psychtion

envy and people

2012-01-07T08:12:00.004+08:00

Is the grass greener on the other side, or are your eyes tinted green with envy?

I think its easy to envy others. Media shows that if you're good at something, you get all the support from many people. Idol shows, sports and Hollywood stars.

Its not as it seems. I assume most already know this. But how much do you remember when you see those photos, videos showing how happy they are?

It goes with friends as well. Are you going to act a certain way just so you keep a certain group of friends? Do you think you can do that forever? Putting on a show will just wear you out and those friends will only know a false version of you, kind of like the image given off to the public of those in high positions by the media.

You don't have infinite time. Some people are worth more time, some aren't. The less people there are, the more of my time they can get. Especially when I don't like to deal with the many people issues that come with each one of us.

And this is not to say that these people are worthless. Its just that, unfortunately, we have different goals, and there is limited time.

Its not always clear cut who is worth your time. Some people might have families that totally disregard them. Sometimes friends will become more committed to you and become best friends. But you get returns from your efforts, your time with them influences them. Don't expect a perfect person, that's unreasonable and you'll never appreciate anyone. Handle them as they are, and they might grow with time, and help you, too.

At the crossroads, and choosing none

2011-06-28T21:03:00.002+08:00

And going nowhere.

I have a lot of things I want to learn these days. How to draw, to play music, to play games, to improve in work skills, to improve socially.

Yet I find myself doing the same useless things everyday. Surfing kotaku, playing zynga poker, watching anime.. Well maybe not totally useless. Probably really inefficient.

How do I know how to get the most rest, and how to get the most learnt?

I do know one thing now, which is randomly switching between all of them and not trying something new means, at the most, being good at being lousy. Really. The practise I make at being amateur makes me a speedy amateur. Gotta take some risks to win the pot.

Will update with better stuff soon.

Improve myself to be useful

2011-06-28T20:16:00.002+08:00

How come I only learnt this so late?

I can blame a lot of people, but what if they never had the experience to teach it themselves? Instead, maybe I can be the one to be providing the help instead.

Of course, I still have to be careful of those out only to make use of the benefits that I can give. After all, I've been a leech so much of my life. Kou/Recruit from Arakawa Under the Bridge? He didn't really do much for the village, come to think of it.

Well, because he couldn't. His abilities weren't appreciated by the village. Generally. The school was like, another distraction. But they accepted him just the same. It's yet another good value. Not everyone can give, or more accurately, not everyone can give you what you might expect.

So what can I be that will be helpful? I've thought of a few things: Get a good job, teach people stuff, be better with social skills etc. Ok, maybe too many things.

But firstly a job is important to be able to earn money, that everyone knows. It's also good that I'm interested in most things nowadays, but the problem is I tire of things quite quickly as well, especially if it requires a lot of effort. Well anyway I appreciate and will continue to appreciate my education at DigiPen. I still like coding and games and tech stuff, so why not? Just to carry on and do well.

Teaching people and social stuff. This is very important in a work setting and definitely I will be better at this. Along the same lines, to help others means I have to be good first. Social-wise, I'm starting to understand the two modes people communicate in. The serious mode in which its mostly facts and instructions, and the goofy/party mode in which stuff talked about can be and should be taken lightly. I only had some slight idea about this but it was laid out clearly for me at www.succeedsocially.com. Its not a pay site as many dubious websites are, just some honest articles about social situations. So go ahead and check it out. For me, I usually am in the serious mode and recently found it harder to get into the party mode. It was like I wanted to keep everything down, even when I knew people were trying to have fun. No thanks to rules and laws for that. That said, it is not a necessity to be able to keep with the same modes as others. Obviously you can't be in party mode when you see someone getting injured.

I feel like going on typing more things about social stuff, but since I'm still testing out the waters it'll just be a jumbled mess, so I'll leave it at that.

Where did I learn this from?

I'm not too sure. From the many things in life? Anime was definitely one of them. Which is why I like to watch slice of life/coming of age anime. Maybe I was looking for a teacher of life skills. Some games too, especially RPGs. Of course, those are all inspired by real life events, which I've probably had some, though I don't remember too many of them.

Anyway, time to start and carry on improving!

Not emo. At least not now.

2011-06-18T23:34:00.006+08:00

I'm finally having some time off. This is after deciding to take less classes after the bomb that was last sem, having failed 3/6 of the courses. Oh and a special unexpected dropped class that was the result of administrative errors which was a lot of trouble, but good nonetheless. Only two classes this summer semester.

With this time its all about resting, mostly. Getting a breather from that non stop work. Which was not very efficient or educational too. Why was it this way?

I had some time to think it over. Over quite a bit of gaming (completed Witcher 1 and 2).

One large component was the lame shit that is dealing with religious issues. I had actually started taking some of this bad medicine two semesters before, in 2010 Fall. They make it sound fancy nice and all, but it makes people who are really interested in God to become plagued under this never-performing-enough yoke.

Seriously, those people in love with the law and their own performance can take it and shove it up their ass. I'm not the best performer (in fact was quite poor) but the day to day reminders/condemnation was killing me. The law is death. Since the law has already been fulfilled by Jesus, there's no point trying to add to it. All those people who think they can make God happier by fulfilling bits of the law have to know that failing in any one law means failing in all. If you don't accept Jesus as your sacrifice for sins, then you better start with the animal sacrifice because you aren't even doing that. If you do accept however, then it is already the perfect sacrifice so stop trying.

Imagine all of this pressing on my mind with DigiPen work that actually requires a lot of concentration and effort. Sick.

I've settled the religious issue by making sure I learn from the correct sources. So much of the current Christian stuff has this law mentality hidden inside, it's atrocious.

What about the work side of things?

I was definitely losing motivation to work. I was also being terribly inefficient. Is it because I had enough? Not my thing? Not enough rest? It could definitely be attributed to burnout. Accelerated by the earlier factor.

I had some time to iterate through my work habits. I have a better filing system for work, and maybe a more structured coding style with a document explaining my choices. It does make things a little better. There's a lot more to learn and improve, but I'm still all ready for the rest though.

Cramming the networking assignment now due to lack of motivation to work and/or obstacles that I don't know how to overcome.

There's also lifestyle bad habits to change. Social issues still made me nervous and was part of the stress, for almost no reason at all. Everything at school and life was not some crazy drama or something, yet I cannot handle it and will feel stressed at time to time.

Read a bit from http://www.succeedsocially.com/ recently. I think its really good advice for someone like me. It's a lot better than most of the sites out there, and the author even knows it!

One of which hit me was the self-pity portion. If you have a good day, you won't spend time thinking about the past. Why not spend the effort to make the day better then? It was important though that the previous advice I read was down to earth and easily understandable, making me understand why I should really stop feeding the self-pity and waste energy.

This post was written with energy saved from self-pity. Nice. Bet a lot more can be saved.

2011-02-28T01:20:00.002+08:00

I've been having many depressive thoughts recently. I don't know whether they are good or bad, but I know its not good for me to keep it inside. But then again I don't know of any human willing to listen to such deep topics, or that is willing to spend time to listen and understand, so I'm blogging this here. It's probably good too, I can see this again later on, or some others may read this and learn something from it maybe. Because what I'm going to type about will be very draining for those who are still "living the life".

Before I go on I'm going to rant about how people never listen. They hear a few lines, respond to those specific phrases and think they know everything. YOU DON'T! Sometimes people don't need advice. They know you can't give it. They just need you to listen.

I don't blame them. If I had more things to busy myself, I'll probably won't be able to as well. Or maybe if their lives wasn't built on them always making the right decisions, then it'll be more easy to give up.

Back to the issue at hand. I guess its mostly about the future. Some call it quarter-life crisis.

Wikipedia has a good write up on it. However below is a list from the link itself containing all the things I've experienced.

