Like previous years, I’ve decided to pay a visit to the Games Convention Asia 2009 held at the Suntec Convention Centre.. The event was held at Hall 401, at the far end of the convention hall.. Although I was kind of expecting something epic from this year’s event due to good experiences from previous ones, I was however disappointed.. More on that after the jump..

Well, before I go and tell why Im disappointed, let me tell you whats in store for you guys at the event.. First, there is the X-Box360 booth (I forgot the distributor for the event).. There are a few good games to play, namely from Shadow Complex, Forza Motorsport 3..

and one of the most anticipated game, the Halo ODST, though you are only able to play the “Firefight” multiplayer mode.. It was nice to play the Halo game since the control are almost similar to the one from the previous Halo series.. It’s fun killing some Covenents no? XD

Next up, we have the epic EA Games booth, one of the most awesome booth at the event just like last year.. For this year’s event, EA has showcased quite a number of awesome games..

For example, there is the upcoming Need for Speed Shift, which resembles more of Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo.. I still prefer epic storyline for NFS like NFS: Undercover…

There are also games like Brutal Legends, an epic heavy-metal-hack-n-slash RPG game with the character, Eddie Riggs voiced by the epic Jack Black.. What more could you ask for from such game.. This game will be out on October 13th 2009.. ^^

Here are the 2 trailers I found of the game itself.. Enjoy~

Brutal Legends – Trailer 1:

Brutal Legends – Trailer 2:

Then we have another anticipated game, the Rockband: The Beatles Edition.. Well, its simple, you have a rockband set, just that you are playing songs sung by The Beatles themselves.. But I’m not a great fan of this game though since I dunno how you can mix “Rockband” with “The Beatles”.. Kinda ironic don’t you think? Dun get me wrong, I do listen to some of their songs.. XD

As usual, here are the trailer and OP of the game…

Rockband: The Beatles – OP:

Rockband: The Beatles – Trailer:

Although the games seems epic, the event itself isnt.. The hall they used this time is smaller and there aren’t alot of big game companies unlike last time.. This year, I get to see IAH, EA and Playcraft among all companies there.. Oh well, at least the lighting inside is bright..

Thats all I have regarding GCA 09 for now.. There are more games at the event such as Borderlands but that will be posted by Fuzzy since he loved that game so much.. For today, there will be some cosplayers who will attend the event so do drop by Suntec if you do have some time.. ^^

Allow me to redirect your attention to this post, while the Cosfest Day 2 photos are still being “processed” since they came out blurry and stuff. From a DSLR.

Anyway, there’s this typical run-of-the-mill based-on-anime-art MMORPG called Luna Online. I had originally intended to play this game, until a certain other cute game (with better gameplay *cough*) came into the picture. There’s even a local flavour here too.

So badass.

In the above screenshot, you can tell what sort of people play this badass game. The game is loaded with CUTE. I can’t tell whether the player characters are lolis and shotas or are just plain chibi, especially since all the NPCs appear to be full grown adults, chest and all.

Being a cute MMO, you’d expect young people (kids/teens) to play it, right? Especially since there aren’t any mature themes.

And then I saw the advert.

Apparently, now we have yuri in this game. If I am to take this advert at face value, it means if I play the game, I can expect to see loli elves and humans. Making out. With each other.

I’ve received similar reactions from friends, so I know I’m not the only one who gets this impression. I mean, honestly though, I know they were going for “cute”, but could they at least have tried something…less deserving of a Mature rating? Not that I’m against homosexuality or anything.

This isn’t worse than the whole Evony thing though…oh yeah was that a total fail. Some people actually started playing just to see the non-existent Queen too. And now they’re actually trying to revise that fact. Eep.

‘Course, when you think about it, it does look like official art. I wonder what the devs have in store for the game. Then again, I’ve seen pantsu on Dragonica official art (no, I will not tell you where it is), and it doesn’t look like that game’s turning into an eroge soon.

Meh.

There’ll be a Dragonica Party held at The Cathay’s E2Max tomorrow afternoon.

There’s not a lot of details regarding the party itself on the official page (i.e. what exactly the party’s celebrating) but IIRC this should be the official Open Beta party, as it was written on a flyer I received during the PC Show recently. I don’t have it with me now, though.

