Archive for November, 2008

Call of Duty: World at War

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2008 by mdjasrie

So having completed the single player campaign, going through the campaign again in multiplayer co-op, and surviving endless rounds of Nazi Zombie invasion with 2 of my other friends online, i must say that the latest installment of Call of Duty has lived up to its expectations as its predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

 

I had my doubts when Treyarch decided to go back to World War II theme in thier latest iteration of the Call of Duty franchise, but when it was released, those doubts were completely swept away. I enjoyed it immensely and every level of the campaign was filled with sheer fun and excitement. Every level is different and there is always something different to do. Whether you have to drive a tank, or shoot japanese planes down or even assassinate someone in the sniper level, every level was filled with adrenaline, fast, chaotic and heart pumping action. 

So after completing the single player campaign a special level was unlocked and that is the Nazi Zombie Invasion. 

This Nazi Zombies Invasion is an interesting concept added in to the COD:WAW, where you are in a room of an abandoned building and you have to stave off incoming Nazi Zombie who is out there to climb over the windows of the building and maul at you. Its a very creepy setting because there are many windows to cover and you have the ability to patch the windows with planks of wood to slow thier advance. The zombies comes in waves and your objective is to survive for as long as possible. Throughout the duration of the survival you accumulate points from killing those zombies in which you can spend on better weapons. For each level of survive, it gets harder and harder. Zombies are harder to kill, faster, and come in greater numbers, till you are overwhelmed.

I played with 2 other friends the other night and we had hours of fun. Just coming up with strategies, buying weapons and covering each other’s ass was so darn fun. We communicated through our bluetooth headset and soon you can hear each of us screaming commands or shouting in fear as the zombies crept up from behind you and overwhelming one of our teammates in the game. 

Overall this is great game to own and fans of the previous Call of Duty game should be rest assured that you will enjoy every last bit of the game. Forget about the World War II settings. Treyarch did something right this time, thanks to Modern Warfare.

Leave A Comment »

Beyonce music video parody with Justin Timberlake on SnL

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on November 23, 2008 by mdjasrie

You have to watch this. No words can describe the hilarity that ensues when you put Beyonce and Justin Timberlake on Saturday Night Live.

3 Comments »

Donate to Wikipedia.org

Posted in Uncategorized on November 23, 2008 by mdjasrie

Wikipedia needs 6 million to keep the community going in the next fiscal year . Do your part and go to wikipedia to donate. Any amount in any major currencies are accepted through pay pal or by any means you are comfortable with. I just donated SGD 2.00  and i already feel good about it. 

I like how wikipedia.org puts the website in this way:

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

 

— Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia 

The empowerment we have given through the advent of the internet has given us the people of the world free access to the world’s knowledge in the palm of your hands, on your fingertips. Finding information and knowledge has never been so fast, so easy, so accessible today. 

Ive used wikipedia on many occasions and it has definitely helped me in obtaining useful information and knowledge that has greatly benefited me. Now i feel that it my turn to play my part and contribute my tiny bit back to the community.

1 Comment »

Animatrix: Kid’s Story on youtube.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on November 23, 2008 by mdjasrie

Remember the post in which i mentioned about the disturbing short clip on Animatrix? Well i was kinda surprised that there the same video posted on youtube for your viewing pleasure. 

One of my favourite short clips and the most disturbing ive watched since recent memory.

Scroll below to watch the entire thing.

Leave A Comment »

Pushing Daisies gets the cut

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on November 23, 2008 by mdjasrie

The the news is out at last. After some speculation, ABC has decided not to order additional episodes to give Pushing Daisies the full second season run of the series. Instead, it has been confirmed that Pushing Daisies will get the cut and we will no longer all be able to enjoy watching the wonderful cast of characters and thier quirky story.

I love Pushing Daisies so much. Its charming and witty dialogue, coupled with an amazing cast of characters with superb chemistry, has garnered my attention so much, that it has become one of my favourite series to date. These kinda shows just bring smile to peoples faces and it really did to me. Its heartwarming, funny, witty, charming all at the same time. Its sad to see the end of Pushing Daisies just after 2 short seasons. 

I hope the show will be picked up again, perhaps by another studio. This series has so much potential, and the story about each and every character in the show has yet to even fully flesh out yet. Things are just getting exciting, after having watched episodes 5 and 6 of seasons 2. All good things indeed must come to an end someday.

Leave A Comment »

A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2008 by mdjasrie

Finally the mother of all Drizzt books has been published! The ultimate guide to all things Drizzt, based on the novels by R.A.Salvatore, covering every book that has ever been published about the legendary Forgotten Realms character, Drizzt Do’urden.

51fnaxldn4l_sl500_aa240_1

The book, entitled, A Reader’s Guide to R.A.Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt, encompasses all the background information of everything pertaining to Drizzt Do’urden and the novels. It covers the summaries of all books published, important characters appearing in the books, the locales, and its associated maps, detailed description of the people appearing in the books and other useful little tidbits of information in regards to Forgotten Realms. 

To be honest, i didnt see this book coming at all. It was only recently, making a trip to Kinokuniya, that i stumbled upon this gorgeous hardcover guide book sitting on the shelf. I was mesmerized and stunned when this thing was published. Upon browsing, i was captivated with all the beautiful artwork by Todd Lockwood and various other fantasy artists that helped breathe life to the characters and locales of Salvatores wonderfull creation. 