Characteristics of quarter-life crisis may include:

confronting one's own mortality
insecurity concerning ability to love oneself, let alone another person
insecurity regarding present accomplishments
re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
lack of friendships or romantic relationships, sexual frustration, and involuntary celibacy
disappointment with one's job
nostalgia for university, college, high school, middle school or elementary school life
tendency to hold stronger opinions
boredom with social interactions
loss of closeness to high school and college friends
financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unexpectedly high cost of living)
loneliness, depression and suicidal tendencies
desire to have children
a sense that others are doing better than oneself
frustration with social skills

Maybe not desire to have children. Children are cute but I don't know if I can teach them well. And they cost a lot.

I guess it doesn't help to read Ecclesiastes at this stage, but I did. But can't deny the truth, can we. Without God, life is meaningless. But the problematic thing is, what's the point of having life to see all these issues come up?

I'm getting older. Not that old yet, but we all know from 20 plus on we start seeing problems in our bodies due to age. I don't know if I'm losing hair due to stress or age. I notice many people are losing hair too.

At this point, when you see old people, you understand their pain. If you don't maybe these videos may help:

I'm really really sensitive. I cried watching these videos. Not manly tears, screw that. Maybe it takes a man to tell you that he feels grief.

Besides being selfishly staring at my own future, I have grandparents (and parents) that are aging as well. I do pray that God will keep them healthy all the way through until He takes them back peacefully, or best if Jesus comes back to rapture us all back to heaven. But before then, I can really feel this pain.

But it makes me a little happy to note that the people in the videos still look forward to living their lives even with these problems in their face.

I also feel grief for people now whenever I see funerals and no sign of that person being a Christian. Like in the bike video, I wonder for the lady and the other man who passed away. To spend an eternity in hell? No one should go to hell, no matter how evil they have been to you or anyone else. What they do to you only lasts awhile, but to condemn them to hell is for eternity.

But I do know God is merciful, having seen two testimonies of atheists being saved after experiencing a near death experience (NDE). These people testify because they came back to do more work for God. But for the rest, I hope that they become saved and then stay there in heaven.

Maybe I'll write about those things on the list some other time, keep a more detailed description of what exactly I'm experiencing. I'm still amazed at how everything on the list matches.

But I can't cry anymore. I've ran out of tears. I pray that God will keep blessing me with health and guiding me in His wisdom. Other than that I'm just like everyone else, weak, insignificant.

doing what you feel like

2011-02-20T22:10:00.003+08:00

Be it good or bad. It's actually good, in a sense. Why?

Why doesn't one do what they feel like doing?

Remember the time when you were a child? You did mostly what you wanted. Not that it was good all the time, there were some silly mistakes. There was pain from those mistakes. But you weren't held back.

Then as we grow up, we start having ideas of what people expect from you, imbued by other around you. Oh, you shouldn't do this because so and so doesn't like it. In an effort to be "nice" to others, we comply.

But then you begin to feel the strain. In an effort to please more people, we don't do this, don't do that.

In the end, you feel like you're just compacted into this mould. And what an ugly mould it is. Hardened without space to breath, just devoid of life. Soon the figurine cracks and turns into dust.

So we can just do whatever we want? Don't listen to rules and stuff?

The main issue with these rules is that most people just follow them because they feel they have an obligation to. But now, if you followed them because you understand the reasons for them being made and really liked the better outcome from following it, wouldn't that be such a joy?

Bonus for Christians who draw parallels between this and the law vs grace argument. Largely the same issue I think.

Then what are you going on here about? Now we have to follow rules again.

I'm not going to rail against the rules. But what I want to fight about is self-condemnation.

See which are the things that you don't do (or do) for the sake of trying to avoid being disapproved of by others.

Below I use some words that may sounds very 'Christian-ish' to non-Christians. Please don't be turned off. Just imagine God as a very caring father.

Which are good? Like being able to talk to others when you want to? Shake off the condemnation. Even if you do good things, someone will just hate you anyway. Do the good things without care for others approval! Just because it is good, do it.

Those that are bad? Are you sure they are bad? If it is, then understand that humans are weak and sinful, including yourself. Do not be in a rush to solve them, but as God is gracious to give us all abundant chances to be saved by Jesus, also graciously give yourself the time to change, or graciously forgive yourself everytime. In being gracious to yourself, you will be gracious to others as well. Love your neighbour, AS yourself!

How I wish we can all be children again, having fun and being joyful under the guidance of God our heavenly Father.

Reducing dependencies... on others.

2011-02-12T21:44:00.003+08:00

reduce the amount your mood is affected by others

- prev, tell them what to do: works, feel good. doesn't work, feel bad
- now, understand who is willing to listen, who isn't. don't bother with those who won't because it just makes you stressed out. also, time and help given for those who want to change but are struggling.

- prev, people's actions seem disapproving of me. think about how they think of me and feel bad
- now, depends on the person. many other people want u to do things for them, be it selfish or not. u can't do everything for every person. understand that there definitely will be people who don't like u at some point. understand who to trust (those that have your wellbeing at heart) and who to avoid (those that just use you) [warning about fakes who just approve of you to use you!]

- prev, feel irritated when people are doing something that distracts you. keep quiet and think that person is inconsiderate, until kettle boils and blow up
- now, tell person gently about situation. if person doesn't comply, search for alternative solution not involving change of the person. [not an absolute end solution, depends on if person is normally considerate or a bully. if a bully, maybe need more time spent talking to them (difficult but effective..?), see above point about getting someone to do something ]

reduce the amount you need others to do for you. do for those who need help, considering if you can. don't expect to please everyone, and you won't expect everyone to please you, which reduces upsets and stress.

Communication Between Parents and Children

2010-11-13T15:02:00.004+08:00

Too many times communication between parents and their children become one way. Either party may initiate, but after a certain trigger, e.g. why child does this or that, the parent turns on the instruction mode and starts telling the child what he or she should do. This can also apply to any other communication between people of authority and their followers.

Usually, the transition period is too short. The parent believes that they fully understood the problem, but the child believes that the situation has not been fully explained. The child wants to go on explaining but the parent is already giving out instructions. This leads to a conflict in which both parties are trying to communicate to the other but none is willing to listen.

How do we go about resolving this issue? There are many other people who have explored it much more thoroughly than I have, so I'll just put up links here:

http://www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwithkids/strategies.html

I believe anyone trying to dispense advice must be able to fully comprehend a situation before doing so. The person of authority also must be able to understand when he or she is unable to solve a certain problem, so that they will not give false advice. There is a conflict between acknowledging that the problem can be solved compared to giving poor advice, because one retains the feeling of authority while the other suggests weakness. But consider the effects of poor advice, versus the increase in understanding between the two parties.

Communication requires time and effort and is an ongoing process. That said, I think it is good to evaluate the time one spends on the activities in life. If the person is too busy, chances are he or she cannot listen well at all.

This problem easily applies to everybody, so the best time to start learning how to properly communicate is now.

How to mark a book

2010-10-20T15:33:00.002+08:00

Or why people write blogs.

Recently I've come across this article by Mortimer J. Adler. Its a really old article but it makes so much sense. You can read it here.

I think its reinforcing the idea to be an active participant in the things that you do. Don't just hear what people say, try it out to see if it works, understand their perspective, compare your views if they differ. There is no point to gather so much information but not be able to test them out. Really timely advice for me, especially now at DigiPen.

He mentions that books filled with your writings are part of your mind, and lending them is like giving a part of yourself away. Its something to consider with regard to privacy, at least, for people with public blogs like me.

Getting back my vision

2010-09-30T22:21:00.003+08:00

Recently having some vision problems. Astigmatism increased from 50 to 75. Can't focus properly sometimes. The idea of wearing spectacles was quite interesting at first, but the thought of having to depend on it, and the ridiculous cost, both lifestyle and money wise, had me finding an alternate solution.

