GAMENiAC™ 电游狂™

What's in for gamers - polishing their weapons?

2009-09-06T21:30:00.015+08:00

When cleaning stuff goes "Cyber" geeky...
Introducing CyberClean. A "High-Tech" cleaning compound for catching dirt and killing germs.
Disinfect feature. Nice. I decided to give it a try, after all, these years of gaming have rendered my "weapons" dirty and dusty.

Some pictures galore to munch on...

Packaging and sorts.

The "Slimer" unveiled! Soft, neon yellowish, jelly-like thingy. Cute.

Before and after effects. Clean and shine...3 seconds effort, really.

The poor Slimer with dirt and crap all over.

Verdicts:
CyberClean works wonders on tight spots and tiny areas as advertised. But it DOES leave some residues (very slight) on the surface of what you pressed it on (packaging said does not leave residues). I used it on my keyboard, mouse, my phone, remote controls, gamepads...etc. They are all as clean as new now. Though it isn't that effective on keyboards where larger dust/dirt could stuck below the keys. The smell of this compound is kinda weird, like soaked with tons of IPA (Isopropyl alcohol).

Be warned not to wash this compound as it dissolves in water and it's biodegradable. Environmental friendly cleaning compound for gadget geeks. Who doesn't want some? Price ranges between RM16-30* for respective sizes.

*Yeah...a bit costly.

E3 Noob.

2009-06-16T22:15:00.002+08:00

Okay, I've been posting some youtube videos lately. Can't really help it once I found this "Noob at E3". Man...this is hilarious. Susan Boyle is awesome, but this one, this one is darn funny.

Specially dedicated to the Noobs out there, yeah, but if I don't pwn you, someone else would. ROFLMAO!

Amazing...

2009-06-04T20:14:00.003+08:00

Ok, this is something old. But when I stumbled upon this one, I can't help to feel amazed. It stunned me. She's amazing. This shit gave me the goosebumps! Just farkin amazing.

Full length ones here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

Aliens Vs Predator

2009-06-03T12:44:00.007+08:00

Many might watched the movies. But only a few knew that the title was actually originated from the game. AvP games (AvP1 and AvP2 and expansions) are FPSs which are crowned as the most scary FPS of all time. Especially when you are playing the marines fighting for your survival against the aliens or predators.

Now comes the good news. AvP will get a total remake and coming out some time next year. Now with today's PC technology and graphics! Enjoy the 2009 E3 AvP trailer!

Modern Warfare 2!!!

2009-05-26T23:26:00.002+08:00

Modern Warfare 2 is coming this year! COD4 fans around the globe are surely as excited as I am right now! Can't wait! Good games are rare and 2009 is pretty much a boring year. Come on Infinity Wards! Do not disappoint!

Pushing the limits...

2009-04-29T21:07:00.011+08:00

When you possibly have the fastest gaming mouse on earth, what's more can you do to make it even faster? Things like these came into the head like crazy murmurings from outer space. Gamers like us are obsessed with speed: the faster, the better. It's a fetish. No sane being would understand why maniacs like us, like me would spend huge cash just to get faster in games. It is the gaming bloodline, the core that drives us through this. Play it to believe it. We are not only buying speed, but also deadlier accuracy, to ruin others' life in the virtual world. Gaming, just as real life, ain't fun, at least not until you are good at it. You will have to out-Skill and out-Equip your opponents by all means necessary except cheating (farkin' hate cheaters, they have no life).

Okay, back to the spotlight of today. The G9 gaming mouse by Logitech, albeit super fast with 3200DPI sensor, has a wee bit of problem. Notice the mouse feet. They are large, which translates to higher friction when moving on top of mousing surfaces (mouse pad). Though the Razer Mantis mouse mat fibertrek technology played a huge role reducing the friction to minimal, it ain't enough. I want my mouse to god damn FLY!

Original mouse feet.

Hyperglide heard me and soon they announced the Hyperglide G9 mouse skates. They called it mouse skates instead of mouse feet to imply that your mouse skates through the surface, not walking a.k.a. feet. These mouse skates are made out of smooth teflons to provide smoother movements and accuracy in games, by reducing friction between the mouse and the mouse pad. The package comes with 2 pairs of mouse skates, an alcohol swab and a simple instruction sheet.

Hyperglide mouse skates package.

First, remove the original skates/feet from the mouse. The original ones weren't bad, but I wanted more. Loved the G9 design whereby the original feet can be easily peeled off through the groove of the mouse feet frame. Then, clean the sticky glue off the surface with the alcohol swab until there's no residue left.

Feet-less G9 after having its original feet peeled.

Carefully position the Hyperglide mouse skates and stick'em into place. Apply pressure on top of the the mouse skates for at least 5 seconds to create a lasting bond. Just like love. You're done! It's that easy.

Tadaa...armed with Hyperglide mouse skates.

Performance wise, the gliding is a lot smoother compared to original mouse feet. It feels like the mouse would actually glide out of my hands! It is like flying through the mouse pad! However, care must be taken as these teflons are soft and can be easily scratched by hard particles underneath, thus destroying the smoothness, if you aren't careful. Read the maintenance tips here.

It only took me a while to adapt to this new speed and start fragging people online. It's good, it feels good, it controls good. Money paid justified. Thumbs up. Speed freak? Get this.

Engrish... ROFLMAO...

2009-04-08T21:45:00.003+08:00

Some engrish humour!
Ken leeeeeeee...... and people actually can get famous like this. wtf...

FPS Games Sharpen Vision

2009-03-31T22:51:00.014+08:00

Now...who said gaming is all bad? Recent research found out that gaming actually improves what they called, our eyes' contrast sensitivity. Quoted from the technical website, it is the ability to notice tiny changes in shades of grey against a uniform background, which degrades with age.

Crysis: Warhead

However, the only games that bring improvements are fast action games like first person shooters (FPSs) or the like. Not real time strategy (RTS), not role playing games (RPG)!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

FPS games rely on your hand-eye coordination and ultra-fast reflexes to mow down enemies. This type of games usually involve rapid changing graphics and environments which our eyes have to adapt. Games to try would be Call of Duty 4, TF2, Crysis, Unreal Tournament, Quake IV, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War (not that rapid tho, its built for console noobs) and not forgetting Counter Strike series (Source preferred, personally).

Team Fortress 2

Man, those are my favorite games. FPS freak! Now I know why there's people getting slower (response) towards graphical changes around them. This could be the cause. Your sensitivity has degraded! LMAO. Fear not, there's cure! Play more FPS games will not only boost your hand-eye coordination, your reflexes and now, also your eyesight! That's another +1 benefit of FPS gaming.

Game on!

Quote:

... "What we found is that even without this correction you can help your brain make better use of whatever information is received from your retina,” she said.

For the study, Bavelier and three colleagues conducted two sets of experiments. In the first, they compared the contrast sensitivity of hard-core action game players with video game aficionados of the same age who preferred less rapid-fire fare.

In action games, players typically target and shoot figures that pop up suddenly on a computer screen.

The researchers found that the action buffs were 50 percent more efficient at detecting contrast.
But there remained a chicken-or-egg question: had their vision been improved by playing, or did they become action game players because they had better than average contrast sensitivity to start with?

To find out, Bavelier asked two groups of non-action video game players to undergo 50 hours of training. One played a popular point-and-shoot game called Call of Duty, and the other played a game that offered a rich visual experience, but one bereft of action.

”We found that the people in the first group improved by 43 percent, and the other group not at all,” she said.

More info can be found here: link

-ps: Pictures posted are mine without watermarks. Lazzz...hey, I need to keep up with my eyesight trainings!

Off the $treets...

2009-03-15T00:28:00.012+08:00

With mah cash runnin' low these days, heavy cost savings are on. Thanks to the worst crisis of the century...thank you idiots for spending too much "future" money! Fags.

Cost saving plans you asked? Get my feet off the streets! Camp inside, and cut down unnecessary expenses. Heck, these critical moments made you think twice bout what'ya gonna spend the cold hard cash on. Plus how ridiculously underpaid we are in this freakin' industry. WTF...M@#$%s...

Anyways, I've these to keep myself busy for now. At least these could restore some portion of my happiness. Just like morale boost of some sort. Highly recommended when you have nothing better to do!

GTA IV let's you do all sorts of crimes, dirty works on the streets, where you play as Niko and work your ass up to pursue the American Dream in Liberty City. Be warned tho, this PC version is full of damn bugs, memory leak problems and you'll need the freakin' XP service pack 3 to run it. There's a hack without needing SP3 but I have not tested it out. Might revert to SP2 after completing the game. Damn Rockstar, this is a bad port ya rude boyz! seen! Gonna stick a gun up their arses.