Picture unrelated.
Cute Acolyte by konsenya from DeviantArt

Anyway, there’s a lot of opportunity to grab free lootz (and other not-so-free ones) from the party, since they’re holding quite a few contests, and some of the prizes look sweet.

Listed already on the site itself, they are:

• Team PVP Challenge
  • Teams of 5
  • Pre-made level 30 characters
  • 4 teams in single elimination format
  • Prizes:
    • Champion: Razer Salmosa PGE, Goliathus Omega Control, Medium Eternity Health and Mana Potions, Lady Ghost Balloon (permanent) each
• GX Combo Challenge
  • Individual
  • Own characters
  • 5 contestants trying to achieve the highest combo in any game instance.
  • Prizes:
    • Champion: Razer Lachesis, Razer Destructor, 20x 2.0 EXP potions.
    • 1st runner-up: Razer Salmosa, Razer Goliathus Omega Speed, 10x 2.0 EXP potions.
    • 2nd runner-up: 20x 1.5 EXP potions.
    • 3rd runner-up: 20x 1.2 EXP potions.
    • 4th runner-up: 20x 1.1 EXP potions.
• Swift Attack Leveling Race
  • Teams of 4
  • Pre-made level 1 characters (Warrior, Thief, Magician, Archer)
  • Only top 3 teams win prizes, trying to level up as fast as possible in 10 minutes.
  • Prizes:
    • Champion: Razer Salmosa PGE, Razer Goliathus Omega, 20x Armor Enchantment Powder, 10x Weapon Enchantment Powder, 10x Insurance Scrolls each.
    • 1st runner-up: 20x Armor Enchantment Powder, 10x Weapon Enchantment Powder, 5x Insurance Scrolls each.
    • 1st runner-up: 20x Armor Enchantment Powder, 10x Weapon Enchantment Powder each.

The registration time for each contest is at 1 PM, so don’t be late!

There’s also a Dragonica Auction in which you can obtain “limited edition, hard-to-get or unreleased items”. This also includes a Good Lavalon Heart (which requires obtaining 3 heart pieces from the “Lavalon Rising!” boss and a cash-only scroll, and can be used to craft weapons with insane amounts of damage. o.o

And last but not least, for those of you willing to part with your moolah, you can have a shot at the Dragonica Lucky Draw. Just buy a $10 iCash card to earn one chance at winning. If you want more chances, you can buy more iCash cards…but hey, it’s your money. You get some more free stuff too with every purchase.

Almost forgot to mention this. For those of you who want to form a guild, attending the party’s a great way to do so. Simply have 4 of you either register or log into the game there and they’ll provide 20 gold for you to start a guild, provided you aren’t already in one. They’ll also throw in 80 Remedy potions to boot.

As for me? I’m just gonna head down to steal a goodie bag, then immediately run off to watch Transformers 2 again. Because I’m a glutton for punishment. XD

Many of you were confused when I gave the GameCom 777 a bad review, asking “why even buy it in the first place” or something similar.

Truth was, I didn’t buy it.

If you had been reading the comments of my Dragonica CBT post you’d have noticed there was an exchange between me and Kaye, the Community Manager over there. Simply put, there was a test drive held at the IAHGames’ site for any interested gaming blogger. Though the “event” had already ended, there weren’t enough bloggers, so I got the chance to test the headphones anyway.

If you’ve read the review post and still don’t believe the surround sound doesn’t work, let me show you how exactly I install the bugger on my XP system.

First, I plug the Dolby USB dongle (responsible for the surround sound effect) and let the bugger install itself.

Then I let Winamp play a 5.1 test music file, found here, making sure that the “Allow surround sound” option is enabled. The center channel is softer, and the rear channels are almost inaudible. –1

I set the speaker setup in Windows’ Audio Properties and try again. Still the same. –2, since the pamphlet that came with the headphones claims that the headphones are easy to set up.

I open Left 4 Dead, set its speaker configuration to “5.1 Speakers”. I start a game, and find out I can’t hear the Infected running (or gunshots) from behind, unless I set the speaker configuration back to “Headphones” or “2 Speakers”.