I've found various videos and websites on how to do simple exercises to improve your eyesight. The general idea is this: since the shape of the cornea and other parts of the eye are controlled by the eye muscles, we can improve our eyesight simply by strengthening these muscles. Just like how we can run faster by improving the various muscles like the heart, the leg muscles etc.

Before I forget, most of these sources suggest a change to a healthy lifestyle together with the exercises. So no more late nights and crappy food! (like instant noodles, fast food etc)

I've pretty convinced by their explanation. It makes sense, doesn't it? So rather than getting stuck onto the spectacle subscription having to replace glasses every 2 years, I've decided to work out my eyes so that I can see better again.

There are many websites who want to earn money from these methods. My opinion is if you'll like a collection on dvd or an ebook and you have confirmed the sites authenticity, then pay them for their effort.

Otherwise, for students like me with little cash flow, or anyone else, below are some links if you are interested:

Great vid on eye relaxation exercises. Includes Chinese eye exercises at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WanA4ElclM

Another vid on Chinese Eye exercises. Helps relieve pressure around the eyes! Don't suggest laser surgery at all though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpToCa__HDk

huge blog post on recovering your eyesight
http://www.squidoo.com/restorevision

Recommending the convergence and divergence exercises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8fx03semo0

Suggested from the previous link: Eye training exercises for children. If children needed it, why wouldn't adults?
http://www.eyecanlearn.com/index.htm

sleep and caffeine and maybe stress

2010-09-15T00:39:00.005+08:00

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to depend on caffeine, at least not so much. But it seems like I need more of it now. But caffeine sucks. It keeps you awake, but kills you.

Reminder: bubble tea contains caffeine.

I like bubble tea but it increases my dependency and I don't get enough sleep now as I do last time, where caffeine can be ignored because you slept it away. Or something.

I remember my first few overnight crunch time coding sessions. I got so tired to the point where I can hear like, voice clips of previous day's events playing in my head. It was really creepy.

Wouldn't it be ultra creepy if you heard them everyday? I feel like a toned down (i guess really really mild) version of what's happened after those coding sessions is happening to me more frequently these days.

And feeling really stressed these days. Everything has an objective. School, People, even games! Where's the sit down relax and don't think?

Really got to sleep more now. And gotta get rid of the stress gah.

your life is a game, because you sacrifice it to play

2010-09-14T01:16:00.004+08:00

Just want to type this out while waiting for my hair to dry out before sleeping. No, its not long anymore. In fact its probably one of the rare times I opted for a considerably short hairstyle. Maybe pics, maybe not. Probably not. And that means I don't have much time.

Anyway, an ironic thing about DigiPen (and I suspect, probably the game industry) is that once you start work, you never really find the time to play any more games, other than the one you are working on.

Its really weird. Good and bad, at the same time.

Good, especially since games are now designed to be such time sinks. They make use of human tendencies to keep people addicted. Many of these games can now be found on facebook, easily accessible, hoping you get hooked enough to pay for some of the premium stuff through micro-transactions.

Of course, bad because I can't play any games. But I'm thinking its more good than bad now. Oh wait, I'm learning to be a game programmer. Is that sort of bad?

What do you take away after playing a game? While some people may learn skills from really putting in effort into a game, but then again these people are also able to do this in any other hobby or work. For the majority, do you really learn very much from a game? Other than the game mechanics, puzzles and the story crafted for you to figure out, what is it do you really learn? And at what cost? Sacrificing real world skills for entertainment? Again back to the "getting skills from games" department, how often can you use these skills? Can you use it to help others? Or just for your own gain?

There are a lot more I will like to talk about, but my hair has been dried like 10 minutes ago. So off to bed..

(oh and one thing about the posting time. why do they use the time from when you click create post. it seems to make more sense to have it be the publishing time.)

against competition

2010-08-23T20:56:00.002+08:00

Maybe the reason why people are so anti-social these days is due to the kiasu / competitive mentality.

links to information about the bad effects of competition:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/tcac.htm

http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/404/Competition.htm

the stuff you leave behind

2010-08-22T22:04:00.005+08:00

I wanted to get about cleaning up and organizing my stuff today. Thought I'll start with my computer.

Just look at that mess! First picture on my blog too. :/

But its a good representation of my current state, I guess. I like to keep all the things that I'm currently working on in some place that is easily accessible. Yet I don't really designate a good place to keep it, and the most most accessible place is on my desktop. One of my classmates in digipen sg commented that it looks stressful, even.

I agree. >.< It even looks stressful to organize.

So I was wasting my time away again, putting off this task I had told myself to do, when I clicked on to my email. "It looks easier to clean up, so ok maybe I should start here," I thought.

But as I attempted to delete these emails, I found that they represented a certain part of my life. Stuff that I have forgotten, or left behind. It was interesting to look through them again. A history of emails to remind me of who I was, the people around me, the feeling of that time.

It left me stumped for awhile. Should I delete them? They don't take up much space, they don't hamper my present day working. Why should I?

"Archive?"

Oh, ok.. back to organizing, then..

(goes on to check for different mail software and archiving methods and organizational tools and never really got to start organizing)

read your mind

2010-08-14T23:03:00.002+08:00

Do you think anyone can? I doubt so. I read that most people are self-centered. I know I am.

But in order to maintain relationships, sometimes we do things for them. But doing things you don't want to do creates this tension. Like you're acting and have to perform well to keep up the bluff.

Sooner or later, even those who cannot read your mind will see through the act.

Some say that you can form new habits by acting them out, but in this case, your heart constantly believes that this action is not like you. Then change is difficult, if not impossible.

Then what's the point of being artificially nice to people?

Rather than be nice, why not be straightforward and assertive. Learning the reasons why people behave a certain way grants so much more insight, compared to outwardly trying to fit in the group.

learn to put things aside

2010-08-14T22:57:00.002+08:00

Sometimes there's just too many things to handle. We want to remember them because its important, but having them all in the mind just increases the stress.

So why not write it down?

A really summarized understanding of the Getting Things Done concept by David Allen. Seems good to understand though.. especially when I've probably used something like it before, on my own.

Going to get his book. See how it goes..

expression in short

2010-05-22T13:39:00.005+08:00

People want to be heard, listened to. Even the "anti-social" people.

Some express it in ways that other people like. Stories, music, videos, games; each increasing in layers, depth.

Some don't know how. Insults, aggression, violence.

Not everyone is willing to listen. They may have their own problems, they may not know how to.

The person with little ability to express requires a better listener.

No one is unimportant, but don't place your hopes on people. They may not be good enough to listen to you.

Sorry if I can't listen to you. I also need someone to listen to me.

Who can listen?

floating thoughts

2010-04-18T02:24:00.002+08:00

A avoids B, because he doesn't want to burden and trouble B with his problems.

but B, he has problems too, some which are even bigger than A's.

B may wonder why A is avoiding her. Is it because she's not beautiful enough, or smart enough?

No, because A believes that he is not up to her standard. Or that stupid things may happen during the interaction.

------------------------------------

We constantly make decisions without full grasp of the situation. If you believe that you are perfect or can make the best decisions, there lies the flaw.

------------------------------------

You can go through the doorway, or you can go through the wall after bashing your head against it. Both ways, you will go through.

------------------------------------

Ok enough trying to sound cool, haha.

These are just some thoughts that I feel are important in my life, and it may apply to you.

First one is about avoidance in people relationships. A good reference is the manga/anime Kimi ni Todoke. Avoidance doesn't help things.

Of course, this is not for cases where two parties are arguing. In that case, things will only change when one wins, or when one lowers their pride.

People who feel inadequate, remember that everyone is equal, all have problems, from the slave to the celebrity to the average person. If people put you down (or boast), they are just prideful, but in no way are they better than you.

