Blurbs: Assassin's Creed Short Movie

Most game to movie adaptations suck. Apparently the one that I am about to show you, doesn't. It is profesional and awesome. This is the first in a series of short movies that are being developed by Hybride Technologies, the visual effects studio behind 300 and Sin City, which Ubisoft bought last year for just this sort of project. I can't wait for the 2nd episode. News courtesy of Kotaku.

Blurbs: Dragon Age Penny Arcade Comic

The folks of Penny Arcade has finally completed the 8 page comic for Dragon Age, which you can view >HERE<. The art is beatiful and it makes me want to play the game right now. I believe the comic was successful in giving out the gray area moral ambiguity that will be prevalent in the game. As it is, there has been quite an entertaining debate in the official forums regarding the comic and the subject matter: tempars. Which, you can browse and read >HERE<. If you haven't read the comic, I strongly advise that you do so.

Gaming: Leaked L4D2 Trailer

Apparently there is a leaked L4D2 trailer that has made its rounds in the net. It's still hot since the news was from yesterday. I am not sure if it is really leaked or one of Valve's insidious plans ... Anyway, enjoy the vid.

Blurbs: Lone Wolf!

When I was a kid I had fun reading this so called adventure books. Basically you are reading a character and you control what path s/he takes by flipping to the appropriate page. It was awesome and the best I have read so far was the adventures of Lone Wolf.

I have found a website of the author and he has made all his books available online to be read! Check it out >HERE<.

Gaming: Aliens vs Predator

I have always liked the Aliens and Predator franchises. The original movies for both rocked and made their own niches in the market. Unfortunately the recent movie attempts are something less to be desired. However, fret not, the game is coming soon and it looks awesome. Rebellion have released the latest Alien trailer for their AvP game and it showcases some alien gameplay. Watch and don't pee in your pants ...

Video Games | Aliens vs Predator | Alien Terror Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Blurbs: D&D

Dungeons & Dragons is such an old IP and almost every old (relatively) gamer I have met have actually played this pen and paper marvel. When the 4th edition came out last year, a group of my friends and I decided to give it a try. We only went as far as two sessions. I blame this on the "real life" monster invoking itself into our DnD scheduling. We might try again this year ... or maybe not seeing that this year is about to end in two (or three, depending how you count it) more months.

Penny Arcade has started putting up their DnD exploits and I find the read interesting. Not to mention the podcast of their adventures that is hosted by Wizards of the Coast, which are the makers of DnD. Penny Arcade has posted up some articles on their DnD adventures alot of times already but this one is interesting to see. The way he sets up the board is awesome! Check it out >HERE<. You may need to scroll downward since it's the second article.

Penny Arcade has been spending alot of money to get the appropriate minis and boards for their DnD game. So I am not surprised if they are thinking of getting the Microsoft surface for their DnD gaming. Currently it is a work in progress but the vid shows that it is functional. Catch it here in Kotaku. Looks awesome.

Gaming: Mass Effect 2 dated

One of the most anticipated PC games of next year has finally been dated by Bioware. Mass Effect 2 will be coming out in North America on the 26th of January 2010. Europe will be getting it 3 days later (29th). Hopefully, it reaches the shores of my country somewhere in between that. I can't wait to play Mass Effect 2, continuing the adventures of Shepard from Mass Effect 1. Hopefully, Dragon Age will keep me entertained until then.

Gaming: Dragon Age Character Creator tool

The interface

And so I installed and played around in it. There's not much you can do. You can muck about some graphical options but that's about it. Other than seeing what the character creator can do, there's nothing else. So I don't have much to comment about. The interface looks straightforward and after you have chosen your gender, race, class and background, you can only change the facial appearance of your character. There are sliders but it is quite simplistic. Just another tease before the full game comes out.

The main menu

A cute female dwarf

Blurb: Mass Effect: Redemption comic by Dark Horse

So apparently as part of their marketing for their next installment into the Mass Effect Universe, Dark Horse is making a comic to prepare players for Mass Effect 2. So they have a preview up, which you can check it out >HERE<.

I read the seven page preview and it looks nice. I think the art goes well with the sci fi type of visuals that is needed from the Mass Effect universe. Question is, will I buy it? The game, a definite yes but the comic ... I'll think about it.

Gaming: Dragon Age character creator is out!

Just when you can't get enough of Dragon Age: Origins, there is more! Bioware just released the character creation tool to the masses! Presumably, you can download, install and create your characters as if you owned the game. The only downside off course, is that you can't play the game yet since it is only the character creator. Fortunately, at this point, any freebies by Bioware on their game is a warm welcome. I am downloading it as I type this so I will update this post when I have installed it and tried it.

