subimpact.net

Year: 2012

  • Final Back to the Future Fantasy XIII-2

    So over the weeks of my absent posting, I’ve been sucked into a game from Square Enix. The only game company which hold a strong franchise of Final Fantasy, a long running typical JRPG genre.

    Since I’ve played the previous game (Final Fantasy XIII) as a curious cat as I am, I eventually fall into the rabbit hole by offering my hard earn wages to this evil franchise once again.Other than that, all I wanted to know was how was the story told so far.

    On the first impression, they have a long opening cinematic which felt like Metal Gear Solid 4. Shortly from that, I was greeted by the similar loading screen from its predecessor and right there the game throw me a battle with an Eidolon (Guardians) with me controlling Lightning.

    Everything at this point, felt almost like the previous game. After a few more battles, I was greeted again with more cinematic but to my surprised there was cinematic trigger.

    There is also tons of Live trigger where players would need to choose their a selection of dialogues and get different outcome every time. This has been confirmed by the developers that its an additional touch in the Final Fantasy series so players would feel more interacted between the games characters in the Final Fantasy World.

    A lot of critics, stated a Final Fantasy XIII done right, I feel to defer that. Main reason was if Square Enix would to make it right they should not reuse most of all the monster sprites and similar world maps which was presented in FFXIII. I bet you guys would complain that its the same Universe as FFXIII, but at least they should make an initiative to provide the same area from a different angle. I felt it was a lazy version just to milk more from the franchise. But I like a few touches made by the character design which reminds me of kingdom hearts, Sora as well has other previous Final fantasy related games. But also strangely you will get Serah some weird dress during the starting episode from god knows where.

    Furthermore, eidolon summoning was removed and has been replaced by your 3rd party being monsters you capture, this doesn’t make any sense at all when you captured monsters to fight by your side. I felt so Pokemonish. Battle system is still the same where the paradigm shift is there, graphics is still as superb as its predecessor since its design from the same Crystal Engine.

     Character progress at first seems like it was pretty straight forward where all of the role class shared the same Crystarium tree which looks like star constellation. So wrong was I when almost maxed level both of my characters, and found them a little squishy side. After hours of research over the internet, different roles on Large nods of the constellation tree has additional bonus depending on which role you place it. From this lesson I had to replay the entire game again, since I’m pretty much a  perfectionist. (SO GUYS PLEASE PLAN ON YOUR BUILD BEFORE throwing all your role points into the leveling system).

    Soundtrack was marvelous, but I felt it was pretty redundant in the mid-game where battle songs keeps on repeating it self over and over again. Some recognizable music from FFXIII was also in this game. Story wise, well considering my theory was that developers got no more further advancement of the genuine story line, they had to go and throw in the element of time paradox and time travel, where you have alternate story line which further confuses players with “what ifs” scenarios. Exploration has been expanded in this installment.

     Also a golden saucer make its comeback in this game which has been renamed to Serendipity. Players now can waste endless time on virtual money to blow on slot machine and chocobo racing. Other then that, we have puzzle temporal rifts, were players would need to solved it in order to progress to the story line. Some are ridiculously hard but doable just get ready to spend some long time and effort in solving em especially the clock puzzle.

    All in all, its a decent JRPG and a not too bad installment for Final Fantasy fans that needs a filler in their life after Square Enix failed miserably on FFXIV. Overall 7+0.5/10 (+0.5 because the game has a MOOGLE!!!)

  • Underworld: Awakening of Girl Power!

    Yesterday manage to go and catch a movie at pavilion with someone that I’m fond of. I’m pretty amazed by technology today.

    I’ve just purchased the tickets a day before via my Iphone app and with a scan of the 2d barcode via my phone, the automated gate allowed that many person to enter to the entrance of the movie halls. At least I’m doing mother nature a favor of reducing ticket stubs 😀

    Oh yes, this is the forth installment of the underworld franchise and I’ve been following it since the first movie. Well it has vampires, lycans (werewolves), chick in tight latex Ala matrix style, gun fights, gore, goth, a decent love story? and pretty good soundtracks. Considering this is the continuity from the second movie of Underworld as the third one was actually a prequel for the entire series.

    New viewers of this franchise will not be lost in this latest installment because there was a brief introduction of  all previous 3 series. On the side note, hall 13 of GSC surpasses the view-ability since the projection was crystal clear / life like / opera presentation. It was watching underworld live version 😀

    Story wise, there was a great purge going on where lycans and vampires are getting exterminated by humans. The heroine and her lover made a call for leaving the city however sadly failed and ended up stasis for 12 years.

