Great article in Kotaku: Video Game Piracy, Another View

But I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. The original game had so much content, customization, action, and multipath storyline that it was truly a satisfying gaming experience. There are other lore-heavy RPG out there (Elder’s Scrolls, Dragon Age) but few (if any) manage to find the perfect balance of it all. The combat gameplay was superbly fluid and beautiful, while the content was rich enough (even has some slight nudity in favour of going true to the original book) to have at least 5 possible endings; add to that are the gorgeous graphic and various landscapes.

The Witcher 2, however, seems to aim even higher than that… shown in the following trailer. Enjoy!

And to think they can still top that off by adding a secret message just for the faithful fans… Kotaku Article: Secret Message - just by this reason alone I would spend the money on this game to support these great developers. Kudos to CD Projekt!

Update:
Gamespot has a slightly longer trailer and an exclusive preview found here: GameSpot Watcher2 Preview
The trailer is embedded below. (Note: The trailer is rendered with ingame engine)

Victorinox apparently just announced that they will be launching a hacking event of hacking their latest device… an encrypted USB key in a Victorinox army knife – the Victorinox Secure Penknife. The winner will win £100,000 if they manage to crack it, and still get a free penknife if they failed anyway. The contest, unfortunately, will be limited to 24 very lucky people, but anyone is free to apply.

The penknife itself is a mixture of the true-and-told tough (and original!) Swiss Army knife, but also embed an encrypted and secure USB drive, that will require a fingerprint scan to open – which, if you failed to provide the correct fingerprint, will automatically notify the owner by email. Which, by the way, should the owner never replies back to it, will cause the deletion of the file within the drive. Never mind the contest, tell me where can I buy that thing!

Bit-Tech Article

Samsung Swipe – On other news, Samsung released an update to their Swipe-system for their mobile. For the unknown, this is a program that enables you to swipe around a touchscreen to type in your cellphone. But for more clarification, please feel free to watch the video of the device breaking a new world-record in the fastest text-message typing.

Gizmodo Article: Samsung Swipe

Real Science on Mass Effect 2. Last but certainly not least. Do you play Mass Effect 2? Do you also enjoy watching Discovery channel? Ever wondered how thin it is the separation between real science and science fiction in the game?

Well, Dr. Michio Kaku – a real nerdy (hey he pulls references to Star Trek and Star Wars, ok?) physicist who are also damn good at explaining complicated things into not-so-complicated brains – took a shot at explaining all of those. This is a seriously awesome short interview video if you’re into this stuff. Myself, for example,could not pause or stop watching this video mid-way at any point (except when the other dude is talking)

Source link: Kotaku Link

First off, how a game of counter-strike in China ended up with a knife stuck up in one of the player’s head. And how he survived it as well. Ironically, he was stabbed because he was accused of cheating in the game, while how he survives the actual knife stab was also seen as cheating (death)… haha.

Full article: Kotaku News

Going across the gulf, in Japan, apparently there is a real-size (18 meters!) Gundam statue erected in Tokyo last July. And this July they’re erecting yet another one – this one with saber sword that lights up during the night – at Shizuoka. They expect the statue to generate 40 billion yen and nearly a million visitor within its first 300 days.

Well, naturally, if such statue is erected within 24-hour driving distance from where I live, I’ll be there tomorrow. No, wait. Tonight.

Kotaku Article: Gundam

Next is Kane & Lynch. The infamous action game about 2 hard-hitting not-so-good guys (which I did thoroughly enjoyed in the past) are getting a silver screen treament. Best part of it? Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx. Oh yes.

Kotaku Article: Willis & Foxx

And to close, Penny-Arcade released another webcomic today and it was (unsurprisingly) hilarious as usual. Plus, this one felt a bit more personal…

Click the picture to go to their site

So I found this picture on the Internet regarding video gamers and I amused myself. Good picture. Funny. But nothing immediately jumps out to mind.
Until I read one of the comment posted by hismastersvoice on the Kotaku page, and I thought to myself… oh heck yes. The comment:

“The guy in red – a console gamer
The guy in yellow – a PC gamer
How can I tell?
He knows what couches are for.”

…of course, afterward I proceeded with some healthy burst out laughters… in the office.

PC Gamer FTW!

Ok, so there’s nothing groundbreaking with the gameplay or graphic or technology…  but Fist of The North Star!!! If you don’t know this title (Hokuto Musou!!!) then you can skip the whole post, really.

But for all of you that do know, and enjoy the comic (or even Anime, yikes!), you owe it to yourself to play this extremely over the top fighting game……… Man I love those comics.

Ken: you feel lucky, punk?
punk1: huuuuuh?
punk2: and who the **** are you, eeeeeh?
Ken: YATATATATATATATATA!!!!
*punks’ heads start to get swollen*
punk1&2: what the? thats the best you can do?? hahahah…errrk* 
*heads exploded*

It’s like a trip down memory lane… while riding on a bike, swinging spiked chains, running over evil punks, blowing their heads off with your punches.

Here’s a good example. A mathmetician’s blog with puzzles: http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/

On another news, I’m still waiting for a chance to stop by EBgames to get a copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was a huge BF2 maniac (and a wee bit of BF2142) and been missing a solid online FPS frag fest (no, Call of Duty is not one of them – solid Single Player, sure… but kiddies MP). Hopefully this game can finally cure it. Well the following video helped….

Check out the link for the super-awesome game trailer LOL

http://kotaku.com/5476999/yakuza-4-will-pick-up-a-scooter-and-smash-you-in-the-face

Happy Weekend!

I just read Ars Technica’s most wanted games for 2010 list, and although I’m generally not impressed (weird games, missing games), I found a little gem called APB.

But before that, let’s start with what I’m personally waiting for: Aliens Versus Predator. This is simply one of the easiest pick for me. Although I don’t buy alot of game (actually, very very selected few), I tried a lot of them. And, given enough time, I would love to try even more. But only a selected few I can call a “good game” and worthy of my dollars. AvP is one of them. I’ve been waiting for a good, solid, game for over a year now after I dropped LOTRO, and judging from its predecessor and previews, this is one game with a solid story, exciting gameplay, and intense multiplayer.

So, onto All Post Bulletin. After trying out a few different MMO (and wasted a good few hundred/thousand hours on them) in the past, I’m now looking into another one. Afterall, if I’m to summarize the kind of games I played, it’ll be mostly MMO and multiplayer-heavy FPS. The thing with MMO, since most of them comes with a monthly fee, the quality standard is even higher for me. LOTRO, for example, has excellent storyline and great gameplay and immersive world. Coupled with good community, it’s easy to rank it my #2 MMO of all time (#1 is old Star Wars Galaxy before the NGE).  Then comes Star Trek Online (lame actions), StarWars Old Republic (nice voice, crappy graphic?), and an onslaught of others (no, I won’t touch WoW). But nothing really hits the spot (I even spend over 6 months on Eve, and I had to let that one go too) that could push me over to pay a monthly bills.

Until I saw this trailer.

Here’s the link to the site and more videos/screens/info: APB.com

Guess it’s time to start saving…