Burnout Paradise is arcadish racing game. The damage effect is beautiful. Race online and take down others. Fun stuff. Very smooth and high quality graphics. To my surprise, it doesn't even need a killing machine to run. Cool. Fun + Cool means you must play this.

Dawn of War II, a stunning RTS with a different approach. Haven't been playing this much as the previous two occupies most of my time. This game focus more on strategically placing your units without the need of building structures like the typical RTSs.

Welp, when I'm not busy gamin' I might update the page again. It's time to jet.
Till then. Ciao.

Happy 牛 Year!!!

2009-01-25T13:01:00.003+08:00

新年快乐，牛劲十足！

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year!!!

Let's get a Moooo on!

ps: Artificial cows from Kenting, Taiwan. Mooo....

Logitech G9 Laser Gaming Mouse Mini Review

2009-01-15T20:31:00.036+08:00

For fanatic gamers, high sensitivity is never enough. Master of peripherals, Logitech heard us and introduced its ultimate laser gaming device at the end of 2007: the G9 Laser gaming mouse; after the success of its smaller brother, the G5. Logitech G9 Laser spots a whooping 3200DPI laser sensor, 1000Hz polling rate, swappable grips, MicroGear scroll wheel, on-the-fly DPI switching, custom LED colors, on-board memory for custom profiles, tiltable scroll wheel... heaps of next-gen features at your disposal. The bundled SetPoint 5.0 software lets you customize the G9 with overwhelming options. This, is my replacement of the decayed Razer Copperhead.

Technological beauty: G9 Laser on Precision Grip.

So first things first, though I've explained what's polling rate in the Copperhead review, here's the recap:

Polling Rate
It's the number of times the mouse sends reports to the computer every second.
Over USB it's normally 125Hz i.e. 125 times a second. Which means that there's a lag of 1/125th of a second or 8ms between the mouse and the system. Polling rate of 1000Hz = 1/1000 which means a lag of 1ms.

Seeing top notch gaming mice nowadays are mostly 1000Hz capable, this is a must-have feature. Note that it will consume certain amount of CPU usage. Worry not, the effect is insignificant with today's latest processors.

The Setpoint 5.0 software (look at the choices for custom LED colors!)

The G9 laser has normal left/right buttons, clickable scroll wheel capable of tilting left/right sideways, DPI increase/decrease (+/-) buttons under the LED DPI level indicator and 2 side buttons. The LED color is customizable in the Setpoint software. I prefer green as it's matching to my green Mantis Speed mousepad. Notice the braided cable, it is to reduce friction against the surface it's touching.

G9 Laser with green DPI indicator LED.

Frankly speaking, 3200DPI speed is far too high for normal first person shooter gaming. I only use up to about 2000 to 2200DPI normally. It is always good to know that you have much more "room" to go faster nonetheless (good for huge screens, too).

Under the mouse, there are MicroGear and Profile buttons. The former enables you to switch the scroll wheel between the traditional clicky mode and the free spin mode. Free spin mode is capable of spinning up to 16 seconds non-stop per flick (personal record), which is good for browsing long pages, spreadsheets and anything you can make use of. The Profile button switches between stored profiles with different mouse settings in the on-board memory.

Gaming Grade Laser capable of 3200DPI tracking.

One of the revolutionary design of the G9 laser is its interchangeable grips namely the "Wide Load" and "Precision Dry Grip". Wide Load, as its name suggests, is a smooth satin finished wide body kit with thumb rest which caters for comfort use. The Precision Grip features a slimmer, compact design for higher precision finger control mode (now we are talking!). Coated with the Logitech DryGrip technology, it prevents sweat forming on the mouse surface for better grips. I love the precision grip very much 'cos finger control is always my thingy.

Wide Load and Precision Grip.

The G9 Laser with its grip removed.

That's not all. The G9 comes with customizable weight tuning system too. There are four 4g and four 7g weights respectively. Users could add up to 28g depending on their preferences. I prefer light mouse for higher speed therefore I put none.

G9 Laser with adjustable weight balancing system.

There were no major improvements in games as I've used the Copperhead 2000DPI. The G9 is as sensitive and accurate as, if not better, than the Razer Copperhead. Been using this mouse in all FPS gamings and normal tasks for a year plus now (since launch, Oct 2007) and the buttons are still very responsive. I am very impressed with Logitech G9's robust and high quality design. Though it came with a hefty price of RM300+, with its fully packed features, 3-years warranty, it is definitely worth every single cent spent.

GAMENiAC's verdict (10 max):
Performance: 10
Built Quality: 9.5 (Minor issue: middle LED is bit dimmer than the rest. No performance hit)
Features: 10
Value for money: 8

¤¤¤ GAMENiAC's Choice: Ultimate Fragging Device Award! ¤¤¤

Interested in getting your own G9 laser? Contact me for special price! (while stocks last)

台湾的老街与夜市 Taiwan Old Street & Night Market. Part 1

2009-01-13T20:02:00.025+08:00

台湾有好多好多的夜市。它们已成为台湾最具代表性的文化。夜市里有种类繁多的小吃，地方特产，服装衣织品等。今天要為大家介紹座落在台北市著名的士林夜市。

Night market is another interesting scene in Taiwan. One could find famous local refection, latest fashions, accessories and sorts. (Plus lots of leng loi's to see see...)

Shilin night market. One of the largest night market located in Taipei. One could reach there using the MRT to JianTan station (劍潭站) along the Danshui MRT line (淡水線). This is the nearest station to the market, don't take the Shilin Station, otherwise you would end up further away.

就让图片说故事吧。。。

Look at the crowd! There're already tons of people before night fall.

好多人呀！！！名副其實的人山人海。

士林夜市的美食区

Shops and stalls...

Famous "Frog lay egg" Taiwanese "pearl" drink. 著名王记青蛙下蛋粉圆爱玉饮料。

Pineapple fried prawn balls.

Classic theatre and more stalls.

到处都是人啊。。。

好好吃的凉圆 (有绿茶，巧克力，豆沙口味等等) 和烤肉串。

I don't know how to call this icy cold round thingy with different flavours in english on the left. Cool balls? LMAO! Everyone should try it. Very nice! BBQ meat (pork, beef and lamb) on the right.

BBQ huge sausages. yum yum...

Baked patato with cheese and corn. This one just so so...

Super huge chicken chop. Only 'bout RM5.50. Cheap eh?

看看那些人潮。。。呵呵。。。

The crowd at the market and those crossing roads...

This is one of the must-go night market in Taipei. It will not only feast your stomach, but your eyes, too. Don't miss it when you hit Taipei city. More Taiwan night market scenes coming up...

Wait, where's my reward from Taiwan tourism board? hehe...

Lil' Red Man...

2008-12-25T13:21:00.003+08:00

Santa says roll!

*thanks MPotU...hehe... =)

Piece of crap...真是烂东西!

2008-10-08T23:25:00.010+08:00

As this is a part business trip sort of thingy, I have to borrow a company laptop for my online fix (no gaming tho...sad). So there here it is, a slow ass obsolete P4 Dell lappie with just 256MB of rams. 昏。。。 (plus lack of software maintenance by previous users; some computer idiots I presume). This piece of junk is so slow that it craps out whenever it could while I was just surfin'! If it wasn't the fact that this does not belongs to me, I would have formatted the hell out of it.

Dell crap-top.

This just makes me miss my home gamin' rig very much. If not for the Project: Lucifer upgrades, I would have extra budget for a gaming laptop instead. Oh, by the way, Lucifer is the codename for hardware upgrades for my beloved rig. Still deciding on going 45nm quads or stick with the highly overclockable duals. Stay tuned for more Lucifer updates most probably end of this year.

Home gamin' rig.

Speaking of crap-tops or junk computers, I have found some hilarious videos which I very much have the same feeling. Enjoy.

This is Sony's answer to Crapbook Air. Using the same theme song as the Apple's ad. ROFLMAO!

Dogs

2008-10-05T23:24:00.011+08:00

Taiwanese sure love dogs. During the weekends, people walk their dogs in the park.
Man, there're sure lots of nice fluffy doggies.

Pictures were taken at Kaohsiung city cultural centre.

Here, even doggie like this gets to perform stunt!

Nice cute puppies.

People and their dogs. I should add: beware of dog craps.

See? That's why I love dogs!

I love ~~chicks with~~ dogs. Seriously, I wish I could get Alaska Husky too! They have tons here in Taiwan. Nice white eyes and the wolfie-looks...I am sold!