Still don’t believe me, or want to buy the headphones anyway? According to Kaye’s review, these cost $169 here. I can probably buy a Sennheiser set for cheaper, and it’d sound better too.

Anyway, the Plantronics people are taking the headset back (finally) today, so… I guess this is the last I’ll ever see of it. Time to go back to my Sennheiser MX-400s.

Nothing new to see here.

The PC Show is just another convention catering to the geeks and (gullible) common consumers, with prices (supposedly) reaching an all-time low and freebies going along with purchases, making it a good time to buy…stuff.

I went to this year’s PC Show (which is apparently 18 years old now), and as I thought, apart from cheap(er) stuff on display, there wasn’t really anything new or unique. I had gone anyway with Panther to check up on prices, especially for hard drives, which I’m sure all you otaku readers love to own for obvious reasons.

I also went for another reason: I had heard there were Dragonica client CDs to be had. Panther and I searched high and low for an IAHGames booth (since we didn’t read the announcement post properly prior to coming) but didn’t find one. I finally spotted a pile of familiar paperback CD casings sitting near a computer.

I swiped 2 CDs, so if anyone can’t make it to The PC Show to get a copy, feel free to ask.

There was 1 (literally) cool gadget which I found. It was a laptop cooling pad that actually decreases its temperature, to the point that there was condensation. Cool (no pun intended), but unless my notebook doesn’t have rubber rests, that pad’s not going to do much for me.

Since there isn’t much else to say about the convention let me tell you what happened at the McDonald’s (Suntec City) we went to after wandering around.

I had ordered a meal with fries, and somehow found one with a green tip. Miffed, I went to the counter to inform the staff before someone else actually ate one of those.

And this is the transcript between me and the counter auntie (roughly):

• Me: Hey, why does this french fry have a green tip?
• Auntie: Oh, uh you know ah, the french fry packet must have been exposed to the sun, that’s why it turned green. Still edible.

I am shitting you not. That was more or less what she said. I would’ve burst out in laughter if it wasn’t my french fry.

I decided not to pursue the matter, opting to accept that ridiculous explanation anyway. Besides, the counter lady beside her looked as if her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.

Moral of the story? **** McDonald’s.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to try out the CBT.

I decided to start off with a warrior-class character, since I was familiar with its workings during the Valentine preview, and the alpha test before that…or was it the other way around?

Anyway, I played it. I got Fariz to play it. We “married” and played together. Yes, if you haven’t realised by now, it’s the sort of thing we do when we play together. I play a guy (preferably a tanker) and Fariz plays a girl (preferably a killer ranged dudette) and we team up to take on whatever happens to be plaguing our characters’ world etc etc etc.

Anyway. Time for a newbie rundown.

Dragonica prides itself in being an arcade-like platformer MMORPG. You play like you would with other side-scrolling platformers like Altered Beast and Golden Axe (not the current iterations, mind you), running up to monsters and spamming X (the default key for whacking/shooting) till they burst into smoke, turn into meat, or simply keel over and disappear(the default way to die).

Fortunately, the game doesn’t limit you to simply whacking; it lets you launch enemies into the air, whack enemies currently airborne, knock enemies into the ground, damage knocked-down enemies on said ground, and re-launch knocked-down enemies into the air. That’s a lot of attack vectors, some of which are activated by pressing X while holding down a direction. And there’s also a dedicated key for a special attack, too (Z), which may or may not be available depending on your class.

4 different classes (mage, warrior, thief and archer), each with a different style of play. Also, note that (most of) the above moves are treated as skills, even though they don’t need to be dedicated to a hotkey slot to activate. Include the fact that each class have different skill trees, and you know you’re going to need a guide for that perfect build.

The game areas are split into maps connected by portals, but a game area may have multiple areas to explore, accessible by long jump point.

The game encourages teamwork, since the story quests (and class advancement) involve fighting in instances, which get increasingly difficult especially when playing alone. You’ll be surrounded by monsters which can whittle your health down to nothing when you’re not looking, and you’ll also face bosses which you’ll definitely need help distracting, especially when you’re not a tanker.