Second is about making decisions. Most of the big decisions you need to make are sort of gambles. In fact, many things in life is uncertain. So I trust not in my own knowledge but Jesus.

Third is about working. The world wants people to work harder and harder for success. True that some people have achieved the goals they have set out, and it is admirable, in a sense. But if you find out that the stuff you are trying to get is already available for you, aren't you just wasting your time? There are some happy go lucky people out there who are really talented and they don't work hard for it.

another unrefined thought:

Can you really play a game, about winning, and not be affected by the feeling of self-achievement and pride if you win, or the sinking, lousy feeling if you lose?

So yeah, some thoughts..

about people

2010-02-13T03:12:00.003+08:00

Been a long while since I've posted. Can't really expect people to keep visiting a seemingly dead blog, but I really wonder who reads this blog anyway.

Why? Maybe because I don't really have that many friends. Also, I don't tell people about my blog. I once asked a friend to remove a link to my blog. Why I did that I don't remember. It's funny, really. Do you care about what people think?

If you do, you find yourself catering to others here and there. You help someone when he/she asks. Or you change your lifestyle or behaviour to get the approval of a certain group. The moment people dislike a certain action, your whole mood is affected, and you feel like crap.

And you try again to meet their expectations. Many people are like this. Some succeed at meeting really high expectations. But can you continue to meet these expectations? They may go up, or you may not be able to fulfill them anymore due to unfortunate circumstances. If so your mood will then take a turn for the worse.

Maybe one who doesn't care about what others think is someone who just wants to play music in a band. He is anti traditional society and wants to bring a message out to his listeners. Oh, but he is trying to appeal to people who like music, or like his message.

Or maybe that person will be a tennis player who just wants to defeat everyone at tennis. Just to be number one, for his own sake. He manages to attain his number one spot. He has fans that love him. They want to see him achieve more. So the people challenge him to do more, and he wants to prove them wrong. But isn't that caring about what people think? So happens he fails. He sees people shaking their head disapprovingly, and feels like crap.

Are there really people who do not care about what others think?

----

So we can conclude that caring what others think definitely doesn't help you at all. Or does it? I'm quite sure that most parents want the best for their children. Caring about what they think does help you understand the world better, even if the wrong advice is given.

But probably, wanting to achieve exactly what they wanted you to do all the time, is basing your happiness on peoples' expectations. And that's probably the gist I want to make here.

Don't confuse it with being caring and helpful for others' welfare. If you are loving and kind it will probably hurt if you try your very best to convince a friend to get out of a situation that will result in his eventual demise, and the friend refuses to listen.

this is probably one the most unstructured posts I have ever made. but the key idea that i want to remember (and if it helps a reader out there, great)

- don't base your happiness on others expectations
- don't base your happiness on your achievements, it means nothing
- its definitely good to care for the welfare of others, but trying too hard means trying to achieve by yourself, which will fail at a certain point in time

People are a contradicting, confused, imperfect bunch, no matter how high your education level, how beautiful or physical strong, young or old. I see it mainly in myself, and also in others.

I rather base my happiness on what is perfect.

2009-06-19T21:08:00.002+08:00

Its been overdone.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/6/8/

Review Style

2009-06-08T21:47:00.002+08:00

My reviews are mostly criticism about parts of the game that I don't like. It's not that I don't like the game, its that those parts spoil what could have been a really great game. Only when a certain part of a game really stands out, I otherwise will not mention. You can probably find many other reviews out there that talk about the average points, that keep repeating sequel after sequel.

Actually I quite like the style of reviewing games like those in gametrailers.com. It shows the positive aspects of the game, and its achievements, and also mentions the few bad points that spoils the game, but most importantly does it so that there is a pleasing balance, and ends it off in a positive light, unless the game is horrible. I'll try to do something like that next time I do a review.

Also, one thing about many reviews is that it seems that the reviewers themselves seem to have been over-hyped, so much so that they think the game is really good, and totally forget the flaws, even when the game is not that great. That's why I always keep my hype level low, because there is totally no point having too high of an expectation only to see the final product unable to meet it, and then have to defend your decision and ego. If its good, I enjoy it as well as anyone on the hype train. That's why I also minimise getting other people hyped up.

Midna is cuter as an imp

2009-06-08T20:00:00.007+08:00

Edit: I went to replay the last sections of both Minish Cap and Twilight Princess, thinking that I may have saw a few things wrongly in my frustration. I've put any updates I have below the original text.

Just finished Twilight Princess, and that's the first thing on my mind.

Didn't really like the overall feeling however. Comparing this to the only other Zelda game that I've completed, the Minish Cap, I think Minish Cap comes off as a more polished package than Twilight Princess. I know I'm comparing a 2D game to a 3D game, and 3D is harder to do, but exactly because it's so you have to do better to have the same enjoyment.

Update: I did enjoy TP as well. Only the final areas, with a sudden increase in difficulty and drop in quality, frustrated me enough to make me rant like its all bad.

Puzzles and contraptions -

Minish Cap, while not so complex in puzzles because of less one dimension, is easier to complete. However, its a lot more fun to play because of the different equips you get, and have to use all of them regularly (much more balanced compared to TP), even when advancing in levels.

Twilight Princess puzzles are pretty stale. You get new equips, but they are your regular types like hookshot, metal boots, boomerang etc which is ok, but you depend on one or two of the equips per dungeon, and hardly ever use them out in the open world. (Except the hookshot, Link should just attach the it to his arms. I use it the whole day) Twilight Princess's difficulty also ramps up ridiculously at the end without preparing you for it, which is pretty frustrating.

Update: I haven't played much of Ocarina of Time, but I think TP's style is following it, in that you don't use the equips as much as the cartoony versions like Minish Cap. Also, I haven't been playing regularly (my playthrough is over the course of a year), so I forgot some stuff that would have made the puzzle easy had I played it more often. Both games have their frustrating moments, and I did manage to complete both without referring to a guide. But seriously, tiny hookshot areas that just look like fires from afar? (technical aspect, wire grills faded from view when looking from afar)

Combat -

Minish Cap's combat is simple and effective, similar to previous 2d top down Zelda games. You just swing the sword in the correct direction, understand the enemy patterns, use your puzzle solving equipment to knock them out and attack them when they are weak.

First off, I play the Wii version of Twilight Princess, which uses waggle to activate the sword swings. After the first 2 hours, I just flick the wrist anyhow to swing the sword. Not very fun, its just a substitute for a button press. This method also has some lag, which affects a little when you have to make some timed swings (looks at last boss).

Twilight Princess's combat follows the 2D games. However, the way it is done makes it not very fun. You get to learn quite a few "hidden" sword skills, which you need to use to take out enemies that don't fall to the simple sword slashes. At first its ok, you need to use that particular skill just taught to defeat the enemy. These enemies don't get knocked down by any equips you have, so you just have to wait to use that particular sword skill, which makes fighting them very boring because you just wait. Later on, a couple of skills are just not practical due to the type of enemy given. You can just kill them normally with sword swings or with your bow. So its either wait and wait, or mash. The AI also fights the same way everytime.

At bosses, the sword skills are almost useless, because all of them will be blocked, or you've knocked him down by hitting his weakness, and the fastest damage option is the normal sword swing combo. And at the last boss the game comes down to a quick time event style way to defeat your opponent. How lame is that? Why don't you use all the mechanics taught to the players in a new way?

Update: The combat is done this way, because it has always been, Zelda style. It is still fun as its a adventuring RPG because its more about the story and dungeon crawling and finding items than a fighting game. I was thinking of using a way to crush the enemy's guard, but it is protrayed as a strong enemy and I was being impatient. There are similar enemies in Minish Cap. I was definitely frustrated because I forgot a previous mechanic in the game, which was taught, right at the start, which was needed to defeat one form of the boss. :/ Minish Cap was better in this aspect as it constantly used the same important gameplay mechanics throughout so that you remembered what you need to use for the last boss. The final form of the last boss actually does not require the QTE to defeat, it just helps make it easier. But the mechanics part I mentioned was actually a poor rip off for the 2nd last boss. I just fought all the bosses that I defeated so far once again, and it was a poor rehash.

