#SITEUPDATE

From black and gloomy to something a tad bit more cheerful and well... happy. Decided that I'm a little too old to always be looking and dressing in dark tones. First step to being happy and zen is ensuring that things around me are equally as happy and zen, thus the change in the colour scheme.

Still trying to figure out something for the banner. Stay tuned for the final tweaks and happy gaming!

#NEWKICKS - Battle Camp!

If you're on Battle Camp too, look for me!

So this is actually a pretty old app on the iPhone. The concept and premise of the game is pretty much similar to Pokemon. You have a creature and then eventually have more creatures battling other creatures. There are missions and quests you complete to get more experience, stones that help you evolve and level your creatures up and even get your energy refilled.

Like most MMORP-ish and time-centric games on the iPhone, you have 5 lightning bolt energy thingies that are necessary when battling monsters or even completing quests. And like all games that follow this concept, you can either wait for your energy to be refilled or spend some money on refuelling your energy.

You can also spin a lucky wheel, depending on how much money you're willing to shell out, to try and get some rare, super, ultra or even epic creatures that are of course, a lot more powerful, rare and prettier to look at it. It's the thing that basically drove me and the boyfriend nuts. Because it's all up to chance, you may spend 50 gold coins spinning and end up with more crap creatures than anything of value. The boyfriend had never heard me scream in so much anguish when I kept getting common and (honestly they're not special at all) special creatures.

The fun part of course is battling and completing quests. If you're part of a troop, you get to participate in raids and win trophies and some goodies for the team. There's also a troop pet that everyone helps to sort of look after and level up.

From time to time, the developers come up with global events. The most recent being the awakening of a villain creature known as the Bearzebub. The event lasted 5 days, allowing players to battle Bearzebub and his brother, Ursulot, to get trophies for their troops or light creatures to help with evolving their own creatures.

Trophies are points for a ranking system. The more trophies you have both as an individual and as a troop, the higher up the ranks you are.

This game is addictive. Unfortunately, I got the boyfriend equally addicted to this game. Spent slightly under $100 for gold coins to try and get super/ultra/epic creatures (only managed to get one, boyfriend was lucky enough to win an epic grrr).

The graphics are adorable and pretty and the comments you sometimes see from the NPCs are quite the gem. There are references to other games and other pop culture which is why I find myself sometimes giggling and smiling before I head into battle. 

I'd say that Battle Camp has succeeded in being one of the top iPhone games. A lot of people are asking for it to come out on Android too. The only problem I have is that unless I add my boyfriend as a friend on Battle Camp, I can't see him or battle him. We can be in the same place but I guess because we're on different servers (how does that work anyway?), we can't see each other. If that made sense.

You can download it from the App store (link) and have a go at it yourself. Enjoy!

#GAMERHEALTH - Tension Headaches

I used to think that I had migraines. These throbbing sensations in my skull. Each time I moved it jars everything, feels as if someone's giving me a lobotomy. I just hope that it's not some zombie infection that's slowly spreading across my brain. That would suck.

What are tension headaches and if you're like me and been suffering from it the greater portion of your adult life, how can it be solved or cured or prevented?

Tension Headaches
They're basically the most common of headaches (so much for thinking it was something a lot more serious).It can basically start from the base of your neck or near your eye, wears and even other parts of your body. It feels like there's pressure on your head and can happen simultaneously on both sides of the head. So it explains why sometimes I just wish I could knock myself out just so the pain will stop. The pain can vary from mild, moderate and even severe. I have chronic tension headaches which explains why most of my medication always indicates 'for severe pain'. No one ever understands or registers that these tension headaches can be really really painful and sometimes even debilitating.

Causes of a Tension Headache

1. Stress
2. Lack of sleep
3. Uncomfortable and stressful position and/or bad posture
4. Irregular meal times
5. Eyestrain

Treating Tension Headaches
It's easy enough to just get painkillers to stop the pain and it's basically what the doctors will prescribe you anyway. I haven't yet tried massage, it was recommended by some websites. I think some basic stretching of your neck to get the blood circulation really helps. I suppose the only way to treat a tension headache is to do your best to avoid it. The usual things such as not spending too much time on the computer and if you do, remember to take some breaks and do a couple of eye exercises/massages. The strain from your eyes is one of the causes of tension headaches as well.

Not forgetting getting enough sleep, meditating (or learning how to prioritize your schedule so that you don't get overstressed with the crazy amount of work you have to clear), eating proper (not just at the right time but the right food is essential as well) and improving your posture.

Hope this helps. Just recovered from a stupid tension headache that was driving me nuts for the past two days and what can I say? Followed my own advice and I'm happy as a lark right now :)

And uhhh before you think that tension headaches go away as easily as they come, they don't. It still takes awhile and some times, some episodes may last as long as a week before they ease up and go away.

