Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

I have been playing Sacred 2: Fallen Angel on the 360 for the past 2+ weeks. The game is a port of the PC version from last year.

What can I say? It's a like Diablo. And we all know what such games can do to me. This one is actually pretty WoW'ish with its open-world concept, littered with towns and quest-giving NPCs. I have clocked over 50 hours already. Grinding and boss hunting is just so addictive.

The console version appears to be a lot more popular than the PC version! It makes me wonder if it will do to consoles what Monster Hunter did to the PSP. haha.

Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy

I went for the Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert yesterday. This was the first concert I've ever attended and also my first time going to the Esplanade. Sitting from high above in the 3rd storey, I could see both a Cloud and Tifa cosplayer in the crowd below. I also spotted my friend, Duelist & Mutouren sitting below.

It was quite enjoyable, though regretfully, I only knew like 3-4 of the songs so I could not really relate to the rest in their lineup. haha. I found it nice that they played Eyes on Me (not in the original list) and gave us 2 encores (FFVI: Terra's Theme and One-Winged Angel).

The highlight to me was FFVI: Opera House (Maria & Draco) because that was one of the more memorable moments of the game. Now I got to experience it fully vocalized as opposed to the blips and boops that passed off as lyrics on the SNES.

This event definitely made me look forward to the upcoming Video Games Live in June.

http://www.vgl-sea.com/

It's definitely a good year for video game fans in Singapore.

Beam Me Up, Scotty!

Rhyfe dropped by at my place on Saturday. As we jammed on Rock Band, I noticed he was looking down at my Sonic Array soundbar every few minutes. He remarked that he couldn't hear the bass.

It was then that I pointed at the unopened box containing the sub-woofer at the foot of my bed... and wondered why the heck didn't I hook it up to test it since the day I bought it.

I paused the game before the next song and set it up. The difference was immediately noticeable. I was amazewd by the newfound awesomeness of my Sonic Array. There was more a lot more oomph to the music. That was more like it.

Halfway into the day, I received a phonecall from FunZ saying that my broken drum kit has been replaced. Finally! It took them over 5 weeks!

At night, we cabbed to AMK Hub where I was meeting up with YongHao and friends to watch Star Trek. I never did follow the TV series so I had no idea what it was about. The only thing the show was famous for (to me) was the pointy-eared alien known as Mr Spock and the infamous "Beam me up, Scotty" line. haha. The movie was great. It's a prequel of sorts and introduces the characters very nicely. Definitely one of the better movies I've watched this year.

After that, I dropped by at FunZ to collect my drum kit and eagerly cabbed home to try it out. It worked fine but still sucked. haha.

I played games through the night and went to bed at 5 am. I have noticed that this has become a very unhealthy habit of mine; going to sleep at 5-6 am on weekends. Maybe I am rebelling against the notion of sleeping early cos' sleeping early always symbolized that there was work the next day.

I ended up waking up on Sunday at 1 pm with a massive headache. I was planning to just stay home for the day to rest and play games. Just when I was deciding which pizza to order for dinner, YongHao gave me a call and asked me out for dinner at Tampines One. I went there to met him along with Brainy, Akira, Darius.

We walked around a bit before settling down at the restaurant named SayCheese (or something). Food was pretty meh. The chicken I had only me crave for Kenny Rogers'.

And that was the end of the week. I started feeling annoyed that there was work on Monday. There should be off-in-lieue or something for Vesak Day which fell on Saturday. Work sucks.

Saturday at GameScore

I was annoyed at having to go to work on Saturday so I stayed up late the night before.

On Thursday, I still remembered trying to drop hints to my boss to see if I could skip this Saturday. "Tomorrow is Labour Day," I told her, putting on a hopeful smile, "But I'll be here on Saturday." "Okay, good," came the blunt reply.

Ah, well. At least I tried. When I got to work, the office was even more desserted than usual. It was just me, the clerical staff and one guy. Due to the lack of sleep, I was a zombie.

After work, I went to Funan Centre for lunch. I met up with Duelist, Addict and Justin and we went to GameScore. The couple who owned the store were getting married that morning so they were having a storewide 20% discount for the weekend. I actually found it a bit alarming that they came back to open the store straightaway after their wedding. I would have congratulated them but I didn't know them at all. I was just some random guy who was here for the sales. :(

The store was packed. I actually had three things that I really wanted to buy but I was extremely disappointed that they were tagged with a yellow label meaning 'no discount'. Come to think of it, practically all the 'good stuff' had yellow tags.

I didn't want to go home empty handed so I thought hard before picking up one of the items I wanted before going home. The shopping took a whole lot longer than I thought and I ended up reaching home at 7 pm.

Labour Day Movie Meet

Hooray for Labour Day and yet another long weekend!

I went to Plaza Singapura with Mog, Yonghao and Akira at Plaza Singapura to watch X-Men Origins Wolverine. Somehow, the movie was very, very popular. When I was doing online booking, I noticed that there were 30 time slots that day alone and most of them were filling up fast. I guess because it's Wolverine. haha.

Before the movie started, I dropped by at the arcade to try the new KOF XII. Best 2D sprite art I've ever seen. Somehow, the arcade game feels like a public beta. It just feels like it's very incomplete (no final boss? no endings?). It's still fun and I'm definitely looking forwad to the home release to experience the 'full' game.

We went to Swensen's for dinner. I realized that I haven't had a restaurant dinner in quite a while. The food was okay (there were new items on the menu) but nothing could beat the Mega Burger that YongHao ordered.

Movie: X-Men Wolverine Origins

Caught the movie on Labour Day!

The movie was extremely light on plot and heavy on fight scenes. Every time Logan travels to a new location, he gets into yet another brawl. There were a lot of cameos from other mutants but I was a bit disappointed that their roles were very minor (well, the show is all about Wolverine after all).

One of the things I was most looking forward to (as a comic book fan) was watching Deadpool aka Wade Wilson on the big screen.


When he is not killing people, Deadpool loves some StreetFighter, too!

Despite not being in-costume, the "Merc with a Mouth" lived up (a little) to his name by spouting tons of witty quips and showing some cool swordplay. But his screen time was very much short-lived...

*SPOILERS*

I can't believe that abomination at the end is the Deadpool that comic book fans love. He can't talk. He has everyone's powers. And he is controlled by keyboard inputs (?!).

But then again, there is a secret Deadpool ending after the credits (though it was not shown in the cinemas when I watched it). It shows him alive despite being decapitated. Maybe Marvel is planning for a Deadpool spinoff movie.

*END SPOILERS*

The movie is pretty average but still pretty enjoyable.