Typhoon - Jangmi

2008-09-27T22:37:00.013+08:00

New typhoon, Jangmi is gonna hit Tainan, Taiwan ETA 28th Sep (Sunday) afternoon time. This is gonna be the third typhoon I'll encounter. The typhoon occurrence frequency seems to be pretty high lately, where almost every week there's a typhoon alert. And that's not it, words that this will be the strongest typhoon Taiwan has ever encountered in the past few years.

As you can see, the eye of the typhoon is already on top of Taiwan at the time of posting (picture taken from Typhoon report). This will be accompanied by strong wind (I mean really STRONG wind!) and heavy rainfalls. Trees fly, roofs fly, people fly, pigs fly, everything gets wet and messy outside. And nobody wanna be outside that very moment. Who knows one might get hit by a flying cow. In short, it is really-very-extremely dangerous during typhoon storms.

Satellite view.

Having experienced the previous two, I've stockpiled enough food for at least 1-2 days, just in case. Known that there's this poisoned milk powder (contaminated with melamine, causes kidney stones) crisis, I've got everything without milk powder. Though the Taiwanese health ministry has already cleared out the contaminated products, which means those on the racks now are safe to consume, I'd rather wait a lil longer. Tons of food products were affected, from biscuits, instant packed drinks, Taiwan famous pearl milk tea, breads and etc. Wtf...wtf...wft!

Assorted instant noodles & biscuits.

Come, you s.o.b. typhoon. I am ready. Muahaha...

Disclaimer: I won't complain too much if Monday is declared holiday though. *wink*

Updates: Monday, 29th Sep is now declared holiday (no need to work, yay!) since the storm is getting bigger with increasing wind velocity in Tainan county. The place will be on red alert until tomorrow late evening. Ah...get to camp for another day.

Big Boys' Toys

2008-09-21T00:54:00.014+08:00

It should have been called Otaku's heaven. But since Otaku directly means 100% nerd crap as seen on TV, so I think it would better be called big boys' shop...or whatever. Contrary to popular belief, those of us who dig toys, are also capable of beating shit out of people in real life. So, yeah, you get the drift. *evil laugh*

Anyways, knowing that the toys in Taiwan are way cheaper than those back home, I found my way to one of the famous toys + boutiques plaza of some sort - Wan Nian commerce plaza at Ximenting, Taipei. It is a good combo where one could bring his girl friend or wife or mum to shop for fashionable items/clothes while he hunts his stuff (toys!).

Wan-nian Commerce plaza at Ximenting

Inside this dome of treasures, you'll find assorted model kits (Gundams!!! lots of them!), fans of the Fett (if you watched Star Wars, you gotta know Boba Fett! come on...) would find their little shrine, and tons of figurines. I'm not sure bout other kits but seriously, the Gundams here are damn cheap! If you are hunting for Gundam kits, you should never miss this place.

Oh, and not forgetting firearms! Fake ones of course. Airguns, BB guns, replicas, kevlars, Camo shirts...man, I wish I could ta-pao (buy and take away) the whole shop. The shop name is kinda hillarious, the translated name is called Hero's inn or something.

From Colt .45 Magnum, MP5 & variations, AK-47 & variations, M4 Carbine, pump action shot guns, Springfield rifles, Barrett .50 Cal sniper rifle, famous AWP sniper rifle, Dragunov sniper rifle, mini guns, LMGs (Light Machine Gun), RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher, but it looks more like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter's ZEUS Anti-Tank device to me) to Alien vs Predator human rifle as seen in AvP games! The coolest thing is there was a hot chick getting a Berreta or Glock pistol (not too sure bout the final ones she got). OMGWTF!

However I didn't take pics of other hobby shops as they are not very appealing. We hobbyist do not give a damn anyways, 'cause we know with greater power, err...design comes greater responsiblity (cost!).

The best real example is this Gundam Base Taipei in K-Mall. It took me a while to flip-zoom my digital map a couple of times, cause there's no sign saying K-mall outside of the building! Dang. Here you will see 3 huge ass Gundams around 8-9 feet tall at the main entrance of this shop. It is more likely a Gundam museum though.

Rows and rows of assembled MG Gundams on the racks and there's even a corner for fans to watch latest Gundam anime series projected on a wall. It was indeed a spectacular sight.

Rows of Gundams & villains. Caught two Zakus on the cashier counter.

The sad thing is, as mentioned, with this sort of huge showcase and "official" thingy, you won't expect things to come cheap. The model kits sold here are with hefty prices. The Shin Musha Gundam I was hunting for costs around NTD2000+! WTF.

Given no choice, I fast snapped some pics of this amazing Gundam Base (with amazing prices) and squeezed my way back to Wan-Nian plaza which is located one MRT station away. Luckily I was quick enough to snatch one of the few MG Shin Musha left among the shops! I remembered there were still many units when I first entered Wan-Nian bout 1-2 hours ago before going to K-Mall. This kit was selling out darn fast! I was told to wait till next day for new stocks to replenish. Whew, that was close.

There, my haul. NTD1200 (RM130+) MG Shin Musha with special parts separating tool and a limited edition poster. And one NTD300 (RM30++) HG Dynames for my lil bro. It was a nice deal.

Will be getting myself another gundam, a MG Zaku II Ver.2 06J or 06F (NTD800+, around RM90+) on my next trip to this shop. *grin*...I'll have my complete Gundam vs villain gunpla then. Wahahah...

Taipei Night Life

2008-08-27T21:45:00.008+08:00

Taipei is a wonderful city. Other than food or shopping, its night life is a must see (because that's where & when all the pretty girls would gather *wink*). Most of the pubs or night clubs are open for business till early morning around 5am. The city never sleeps!

To experience the scene, I went to some of the famous pubs, namely Room 18 and Pasoul (Lava's branch). Room 18 is well known of its guests. It's the favourite place for most celebrities , pro or amateur models and higher class groups. The pub is owned by a Taiwanese male celebrity afterall! Entrance fee is about RM80 per pax with 2 cocktail drinks (some mixed alchohol with Redbull, for the extra powa!). 2 dance pools with different kinds of music. The place is overwhelmed by sexy & beautiful girls. As they say, seeing is believing, so yeah! It was a jaw-dropping-eyes-peeling moment indeed.

Guests who booked for seats have to wait a long queue, even under the drizzling rain (psst, see the girls behind me? LMAO!). Luckily there's another entrance inside the building for "free-standing" guests. Great! The bar counter is the perfect spot. LMAO!

Room 18 scene

Pasoul, however is obviously lower standard than Room 18. The crowd mostly consists of Uni students and younger generation. People here are wilder and some of the girls even undress on stage. wtf. Too bad camera shots aren't allowed. The bouncers sure have sharp owl eyes in the dark! Pasoul entrance is about RM90 per pax with free flow drinks. Heavy drinkers would love this place.

Pasoul scene

In conclusion, Room 18 is highly recommended if you wanna feast your eyes. Though one could try Pasoul to experience the different crowd and different style of fun.

Yada yada...

Sinshi Town, Tainan County

2008-08-04T22:47:00.017+08:00

Lookin through the windows from the train, we saw mass foliage together with some scattered buildings. Seems like we were cutting through rural area of some sort. The Tainan bullet train station is kinda empty. Guess it's not the peak season.

Welp, here we are, Tainan. Still gotta travel far to reach our rural little hostel. Dang. Bye bye civilization. We headed towards Sinshi town, a small town within Tainan county. Kinda like 30 mins driving distance from Sinshi to Tainan city. Crap.

This is the place we will call home for the next 3 months. The design is kinda unique, with 4 storeys japanese like terrace house and a small garage. There're no shops near the area. Great! ...Not. Only one 7/11 around the corner at the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar end. Could you spot it in the pic on the right? Neither do I. It is like 10mins+ walking distance from the place I stay. There's another small mart on the other side, but there's nothing worth to mention. This is a freakin village for crying out loud. What suprised me was, even with a "rural" village like this, the hostel is equipped with a 2MB broadband. WTF?! Lousy stream-ma-arse from TMnut only gives you 1MB in the so called city area.

Sinshi town traffic and the place where we took our first meal in Tainan. Had some sort of seafood and stuff. Even tried snail like thingy. Too bad I didn't have the chance to capture the pics. It is not very polite letting hungry people wait while you take picture of the food. LMAO.

Other than work, the most things I do are eat eat and eat. The food here just so-so. Not too bad, but can't consider good too. Nothing spectacular or memorable. Maybe Taipei ones are better, but that's another story.

Had my first Taiwan beef noodle and a side dish of soy beancurd and eggs. Not bad, but as mentioned, it wasn't top notch. Just ordinary. Maybe I've already been spoilt by kolomee and laksa all these years.