I haven’t tried out PvP yet, but there haven’t been many negative comments on how it plays out (except something about the hunter being too imbalanced…?). There are also points you can earn in PvP to exchange for special armour sets from certain NPCs in towns.

I also didn’t manage to attain a class promotion, since I only got to level 18 before I had to stop for personal and academic responsibilities. I heard class promotion (at 20) has you collecting keys from mini-bosses in an instance before you fight the final boss.

Overall though, I think it’s quite a fun game. Casual enough to not feel like certain grindy games out there, yet hardcore enough to give “real” gamers the fun they need. There’s even some armor crafting for those who want to go “in-depth”.

There is a very annoying bug though. If you’re near a portal, and you witness someone using it, your character will stop responding to input for a moment. I’m not sure why this happens, but it did during the CBT (and the previews and tests before it).

Fire Hammer Jutsu

In case you’re wondering, yes, I was wearing a Kakashi “paid” costume for the entire duration of the CBT (since they gave me 10k free points to spend). They also had Naruto and Rock Lee costumes, and for the females, they have some Street Fighter in there. And Mai Shiranui, I think. At the very least, I can guarantee there was a Chun Li costume in there.

I apologise for the lack of screenshots, as it seems that my Windows XP copy of Dragonica didn’t save the screenshots somehow, but my Windows 7 copy did. Strange, I know, but w/e.

And oh yes, open beta’s opening in 2 1/4 hours (5PM GMT+8)! Can’t wait! The site’s down now, though, but it’ll be back up in 15 minutes (from the time of this post)!

Tomorrow Today, #$%^yeah.

Starting tomorrow, Barunson Interactive’s Dragonica Online will have a closed beta test tomorrow. I REALLY don’t think there are any CBT keys left (after all their pre-alpha and alpha tests), so don’t bother asking where you can find one right now, sorry.

I know I won’t be disappointed, since the past previews/alpha tests have been great improvements over the previous ones, and hopefully the client itself is going to be more faster/stable.

Hell, I still remember the time when an entire boss battle instance was revamped days before the Valentine’s day preview. Too bad I couldn’t level up enough to reach it though. :’(

Oh yeah.

Now they’re holding a CBT event in which you can redeem lots of balloons. And I mean LOTS. They’re pasting the logos of a group of websites onto in-game balloons and giving away codes for you to redeem at the Event Neko, Gatto. Of course there are other events involved as well, like free items from just posting and a certain Engrish quiz event. I’ll just redeem my MMOsite balloon and go play, kthx.

Also, new trailer! The international website intro page looks wack too.

If you happen to be playing the CBT too, I’ll (most likely) be called Jerokk in-game. I may not be able to play at all, depending on whether I really have to spend all my time coding and coding and coding…

I’m sure at least Fariz will be playing 100%.

Well, time to sleep, it’s like 4 AM in the morning. LOL

Finally.

Time to close the powerpoints slides, open up the browsers…and start researching for my assignments.

Wait…shimata.

Anyway, my mid-semester test is over, so I can finally start playing some real games with less guilt, though no guilt at all is impossible, since I strive to have some productivity in my life.

I have to say though, I could have done a wee bit better if it wasn’t for me introducing Left 4 Dead to my friends, which resulted in L4D sessions inbetween hours of study. Then again, maybe it’s a good way to destress after staring at slides all day.

Of course, my friends now hate me since I keep abandoning them at the finales. Survival of the fittest. :3

During the MST period, I was invited to the CBT (Closed Beta Test) of Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online. I couldn’t play though (since I had to focus), so I just started playing it last night. My opinion of it so far?

It feels…very different from most free MMOs I’ve tried so far.

I’ll need more time to properly go over the game in detail, so expect a review post sometime soon. Fariz should also be playing with me today, IF the keys I got him here work. You can try and get it too if you like. ^.^

Translated source: Konachan.com
Original source: Pixiv by リヨ

Also, completely random, but apparently traps were originally wild children. Raised by pigs. I found this cute and amusing at the same time.

Yay.

At last, the cosplay. It’s sad I have to use a borrowed picture for the header image.

