Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Finals End, E3, Gundoom & Real Grade

My finals are finally over! Although I'm supposed to announce that on Monday afternoon earlier this week. I hope I did alright since my last paper wasn't done all as great as I hoped, tricky one that day. For the best. ^^;

Right after the last paper ended, I went back home and rested for the afternoon. Then I read my FB and other usual sites and realized the E3 live broadcast was gonna start at 12.30AM Tuesday (for M'sia time). I quickly made a search and found GameTrailers.com. Since I' talking about it, let me discuss about some of the highlights for the three big game companies, Microsoft (Xbox 360), Sony and Nintendo (Nintendo's one was on the 2nd day ofE3).

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But before that, since I don't think most of you wants to read a post full of E3 ramblings, I finally started on the McModel HG 1/144 Hi-Nu Gundoom.
Photo taken with a Samsung Champ Phone Camera @ 1.3MP at night with a too bright lamp for the sensor.

So far so good. The color accuracy is a bit off for silver parts mostly and the overall build was a smooth ride. Be careful of some wrong instructions in the manual such as the "I#" is actually "H#". I'll be talking more on it once I finish it later today or tomorrow.

Photo taken with a Samsung Champ Phone Camera @ 1.3MP at night.

I went to Heng Kim Trading last night for a Sarawak Gunpla Meisters meeting for the Kyan!me later this week at the Hills. It was practically a PSP party with some added randomness which made it fun to hang out with people. :)

Before I left the place, I bought a RG 1/144 Aile Strike Gundam and curiously bought a GaoGao action base. I'll blog about the base to see if it is good enough to mass buy for mass base usage.

Watch out for Kyan!me 2011 later this week from 9th June (Exhibition), 10th to 12the June at the Hills shopping mall in Kuching!

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Read on for a long post with lots of links regarding my E3 impressions! (Mainly just Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo TBH.)

Warning, you might not get what I'm saying, so how about reading the latest news up at Kotaku first beforehand? I'll be using Kotaku as a reference here, easier for me. :P (Read up other sites, even video sites to get a more clear idea of the event!)

Note: I didn't paste every single link available from Kotaku since some aren't from the keynotes themselves (I added a few for reference's sake though). It should be easy to find nonetheless.

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Photo from Kotaku.
Mircrosoft had more Kinect games than ever before, which is good as they wanted to propagate motion controlled gaming. Mass Effect 3 will have voice recognition, as well as some other games, if you play on an Xbox 360 with Kinect! There were some family/kid friendly games such as Sesame Street and Disneyland. I admit I'm interested in the Disneyland game and I might get it in the far future for me and my family (and friends) to awkwardly spend the time going to a virtual Disneyland. Okay, I always wanted to go to Disneyland, is that wrong? D:

There are lots of sports games coming up as well for not only Microsoft as they are third party. As you go through reading about the E3, you'll find out that they are incorporating the new motion technology of each console although Kinect feels far superior in motion. Of course, Nintendo's keynote is very interesting itself.

Then we also have voice recognized control over the Xbox 360 and more TV streaming options there. "You say, Xbox do it." Or something like that. I guess more people will spend their time watching television on their Xbox now, eh? And, oh, more Halo!



I'm not gonna react to every detail so read up on Microsoft's E3 keynote;
Did Microsoft impress you in any way or form with their E3 keynote?
I am and I'm looking forward to getting Kinect sometime in the future when I can to enjoy the "new world of gaming".
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I tried my best to stay awake for the first day, 10 straight hours of streaming live content (sadly cannot go full screen without buffering issues). EA and Ubisoft, game making companies, also had their fill. You should read up about their press conference too. I don't really have much too say about them except I'll be looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

Note: I didn't like Ubisoft's keynote with all the bad jokes and heavy accents? I literally fell asleep and woke up in time for Sony's keynote.

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Photo from Kotaku.
I woke up, from a quick nap, just in time for the beginning of Sony's E3 keynote. As I was pretty stoked about the NGP which was revealed as the PlayStation Vita as its official name, I was watching it with glaring eyes, although sleepy.

Sony starts out the keynote by apologizing about the PlayStation Network (PSN) outage last month. Most of the people online, through Twitter and so on, just wanted him to get over with that and go onto the real deal of the keynote, the PlayStation Vita and games. Watchers there get to enjoy 3D while watching the keynote as well. Sony really taunted the 3D gimmick for the PS3 lately as games recently and upcoming games supports it.

It was very exciting and good to hear that the Vita is price U$D249 for the WiFi model while the full package (3G and WiFi) is only U$D50 more at U$D299. Sony will pair up with AT&T for the US region... Looks like Nintendo has tight competition here especially when the console's capabilities is starting to win lots of gamers' hearts out there, even mine.

The PlayStation Vita is an amazing piece of portable hardware that succeeds o what the PSP couldn't do but wanted to do in the past. It offers a complete set of button controls as the PlayStation 1-3 gives except the shoulder buttons are just LR. It has a large OLED touch screen with a track pad in the back. We weren't sure what was the point of a touchscreen AND a track pad, which both offers touch gaming, were needed to be BOTH there but from the game demos given such as the new Uncharted for this console have shown, they both can be used for different situations. Interesting. OLED also provides lower power draw from the screen. Let's just hope it is reinforced to prevent easy scratches.