One fine day, while walking & exploring around town, found this smelly bean curd stall. The taukenio claimed that this is the most famous smelly bean curd shop in Sinshi town. Yeah, right. Since I've never tasted any prior to this, so why not.

With much regret, taukenio told us that the BBQ version of the smelly beancurd wasn't ready when I arrived, so I have to make do with the soup "version" instead. Well, the benchmark = not recommended. Kinda dissapointed but at least I tried. It tasted like normal tofu soup (a lil spicy) with pig blood cubes and beef slices. One thing special I noticed was the low chairs. Look at how my long legs hit the table. It's definitely not comfortable to eat is this posture. Oh well.

Maybe a western style afternoon tea would brighten things up eh? There a nice coffee house named 85 degrees. I ordered iced Latte smoothies therefore I'm not too sure whether their hot coffees are served 85°C.

And these are our desserts. Nice eh? The white thingy is called Strawberry "Da Fu" in mandarin or whatever. Basically some sort of sticky dough with cheese and strawberry stuffed inside. Yum yum but very very sticky. The end result was not a very nice scene.

Sometimes we will pack fast food like this on our way back home from work. Meesua in a cup with a boneless drumstick burger. A hybrid of eastern and western fast food. LOL. Costs around RM9+ total plus a drink of your choice (red tea, milk tea, bla bla...). Not bad and the portion is enough to cure the hunger. *burp*...

Alright. That's all for today. Gotta continue the updates next time. More food and places.

*Taipei night life reviews soon.*

Jhunan Town, Miaoli County, Taiwan R.O.C.

2008-07-20T19:24:00.029+08:00

Here I am. Taiwan! Touched down at TaoYuan international airport in Taipei. My mission: I come, I eat, I see girls. Me and my partner were greeted with a fully tinted black Mercedes like mafia members. Well, at least it would have been convincing if I've landed on Sicily. Uh, nevermind. I would settle with the title Taiwan mafia for now.

Left: Preparing for touchdown. Right: Our black Mercs.

Off we go, destination Jhunan Town, Miaoli County, the main office hostel we are gonna spend some nights in. It took about 1 hour to reach Miaoli. Everything along the way looks fresh and interesting. All the BMW & Mercs police cars, all mandarin sign boards (if you can't read chinese, and no translator with you, you are in trouble). This is chinese heaven.

Let's take a look at the main office hostel facilities. From TV/reading room with LCD TV to leisure corner. They even have in house cardio equipments and very own dancing/aerobic room! The employees can come here to relax during breaks or after work to release tension. Very good idea indeed.

Left: Our bedroom. Right: TV/Reading room.

Leisure corner

Cafe and training room (The cafe has LCD TV too!).

Sunset from our hostel and wind power generators from afar.

We had our first meal consists of cute, nicely packed fried rice and "o chien" (something like fried clam meat with chicken egg). And not forgetting to grab ourselves some sesame pao on our way back.

The "o a chien" looks and tasted different from hometown. Got myself "bak hu" (minced pork) fried rice. It smelled good but it tasted kinda plain. On well, maybe it's for the good health. Sesame pao tasted good though.

Food stalls & nicely packed rice.

Do not let the packaging deceived you.
It's a huge portion and I could hardly finish it. Sesame pao on the right.

The left pic below is where I took my safety trainings in order to enter the work area. It's a small training centre. Taiwan safety rules are kinda strict compared to us. The cute little scooter in the right pic belongs to a cute pretty little girl who works for the training company. Too bad she was kinda shy to take pics. So I took a shot of her bike instead.

My roasted duck 便當 (fast food) for lunch. The training company even helps to "tapao" (take away) lunch. It tasted so-so though. Kinda balanced meal I say. Lots of vege and sorts.

Fast food packed rice for dinner. I had fried drum stick rice. Take away fast food usually comes with Vitagen thingy. Helps to improve digestion I guess. Some nice pretty ladies bought us original Taiwan pearl milk tea too!

Our breakfast. Picture on the left is 飯團(rolled rice? LOL) with ingredients like egg, you-cha-kueh, salted vegetables and minced pork (肉松). It's very delicious. Yummy yummy. The thingy in the middle is some kinda egg rolled you-cha-kueh (I forgot the actual name). For drinks, we have soya milk and 米漿 (rice starch, tasted good!).

Shot of another cute pink scooter belongs to one of the cute girls in the admin office. The office ladies have been really friendly and helpful. Not to mention Taiwanese girls are mostly very fair and pretty albeit the hot weather and bright sun during summer.

The 3rd day, we are going down south to Tainan - the actual work place. Bye bye Jhunan. Sob sob*. Here's the Hsinchu bullet train station. They called it Taiwan High Speed Rail. It only takes about 1 hour plus to reach Tainan. You gotta pay the price (expensive fares) for its speed (over 300+ kmph if not mistaken). The interior of the train looks as if you're in a plane.

Right: Rows of taxi. Middle: Here comes the train. Right: Interior of the train.

Next up...Tainan.

Time to Fly...

2008-07-11T22:23:00.005+08:00

It's time to fly again! This is gonna be further away than any of the places I've been before.
And the longest period I'm gonna stay there. 3 months! 3 good freaking solid months! Dang. Definitely gonna miss my gamin' rig.

Well, maybe not. After all, it's one of my dream countries! Taiwan FTW! The world of computer parts! Geek gadgets! BB guns! Food! (and chicks)...so, yeah. Here I come!

I've even bought Taiwan travel for dummies!

My Razer Mantis mousepad is the watermark. LMAO.

Game Violence

2008-06-28T12:01:00.011+08:00

When talking about video game violence, people often thought of the poor GTA (Grand Theft Auto) series. Thanks to the publicity of news and Jack *ass* Thompson that blamed bout kids learned to kill cops after playing this game. Those are bullshit. GTA series are too tame! It is the game for kids.

They ain't see nothing yet. The real art of violence does not involve guns or any sorts of firearms. It evolves from things which are already around you. I introduce you, Manhunt. Though I've finished the game decades ago, it is still the most gruesome game to date.

Now, enjoy...the art of violence. It would be fucking awesome to see this in action anywhere near you.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Where can I find a chainsaw? hmm...

Phuket Pic Spam Part IV

2008-06-18T22:27:00.015+08:00

Aight! Thank goodness the last set of the Phuket spam!

Feast your eyes...and your browser.

Some random pics...the dolphins are in one of our hotel swimming pool.

Patong beach

So many westerners.

Yay! Huge guns for Songkran! Even the McD clown is in "sawadekap" position.

Hot chick caught in random shots. "Bangla" boxing on the right.

WTF...bangla. I wanted Thai!

Some kinda tweaked out bikes show. Nice.

Seafood! Yuck...but seeing how fresh they are, I can't help to shoot some pics.

The most anticipated moment is being able to fire a real gun! A f***kin' real gun!

Guns guns guns!!! Rifles too! OMGWTFROFLMAOLOLFTW!!!

My beloved freaking 9mm Colt M1911!!!

Not bad for a first timer! Seems my years training in FPS games are worth it! Muahahaha...

Pretty girls with elephant stuff.

Look! That huge pile of elephant almighty crap.

Last shot at our hotel lobby while waiting to be sent to airport.

Ah...that's it. All the phuket spams. At last.

Time to fly again soon. Till then, ciao.

如果

2008-05-31T00:09:00.003+08:00

如果伤心需要理由，那么一千百篇也写不完, 更可能写不出。

如果绝望能够形容，那么这世上何谓痛苦？何谓万念俱灰？

缘来不过如此。看似美好的情谊，是否耐得住时间的考验？

Phuket Pic Spam Part III

2008-05-19T00:47:00.021+08:00

After all these pic spams, there's one thing I've discovered: Uploading, editing and arranging pics with this blogger crap is pain in de arse. Especially when you have tons of pictures. Luckily it's free, though.

Alright. Let's continue with the pic spams. Shall we?

I forgot to include this in the previous spam.

This is my 1st round of buffet items in Kinnaree restaurant.

Yummy yummy...all sorts of food. Even Korean kimchii (yuck!)

Here's the jewelry shop as mentioned previously.

The twin clowns.

You'll see them in real life during the stage performance.

They were rather noisy instead of funny.

White elephant jewelry shop.

Blink blink...good for disco eh?

We brought our own girl clowns.

Some random shots in FantaSea.

We have fishy things inside this building.

Looks like it's their game stations.

Too bad those were closed by the time we arrived.

Octopussy...ROFLMAO...

Cute durian fish...

Welcoming Songkran (water festival).

Night scene at Patong area.

Dr. Pornsak. What a name.

Pornsux? Bet this doc hates porn. In a 'subtle' way.

Coral island beach.

Not bad, but I heard the corals are dead.

Didn't see a lot during snorkeling. No nemo.