    As the heroine woke up from her slumber, she was pretty lost and from there trying to find her other half. Among the heat of it, she found another truth over the 12 years period of hibernation. Anyway don’t wanna spoil more for you guys. Go watch it.

    Story line was… wait a minute whats up with all this family matters/value in movies lately, from real steel to Viral Factor and now this movie too. anyway the director kinda grasp my attention towards the plot has well as a clean presentation of the feeling shown by the mother and child as well has her lost beloved one.

    The movie also makes you grip your seat for its action pack thrill ride takes you all over the place of the screen has John Woo style gun fights + gory neck ripping, blood gushing scene would surely not bore the viewers out.

    For those that has follow on the series, I must say in my humble opinion that this new installment certainly did not disappoint me. The effects are superbly well done, as you can see Kate Beckinsale still has her groove and stylish finishers. A few good fighting scene where a werewolf was trying to get the best of her. Of course the werewolf cheated and used steroids and gets a few dosage where you would never expected.

    The whole story evolves around the heroine, and her offspring where she holds the key of uber supreme power for the lycans. So yea there was a twist in the plot as well and the finale fight scene was quite a little predictable but it was fun to see how it did played out.

    The movie ended short when both my acquaintance and me was just getting the climax of the movie. 1 hour and 30 mins time frame and yet so much that should be rolling out to make it a 2 hour show. But the director ensures us that the movie franchise does not end there.

    So, most likely there would be a 5th installment of the movie where I can presume the new vampire dude would fall for that small hybrid girl and they would kick off another point of view of the whole underworld franchise. Who knows, that’s just my hypothetical theory.

    In conclusion its seriously a nice show to pay to watch at the cinema, be warned tho, human which dislike blood gashing out or scene of brutality should not be advisable to watch this movie. Overall I would give a 7.5/10

  • The Viral Factor makes bolehland proud!!

    Should be called The Family Factor instead. Anyway just got home from my first HK movie I’ve watched this year. The main reason why the heck did I’ve indulged myself into this specific film was, not because Dante Lam’s previous award winning Beast Stalker & Stool Pigeon. Not even the main cast (Nicholas Tse & Jay Chou) was the main highlight for me to went to watch the movie. But low behold the photos below 😀

     First runner and second runner.

     Lucky fellow get his hand grabbed and twisted by Nicholas Tse 

     This part imagine like 20 Police man standing by behind far corner waiting to chase him down haha..
    His double didn’t jump but the actual Nicholas Tse jumped!!


    Haha.. since the NDA has been lifted due to the release of the movie, I can try to recall my small contribution to the movie !! 😛 I actually acted as an extra in the movie. Sadly the scene was so fast I manage to catch a glimpse of my mirage chasing down Nicholas Tse during the scene where he tries to escape from the High Court of Kuala Lumpur.

    So anyway back to the story, very typical bio-weapon, let loose a mutated virus and be the person with the only medicine and vaccine for it kinda movie flavor. But throughout the entire movie, it didn’t make me feel the importance of the virus but more of a Cat & Mouse chase. Where the Cat (Jay Chou) miraculously has life span of 2 week to survive when he got a bullet stuck in his brain.

    The opening is very much like a scene from Battlefield 3 map called Sharqi Peninsula!!! where a fire fight broke out during a escort of some scientist.

    But overall being a Malaysian, I was pretty impressed on how the director work his way into the highlights of Kuala Lumpur. Majority of the scene was shot in Kuala Lumpur golden triangle.

    Not to forget places which I’ve been so often during my college days!!! Some not to forget areas was the busy KL Sentral, the walkway of Pavilion and the most memorable of them all was the chase scene on Jalan Pudu / Jalan Raja Chulan. It seriously portrayed how crazy the traffic was in the show as well and also that scene reminds me of how I travel up and down from that crazy street just to get to my customer side during working days. =__=

    Action was mostly non-stop once it kicks off, chase after chases from foot, to car, to trains and even helicopters ! not to mention the amount of freaking PDRM amazes me in the movie but not in reality.

    Overall the feel of the movie was mostly felt towards a family affair instead to the actual movie was trying to plot on as an action flick. Like usual Jay Chou slaps on his expressionless acting but I guess it’s been improving over the times. ( no wonder the director was smart enough to drop a bullet into his brain so he can continue being expressionless throughout the movie).