#INPROGRESS - Injustice

Heard a lot of hype about this game. I'm not really one for fighting games. When it comes to it, I'm a button masher and I hate hate hate losing. Then again, who doesn't like losing? I tried out the practice battle first and that one had me confused. The main reason why I'm just so bad at fighting games is because I can never execute the combo moves perfectly. Always a second slow or fast or my fingers just cram up. In the end, button mashing again. This worked really well when I was playing Street Fighter 4 and just mashed around for Ryu to do his combo.

Injustice has got a lot of movie cinematics, all needed and necessary for the player to understand what the hell happened in the story to lead him or her to where all the characters are. Random though, why is it that when anyone goes over to the 'dark side', that they always end up looking goth/emo? If dark circles under the eye were any prerequisite for being part of the dark side, well then, I was there long before anyone else.

Gameplay, I guess you can say it's fairly straightforward. You'll be playing several characters as the storyline progresses. Some are easier to manage and play and some require a fair bit of dying/losing first before you get the hang of their abilities and moves. To date (only about 50% through right now), I kinda like using the Joker and Deathstroke. The Joker is just too hilarious, you gotta love a dude with a sense of humour even in the bleakest of situations, no matter how psychotic he is.

Will this be the turning point of my aversion to fighting games? Who knows. There was the other one I tried - Mortal Kombat vs DC. That, again, spamming random moves. Loved my Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Who doesn't?

#MUSINGS - To record or not to record

Ok. Confession time, I've always wanted to do a video for this blog. Like do updates and reviews and everything else via video. Not because I'm lazy to blog... ok wait. It is because I can be a tad bit lazy to blog and type and everything else.

I bet you didn't know that about 75% of the entries here were actually done on my phone, hence this laziness.

What's holding me back? Let's just say once bitten, twice shy. I'm not really good in front of a camera. I sound better than I actually look. Does that make sense? Sometimes I find that I ramble just a little too much on the camera and end up digressing and straying really really far away from what I had planned to talk about. Another reason is that I just can't stand editing videos.

I'm a perfectionist. So nothing will ever be right or good or nice. I'm also extremely critical of myself so once again, nothing is ever good enough to get off my Macbook and off to the internets.

But I will attempt. Soon. In due time. There are already a few videos in the works and I've been looking around for a datacard to help record my gameplay on the PS3. All that's left is to overcome this fear and paranoia and just... wing it.

#TESTING - UAG tries out LoL

So I've heard a lot about League of Legends and I can't help always giving the eyebrow when someone mentions it or asks me if I play it. I mean the fact the fact that its acronym is similar to laugh out loud kinda made me feel wary. 

I asked a friend why he chose to play it instead of DoTA. Claims that it was a lot more interesting and that there were a wider variety of characters and there was more... Strategy involved. I didn't quite understand what he meant by that so then decided to just log in and try it. 

I don't even remember when it was that I signed up for a Garena account and was pretty surprised when I realized that I had one even. Wat other games do they have besides LoL?

So anyway, I tried out the tutorials and the battle tutorial. The graphics aren't like DoTA but the gameplay is all pretty similar (I guess one of the reasons why I had initially refused to play LoL was because it was just like DoTA and since I have it why do I need another game that was a rip-off?). 

It was interesting. They had some characters that suspiciously resembled some of the characters on DoTA. The voice-overs were not bad. Occasionally quirky one-liners from your heroes. Oh sorry, I meant Champions. 

The only thing that sold me on this game was when you bought stuff or need to buy stuff. The reason why I am truly shit at DoTA is because I have bad memory at trying to recall what I need to buy and how much and if I already have it to get the specific upgraded item. The item build they call it. So I don't know if I'm supposed to get armor first or boots of speed/haste or something that helps me deal a lot of damage. In LoL, they recommend what your specific character needs to get and they even show the build of what you have to get first and so forth. On top of that, they also highlight the items ifyou have enough cash to buy it and they even put a tick to show that you already own the item so you don't end up buying another and wasting gold. 

Still, my micro management is again, really crap and from time to time I still find myself getting pwned by bots. But I'm quite happy to say that I did manage to kill some Champions on my own :)

I get confused when creating a game because apparently when you add AI to your team, whoever they are as a Champion in the game has already been selected. There isn't really any Horde-like or Alliance-like Champions so well... Whatever side you choose I suppose you get fair pick of what's left. Maybe eventually I will understand what they mean by blind pick, normal draft and tournament draft. As it is, I only understand all random. 

Open last cool thing is that you, the payer, can also level up. And not use for one specific Champion. They have all these points and stuff that you can use to unlock special characters and even their game cards. Interesting business model.

Wether or not I will be hooked to LoL and eventually purchase whatever it is on the servers is yet to be known. For now, I am still grasping the whole fighting thing and the various mas and campaigns as well as the Champions. Don't understand half of the abilities and if they're good or bad or good for a type of creature or bad but yeah, I think you get my point. Looks like a case of trial and error. 