Then again, I didn’t go outside to take pictures of the cosplay, so I never actually saw her. She’s earned “t3h cut3n3ss” award from me. orz

Also, a lot of the pictures are noisy and blurry. In fact, none of the pictures I took of the cosplay competition are even barely “readable” since I zoomed the camera, and apparently on a Nokia N78, zoom = apply 10.0 Gaussian Blur.

*sighs*

I don’t have the best of cameras, but good lord let me freaking zoom without any loss in quality!

Anyway, let’s move this forward.

The cosplay in the actual competition was alright I suppose, save for that contestant wearing that cardboard face. -_-;

The top 4 winners were (in order):

1. Warchief Thrall AKA The (semi-retarded) Hulk in Shining (not really) Armor, won a ticket to Blizzcon
2. The (proportion-challenged) Lich King, won a Nintendo Wii
3. (Bow-detail-lacking) Blood elf archer, won an au:sense chair
4. Kasumi from DoA, same as #3

Notice something? Anything at all? That’s right, the first 3 winners happen to be the only ones participating that were cosplaying as WoW characters!

I suppose you could throw a few arguments in, e.g.:

The others didn’t look that great. The quality of the top 4′s cosplay was so much better that the rest of ‘em. Those guys had like cardboard armor and stuff. The Lich King used dry ice for smoke effects, yo.

Image Source: Popcorn Gaming

So, pray tell, why didn’t the Knight Templar (from the now-defunct Hellgate: London) guy win anything? Personally, he looked way cooler than The Hulk (lighting ftw), and deserved to at least win something. In fact, Thrall shouldn’t have been in the top 4, we should have had the Knight Templar. Even Thrall’s hammer fell apart on stage lol.

My theory’s been de-bunked as I finish writing the entire post though, since I do remember the emcee (who was a real idiot according to some) mentioned a theme which could earn you extra points. That theme happened to be anything Blizzard. orz

I still think Thrall shouldn’t have gotten first prize of all things. Moving on.

I never really went outside to look at the cosplayers though, since I’m an epic fail.

The King playing his own game.

MySims culture shock.

Since I can’t really comment much on cosplay at this point (except for the obese Shana that appeared, which none online have taken a picture of, NOT SURPRISINGLY), I’ll just go on with the gripes I faced.

But before that, I’d like to cover Popcorn Gaming, one of the booths in the GCA. They were showing off a lot of WoW merchandise, such as the WoW TCG, as well as the WoW: Wrath of the Lich King beta on a flat screen TV, but what was notable was this particular item:

That’s right, that is a well-made replica of THE Frostmourne, the same blade wielded by Arthas that allowed him to rise as the current Lich King. It even has runes “carved” into the blade, and can be considered a “real blade”, since it’s sharp enough to cut someone…or even kill. :O

It retails at under a thousand dollars, so I doubt it got sold, since nobody goes to the GCA to buy a $1000 blade. I think you also have to get approval from the authorities to even own this blade, so that’s more moolah out of your pocket.

The Lich King cosplayer went to this very booth, and the people there were so impressed they took the entire blade out of the glass showcase box and let him hold the blade in his hands.

It looked so much cooler than his cardboard/foam Frostmourne. lol

Well, that’s it for interesting stuff. Now for the griping.

You had 2 ways of registering for the event: online and on-site. I registered online as a public visitor, and when I arrived, I went straight to the registration counter and told them I registered online. The people there asked me “Where’s your e-mail?”

I paused. I had checked my e-mail that morning, and I was sure I didn’t receive any e-mail. I’m checking my e-mail right now, too, still no e-mail. WTF.

Even Sadako felt like getting murdered herself.

In the end I had to register on-site, which was like a big waste of time. Better yet, I’ve heard accounts that say registering online did nothing; you still had to register on-site for “security reasons”. So why in flying fsck did you even have an online registration in the first place?!

You also had to register on-site for every single day just so you can get the “GCA Public Visitor” sticker which would allow you free entry. :/

And lol, on the first day, simply by standing in front of the door, me and my brother formed a queue.

And then there was the goodie bag collection. Let me illustrate how it went in a short 4koma:

The funny part is, both the pictures in the 2nd and 3rd panels of this comic were taken one after the other, so there were 2 queues for goodie bags from 2 separate booths formed at the same time. For reference’s sake, the queue on the left (2nd panel) is for Zealot Digital, while the other’s for Runup.