    On the other hand, over the top bad ass thief+gangster+fugitive+anti-hero Nicholas Tse acting. Sadly some crying scene he did it too overboard where sometimes it seems over doing it. (please note there was some cendol oozing out from his nose too)

    I can’t wait to snag a DVD copy of this show to try to get my name on the credit rolls and also try to capture the mirage scene of myself 😛

    In Conclusion, it’s really a good movie to watch and Malaysian citizen should be proud of it since it opens to a wider audience of our country main capital city. It’s also more of less a softcore version of Real Steel where family bonds matters the most in the heist of this action movie. 7/10

  • WordPress Censorship

    Seems that WordPress is also on the bandwagon of protesting against SOPA.

    I wished facebook or other major website would do such things. 😀

  • Fruitful lunch

    Lunch at fruity.

  • WebGL/Music/Interactive & Wiki blackout

    Gosh! a few days of absentees, due to a hectic work life this first & second week of 2012. Anyway after had the time to wind down from all my hype and jive on work. I’ve stumbled on a really really fascinating website. 

     It’s seriously visually stunning and awesome music experience fusing WebGL technology together with bright lights and vivid colors. Not to forget it runs on your web browsers! Pretty interactive as well where you can use your mouse to steer the around while the music is grooving. (IMHO: the music is pretty chill out and awesome too!) Link is here : – http://lights.elliegoulding.com/

    In the meantime, Wikipedia will go offline for 24 hours on the 18th of january 2012 in the protest and also raise public awareness of SOPA & PIPA bills.

  • Mission Impossibru : Ghost Protocol

    Yea, been awhile since I’ve made reviews for movie, so here is one movie which is a must watch for die hard fans of Tom Cruise or any newbies that are not familiar with this franchise.
    The movie kicks off, where a new team of IMF infiltrate and initiate a “Prison Break” scheme, with in this few segment of scene. As long you guys watched Shaun of the Dead, then you guys will get the cameo done by Nick Frost together with one of his best buddy, Simon Pegg. 
    One of their under-rated dark comedy movie which I first watched like 5 years back ago. Highly recommended to those that yet to watch it.
    Or the most recent movie, the duo acted was non other than PAUL. Please do your self a favor and go watch this pretty decent comedy movies from the both of them.
    Anyway back to MI:GP review, during the appearance of Nick Frost, I totally burst out laughing in the cinema and knew it was gonna be a roller coaster ride for me through the entire movie. Sadly it was just a brief moment screen time for that guy.
    The show, balance both sense of humor together with action and a little dash of cheesiness, made it one of the most enjoyable no brainer action pack movie of last year. 
    Surprisingly, you also get to have a really good look on Tom Cruise which seems like he has not aged over the years. Seriously from the previous movies he acted, my respect for him has been weight over hundred folds more. Further to add, most of the stunt scene is actually done by him. 
    As the story unfolds, we get to learn that a mastermind had framed IMF into the bombings as well as trying to start World War III. The catch was, that IMF was under a lock down mode called Ghost Protocol, where they are on their own without any out side support, just a train coach of gadgets at their disposal.
    The movie is seriously has most of the thrills that will not disappoint movie goers. The one main reason i watched this was because of an early review on Rotten Tomatoes stating that MI:GP was rated 100%
    and seriously its worth your bang of money to go and watch it!
    Another shocker was watching Anil Kapoor getting the best from the main actress. Boy oh boy that was the most an epic scene. To add, the most unforgettable dialogue, was “but you have to find me” represent the mainstream play of most of the Bollywood movies, where the actor/actress plays hide and seek with each another.
    In conclusion, not to spoil the movie further, considered that this has been yet one of Tom Cruise best movie to date for his Mission Impossible movie series. I went into the movie with high expectation, and I really had that exact thrill ride on the movie chair. 9.5/10 
    (p/s: can’t wait for the next installment so long J.J. Abrams is gonna touch this franchise, I’m so gonna watch it.)

  • one way chain test

    last round of testing on chain broadcasting

  • Blog to tweet

    mission accomplish, now need to find out vice versa….

  • HAPPY VERY LATE NEW YEAR..

    I know I am slow poke, but well it’s never to late to wish people happy new year.
    quick re-cap… the past few month before 2012
    I got my spanking Ipod Nano with engraved of my nick on Xmas.

    Then I got Lunatik Lynk Strap consider the first in Malaysia to got it 😀



    Then New year pressie for myself.
    Then somewhere around the same time, a late xmas pressie for my mom.
    So this new year , I got a late Xmas Gift from my colleague which went to Japan
    So yea, that pretty much sums it up. As for 2012 resolution, I would want to try to intergrate my Twitter, FB, tumblr, instagram or what ever crap into my blog so that I can post stuff on the fly 😀
    P/S: what i did on New Year Eve? went for watch night service then head back home to sleep.