To propagate the 3D gimmick, they also unveiled a rather affordable PlayStation 3D TV - 24" and allows 2 player games to be played without a split-screen as long as you wear the 3D glasses. The TV comes bundled with the TV itself, 6ft HDMI cable, a pair of 3D glasses and a copy of Resistance 3 when it comes around for U$D499! I think I wanna get this bundle since it doesn't seem all that expensive for the bundle, well if I can get the budget for it that is. :/

And, oh, more Move. ...move along.



Read on Sony's E3 keynote;
Did Sony impress you in any way or form with their E3 keynote?
Yes, I was pretty impressed since they showed off some new hardware and the capabilities are something I'm looking forward to. PS Vita has got me sold from the hardware front but not really the games front just yet. I admit the games they showed running on it were great but I'll wait until a few games that really spark my interest comes around before throwing my money to Sony. At any rate, I do plan to buy it eventually, just the time to buy it could be still years away.

As for the 3D TV, I may be getting it if I can get RM15XX~RM17XX from out of nowhere. :P

Overall, I'm impressed, maybe more impressed than with Microsoft. Okay, I AM more impressed.

SHUT UP AND TA-- Wait, what about Nintendo?

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Photos from Kotaku.
Nintendo's E3 keynote was on the second day as the opening event of E3 and boy, it was really something! Even though it was 5 minutes late we were given a nice montage video of Legend of Zelda due to its 25th anniversary and a live orchestra for it was there!

Before they officially announce the successor of the Wii, Nintendo poisoned us with some upcoming games for the current Wii which is Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword and a slew of 1st party 3DS games people were wondering when are they coming over to the 3DS such as Mario Kart, Star Fox, Super Mario, Kid Icarus and more.

When the Wii U, yes U, was announced we had mixed feelings, mostly from the even weirder name. Well, Wii is "We" so Nintendo wants to make it about "You" which we were awarded with when a huge slew of 3rd party games were announced for the Wii U as well as 3DS. Many have wished Nintendo to get more 3rd party titles like the other competing consoles and here's your wish going to be granted!

Nintendo offered the following loose technical specifications to Kotaku in a pre-briefing on Nintendo's Wii U.

  • High definition display, up to 1080p resolution via HDMI output
  • 6.2" touchscreen on New Controller, running in non-HD resolution
  • Internal flash-based media storage, upgradeable via USB and SD cards
  • Games ship on proprietary iDensity discs of unspecified, but "large capacity"
  • Games will also be available as downloadable content
  • Console compatible with Wii games and devices
  • Release date between April 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012; or after the end of Nintendo's fiscal year


Read on Nintendo's E3 keynote;
Did Nintendo impress you in any way or form with their E3 keynote?
Why, yes it did! Very much so. O_O I'm totally sold to the 3DS now and the Wii U! I just got my Wii this year and now the Wii U is in front of my face coming in next year! ...okay, lets be a little more serious about this.

For now, I'll only get the 3DS very soon for the games, especially Kid Icarus and the 3DS's eShop's Pokedex 3D (and other games but I don't think I can really get em' all unless some amazing hacker finds a way to safely hack the 3DS... ARRR). Yeah, its gimmicky that one but what can I say? I love Pokemon. :<

The Wii U will be on a see first before selling soul completely to Nintendo. Right now, the concept of the rather big motion/touchscreen controller is cool but the size can be a hindrance. I like how Nintendo continues with a the slew of family/friend gaming oriented games, which I like a lot as I like to play with other people. :) (Read up the links in regards to the capabilities of the Wii U!)

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What do you think of the keynote from the big 3?
I'm impressed for all of them! It may be due to the fact I'm easily excited, especially for new stuff, but they really push the boundaries of gaming and entertainment this time.

I'm not so much into the PlayStation Move asides it is appealing to me for FPS games that I don't really play unless given to me or ARRR'D. ^^;

I like how Kinect is expanding greatly in such a short amount of time and I hope I'll be able to get one in the future. I dare say the living room will be in a mess by then but I think the family can have loads of fun playing on it.

The PlayStation Vita is really stealing the 3DS's limelight now with its set of features and really competitive price. It will be harder to pick between the 2 but as far as features go, the Vita is clearly winning unless 3D is that big of a deal for you. For me, what games that comes out on these consoles will decide which one I'll get first. Yeah, I'll be getting both but most like in a far apart purchase.

I'm not really all that into the 3D gimmick being thrown by Sony and Nintendo during E3 but as far as games go, my money on the 3DS more than the PS Vita. Of course, surprising things can happen in due time.

The Wii U was said to only show "half" of its feature set so there could more to it than what we have been shown. So far, the very concept of it is very interesting although the touchscreen only have a single touch capability. ^^;

As far as the promo video poisoned the crowd, I'm interested and the games are somewhat taking me in almost completely to get one when it comes around. Darn, Nintendo is stealing my soul!

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There is still more E3 this week and you can catch it at GameTrailers.com as well as some other Asia-friendly live streaming sites.

That's all for this post. What are your reaction and thoughts? Have you changed sides? Have you lost faith in a certain company? Do tell!

Posted by Cass at 12:49 PM

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