Wat Chalong. There are like temples gathered in this place.

Each has its own functionality I guess.

Tons of buddha statues.

Dragon stair handle.

More buddhas. Different styles and poses.

Lookie what this one is doing?

Taadaaa!!!

Convenient donation box. Top security!

Buddha "She Li Zi".

View from the top of the temple tower.

Temple tower.

Sleeping buddha.

The tower...

Karon street view. Our hotel is on the far left. The red lil' van is Phuket Tut Tut.

It's different from the traditional 3 wheeled Tut Tut mainly due to the geological characteristic of Phuket which consists of mountains and hills;

hence the 4-wheeled type, a more powerful form of Tut Tut is required.

Rear view.

Night scene of Kata. Near the upper region of Karon.

Dinosaur of the Dino Bar & restaurant.

Look at the fresh seafood!

Nice soap carvings in Kata street.

Very skillful art indeed. Flowers made out of Pamolive soaps.

Dino bar.

Met ghost rider on our way back to Karon.

Nice bikes! Guess they were there for the Bike Expo thingy.

Will be covered in Part IV.

Wine X'mas tree!

Alrighty...the rest will have to wait for part IV. Blogger/blogspot sucks.

Phuket Pic Spam Part II

2008-04-22T21:24:00.022+08:00

Dang! The internet gone haywire last few days. Lousy streamyx...hence the delay.

Anyways, here goes. Phuket Thailand Pic Spam Part II!

This shows how big my shoes are!

Phuket FantaSea. Thailand Disneyland.

Ticket area.

Artistic drawings on the ceiling.

Main entrance to the FantaSea world!

Look at those fishes!

Thailand mermaid?!

Colorful + thai girl...

The Golden Kinnaree (half bird half human being) Buffet restaurant.

Though I didn't have the chance to taste Kinnaree meat (no, they dont serve that I guess),
the restaurant itself was awesome and huge!

The palace of the elephants from afar! (and elephant crap!)

Nice lamp...

I felt as if I am having a meal above the skies! So near to the clouds.

Huge restaurant hall which could accomodate 500 tables (that's 5000 people)!

One of the golden kinnaree.

Ladies in pink.

The level 99 boss monster Kinnaree!

Dedicated Japanese sushi counter for fresh sushi and sashimi.

Another shot at the golden kinnaree statue.

Main entrance to the Golden Kinnaree restaurant.

Something that looks like some sort of bird cage.

Small kinnaree perhaps. *Grin*

Now, the palace of the monkey on the elephant.

Ok ok, it is the palace of the elephants.

Told ya it's a monkey on an elephant!

Pretty girls at the Palace signboard.

The Palace of the Elephants is a huge performance theatre.

Too bad no cameras were allowed inside.

They even have baby elephants and baby tigers for pic shootings by their appointed camera-men.

Guess that's why my camera was to be left behind.

The cage thingy earlier on outside of the palace of the elephants.

Shiny spinning elephant is sure eye-catching!

It's a jewelry shop.

To be continued in part III...

Phuket Pic Spam Part I

2008-04-20T21:46:00.011+08:00

As titled. Pic spam part one! (I am so lazy to watermark my pics. Too many of 'em!)

KLIA Burger King to ease our hunger right after we reached LCCT terminal.

Phuket! On our way to the hotel...sight "shootings"...

Nice temple...

Some golden gates...

Our first pure Thai meal. Behold! the REAL tomyam!

Truly Thai style room settings. (with temp Thai models!)

There's even a window in the bathroom! (for "viewing" purpose I suppose).

Phuket Orchid Hotel swimming pool.

Off we go to phi phi something something...and maya bay.

(Notice someone thought of eating icecream too much).

It's gonna rain!!!

Sneaky hamsap ah pek detected!

Marine angels...

At last, the clouds dispersed.

Here comes the ray of sun...

Human sea riding. Only 20 Bahts!

Relax and enjoy the sea breeze. Other than that, nothing is free in Phuket.

Both the use of the chairs and floats means more bahts to pay.

To be continued...

Phuket Pic Spam!

2008-04-16T23:25:00.013+08:00

Back from Phuket (Thailand) and recovering in progress.
Gonna mass resize all my pics for uploads this weekend.
Stay tuned for pic spams!

Phuket map. Will be useful later on.

Sneak Peeks:

Beautiful Karon beach sunset

Phuket FantaSea Themepark

Say Hello to my NOT so lil' friend...Part 2

2008-03-31T21:33:00.009+08:00

I guess it's both good and bad to say that I can't continue the lil' friend 8800GTS G92 part 2. This isn't really a part 2 anyway. The RMA progress didn't go as smooth. Supplier side said there's no stock for my Asus 8800GTS, and I was given the same amount of credit to choose anything I wanted from the shop! So there you are, behold! The Gigabyte 9800GTX 512MB (with a little bit of top ups)!

This monstrous card was pushed back to launch on 1st of April (not a joke). Due to its tri-way SLI drivers haven't been optimized. I got this pre-launched! Even Gigabyte driver CD mentioned this card wasn't supported. I was like WTF?! The ultimate permission to brag! *evil laugh*...

Gigabyte 9800GTX G92 512MB.

If you think 8800GTS G92 is huge. Wait till you see this card. If 8800GTS is a monster, this is the mother of all monsters! Almost an inch longer than my previous GTS, hardly manage to squeeze it into my casing. THIS IS NOT YOUR LIL FRIEND!!! It is huge...Note that if you have a smaller casing.

The lil white stuff on the top left of the bracket is a LED.

Red means not enough power and no boot. Gotta have it green!

Given the same specs as the 8800GTS G92, this card should perform on par, if not better. It takes 2 six pins PCIe power inputs now. No official specs as of yet, not before the NDA has been lifted. This card operates cooler than its brother, and utilizes Samsung Vrams as opposed to old Qimonda. That's a bonus for overclockers!

No idea what's the lil 2 pin socket on the right pic does.

No official words yet. Guessed it serves some sort of fan monitor purpose.

Big butt this card has. The design of the cooler is more "stream-lined" like a sports car.

Haven't stressed this card yet. Ran 3dmark06 and COD4. Performances were a bit lower compared to 8800GTS G92. This could be due to the fact of immaturity of the drivers. Hopefully there's a fully working driver after the launch, to unleash its hidden powers. Till then, stay tuned.

By the way, pictures taken using Sony Ericsson P1i. Not bad huh? *grin*...

Say Hello to my little friend...Part I

2008-03-03T22:53:00.018+08:00

Got this on last year's 24th Dec. It's X'mas eve! Though not celebrating one, I've squeezed my way through the traffic jams, and not forgetting those last-minute-x'mas-shopping-idiots (hey, me excluded, ok?). Grabbed my stuff, happily hugging it (with much love), paraded around the area for some time, showing off my "precious". Gone through at least 45 mins of traffic and idiot jams again, finally I was back to my command center. Whew...what a fruitful day! Well, sort of.

Asus 8800GTS G92 512MB Packaging

I now present you, the Asus 8800GTS G92 512MB! All hail the king of G92!!! With 65nm technology, 128 Stream processors that come close in terms of performance with its big bro 8800GTX, with a far, lower price. Smaller die size is always good once the technology matures, which means lower heat, lower power consumptions and lower price! The breakthrough of these G92 architectures produced the 8800GT and GTS series that would surely send ATI graphics card to hell (for the moment, though. There's never ending war in graphics technology.). That has led me to switch from ATI camp to Nvidia.

Close-up of the card. Nice fan with efficient cooling and low noise.

This upgrading thought came soon after my Call of Duty 4 ran below 60FPS (frames per sec.) with every settings & details max on the ATI X1900XT 512MB. The frame rates in first person shooter games play a vital role, especially if you are playing online competitively.

ATI X1900XT VS Nvidia 8800GTS G92

This card is long, even tad longer than my already huge X1900XT. People with smaller casings would have problems installing this monster. My DFI NF4 board just got all the SATA ports blocked by this huge behemoth if I wanted to install it in the 16x PCIe lane. Great. What an ingenious design from DFI team...NOT! I'll have to install the card on the lower 8x PCIe slot since I needed those SATA II ports. This would affect gaming performance, though not by much. It will be shown later in part II with real world game benchmarkings.

Nice GeForce emblem eh? Remember not to touch the silver part while gaming. It gets freakin' hot!!!