#GOODGAME - Army of Two; The Devil's Cartel

Some people think this game is crap. GiNX said it wasn't too fantastic. I had a friend who dissed my choice in playing a game like this.

But like a post I had earlier about personal preference, I like the game and I cleared it and honestly it's my blog so that's pretty much all that matters (haters gonna hate). 

I didn't get a chance to play the first installment, perhaps I should. AoT:DC got me intrigued because I had never played a 3rd person army shooter kinda game. I guess I could say I am a closet war/gunfight kinda girl (I mean, I like The Hurt Locker). First-person console games always give me a headache which is why I usually gravitate towards game's that are third-person yet first-person, if you can understand what I'm saying.

Why Army of Two and not Battlefield or Call of Duty? It's not that I haven't played those games before... I do. There really isn't that much of a difference in terms of the storyline. Some may argue that AOT's plot is thin and predictable, but isn't that the case with most army/war games anyway? The uniqueness of AOT is that you're not in a group. As in you aren't deployed as a group. You work as a duo, a partnership and the survival of both is essential for the game's success. If either Alpha or Bravo dies, you restart. Granted it's almost like unlimited life but the save points and all aren't quite so close together. So when you die at a tricky part at the end of a stage of sorts, you'll be booted back to the beginning and go through hell again.

An issue I faced with this game, or rather a pet peeve, was not having a mini-map. I think I've been so spoilt and pampered by games that offer me mini-maps and locations of my enemies that when I first started playing, I was so disorientated. I didn't know where the enemy was or where they were firing from and often got confused by my partner's shots and theirs. At least in some games there are arrows that kinda show you the general direction where your enemies are firing from. This one... not so much help.

Ammo can be a-plenty. The arsenal of weapons is pretty generic and limited. Then again, I don't know my SMPs to the M4s or whatever they are. I prefer sticking to my modified and customized sniper rifle, this AK-47-ish rifle with a scope and my Desert Eagle. Also... what's the point of having a small shield on a gun? I thought shields were to protect the body and person, not the gun. Unless there's another reason and my brain is just too lagged out to process and compute.

Fine I admit that I felt a little cheated when the game ended. It was tough in some parts but I guess I expected a little bit more for expanding so much energy, effort and time in taking the risk to play it on medium-hard (I would vacillate between the two depending on how many times I would have to restart a stage/mission). Granted I was given money to purchase and customize my masks, tattoos and weapons but that was pretty much it.

In multiplayer mode, it's pretty much the same although I felt that I had much more initiative and action than my counterpart, whoever it may be. Points are scored based on who kills more, does certain skills more or decoys blablabla and it all adds up after each stage. Somewhat faintly reminiscent of Time Crisis.

The game's playability (as in how often you'd wanna boot it back on the PS3) depends on how well you like the multiplayer. I guess it's ok. I prefer this to Tomb Raider's only because I am a little slow when it comes to aiming using a console as opposed to a mouse and keyboard (though I suppose that's pretty much the same with everyone else).

What did you think? Hate it or love it?

#BREAKDOWN - Pacific Rim

Sorry for the crappy edit, no Photoshop on this PC (yet).

Read and heard so much about Pacific Rim and thus had really high expectations when we went to catch it. I will admit that the CGI and battle sequences and some of the characters were good. But there were some parts where it fell really short. By the way, there will be spoilers for the movie so you have been warned.

Budget constraints? Timeline? Won't know. 

1. Didn't like the female lead. Felt the little girl did a better job acting than she did. She reminds me a little of Maya Ibuki and Shinji Ikari mashed up haphazardly. Daddy issues, the need for approval, obedience etc.

2. Wished there were more Jaegers. If I'm not mistaken, the marketing promo featured a Japanese Jaeger... Maybe it appeared in the first 15 minutes of the show (which we missed), but I definitely didn't see it with the other in the Hong Kong bay. Why show that many Jaegers when not all would be featured?

3. I did like the idea of the neural bridge. You can't just expect one person to be able to pilot something as big as that unless it's the Evangelions and you have LCL and everything else. It's rather believable than to just rely on one human and one brain to be able to power and maintain something that's a million times its size. Then again, what do I know about the brain and synapses and syncing and all that rubbish? Just from a layman common sense kinda outlook.

4. Unlike Transformers with the messy fight scenes and close-up, I liked the fact that the fight scenes here varied in terms of cinematography. There were close-ups, long shots, good panning. You're able to see the whole thing, be able to absorb the veracity and just how massive both Jaegers and Kaijuu are. Then you can see the detailing on the monsters. The texture of their skin, the whimsical essence of the blood. You can see the fibre and structure of the Jaegers when damaged, the scuff marks to show the wear and test of time.

