided changing lanes too often, I had 5 out of 6 perfect shifts, and the computer had 0 out of 6 perfect shifts. The result? I end up last. WTF IS THIS BULLSHIT? I already set the difficulty to easy, I tuned my car for drag racing, I got the best car I could currently get, and this crap still happens.
NFSU2 has this issue about MANY people being unable to continue their game. I was one of them. I sought help from guides. I completed all the races, maps from guides helped me find the secret races. Everything was done. And I'm stuck here, wondering: "WTF am I supposed to do?"
Therefore, NFSU2 is officially out of my computer. I have to say the NFS series has truly disappointed me. Most Wanted didn't make it for me, neither did Underground 2. The reviews for Carbon aren't very promising either. I'm not touching the NFS series unless a miracle comes from them.
So, I wanted to try the Burnout series. Unfortunately, they don't even make a single one of their games for PC. Ah well, tough luck.
posted @ 6:07 pm
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
For some reason, I suddenly seem to like cars a lot, especially sports cars and unique/rare cars. It kind of like, started when I was playing Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and the Mazda RX-8, for some reason, looked really cool and good to me. It slowly became my favourite car, but after getting blacklist 9, I uninstalled the game due to the stupid police. I never though about cars since then.Then, Trackmania United got released. I got the game, and I just remembered the RX-8. Trackmania allows you to apply any skin to your car, a bicycle skin, a lorry, whatever. So, pretty obviously, I got the RX-8 skin. For some reason it didn't look that nice. I started noticing the RX-8s around the streets, and it didn't look very nice too. I have to say Need for Speed has designed the cars in such a cool way.
I Wiki-ed (by the way Wiki is an official English word now) the RX-8, and found out it has won at least 37 awards. Pretty good. I just watched The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift yesterday, there was an RX-8 there too. Couldn't see it very clearly though, the total air time for it was about a minute or so. I just realised (10 minutes ago) that there's an limited edition of the RX-8, which is the RX-8 Nemesis. It seems to look like the one in NFSMW. I guess the nicer and cooler one has to be limited edition. Ah well. Wait a minute, I just found out (2 minutes ago) that there's another version of the RX-8, which is the RX-8 PZ. They both look cool anyway. And the RX-8 won the best coupé award the 3rd time in a row for the "What Car?" awards 2006.
I'm going to get Need for Speed: Underground 2 one day. I heard there's an RX-8 there too. And I can enjoy it without the police pissing me off.
Today's Digital Life did a review on C&C3: Tiberium Wars. Looks like I'm right about the strengths of the NOD and GDI.
I feel like drifting...
posted @ 5:39 pm
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