It is a beauty of technology. And performance wise, it delivers as promised. Boosting my COD4 frame rates of 60+ max on previous x1900xt to an average of 80-100+ FPS with every graphical settings to max (with AA off though. Who needs AA on 1680x1050 resolution? *grin*). Remember this phrase of wisdom always: the higher the FPS, the more advantages you'll have in games. Seriously, for performance freaks, this is the main reason why you should put the money where your mouth is. With its two slots cooling system, it is very efficient by keeping both the temperature and noise low. Even the fan speed is set to 60% in Asus smart doctor, the noise are still acceptable, as contrary to single slot cooling solution found on 8800GT.

Left: 8800GTS backside. Right: Installed and running.

To be continued in Part II with some benchmarkings on X1900XT vs 8800GTS and difference between 16X PCIe vs 8X PCIe vs 2X PCIe speeds. Stay tuned.

Oh, on a side note, this card is currently in the RMA process. Crap. No games for me for at least a month! Poor RMA system we have in this country. Anyways, suspected the Qimonda Vram was not very reliable. I've encountered regular freezes and artifacts in games. Hmmm...

I am ze devil...

2008-02-28T22:28:00.022+08:00

Watched I am Legend couple of weeks ago. It was a really nice zombie apocalypse themed movie. Loved the main rifle used, the custom M4A1 Carbine with 5.56mm Nato rounds. (one of my favourite in games too!). And the German Shepherd, gonna get one for my new command center. Hmm...I might call it Diablo. It will eat zombies "alive". (no pun intended).

Movie screenie.

If guns are allowed in this country, man, I'm gonna collect them like there's no tomorrow. Something like in the pictures below. *drool* *drool*...

Nice gun collections!

I suppose I could survive a massive zombie apocalypse with these in my arsenal! Granted with enough ammo and canned food, of course. Muahaha...ah. Dreaming aside, we can't even purchase airsofts or replicas here. Sad.

Wanna know would you survive a zombie outbreak? Take the quiz here.
Here's my score for laughs:

Your Survival Rate is 80%-100%.
"With your careful planning and observations, it is quite possible that you may never even see a zombie - but you knew it was going to happen all along didn't you? All those years of social ostracism were worth it!"

Yeah right. I'm lacking the fire power here! I need Guns...Lots of guns! (Neo taught me that in the Matrix).

Uh...gotta go grab some more canned food. Just in case, ...you know.

Disclaimer: Pictures are taken from their respective owners.

Game of the Year 2007

2008-01-08T12:15:00.000+08:00

Hooah! Happy new year!!! Welcome 2008 and farewell 2007.

2007 was a year of FPS bliss. We have a bunch of blockbuster titles: Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Crysis, Bioshock, etc. Among these titles, the 2 that clashed head to head are Crysis and Call of Duty 4 (COD4). As from my earlier review of COD4 demo, it is clear that in terms of gameplay, replayability, multiplayer community; COD4 has, no doubt, won my vote for Best Game of the Year (GoTY) 2007. It was in fact awarded GoTY07 by numerous gaming sites like Gamespot and Gamespy, to name a few.

My most favourite gun, the P90 with Red Tiger camourflage (150 Headshots to unlock RT camo)
High RoF (rate of fire), high damage, low recoil. I'm a freakin' frag machine!

Crysis on the other hand, was just another graphical showcase. Make no mistake, Crysis's graphics are jaw dropping and amazingly beautiful. The trees, the foliage, water effects, etc are the most realistic eye candies in games to date. The catch: You will need a Quad core and triple SLI 8800 Ultra to run those barely smoothly in highest settings nonetheless. It is sad to say that with superior graphics (if you could get it to run smooth), the game was not backed up by good AI and realistic physic engine. In short, the AI is dumb even in hard mode, and the physic is fake.

Crash map. Left: P90 zoomed with red dot sight. Right: The golden Desert Eagle.

Okay, back to COD4. The single player is quite linear and consists of around 6-7 hours of game length. However, the gem of this game lies in its Multiplayer mode. It is by far the best online FPS I've played, successfully replaced my all time favourite, Counter Strike: Source. Be warned, it is addictive!

You won't notice a sniper in this thick foliage.

There are over 20 plus weapons to choose from an arsenal ranging from sub machine guns, assault rifles, shot guns, light machine guns to sniper rifles. Not forgetting some handguns like the M9, M1911, USP and Desert Eagle. The gameplay mode might look simple from the papers which consist of team deathmatch, free for all, domination, sabotage, etc. With a little twist by introducing a nice ranking system, where players could gain experience and level up to max of level 55 by killing enemies, completing objectives to unlock new weapons, weapon mods and perks along the way. Perks are abilities or powerups that add bonuses to your gameplay, example the Martyrdom perk enables the player who are shot dead, to drop a live grenade, killing whoever nearby. Sometimes the killer himself. A good revenge method. Or the Bandolier perk which gives you more ammunition for your spray and pray shooting habit.

Weapons & perks selection and customization.

The weapon mods once unlocked after completing certain challenges, allowing the players to customize/add attachments to their weapons. Eg., nade launcher for one shot kills, the red dot sight which increases accuracy, add a silencer that makes you a stealthy killer and the ACOG scope for long range shooting. There are also Headshot challenges for you complete in order to unlock weapon camourflage skins. Too bad the highest level you can max out is level 55. I wished more, and more weapons to unlock, but now, I play for fun and trying some other weapon challenges.

Finding a nice sniping spot with sniper's ghillie suit.

Prone and blend into the wilderness. Hunting for tangoes.

The multiplayer gameplay requires good team work if you are in hardcore mode. Whereby a single bullet from any guns in hardcore kills. And there's no radar, friendly fire on, no grenade indicator and no ammo counts on your screen. Nade spammers will find themselves frequently killing allied team mates. While in TDM (team deathmatch) with hardcore mode off, you could just run and gun all the way. I find this is the most effective method to gain kills and complete challenges for the weapons. Of course, if the team works properly, it would be even better. It is just that team work element isn't emphasized in TDM and FFA (free for all) compared to other modes which are objective based.

Bragging rights: Level 55 Max makes you a Commander.

The scoreboard: My random frag results.

GAMENiAC's Verdict:

Gameplay:
MP mode is addictive. When you are leveling up, you can't stop playing. Keep telling yourself, just one more kills and I'll get that scope! The game settings are top notch where you really feel like you are in the middle of the battlefield with AA guns and scattered gunshots in the background, enemies' grenades everywhere. You have to keep your eyes peeled every moment in the game. It is the most intensive shooters I've ever played. Once you've reached certain kill streaks, you get the ability to call in UAV scanner (no more hide & seek, you sneaky bast*rds), Air Strike and Attack Helichopter to help boost your kills further. This is indeed, a nice touch.

Graphics:
Even though it is not the best jaw dropping graphics as seen in Crysis, it isn't bad either. With every settings maxed out, the environment, gun models, dynamic lightning, effects, etc are still very convincing. The snipers' ghillie suit made them really hard to spot in "grassy" maps. Which is just as realistic in real life. I personally loved the guns' light reflections. With all these features, you don't even need a RM2K graphics card to run it smoothly. The requirements for this game is very modest for today's standard.

Sound FX:
The sound effects in the game are superb. I've yet to test the surround mode, but it has already performed very well in 2.1 systems. Constant bullets whirled by your ears, foot steps, explosions, background SFX, are of very high quality sound effects found in the game. The sound positioning is accurate and I'm able to tell where the enemies' nades have landed. I'm gonna get myself a 5.1 surround just to "hear" this game alone!

Lasting Appeal:
Is this game gonna last? With enough fast, low ping singapore servers and competitive players, I would say this game is gonna last for at least 2-3 years to come. Until Infinity Wards comes out with new COD series, the current game experience could keep most of us occupied for a long time. I just hope that IW will include more unlockables, maps and weapons in the next patch to add in more variety of gameplay styles.

Wish List:
More weapons, mods, maps and perks. Remove the huge friendly indicator icon on top of team mate's head for further realism.

Get Original. COD4 deserves it.

Last but not least,

... Marines! Pick up your puny ~~mouse~~ guns and hop into any servers to join the addictive fun right now! Semper Fi! Hooah!

W00t! I'm l337, I pwned j00 n00b!

2007-12-15T09:51:00.000+08:00

One of the famous leet speak among hardcore gamers, "woot" has won the Merriam-Webster's Word of 2007 among 20 nominees. It's usually used by gamers to express happiness or cheers in games, whenever an individual or the team has achieved victorious or completed game objectives.

w00t! Full article can be found in the link below:
Associated Press

New Logitech G51 Surround Sound Speaker System

2007-12-03T10:00:00.000+08:00

Logitech has recently extended the evil claws of G-series gaming peripherals toward the audio division. Debuted its G51 5.1 surround sound gaming speaker system tailored especially for gamers. (so, yay?)