Zealot Digital made you pay SGD $1 for one of their goodie bags, and even then you could only collect purchase them at specific times. I didn’t get their goodie bag because it didn’t felt worth it at all, especially those “Lover’s Gloves” I noticed in the bags. Wtf is a lover’s glove?

Runup, on the other hand, made you collect signatures on a “gaming card” by playing some of their MMOs and doing certain activities, those being having your picture taken (as part of their portfolio, no doubt) and taking part in a survey. I managed to obtain one of these cards (which were only available for the first 50 people in each session), but as soon as my session began, something happened.

The Internet connection got cut.

So there we were, holding our gaming cards and no games to play (servers can’t be reached), so they compensated via miscellaneous. Everyone had to perform miscellaneous tasks instead, like answering a simple question or listening to some guy drone about the game, etc etc etc.

I managed to get through all that without yawning (too much) and got my inflatable panda…thingy. Woo.

So, overall, this convention’s been fun. I managed to play some of the latest games, see some MMOs that were otherwise unknown to me, and meet some of Team Blue in person again.

Oh, yes, almost forgot. I mentioned a Citsu in Spore in the first GCA post.

That up there’s the Citsu. It’s (more or less) based off the (gay-looking) guy below:

For the uninitiated, he’s the guy holding Panther‘s (guy in blue shirt) shoulder, and staring at the camera. That’s CI. Alright? Alright.

So THERE, this overdue post has been done, one less post in the backlog. And thanks to this post, I completely forgot about my Java class today. EPIC FAIL.

*sighs*

Treating GCA as an entire event instead of separate days seems to be the best approach now, so I’ll do just that.

This part will continue covering gaming and gadgets where part 1 left off (duh), while cosplay’s reserved for the 3rd part.

Just a few metres away from Runup was Zealot Digital, which was featuring their (only) game, Xenjo Online.

Xenjo Online is a cross-platform MMORPG developed by Soft-World, the same publisher for World of Warcraft in Taiwan. I believe it’s either a joint effort with Zealot Digital, or that Zealot’s going to publish the game here in Singapore.

The game is going to be released on both Xbox 360 and the PC, but as of now it’s really, really buggy. Strange stuff kept happening on the demo stations, such as the character’s 3D model suddenly getting squashed, or being unable to move at all.

The MMO feels like another generic one though, but the effects are cool to watch. There are no loading screens in between different areas though, and the game boasts different worlds on the same server, each having their own separate policies (lol politics) and themes.

It also has a language selector, able to switch between English and Mandarin, though this has to be done at the login screen, and applying changes exits the game, so you’ll have to manually restart it.

Trailer below:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.694761&w=425&h=344&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

No details on launch date yet; maybe I’ll shoot Zealot an e-mail to confirm a date.

I headed towards the Elan Online booth next. Yes, it’s another MMORPG.

Elan Online plays almost exactly like Arad Senki AKA Dungeon & Fighter. I’m dead serious. If Arad Senki were to go 3D, and had a anime-esque makeover, it’d become Elan Online. After all, in both games,

• You fight mobs (and level up) in instanced areas; there is no real open area full of mobs.
• You travel through small areas which are connected together via portals, and some of these small areas make up a town.
• You hit mobs in real-time, unlike that whole 1-click-and-afk thing most MMOs do.

I enjoyed Arad Senki, but since it was in Moonspeak (Japanese), I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, nor could I get a proper party of friends, so I left not too long after I joined.

When I looked at the homepage, I found some information regarding an activation card being necessary to enjoy the game after the initial 14-day trial (wtf?). When I brought this up to the guy in-charge of the booth, he said that they would be scrapping that idea, allowing the public to create accounts with no trial periods, paving way for Elan Online Version 2. However, this would only apply to the first character, and subsequent characters on the same account would require activation cards (up to 4).

You can, however, bypass this by creating multiple accounts, but you won’t be able to trade certain items between different accounts, which CAN be traded between different characters on the same account.

As the man put it, “money has to be made somewhere“.

Elan Online also boasts a point redemption system. As you play, you accumulate points, and during certain events, you would be able to redeem either in-game items or real-life merchandise (!).