Story -

So hopefully, the story with the cinematic cutscenes and more attractive characters will be a winning point for Twilight Princess? The cinematics are done the same movie style you can expect by now, trying to evoke feelings the same way. However, you know from all those fast paced movies, if you don't feel as close to the character who's dying as the character's best friend, you won't really bother. So don't try to create dramatic scenes early on because no one is interested. It doesn't help that Link's facial animations look odd. Overall, the story is very generic Zelda.

I guess Twilight Princess was rushed to meet the Wii's debut, which resulted in a drop in quality which becomes more apparent as you approach the end of the game. Fun, but ruined at the end.

Update: Though Link's facial animations weren't being warped through my frustration now, it still does look a bit poor compared to all the rest of the characters at the last boss scene. The last dungeon seemed a bit weird seeing that you have two paths, one quite easy, and another ridiculously hard, and they don't mesh together well. Still think it was rushed, and that they reduced what was supposed to be a complete dungeon into hard parts for equipment stockups and rupees. The 2nd last boss fight mentioned earlier helps support my point. I did not mention anything about the previous dungeons before this because it was a really great Zelda experience. It is just this last portion which ended the game on a bad note.

text flip

2009-06-06T18:30:00.000+08:00

http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

I think that this is a very good read for people like me who have been stuck on the computer for too long.

Just going to talk about number 3 on that link. I feel that (I'm going to use this because I'm not writing this as fact, and sometimes writing confuses people, unable to determine whether its an opinion or factual piece) it is really true. People think texting through sms, email, blogging, whatever, is a great solution for almost anything.

Which its not. They've done a study on email communication (link also in above article), and if you're lazy to read just go to the bottom of that link. 56% of people correctly interpret the message, basically just slightly better than a coin flip. Are you sure you want to bet your important discussions on a coin flip!?

I may have used to talk about relationship issues between others on my blog. Before I re-started this blog I thought about it, thinking that it's kinda unprofessional to do so. Reading that study just improves my stand on it. Seriously, hinting through text is bullshit. I can try to guess, but I can be wrong. Flip a coin.

Conveniently Fat and Spicy

2009-05-21T00:32:00.003+08:00

Now I think I know how they make the chicken taste spicy. It's not spices rubbed into the meat, its into the fat which surrounds the meat. How did I know that? Well, I had another sample. Burger King's Tendercrisp.

BK took its Tendergrill (the name of that grilled chicken burger I blogged about before) and made it into McDonald's McSpicy. It is the same! Fat layered. Though much more spicy and better tasting. Slightly cheaper too if you don't need so much fries.

Ah.. when is fast food ever healthy.

Oh wait. You can buy Subway! Subway is not bad.. and the offer they having now ($6 for any choice of sub as a meal! Meaning with cookies / chips and drink), wow there's a queue at subway everyday.

Ok now I'm hungry. Gotta eat.. nearest open food outlet: McDonalds. Gah.

Are your memories real?

2009-05-21T00:20:00.003+08:00

Finished watching Dennou Coil recently. Just some stuff to think about..

You are so engrossed in anime, drama, rpgs, mangas, so much so that you feel close to the characters in them. But are they "real?"

You can't touch them, you can't interact with them more than what the programmer has done, just watching them, thinking that they could be real.

What is real? Tangible things you can feel and touch in this world?

Those stories are real.. people can hear them, talk about them.

No. They only exist in the mind.

In the end whatever you do, they just get recorded into your mind as memories, right?

What I meant is, these things are just virtual, they have no impact on anyone!

But what if people like it, discuss it, which leads to a relationship? Isn't it the same for sports and all other things?

And then some say whatever you do, things of this world will fade and it won't matter anymore.

This is getting more deep than I thought.

2009-03-15T18:23:00.002+08:00

Street Fighter IV at home, with no arcade stick. Good sticks are sold out everywhere around the country, and will only come in end of the month to early April, and then there may not be enough stock. Plus the price is now really high. Thought of getting someone to help mod my Hori Real Arcade Pro (I just realised that it is actually the RAP, not RAP 2.) to be used on the PS3. No replies yet though.. Before that I actually went to buy the converter that I tested before hand and confirmed it drops inputs and lags because I really wanted to play with the arcade stick. It just made me more irritated and $15 poorer. Maybe I just have to adapt to the control pad.. for now.

GHWT Rant and Control Issues

2009-03-15T17:16:00.005+08:00

Guitar Hero World Tour is boring when played by yourself. I guess I'm improving in drumming, no point though if you're gonna keep it to yourself. Not going to practise until FCs, because its for bragging rights, and may affect foundation if I ever took drum lessons. No FC means don't bother looking to those who are looking to set high scores, and online jamming is a meh because you only see your friends' scores and how well they are doing, otherwise very little social interaction. well GHWT / RB is still very rigid anyway in terms of musical expression. Never played online before though, and I'm not that good at playing music, but I think those better at music will agree.

On another note, more or less fixed the bass pedal that was giving me double hits. Since it was too sensitive, just added two layers of cloth over the part where the sensor is. Now I have to press the pedal harder, but it feels more realistic to me. It's like my first "mod", lol.

2009-02-07T09:30:00.003+08:00

Over the new years, been busy. Just a quick update post.

Been playing lots of Street Fighter IV as the release date of the PS3 version gets near (12 Feb or 17 Feb depending on R1 or R3). Always looking for friendly competition to improve my skills, so anyone interested can meet up with me!

Also finishing with the GameAxis Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Time Attack League. Last race is a F1 car race! But still have to get the car.. may have to give it a miss or a quick download of a save file. Hmm..

Bought Guitar Hero World Tour recently too! Really liked playing it with the my cousins over the festive season last year, so had to get my own. But it's tons of difference playing alone and to get good enough to play expert.. and I really don't like or am not used to how the bass pedal works.. Always tend to get double hits or none at all. Fortunately my drum set is pretty alright. Think its most fun when you take this fake rock gig to the level where you just act like you're really performing.. haha that's what this is really about isn't it.

Yup that's about it

Mega FatSpicy

2008-12-21T00:10:00.005+08:00

Mega McSpicy is Mega FAT. You think you're getting a good deal, paying just a dollar plus for an extra piece of chicken thigh, but you're wrong. This FAT McSpicy consists of little chicken thigh chunks, each roughly the size of half my thumb, combined with lots of FAT to make it look like a patty. That yellow sticky stuff fried.

McDonald's isn't known for its health benefits, but I don't remember the McSpicy being so full of fat. I think I ate it before with real whole chicken thigh. I don't know about the other Megas, though I think it's more normal because they already use patties, which is probably cheaper.

Alternatives: KFC Zinger, at least made of big chicken thigh slices; BK Grilled Chicken Burger (forgot the name), less oily (I think) and tastes not bad; Carl's Jr almost-anything-else, never tried their chicken, but Portobello Mushroom is great stuff.

No more mcstuff for me. Until they start changing their idea.

Reviews are tough stuff

2008-12-18T00:34:00.000+08:00

Finally completed my review of FIFA 09. Didn't play the whole game, but more or less got the feel of it. It is still a huge blob of text though, with a few sub headings I hope helps. I really wanted to write more, but maybe it was more of a rant on what things I didn't like about the game that I wanted people to know.

So, it is actually hard to write game reviews. On one hand, I felt like I needed to let everyone know about the faults the game has, but on the other hand the game is still good.