With total RMS of 155 watts, 5 channels of satellites (20w X 4, 19w for center) and a hefty sub with 56 watts. FDD2 sound technology capable of producing whachamacallit uniform soundfield anywhere in the room (direct quote from Logi). The system sure looks promising on paper specs. I've gone through several foreign reviews and the remarks are good, if not better than its predecessor, the X-540. It is perfect in games and movies though lacking details in music (muddy bass). I admit I'm not those audio heads with sensitive ears, thus, this system should do just fine.

The SRP is kinda steep, asking for RM900+ over a mid range speaker system. Seeing they only priced around USD199 or cheaper in the States, it is obviously overpriced here.

I've been "hearing" under the rocks and have been using my faithful old Altec Lansing ACS45.1 2.1 speaker system for the past 5 years. As uncle Yoda once said, "Go surround, gamers must!". Yeah, speaking of games immersion, unless I wanna get my arse backstabbed again in Call of Duty 4 (by not hearing what's behind), and considering the G51's big bro Z5500 costs double, I'm looking forward to this system, when the price is reasonable. Less than RM800 perhaps? USD to RM conversion. Meh.

Portal Ending

2007-11-20T13:54:00.001+08:00

Finally, finished portal. An evolutionary puzzle solving game powered by Valve's Source engine. The only non shooting game that I liked, well technically, not shooting bullets. The only device to use in the game is the portal gun. You get to open portals by creating either blue or orange portal (entrance or exit) respectively. The cleverly designed maps full of obstacles, require fast thinkings and some puzzle solving skills (yeah, time to use some brains, at last).

However, the main point today isn't about reviewing the game. The game itself is very short and story is for you to discover. The highlight, is the game's ending. It is known as one of the best ending credits in gaming history. The ending song reveals a bit about the portal history and something related to Half Life 2 universe. I wouldn't be suprised to see the portal gun in Half Life 3. Ha!

Anyways, here's the video clip from youtube. The wordings are a little blur and small. But it doesn't hurt that much. Enjoy. (remember to pause the jukebox first).

This one the sound quality a bit off. But you could see the lyrics better.

Team Fortress 2 Review

2007-11-07T01:01:00.000+08:00

I am a stone, I do not move. I put snow in my mouth so he won't see my breath. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only ~~twenty-five~~ one bullet, I aim at his nuts head; very gently my finger presses on the trigger. I have no fear, I'm a big boy now... (*cough* Enemy at the Gates *cough*).

...*BAM!* I got his head! One more point for my achievements. The Sniper is one of my favourite among the nine classes. In TF2, the war between Reds and Blues, there are 3 groups: Offensive, Defensive and support, with 3 classes in each which made up a total of 9 classes. Below might give you a clearer picture of the classes and categories.

Offensive: Scout, Soldier & Pyro

Defensive: Engineer, Heavy & Demoman

Support: Medic, Sniper & Spy

*Classes images taken from IGN

Each of the classes is unique. They are very balanced in such a way that no single class is superior over another. Scout is the fastest moving unit in the game. Where he is mostly used in maps with points capturing. He can also double jump and even change direction mid air to avoid enemy fire. To compensate for the speed, the scout also has weakest defence a.k.a. die easily if you're not careful.

Pyro taunt with a hadouken fire.

The Soldier otherwise, is an all-rounder type of unit. Armed with RPG (rocket propelled grenade), the powerful rockets could send enemies flying sky high (and soldiers themselves too, could use rocket jump techniques to access to higher, more strategic areas). Pyro is the master of fire. Any enemies (except Heavies with higher HP) caught within the pyro's flame throwing range would most likely be dead. Even if the direct damage didn't hurt them and escaped, the burning effect would get the job done. Unless the enemy gets a medipack, get healed or jumped into water. It is suggested that when the enemies flee with flames on, it is best to finish them with a couple of blasts from pyro's secondary weapon, the shotgun. Pyro is good for detecting spies too, by toasting them. Fresh.

Poor soul got burned yelling for medic before his death.

Me as the Pyro was so happy to have a Heavy BBQ-ed.

The engineers could build ammo and health dispensers to assist allies during the battle. Engineers could also construct sentry and have it upgraded to deal more damage. It is good to catch unwary opponents around the corner, or best used for defending important key areas. Heavy is armed with a massive gattling gun which shoots hundreds of bullets and turn enemies into a beehive (a.k.a. full of holes). Demoman is best used for dealing damage around corners with their grenade launchers. Their secondary weapon, the sticky bomb is good for setting up boobytraps.

Flames of fury from a Pyro.

Medic is vital in the game. His job is to heal the team mates and enable them to fight longer on the battlefield. A team without medics will not get very far to be crushed. The sniper on the other hand, is the expert in long range shooting. Usually one shot kills especially in the head. The problem is that he has to keep the scoped view to charge the power to 100% for maximum damage. This shortcoming opens opportunity for spies to sneak behind and give snipers a good backstab. Spy is the master of disguise, and can disguise as any enemy units. The cloaking ability is nice for tight escape after a sweet backstab or used to sneak pass heavily guarded enemy territory.

Sniper and the rifle.

Scoped view. Need to have the power bar charged 100% for maximum impact.

Whew! So much for the classes! The game is powered by Source engine with a comical twist. It feels like watching a cartoon, and the experience is humorous. It will make you laugh with funny animations or voices. This is "not-that-serious" type of game, which could cater for both hardcore and casual gamers.

Six maps are included in the release. Ranging from capture-the-flag, control points and territorial control. In order to win the game, team work is the fundamental element. Unit strategies must be applied on varying map conditions. Mixture of classes is a very good start. The best part of the game is that, you could taunt your enemies with funny animations. It some sort gives you the satisfaction by owning your opponents.

Taunt from a soldier. You know what it means when it's showed to you.

This game is definitely worth every cent you pay. Priced RM175 in the local retail stores, it is considered cheap as it comes with five games in one package named The Orange Box. The "box" consists of, Half Life 2: Episode 2, Episode 1, Half Life 2, Portal and of course TF2 itself. What's more, a nice Orange Box gaming mouse mat and Team Fortress 2 poster are also included! This game is a lot of fun and addictive. Till then, hope to see you in the game!

Games, Gadget Updates & Heads up

2007-11-01T15:24:00.000+08:00

Been a real busy week. I've finished my Bioshock, Stranglehold and even speed build my Gundam (left the IWSP unit, left leg and waist at the time of typing) because of the up coming games galore in early November! To name a few, we have: Gears of War, Crysis, Hellgate: London, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, etc. Every developer and publisher seems to be rushing for this holiday season release.

Plus, I've new weapon in my arsenal. It's the deadly Logitech G9 gaming mouse! Finally, the replacement for the haywire Copperhead is here! Prior to review for this mouse, I'm gonna have it abused in intensive gaming bombardments for a period of 'bout a month. This is to test its sturdiness and built quality.

Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse

Currently, there's a game, well, technically 5 games to keep me occupied. It's one of the most anticipated FPS, Team Fortress 2 coming in Orange Box which includes Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1, Episode 2 and Portal. For a price tag of RM175, free Orange Box mouse mat and poster. Hell...this is definitely a steal! Quoted the Best deal in gaming industry by IGN!

Orange Box, Orange Box mouse mat, G9 weight system

& partially assembled Gundam holding the G9's cord.

Well, folks. What are you waiting for? Load that TF2 and I'll backstab you in Malaysia or Singapore E-Club servers. Fire! Fire!

Call of Duty 4 Demo hands on

2007-10-20T14:11:00.000+08:00

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Demo impressions: it is as intense as previous CODs (COD2 gets a lil boring tho) and we have blood splashes when hitting the head and other un-armored body parts. A nice touch! Just too bad no blood spills.

Nice weapon models and environment settings

The game weapons, have very light recoils, especially the sniper rifle, dragunov. This made the otherwise high sense of realism FPS into some run and gun. Guess noobs will be spamming sniper rifles on multiplayer mode. Holding down the breath (shift key) made the aiming even more accurate. If they just improve or increase the recoil in the game in aiming mode...just a lil bit more, this game would not be far from perfect.

Tons of smokes and exploded chopper (left) & aiming down the hip of the rifle (right)

Wearing the NV goggles is one of the damn cool moves. I put it on and off a couple of times just to see the animation. There's also a melee attack: stabbing your enemy with a combat knife. Even though there's only one type of move (wish they implement some more, upper slash and something like that...) it is kinda cool that the whole screen shakes as if you swing your body hard enough, trying to cut through that S.O.B..

NVG (Night Vision Goggle) in action

The knife melee move (left) and shooting in the corridor (right)

With the modest system requirement to run this game, I believe people with last 1~2 years computer should have no problem with it. Here's the system requirements for the demo.