Also, the website is outdated, and he has warned not to download the game client from it as they’ve only received the updated one a few days ago, and are going to host it soon, as well as revamping the entire website. I’ll post up a confirmation when he e-mails me, which is when all this has been taken care of.

Trailer below:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.694766&w=425&h=344&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

I wouldn’t mind trying this game, at least while I’m waiting for Dragonica to head into Closed Beta. I might try the other game on display too, Immortals, though to be honest the graphics don’t seem to be functioning 100% yet (high quality settings = low quality settings).

Surprisingly, both games were being demo-ed on laptops. Easy setup FTW.

Digipen was there too, showcasing some of their students’ creations. Synaesthete, one of my favourite games from them, was given a mention, though it wasn’t loaded on any of their demo stations.

I had a chance to try out Toblo; it was sorta addicting, but the avatars in-game felt a bit too simple for my taste. Movable joints plz kthx.

I then headed to Temasek Polytechnic’s booth to check out this particular contraption:

It’s a device to simulate recoil, similar to how a gaming steering wheel reacts to crashes in an in-game race. I couldn’t figure out how I should be holding it, since there seemed to be buttons and triggers all over the place. The guy in-charge told me I should simply hold it by the orb with most of the buttons on it.

They had a game to demonstrate the device, basically a scripted shooter (House of the Dead-esque) to simulate recoil in the device.

Verdict? It sucked.

Granted, the device did simulate recoil, but pushing against the orb rendered it useless, as the recoil movement would be negated by the force I was already exerting. Boo.

TP also had some video running that looked like they were trying to create their own Second Life, but I didn’t feel compelled enough to watch for long.

There was also Nanyang Polytechnic’s attempt to recreate the F1 racing track in the virtual realm. Not too bad, actually.

The Saints Row 2 booth had to be hidden behind a curtain. There used to be a guy outside asking people whether they were 18+, but he seemed to be gone by the third day. ^.^;

Black Shot’s an MMO FPS, basically another online first-person shooter. It’s pretty much meh in terms of quality, and during the 4v4 matches involving all 8 demo machines, lag was abound. I played it on the 2nd day and owned everyone else with my trusty sniper rifle. XD

I wouldn’t play it myself though, it doesn’t look like it’d last long, at least not for me.

There were also “speaker chairs” from au:sense. I call ‘em speaker chairs since they’re practically chairs with a full 5.1 surround sound system built-in. Recommended for audiophile couch potatoes, these babies can even simulate “feedback” from games simply by turning up the subwoofer all the way.

They were using SW: The Force Unleashed on a PS3 to demonstrate the chair, and Fariz was hogging it for an hour or two I believe. ^.^;

And finally, Cherry Credits. They made their first appearance in GCA ’07, and this year they actually got an entire wall to themselves featuring almost every single game from almost every single company signed up with their payment service, including the aforementioned Black Shot.

Holic 2. I played it when it was still just Holic Online, got sick of the grinding. I think they added the Ranger class or something similar since I left. I didn’t realise netgame already signed up with Cherry Credits though.

Allow me to demonstrate what I meant by “entire wall”:

Blurry pic (like most of the other pics here), I know, but you get the point.

GameSafe was at the end with the Cherry Credits main booth. The girl there showed me a website which reviewed the software and ranked it #1 among many other major anti-viruses. You can’t sway me that easily with a single source though.

Some of the PCs appeared to be under maintenance…though I imagine this could have been done before the press came.

Demonstrators showing off the Wii Fit on-stage…and the audience is silent. Actually, it was deserted, save for a middle-aged couple and a few photographers who had nothing better to do with their DSLRs. Those poor demonstrators.

Well, that’s it for this part. The next part will cover other stuff, as well as the cosplay (though not a lot of it, since my N78′s camera died. -_-

Before I go, here are the (approximate) release dates for some of the MMOs mentioned so far:

• Emil Chronicle Online – end of year 2008.
• Elan Online Version 2 – “soon”. I’ll post when I get the e-mail (which will be when it’s ready).
• Xenjo Online – 2009, give or take.

And a shot of MySims Kingdom, because I happen to think it’s cute.