Rants: Last minute work load

Don't you hate it when you get a lot of work piled onto your desk at the last possible minute? Even worse, getting the same job even though you have already said that you are not available for that same job and to relegate it to someone else, then have it dumped on you at the last second anyway?

I feel so pissed right now. And you know what they say: When it rains, it pours. Suddenly I get a phone call reminding me about some stuff that is about to happen at the same time and now I'm just crazily angry. I don't feel panicky but instead I feel pissed off. These things I can handle but the way it came and how it came about really bothers me.

Oh well I'll get over it I guess. But sometimes ... work really kicks you in the groin. Anyway, just needed to get it off my chest. I can't shout in anger where I'm at, which is still in the office.

Gaming: Champions Online

My characters, L-R: Pendekar Keramat, Durjana, Penjejak Neraka (Main), Flame Lord, Kesatria Angkasa.

My latest MMO foray has been Champions Online. As one of my articles from before, I was testing City of Heroes and I found that although the character creation was fun, the game itself was slow (IMO). So when Champions Online decided to come out to Open Beta phase, I was compelled to test the game. Suffice to say I was happy with the game and was planning to subscribe after a the first month of the game going live has passed.

Why not immediately? As any MMO gamer know, the first month of any MMO is usually frought with constant bug fixes and rebalancing. So I do not want to experience that. Not to mention there will probably be a lot of server down time as they apply new patches. That was my original plan anyway. However, my friends bought the game for me when my birthday came. So, being impatient, decided to subscribe even though my original intent was just to test to see if the cd-key was valid or not. Not that I don't trust my friends but more to make sure that the product works.

The game is now into its second month and it is still undergoing massive patches and fixes. However, the frequency is starting to slow down as they manage to fix the majority of the game breaking bugs. Unfortunately though, I seem to be experiencing a very weird network problem with the game. I am fine when I play the game alone but when I team, I get bad rubber banding which makes it unplayable. This situation is worsened since my main character has reached level 27 and most of the missions from that point requires teaming. In light of this, I decided to level up my ALTs to 20 so that I can decide whether to keep or scrap those characters.

Cryptic is trying to fix the network issues some users are having. I hope they fix it soon. In the meantime though, I am still having fun with the game. It is amazing how different the game can feel by what travel power you chose!

Gaming: Dragon Age Origins - A Living World trailer

Dragon Age: Origins is coming in next month and I can't wait! The only downside is that the game will reach my side of the world a week later than the release date which is 3rd of November 2009. In the meanwhile, just to whet our appetites, Blur studios have released a new cinematic trailer for the game and it is looking sweet. I think it is safe to say that the star of the trailer is the spider lady!

Something to think about: Self help courses

Self help courses are a dime a dozen nowadays. And why is that? Is it because the world today is very different? Is it because people today suffer from depression, tiredness and emotional stress more?

Then again, how do self help courses operate? What kind of regulations do they have to adhere to? How do we, the public, know that the self help courses actually help instead of making matters worse? This are interesting things to think about. Especially when you read this article: Self help course may have led to her suicide.

Gaming: The Road Rash that never was

So EA is saying that they are reviving some of their old games and most of us were thinking of their golden era greats. One of them was Road Rash! Man that game rocked when it was on the Sega Genesis (Megadrive for the Japanese version). It was the ultimate beat-em-up motorcycle game. I still remember playing that game for hours on end, hitting the nitro and see all the other bikes pass by ... only to hit a cow crossing the road and fly over a few kilometres only to hit the hard ground a few seconds later. Man, that was awesome. Anyway, a vid was leaked on the Road Rash that was presumably on production but halted.



News source: Kotaku

Blog: Header pic updated

So I decided to keep the current colour scheme of the blog and just change the header graphics. I think its nice and simple. Before any Japanese assassins come and get me though, let me just say that my game handle/ nick is Koross. Which is why the katanas up there ...

And hopefully now I can start posting up stuff.

My thoughts on Subject categories

So after a little bit of thinking. Here are the categories:

- Random Thoughts: It could be literally anything and most probably would be short articles.
- Blurbs: This is a shoutout to cool things that I have encoutered either in real life or in the internet.
- Something to think about: This will be heavy stuff.
- Gaming: Things about gaming.

I guess these are it although there might be changes and some additions but we shall see. Anyway this is to make it easier to organize my thoughts.

Time to resurrect this blog

I think its time to resurrect this blog. It would be a good idea for me to have an objective on what I want this blog to be. So here is the plan:

1) Change the blog graphics abit.
2) Come up with categories of topics so I can post appropriately.
3) Actually post.
4) And post some more.

There you go. Hopefully, this happens.