The novels, set in a series about the life of Drizzt Do’urden totalling more than 15 novels (and still counting) is one of the first series that i actually made the effort in reading every single on of them. The novels were that good to begin with, and was one of the books that had me started loving fantasy novels so much. Having picked up the first book in the series at my local library for some light reading, i was then on instantly hooked on it and went on to buy the rest of the books in the months that follow. Now i have all of them neatly lined up in my personal bookshelf, some hardcover rereleases of the older novels and some in trade paperback. But regardless, i loved the series so much that i actually made the effort to preserve them nicely. 

The series offer an interesting backdrop for a fantasy setting with deeply engaging characters with huge background information on them and soon after reading some of the books, you can become deeply attached to some of the main characters. So much so, that the story becomes one huge rollercoaster ride as they live out their unique adventures in every book written.

It has been a while since i returned to the series to read the more recently published books and the guide can truly refresh my mind quickly on what has happened so far. No doubt there will be characters that i might have forgotten or places that have lost familiarity within me. I might even have to go back to rereading some of the older titles so that i can keep up in pace with the recenly published ones. Regardless, it would be wonderful to revisit the world of Drizzt, that is the Forgotten Realms again and the Reader’s Guide will surely reignite the passion in reading the novels.

Leave A Comment »

Far Cry 2 and Littlebigplanet

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2008 by mdjasrie

So for the month of october, it was supposed to be a cash draining month for me. All the good games like Far Cry 2, Littlebigplanet, Eternal Sonata, Bioshock, and Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, were all supposed to be released in october.

And well you know, with all big releases, there are bound to have delays, shipping delays, setback, and stuff. So with that, the number of titles that i was able to buy have been severely narrowed down. So far i have bought Far Cry 2 for the PC and Littlebigplanet for the PS3.

So how was the game. FANTASTIC. Both games i bought, did not dissapoint and they really lived up to my expectations so far. All the time i was waiting for it to be released for the fall and holiday season is starting to pay off. It is a good start to string of AAA, blockbuster video games release for the holiday season 2008.

I havent finished playing the games yet. Both are epic in scale mind you and it will take some time before i can give my brief verdict on my experience with the game. But its so far looking good. 

I bought the Far Cry 2 for the PC, partly because i wanted to play the game so bad, and i couldnt wait for the PS3 version to hit Singapore’s shores. There were a few days delay when it comes to arrival, among the Xbox360, PC and PS3 version. Also considering the graphical nature of the game, which is drop dead gorgeous, i decided to buy it in the PC platform, considering i have a good enough rig to play it and i want to enjoy all the bells and whisltes of the game’s graphics.

 

How about Littlebigplanet? Apparently, there was a massive recall issued by Sony over the use of some potentially offensive soundtracks being used in the game. The recall caused a week delay over the official release date of the game and it affected worldwide. Not so in Singapore. In fact i was really happy that Comics Connection actually do sell the copies to the public. It seems that they were not returning the merchandise afterall. But it does comes at the price. I dunno if it is the retail price of the game or not, but i had to fork out 95bucks for the game itself. By far the most expensive i ever paid for a video game and on the PS3 platform. I bought on the day it was supposed to be officially released, 21 October. I played it and enjoyed thoroughly. Maybe the 95 bucks was worth it, considering you have a potential 1 week headstart than the US or Europe counterparts, affected by the recall. On the downside, while you can play the game, the server are not up yet and you cant connect online to the server and have you friends join you in the game for some co-op action. But a week has passed and it should be up anytime now.

I cant wait for user generated content to appear. I would love to see what the gaming community has created, since the game aggresively promotes social networking and user generated content in the title. This means that the game does come with a very powerful construction tool to create your own level and upload them for all the play. This sharing concept is what got me very excited. Im sure there will be many players will have lots of ideas, full of creativity to create a totally engaging and professional levels for all the download and play.

So for now, thats it for video games, i foresee the purchase of Eternal Sonata, Naruto, Guitar Hero World Tour and Mirror’s Edge being done in the next 2 weeks or so. Any updates will be up as soon as possible.

Leave A Comment »

The apple keyboard is soo slick, so cool, so flat!!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on November 22, 2008 by mdjasrie

Typing stuff using the apple keyboard is soo slick, so cool, so flat! Typing is such a breeze and it feels good and sounds quiet too. 

 

applealkeyboard

 

So my mum bough a mini mac which costed about a thousand bucks. Shes getting it because she is starting on a new work-at-home project that would earned her an extra income on a monthly basis once it has kicked off. But the work requires a mac computer so we got one for her, in the hopes that the investment would make good returns in the long run. 

So just yesterday i had to buy the apple keyboard, since it doesnt comes with it and it requires the keyboard to work efficiently. I tried on my computer first and connected to my own pc just to have a feel of the keyboard. And boy it is heaven on the fingers!!

A couple months back, i told myself that the apple keyboard feels so good on the fingers. I nearly got one for myself back then. It costed about 78 bucks and i thought long and hard before forgoing the purchase to the end. I thought to myself, well it must be an impulse buy, and since i dont spend too much time on my pc typing stuff all day, it must simply be a vanity to own one. 

But now, im so getting it tomorrow. Its sooo flat and it feels soo good that it inspired me to write something, anything just to feel good using the new keyboard (although technically, its not mine) that i decided to give this blog a small update, after several weeks of inactivity. 

So here i am, typing away, letting my fingers feeling orgasmic!!

2 Comments »