Maybe it isn't about me, because that's what reviews are about! To write about the good points and the bad points. It's that games these days tend to have problematic issues. Go to the PS2 console days where there aren't online patches and developers really needed to make sure their game isn't full of problems, then we wouldn't have this situation where you need to note that in a review. Or that if a game is so full of those problems we'll just say its buggy and that's it, it affects the score. That's why I have a build quality rating in my review.

Anyway, my review structure, as said, is evolving, so I'll try to improve everytime I write one. However.. writing reviews is tough stuff! I think I spent so much time thinking on this I'm tired. Maybe I'll try for a short one next time.

FIFA 09 review (PS3)

2008-12-18T00:13:00.001+08:00

A little bit of background, I'm not a real football fan. I like the game of football but don't watch any matches regularly or keep up with news from EPL or the like. Only played a bit of football in real life. This is my opinion, yours may differ.

graphics (9/10)

The graphics here are top notch, and the presentation improved so much so you can mistake it for a real live match being telecast on your TV. The increased number of animations shows, or doesn't come up into your mind as you forget that this is a game. However, the cutscene style animations will hit you as you see it for the second and third time, because almost every match ends up with the same cutscenes.

There is a new camera for the Be a Pro (BAP) mode where you control a single player rather than an entire team. This game is a 3rd person camera which shows your player and where the ball is currently on the pitch. It is one of the reasons why you get so immersed into the game, thinking that you are the actual player on the pitch; It shows the crowd and the stadium around in the background, and as you sprint into the opponents penalty box looking for a goal, the goal area rapidly increasing in size as you approach it, the eventual kick that results in the goal, and your player celebrating is all shown in great detail.

One thing I must note is that night matches are really like in real life, I played a match on a floodlight lit pitch recently, and I must say it is striking similar to what I saw. Also, playing in a lower league where pitches are not that well maintained, after a match in the rain, it was good detail to see that the pitch is slightly worn, with dead grass gathering in spots.

gameplay (8/10)

Moving from PES to FIFA 09, a marked difference I noticed is that referees give free kicks and cards more realistically, unlike the rugby style match of PES where you can tackle players recklessly and the referee won't do a single thing.

Kicking ball at different times results in the player using a different leg to kick. Even the last turn will change the foot used to dribble the ball, which is quite realistic in my opinion. Players also fall down depending on the leg being tackled. For example a player with 2 legs on the ground when tackled on one leg may still be able to keep his balance, but having both legs unable to be on the ground he will fall down appropriately. Nice detail on that.

FIFA 09 has much better goalkeepers, so much so that the poorer goalkeepers are still very good, and the better goalkeepers superhuman at times. That said they sometimes still do make human like mistakes which is realistic (and realistically frustrating if its your own goalkeeper).

A usual problem in football games is that to switch to the player you want is a problem of cycling through the players the AI thinks you want to use until you get the one you want. FIFA 09 tries to reduce this by allowing you to use the right analog stick to change the selected football player. It is a good idea but doesn't work well in some cases, for example when there is two players in the same direction you point your right analog stick to. So it is still slow, and even after that the player selected has to transit from what AI asked it to do to your command.

Harder difficulty setting seems to make your computer controlled players run away from their positions to allow the opponent to penetrate your defense more easily. This coupled together with not being able to change to the player you need quickly and AI which keeps the ball better makes it harder to play a good defensive game. I don't have much experience with real matches to say how easy or hard it is to get possession, so adjust the difficulty to your own preference.

FIFA 09 focuses a lot on the BAP as you can see with the Arena, a training ground with only one player you control, the goalkeeper and the goal, loading up the first thing you start the game, and before every match starts. EA forgot that players don't play using the BAP camera for normal match games (like when playing against friends locally), so the Arena is redundant then. But they forgot to add a training mode. Controlling in the normal Tele camera and the BAP camera is a whole lot of difference.

With FIFA 09 focusing a lot on the BAP mode, it is good to know that the Create a Player tool is quite powerful, allowing you to adjust many details. However it is tuned towards western styles, and has some limitations like jaw, chin shape, and only a single type of eyebrows.

As competition against PES's Master League, FIFA 09 has it own Manager Mode. It is hard to manage with the poorer user interface, and its not as well tuned as PES Master League. For example, there is nothing to tell me that the transfer period is ending, and my negotiation with a club just ended suddenly. I cannot even check why my offer was turned down because they just grayed out the whole transfer market option. Feels like a quick fix. I didn't bother continue playing because I don't want to grind.

sounds (9/10)

The sound effects are also realistic. The sound of the ball contacting the boot, rebounding of the goal posts, are as I remember them. In the BAP mode, players shout at times, like 'man on' and 'finish!' which makes it more immersive. Sometimes it will sound weird due to a lack of buttons, eg calling for defenders to clear is the same button as asking a striker to shoot, which will result in asking them to 'finish!', but it is a good start.

Commentary is good of matches is good, though it tends to repeat a lot, I feel that this version has the most varied commentary of any football game I've played.

As of EA's games, they come with some licensed music from popular artistes. I don't keep up with music, but the music provided is quite catchy and no problem to listen to.

interface (9/10)

What I really liked about this game is the good controls. It feels properly weighted and which gave me the feel of really kicking the ball. I use mostly manual controls during BAP except for shooting which I use a semi assist, which still requires you to aim properly, because the manual shooting mode is too difficult to use effectively (I've tried it quite extensively, I really wanted a all manual setup).

The use of vibration is quite minimal here, it only time it occurs is when the ball hits the posts, or when there is a decisive penalty kick in a penalty shoot out. I don't know if the Xbox 360 version has more vibration use due to the Dualshock 3 being in late, but I will have preferred more use of vibration to increase immersion. For example, when your selected player is jostling for the ball, rough tackles and the kicking of the ball all can have some vibration feedback.

The difficult way of comparing player stats, due to having to compare actual numbers without any visual aid, makes it a real chore to manage the team. Visual aids like arrows and graphs like in PES will be very helpful.

For the sake of a nice beautiful GUI, there is some irritating loading time. It doesn't help that everytime you exit a subsection of a menu, the main match information page loads (and seems to be the main cause of the loading time), even if you don't want to go there next.

build quality (7/10 after patch to ver 1.01)

FIFA 09 has quite a number of irritating issues. Fortunately there was a patch soon after release. I'll only mention some issues I've heard or experienced even after the patch. Click here to see the update notes for the latest patch (as of current for this post)

- Ballack shirt name became Raddack during an online 10v10 bap match
- sometimes a player can have distorted facial features (movable parts of the face are separated from each other, eye lids floating in front of the face, jaw to the side and sunken into the face etc.)
- BAP player still side step a lot (may be losing speed compared to normal running)
- red carded or injured players don't come back when you are team captain in BAP
- bap mode unrealistic objectives, no player fatigue to take care of, injuries heal in 1 or 3 weeks, otherwise play every match for 90 mins!
- bap club switching causes club to have duplicate jersey no.
- bap friendly cpu shoots on button press call for shoot, seems weird to have since you are not controlling him
- bap mode players can become really like legends.. currently second season, ovr already 82 from starting 59
- bap mode only 4 seasons max
- manager mode old players still improve?

You can find a lot of information on many other glitches by just searching on google, these are just some of them. That said after the patch FIFA 09 is still quite playable therefore the score of 7.

online (8/10)

The BAP 10 v 10 is the greatest thing FIFA 09 has to offer. When playing a match with little lag and good players, it is the closest you can come to playing football than actually gathering those guys for a real match of football. There is no more . That said I used to have a lot of problems actual completing a match because of a lot of disconnects midway, but it seems to be fixed now.

Playing 1v1 matches online with your friends is no problem. I've played a few matches with other SG people and there is very little lag as well, close to feeling like playing with them in the same room.