I'd say that despite the thin plot and the rushed character development (with the almost typical character stereotypes and subset), it was an ok show. Wouldn't mind watching it again but only in 3D because it would be cool to experience the battles and fights in an almost realistic manner. In terms of merchandise (not that I've seen any), I might even be interested in getting the Gipsy Dancer. Not much of a collectibles fan, evident from the fact that the only mecha toy I have is Kyrios (to date, Gundam 00 is still the best of all the Gundam series I've watched and I love my psyhoschizo Allelujah/Hallelujah Haptism).

One thing definite that this is a break from all the recent sci-fi Hollywood crap - Oblivion, The Host (well, it is kinda sci-fi just in trashy Stephanie Meyer form), After Earth - and that it does kinda follow the mecha genre/fandom a lot more closely than others.

I wish I could give you something more sophisticated and compare this to other works by Guillermo Del Toro. But I'm not gonna be fake and pretentious because I know rubbish nuts about his other stuff (though I have watched it just... not cool enough to make references and comparisons).

And oh oh oh, Burn Gorman as the creepy professor who also acted in Revenge. That was cool to note.

What did you think?

#NORMALITY - Finally, a PC!

My boyfriend is super amazing. He can drive me nuts but most of all, he loves me plenty :) What girl wouldn't be happier when her boyfriend sets up his PC so she can play it. Best bit was when he texted me saying that he had a new toy for me to play with :D

There are way too many smileys and emoticons here. Oops. Can't really hide how happy/chuffed/excited I am. Blogging from the new computer and there are THREE monitors! Just that we haven't got the splitter and the cables for the monitors so I'm just using one. First thing I did was to download Steam and of course, Left4Dead.

Then a friend told me that there was a HUGE sale that just ended and that made me a little sad. Quickly logged in but what do you know, lo and behold! The one game that I had been hunting for, especially to be played on a Mac was on SALE! Now that I am using a PC, there was nothing holding me back. Just waiting for it to finish downloading and then... I hope I may see my Imoen again.

Yeah... If you didn't already know, that game is Baldur's Gate. A game introduced to me by my brother donkey years ago and I was so hooked on. I love medieval RPGs. Well, some of them. But what I loved most about BG was the characters and their personalities.

Although the PC is here, doesn't mean I'm gonna be forgetting about my PS3 games. I bought Alice: Madness Returns. Just finished battling a couple of dead sailors and letting their souls rest in peace.

Ok. BG is done downloading. Time to PLAY! But before that, let me leave with you with a visual of the set-up. Two more monitors on the left and right (all Dell). Razer keyboard and mouse. Creative sound system. I can't say much about the PC rig itself because I am no hardware junkie. But let's just say that it's fast. Like crazy fast.

See ya!

#GOODGAME - Last of Us - Briefly

22hours.

That's the total amount of time it took me to finish the Last of Us. The only other time where I took less than 24hrs to finish a game was Diablo 3 (16hours). Again, I'm not a competitive hardcore gamer. 

22hours over a span of 10 days (since I got the game early July on the 6th). On top of juggling work and a lot of other commitments. 

I guess you can determine two things from this: when I like a game I can sit at it for hours on end or that I speed/rush through things. I'm sure if I had taken the time to explore every book and cranny instead of panicking when confronted by the infected, I would have clocked in more game time. 

Last of Us is also the second game that I respected well enough to sit through the whole credits. Even when I know there's no easter bunny bonus video. I love the game. Or rather, enjoyed it tremendously. Not so much for the gameplay, but for the story that NaughtyDog crafted and the characters they created and allowed to grow as the game progressed. 

It was beautiful. It was relatable. And it deserves all the high marks, applause and acclaim given to it by IGN (tho I don't always pay heed to what IGN says about games). 

Now that I'm done and have posted it up on Facebook, friends are asking if I would be willing to sell it. Turns out, the game is sold out almost everywhere!

I don't know yet. I tend to hoard. Still, this game tops everything else I've played so far and ties with Tomb Raider. 

What did you think?

#NEWKICKS - Last of Us

IGN gave this a 10/10. We watched the trailer and were pretty intrigued. So guess who shelved Farcry again :(

But it's been FUN! In the past 3 days think I clocked about 24hrs. Didn't play much when I first got it because of work but totally got into it the next 2 days. Full of suspense, game play is amazing but the graphics are really something. 

The zombie-ish undead or not so dead are really freaky and you don't always have the option of killing them because ammo is limited. Best bet is to sneak past them (impossible sometimes due to certain infected) or try to take out some of the key ones (like those blocking exits and all) as sneakily as you can. 

Plus is it just me or the lead female looks a lot like Ellen Page?

More to come later. After the boyfriend is done playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. In one game he manages to get 4 red cards. Now his team is down to 7 men. 

Oh dear.