Recommended Specs:
CPU: 2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended RAM: 1GB for XP; 2GB for Vista is recommended Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space Video card: 3.0 Shader Support recommended. Nvidia Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better

Minimum Specs:
CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz or AMD® Athlon™ 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or better supported RAM: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista) Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space Video card (generic): NVIDIA® Geforce™ 6600 or better or ATI® Radeon® 9800Pro or better

However, I wouldn't recommend running this game in minimum settings as it would kill off the nice eye candies. If you have less than the min specs, it is time to upgrade.

Neck shot and nice blood splash

Playing with max settings 1680x1050 resolution with my gaming rig shown in the signature (at the bottom of the page), the game performance was smooth as butter. Seeing the COD2 outdated smokes, even in full details. It seems Infinity Wards (the game developer) is using the heavily modified COD2 engine in this installment.

Got the Dragunov and aiming for a headshot

This game lives up to its hype and expectations so far. Can't wait for the full version.
COD4 will be released in early November this year. Keep your eyes peeled!

New stuff arrived

2007-10-20T00:55:00.001+08:00

Weeee...lookie what I've got past few weeks.

The Silverstone FM123 120mm fan! As you can see, there're a bunch but not all were mine. I only took one and the rest for my friends. Will do a quick review next time.

And the following week, a 1/100 MG Strike IWSP Gundam model set. I'm not really into this but the details given to this toy are superb. Made in Japan! I suck at modelings and have made some painful mistakes in the progress. More pics soon.

Razer Copperhead - Gaming Mouse Review

2007-10-02T23:03:00.000+08:00

Quoted from Razerzone:
"Equipped with speed, precision and sensitivity,
the Razer Copperhead™ brings gaming to new heights with
its revolutionary 2000dpi laser sensor technology.
Add 32KB of onboard memory,
this intelligent mouse is a genre-defining weapon that makes for
penetrating, explosive gameplay."

Razer Copperhead on Razer Mantis Speed

Still using the typical mouse for gaming? I used to, too. I was using a cheapo A4Tech optical mouse, then switched to Creative Optical 3000 800DPI mouse. But it still wasn't fast enough for my daily Counter Strike: Source dosage. Plus, often, the opponents seemed to be able to trigger or zoom faster than I did. I've tried to master the extreme lightning clicking speeds from the village of lightspeed, but to no avail. I was puzzled, so I prayed. So I prayed...to God? Ha! You bet. Yeah right, my almighty god, the gaming device manufacturers!

Creative Optical 3000

At last, my prayers were answered (not all, though) when I came across this fast laser mouse with ultimate precision, the Copperhead. Named after a poisonous snake from Razer, a company known for producing gaming peripherals. The design is ambidextrous, therefore, it is friendly to both lefties and righties.

The mouse design is in such a way that encourages finger control over the traditional "palm-style" control. Meaning you hold and control the mouse with your fingers only instead of laying your whole palm on top of the hull. The perfect curve for finger control will prevent RSI for prolonged usage. I've gamed for more than average of 5 hours per day without feeling any discomfort, as contrary to my Creative 3000, traditional Logitech and other humpback kidney designed mouse.

Razer Copperhead Chaos Green on Razer Mantis Speed mouse mat.

Do we actually need 2000DPI (dots per inch)? The answer is Yes, if you are a high sensitivity gamer (even low sens gamers could reduce the on-the-fly sensitivity and DPI to desired settings) and have a large monitor. A single swipe of your palm will have the mouse pointer reaches left or right easily, as opposed to lower DPI mice where you need to swing left/right, lift up, left/right a couple of times. This is very important in games, especially FPSs (First Person Shooter). Meaning, you are able to look around the environment faster than your enemies, given that they aren't using the same or higher DPI mice (this excludes those low sens swiping freaks, pro or noobs of the like).

Razer Copperhead Front

The Copperhead has 7 buttons altogether. The main left/right buttons, the scroll button, and 2 side buttons on each left and right of the mouse. All the buttons could be set as Macro or assign to other functions. For me, I've only used one of the buttons as on-the-fly sensitivity adjustment. There're a lot of options you could customize in the Razer's advanced driver control which also known as the Razer Synapse Configurator. From polling rates, DPI, windows sensitivity, acceleration to button macros and flashing your firmware.

Copperhead Driver Control (Synapse Configurator)

What's the polling rate anyway? It is the rate at which the mouse sends signals to computer every second. The higher the polling rate, the faster the computer responses to your clicks and movements. The Copperhead is capable of 1000Hz which means 1ms polling rate, as opposed to typical mouse of 125Hz over the USB port. Be warned however, setting the polling rate to 1000Hz requires a little bit of processing power from the CPU. So those with slower CPU cores should consider setting on 500Hz instead. Users reported that they could spot the difference between 125Hz (8ms) to 500Hz (2ms), but there's not much difference between 500hz to 1kHz.

The "On-the_Fly" sensitivity adjustment is a lovely addition, where you could virtually adjust the sensitivity in real time, eg. in games by just pressing a button which you assigned as "on-the-fly" and scroll the wheel up/down to set the sensitivity up/down and vice versa.

On the fly sensitivity status bar will appear on the bottom right of your screen.

A sensitivity level status bar would appear on screen once you triggered the on-the-fly function, showing your current sens level, even in games (if users checked the option in the synapse software). This feature enables me to adjust to the nature of weapons used in games. For example, if I'm sniping off fast moving opponents with a scoped view, I would set my sens higher. Whereas I would lower the sens for high recoil rifles like the AK-47 to compensate for the gun back-kick, which could seriously screw your aim and emptied your clips into the walls and birds (if there're any) instead of your enemies.

Users could adjust the DPI on the fly too, but I prefer to fix it at 2000DPI, as the tracking would be more accurate with higher DPI values. Altering the on-the-fly sensitivity, simply means changing the sens by software/driver offset without nerfing the tracking sensor itself.

Okay, Enough for the DPI tech talks. Accuracy and speed are crucial in games like Counter Strike, the same goes with all FPS games. With the mentioned high sensitivity tracking, I could target/aim opponents faster with minimal finger/palm movements. Granted with the Hyperesponse buttons trademarked from Razer, I find myself able to trigger or zoom faster than before. The results is, of course, higher frag rates. No kidding. The precision from the Class 1 Eye Safe laser sensor is amazing and dead accurate. Even it was noted "eyes-safe" I wouldn't recommend staring at the laser when the mouse is powered on.

Tiny mouse feet, the laser sensor and profile button.

The 32k on board memory can store up to 5 profiles where users could switch between by pressing the profile button at the bottom of the mouse. This is handy when gamers using their own mouse in tournaments where there's no driver installed. All the polling rate, sensitivity and button mappings are stored in the memory.

There're also cosmetic features on this Coppherhead, which includes the blinking razer 3 snakes logo on the back of the shell, which imitates the breathing of a living snake. The Razer Glowpipe non slip side rails which enhances the grip and also illuminates the surroundings, thus gamers could find their mouse in the dark. The scroll wheel has a bright glow too. The copperhead has 3 colors to choose from: Chaos Green, Anarchy Red and Tempest Blue. I chose Green because it is cooler with that acidic look and to match my Razer Mantis mouse mat.

Three colors to choose from: Chaos Green, Anarchy Red & Tempest Blue.

Final Thoughts:

Is this mouse worth your money? Definitely, the copperhead has every aspects an avid gamer would wish to be imbued in a mouse. BUT, yes a big BUT, the Copperhead is not without its problems. Do a quick google and you may discover that a lot of end users complained about the double clicking issues: the button double clicks when you actually did a single click.

Sadly, my Copperhead is inherited with the problem too, even before a year of use. Now both the left and right button double clicks! This is a nightmare for us, FPS gamers, where it made our single shot became double shot and wasted the ammunition (this might be good for run and gun games without recoil). Or worse, became un-scoped where we usually zoom with a single click (double click made the zoom mode became un-zoomed). In windows, it could lead to frustrations since single clicking/highlighting a folder actually opens it or open the item inside, because windows thought you are double clicking!

For the hefty price tag of sub RM200+ in the market, I expected the mouse to be able to withstand my button bashings and longer lasting. It is dissapointing for a great mouse. Apart from a bunch of useful functions, some are just pure marketing gimmicks, where we won't use daily or never will.

Hope Razer could at least improve their QC, maybe just replace the microswitches which powered the mouse buttons. A precise, fast and egornomic mouse hampered by a huge double clicking problem is not worth it.

I'm looking forward to send the Copperhead for RMA. During this period, I might just get myself another gaming mouse...err...from Razer? Hell NO! I have the phobia already. It's going to be the Logitech G9! Stay Tuned till the next mouse updates!