Even if there is lag, FIFA 09 handles it well by slowing down the gameplay at times, rather than let the ball fly all around the place like in PES (using psp version). Note that this is only effective for 1v1 matches. In BAP you will never ever get the ball because everyone else has different latencies.

overall 8/10

If you like football you must get FIFA 09. Good graphics, deep gameplay, immersive sounds and great controls make this football game a really great, solid package. However the deeper you go the more flaws you uncover, which ruins the experience. FIFA 09 is better on the actual football of individual players and team gameplay rather than the managing portions like transfers and player improvement.

played: a little bap online, BAP 2 seasons, a few matches of manager mode, quite a number of exhibition matches
reviewed ver 1.01 (one online patch)

Game review beta 0.2

2008-12-16T14:34:00.005+08:00

You may have noticed that the huge blob of text that was the Midnight Club Los Angeles review was removed for quite some time. It wasn't properly segmented into readable sections, which made it a headache to read. I sold off my copy of MCLA already, as I still don't like this game's car physics, but I'll put out the review again as soon as I've made it better.

Right now am working on a game review structure for my FIFA 09 review. It's like in beta; I'll keep trying to improve on it, since I'm quite new to writing reviews.

Edit: MCLA review back up with a few headings to help ease that headache you might get.

The hourglass doesn't have enough sand

2008-11-27T21:12:00.003+08:00

This post's title make it look like it has something to do with Prince of Persia. No it doesn't, but maybe slowing down time while I think of what to type here will be useful..

Anyway, its not time reversing, and replaying itself in the same way.. I'm trying not to let it. But the same thing keeps happening again. There's just so many things to do, and so little time. There's this RPG game here, this action game there, daily necessary commitments and more other stuff. Slashing at a piece here, stabbing a piece there.. there seems no end to it.

Ok, its time to put on the game mode and take this more tactically.

Reduce the number of enemies! Seal off the enemy spawn point! Which is.. my own spending.. :( But yeah, no point buying so many games to have them all sit pretty in one corner, and played like maybe 1 or 2 hrs through each.

Don't bother with those other parts! Attack the weak points! Especially for games that try to make themselves lengthy with lame "find the package" or repeated dumb tasks. Hm. Actually a lot of games currently do that.. Screw those achievements or trophies now, if its just mindless and not fun you are just wasting your time!

Cut them down one by one! Your best enemy is a defeated one! Or, an enemy that joins you. But I haven't seen anything give people more time..

Laugh gleefully as you complete your mission! AAAHHAAHAHAHAAHAH!

Gosh its so simple isn't it.

Advanced strategy for tasks that get tiring after awhile:

Some monsters take reduced damage for each attack you deal to them successively, until a point where you are almost dealing zero damage. Switch your target! Chances are that you can now deal bonus damage to your new target! This is because of leftover elements of the monster you were previously attacking is the new target's weakness! Of course this would not apply if the other monster is of a similar element. Do not be discouraged if it only takes a short time to become unable to deal significant damage, each character class has different proficiencies against different monster classes!

I think you guys do understand the real life references, right?

Wow it has been fun typing this post.. Now I'm off to defeat my other monsters!

Midnight Club Los Angeles Review

2008-11-19T21:44:00.015+08:00

Midnight Club LA for the PS3 and Xbox360 (don't get confused with Midnight Club LA Remix for the PSP, though they are roughly the same) is an open world street racing game made by Rockstar Games, best known for their GTA series, including GTA 4 which I liked so much. In fact what I really liked about GTA was the feel of driving the vehicles, which you do for the majority of the game.

Rockstar's Gran Turismo?
GTA 4 took its vehicle physics to a new level. I really like the feel of the vehicles' suspension, tilting with the weight of the vehicle when turning at high speeds. The vehicles also deform much more accurately when colliding with other objects. Colliding with a car in the front will result in the bumper having a dent in a circular shape, while smashing into a small tree will likely result in huge cave in which may even stop a tires from spinning normally as it is now touching part of the chassis. Tire traction also is improved. Using a rear wheel drive car, by spinning out the rear tires while at a stand still until they are smoking, you can create a period where the tires can't grip, essentially letting you drift the car. Unfortunately other than that you can't really drift in GTA 4 because there is traction control implemented. If not for the lousy AI which you can easily lap, bad multiplayer lobby system, the few number of tracks and the small selection of cars in each class group, just add a manual shift mode, rev counter and speedometer and GTA 4 will be a quite a good racing game. Remove the traction control and you'll probably see drifters online too.

So taking into account that good experience with GTA 4 and immediately associating it with the same engine and company, I assumed that it will be my dream come through. A realistic street racing game! I even hoped that it will support my G25 wheel! It was not to be. (In fact it's not by the same studio. GTA 4 is by Rockstar North, while MCLA is by Rockstar San Diego. Just found out.)

Style
MCLA is heavily stylized to match the image of street racing like in The Fast and the Furious. Racers are to trash talk a lot, bring super flashy rides with lots of neon, vinyl and with massive rims on thin tires. When racing, they blitz through traffic with ease, are always close to each other, keeping the competition close, keeping you on the edge of your seat. It does well to keep to that image, but a number of issues pull you away from the experience of what should have been a great street racing game.

Story
The game starts with you coming into Los Angeles as the new guy looking for some fame in the world of street racing. You meet some people, have a small chat (with the usual trash talking), and then get your car. However after that, characters don't really interact other than telling you hints and gameplay things, asking you for a race, and trash talking you during races. Usually racers can be identified by their unique car, but here they keep changing their rides that other than the voices telling them apart, they are really just faceless racers. Speaking of the voices, the characters seem to be trying too hard to trash talk that they sound stupid. The worst thing, is that there are multiple of the same racer on the map at one time. 3 Nikolais in different cars looking for different races..

Gameplay
You are then required to race many races to build up your rep and earn better cars and parts. It does not seem to me that you race better drivers as I will mention later on. It is a tedious process even though they try to make it sound like you are doing things different, all you are doing is going to different areas to race similar races. Since they are going for such a movie like feel, maybe a story should have been implemented.

MCLA is a heavily stylized, so don't expect much in realistic physics. The car handles pretty well, slides when going too fast, and even flips if you crash into an object with a good angle or turn too sharply while 2 wheeling. (look at Gran Turismo for unflippable cars) Other than that, there's a lot of stylized stuff. Cars have the ability to go on two wheels whenever they want. You can spin your rear tires by holding the e brake and accelerating. Actually, the e brake brakes the rear wheels, so that is not possible. Doing this at while counting down to the start of the race makes your car boost off quicker, unlike real life where the wheels are too fast to gain traction to move off. You can also swing the car around while doing this, and they really swing very quickly, since its meant for you to put yourself in the correct direction after a crash. In doing so, they are really stable and don't tilt much, but when turning normally, the cars tilt so much you'll think its one of those old cars with super soft suspensions. Upgrading the suspension helps make it more normal though.

MCLA also gives the cars special abilities, which are AGRO, ZONE, ROAR, and EMP. Agro allows you to smash through other vehicles without any penalty. Zone slows down time and allows you to do impossible turns with great accuracy. Roar blows away other cars, and EMP stops the opponents from controlling their cars for awhile. I have not got to a part where the opponent uses these on me, but using it on them, it has the potential to be quite powerful, if you manage to make them roll into an obstacle.

One thing you might expect to carry over from GTA 4 is the ability to knock down traffic lights and lamp posts, but in MCLA this isn't so. Hitting a post will just result in your car sliding a bit to the side and carrying on moving forward. This is probably so that the traffic in MCLA doesn't just continue about its business as if there was still a traffic light, when there actually isn't already. Cars also can travel over small kerbs, go through hedges and over fountains like it was nothing. I prefer that the car be confined to the road more, or be affected by having to go through the rough terrain, but it seems to me more like a gameplay decision, rather than a fault.

MCLA doesn't favour drifting. You can do a burnout from a standstill, and then go round and round, but that is the only way you can "drift", if you call going round and round in the same direction drifting. At gear 2 onwards you'll have to use both the brake and the e brake to get into a power slide, which is the closest thing to drifting. You can't link drifts since your speed drops quite a fair bit when sliding, and you can't keep the speed up because of the traction control. The standard brakes are so powerful you'll stop really fast (not as fast as in GRID though, that one is really crazy), but you'll need to upgrade to better brakes anyway because you need to slow down faster for turns that the AI takes really well.

AI
Which brings me to the next point, the AI. The races are colour coded, green means there for the taking, while red means you most likely won't win. Nothing wrong about the colour coding and difficulty if the opponent has a better skill or better equipment. But what it means in this case is how much "rubber banding" the AI does. You can gain a big lead, but the AI will just catch up on you regardless in a red difficulty race. It doesn't really matter what car, or what tool you use. I used my nitrous boost twice to catch up to an opponent, and then disabled his car with EMP. With my speed increase and his speed decrease, he should be left behind for awhile, but he caught up in 5 seconds. This is meant to keep races challenging, but in my opinion this reduces your race to the last few seconds before the finish where you try to boost as much as possible and slow down the opponent to win. No matter how well you drive earlier on, the AI will catch up eventually if it is going to do so, and the only reward for good driving is for hard races where if you crash, the AI won't wait for you at all.

The too obvious "rubber banding" makes it less important, but there are performance upgrades for your car. It is a simple job of just going in and selecting a better option, similar to how Need for Speed Most Wanted does it. (I'm using that as a comparison because its one of the best street racing games and I've played it to completion.) MCLA allows you to select a brand of the part you are upgrading, but its a waste of time as there won't be any performance difference, and you won't get to see the part you changed anyway.

Exterior car modification is ok in MCLA. The vinyl system is as good as, if not better, than Forza 2's. You probably can make almost anything you want given enough time. The paint system is good too. There are matte, gloss, metallic, pearlescent and sparkle paint types, and you can paint different parts individually. A weird thing is that you can't paint the spoiler, and sometimes painting different parts leaves a line of the main colour in between the parts (like between door and sideskirt), which you can evade by using vinyls, but you won't get the paint effects then. You can change a lot of things, from hoods, spoilers, bumpers, to the interior stuff like seats and steering wheels. The choice for each is limited to a maximum of 4 besides the stock equipment except for rims and tires. I did manage to find usually one part that I liked to change to, but more will be nice. What I really didn't like is that upgrading brakes and tires don't change the visual, you still have to buy the visual, which shows off as a bad game effect.

The car selection is quite tuned toward western tastes. There are a lot of muscle cars, only a few exotics and tuners, and quite a number of tuners are not japanese cars. There are also 3 bikes, but it feels like a real afterthought, like oh PGR4 has bikes so we need them as well. It seems weird, because if you check out this wikipedia entry, the actual Midnight club, a japanese street racing gang, from which this game seems to have taken its name from, was disbanded due to an accident with a bike gang. This game has bikes and few japanese cars.

Speaking of the street racing gang, they usually race on the freeway. This game is great on freeway racing. Sure the lanes are wider so you can squeeze in between cars, but I don't think many have the patience to slow down to wait for openings between vehicles.

Graphics
The graphics are great, but not without its own issues. Cars look sharp and detailed, both inside and out. The vehicle deformation from GTA 4 has been removed and is now using the GTA 3 style of collision areas and damage levels. For example, the bumper will become detached on one side if you ram the front, but the bumper itself is still in perfect shape. Brake lights for the vehicles also take a long time to light up, even for new vehicles that has lights which light up to maximum brightness almost instantly. The steering hands can get wonky when you change views from outside to in as it may decide not to turn or react when shifting gears. Also, its stylized as well, so when taking hard turns, the hands will turn a lot, but the turning degree is actually the same. The city of Los Angeles here looks great as well. There is very little pop in of textures, unlike GTA 4 if you travel too fast. The action camera gives it a very cinematic feel, but it is hard to drive with without practice as it moves about quite a bit. Things really move very fast, and together with the sound effects, really give you the sense of speed.

For my R2 version, the game sometimes asks me to press X to confirm instead of O. Even then, O is still the correct button, which is quite confusing. I'm using a PS3 40GB set from Singapore.

Audio
The audio is good, but like the rest of the game, with its own problems. Firstly, the sound balance is not to my liking. The music overrides the rest of the sounds, and people speak louder than engine noises. This is probably done purposely to fit in with the movie feel though. Individual volume levels for those are available, so that's easy to fix. One thing you will notice if you reverse is that there is revving doesn't match the sound. It is very out of place for this next generation game. A smaller issue about the sound is that whizzing noises stop happening if there are too many noises playing at once. Usually you'll be too busy driving to notice it, but when you can hear it, the whizzing sounds are top notch.

The soundtrack in MCLA is excellent. You can find almost any type of music that suits your racing fancy, be it hard rock, techno, west coast rap etc. You cannot do real drifts in MCLA, so no eurobeat here. Bleh.

I did not touch the multiplayer element because it seems nobody in my region is playing it online. I have the R2 version, and only see a few red pinged opponents, or none at all. There is no split screen option for local multiplayer.

Conclusion
In all, I feel that Midnight Club Los Angeles is a great stylized street racing game suitable for fans of arcade, grip style racing, tuned toward western tastes. The AI rubber banding is an issue that makes red difficulty races very hard to win because it is very unfair. I hear other players mention they just avoid the red races and everything is fine.

Who will like this game:

Fans of arcade racers
Like western style of street racing (The Fast and the Furious)

Overall quality: 7/10

Played to a RX-8 Shinka with group 2 modifications at time of review.

Back to the FIFA

2008-11-16T15:24:00.008+08:00

FIFA 97 was my first football game. I didn't really understand football then besides grabbing the ball and kicking it into the net, so it was quite fun. I do remember the goalkeepers who always looked like they got injured everytime they tried to save the ball as they took so long to get up after each diving save. I also always used Germany because they were one of the best teams then. Also, the indoor courts were really interesting twist to play in, as the ball will hardly get out of play, and with the smaller area to run about in, made it much more challenging.

I got every version until FIFA 2000. Think it was the world cup version. There I remember the series was having an iteration every year with not many improvements to the game itself. During that period Winning Eleven, marketed as Pro Evolution Soccer here now, was king, with its better control over the team strategy and individual player control. Master League was also one of the reasons why I kept playing.

I never considered that FIFA will ever improve again. Mostly due to the reason that I wasn't very hooked onto football at all, and it was during this period basketball frenzy hit Singapore teenagers with the introduction of MVP Qing Ren (I think), a chinese sports drama, on national television. So PES was my only gauge of football. But at this period, PES didn't actually improve much as well since my first Winning Eleven.

I was really surprised when I saw a gameplay video of FIFA 09. The players moved much more realisticly with fluid animations, the graphics were amazing, and the ball was quite lifelike in its movements! It was so good that I immediately wanted to try it. Grabbed the demo for PS3, and once I tried it, I wanted to buy it. It's that good an improvement over PES! It didn't help that the demo only allowed you to play 2 minutes halves per match, but I kept playing many many times.

No problems with the decision making process when buying, because at the time I bought the R3 version was only 70SGD against 90plus SGD for a R1? R2? version of PES 09. I know, import cost is added on, but as I said, FIFA felt so much better.

Does it live up to my expectations? Still going through it bit by bit, and really do enjoy it. Detailed post about it soon!

I'm back!

2008-11-09T18:00:00.001+08:00

Wooo.. after a long break from blogging, I'm finally back. Actually wanted to start anew with a new name, but finally decided to stay with this one. Well, it was hard to think of a new one that was unique, and that just throwing this name away just for the lame thing that happened is kind of a waste..

Anyway, since I'm quite busy right now, this will just be a quick starter post. But I've planned some cool stuff for this blog already, so keep a look out!