Need to go Fast

This starts with a reminder for readers-cum-players. Please note that, do not take this kind of driving to your neighborhoods and streets as real cars never comes with a "save and load" button.

Electronics Arts(EA)

As usual, the official publisher for Need For Speed(NFS) series is Electronic Arts(EA) and the studio that is responsible for the series is EA Black Box. As shown above, that is the new Heroes TV series-lookalike logo.

Black Box (EA)

The NFS series was originally developed by Distinctive Software. The company's name was then changed to Electronics Arts(EA) Canada, as the bigger EA bought them over due to their popular racing games Stunts and Test Drive II:The Duel. EA Canada continued developing the NFS series up to 2002, when another Vancouver-based gaming company, named Black Box, and was contracted to continue the series with the title NFS:Hot Pursuit 2. This was the game that changes the racing game genre. Other than Gran Turismo, NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 was addictive, enjoying, fresh, good looking and beautifully done. Who could have forgotten it's versus mode, the maps, the short cuts, the cars and the awesome soundtracks- Fever For the Flava. It just never gets boring, and this was the games that nobody missed. After that, it NFS series goes on-Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon and Pro Street.

Need For Speed: Undercover

Here comes 2008, the latest installment for the NFS series is Need For Speed: Undercover. The main menu interface is simple and easy; just a click , and there aren't any option to choose the difficulty level for the game.

Main menu

The intro cuts scenes started off like a Hollywood-action-style movie; the studio that developed it, the producer, the cast.

Intro cut scene 1

and here it is the cast; Maggie Q. Do we play as her? Is she driving? It would be cool if we can control her. Yea rite..!! by the way she the hot-young-lady from Die Hard 4, Mission Impossible 3, and Balls of Fury.

Intro cut scene 2: Maggie Q as player?

Continue with the Hollywood-action-style intro. There are helicopters, flying into the city, which in one awesome scenery. The intro theme is actually good, and worth mentioning as it helps to build up the intense feeling in a player; cant wait to start.

Intro cut scene 3

Then it comes to car chase which is of course the main theme of the game ; cars, race, police. These scenes remind us of a scene from Bad Boys 2 the movie by Micheal Bay, or Bourne Supremacy. Again, the intro theme does well by uplifting the mood.

Intro cut scene 4

As the camera focus on the car that is speeding away from the police, players can start to control the car. How exciting can this be.

Intro cut scene 5

Other than those computer generated cut scenes. There are also "other type" of cuts scenes, which is a real life acting; like watching a TV series. Another game that using this style is the Red Alert game. Here are a few screen shots from the NFS: Undercover.

Cut scene 1: Maggi Q and Somebody

Cut scene 2: Maggi Q (zoom in x 2)

Cut scene 3: Maggi Q (zoom in x 4)

Cut scene 5: Some guys

For the game play, the game modes consist of;link

Circuit

The player and 3 opponents race around a certain route through several laps.

Sprint

The player starts at a certain area and races opponents to the finishing point which can be anywhere in the city. A path to follow is highlighted on the GPS map.

Highway Battle

The player races against another on a long stretch of highway with varying traffic and police activity. To win, a player must stay ahead of the opponent for an amount of time and/or lead by 1000 feet/300 metres.

Cost to State

This mode has players causing damage by racing through the city and knocking over lamp posts, signs, barricades, activating pursuit breakers and even disabling pedestrian vehicles and pursuit vehicles to add to the cost to the state in damage and then elude any pursuing police to win before the timer runs out.

Escape

Lose the police through either disabling them or evading them as the clock ticks down.

Checkpoint

The player must race the clock, being awarded more time for each checkpoint passed.

Mission

There are many missions that become available during the course of the game. They typically require the player to return a stolen car to a garage without filling the damage meter. There are also missions were you must race other drivers, or protect drivers from other cars attempting to disable them. In some missions you must ram specific drivers until they are disabled.

Cops 'n' Robbers (PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii only)

An online mode. For the Wii version, it is an offline mode as part of its "Party Play" mode. The player is either a cop, trying to stop the robbers from getting a package and dropping it off at a drop point, or a robber, trying to avoid the cops while getting and dropping off the package at the drop point.

The Heist (PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii only)

An online mode. For the Wii version, it is an offline mode as part of its "Party Play" mode.

Criminal Scramble (Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable only)

Players are the cops and chase criminals.

Chasedown

Players are the cops as they tear down Tri-City's highways and chase down and bust criminals.

Cut scene 6

The police in NFS:Undercover are brutals, aggressive, physchotic-NISSAN-GTRs and they can perform PIT maneuvers (a method by which one car pursuing another can force the pursued vehicle to abruptly turn sideways to the direction of travel, causing the driver to lose control and stop.)

Cut scene 7

In this game, it features a GPS system when player can view the map of the city ; called Tri-City, and consists of four boroughs called Palm Harbor, Port Cresent, Gold Coast Mountains, and Sunset Hills. Drivers can also teleport to any designated shops or event anytime and anywhere.

GPS system (map)

For NFS: Undercover, it come with a plot where "spoiler" and "spoiler, in the end "spoiler". The storyline is rather interesting player will be assigned with plenty of task, Ala Grand Theft Auto. By following the main story line, players will have the opportunity to drive various types of cars; again, various types of extremely FAST and unaffordable(in real life) cars.

The game is fairly easy, and sort of addictive. Well it is definitely easier then Gran Turismo and GRID. The soundtracks are fresh, not punk, not classical, not easy listening, not trance, not boring,not pop, a bit of rock, not sure which category it is, but they are surprisingly good. The developer has definitely tried their best to make it as comparable as the big hit NFS: Hot Pursuit 2, nevertheless Undercover is not a failure and perhaps, it has it's own specialty with new range of cars; extremely very fast cars, crazy police driving Porsche banging from behind and....(you name it).

Need For Speed: Undercover

Back to WAR....!! PART 1

Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare

Not long ago, gamers from the worldwide were being infected by a pandemic First Person Shooter (FPS) disease called Call of Duty 4 (CoD4):Modern Warfare. This disease has manage to overpower a deadly addicted FPS virus called CounterStrike# . Before CoD4, there were CoD, CoD2 and CoD3, they were just an OK-FPS game, not much to talk about. The fourth installment was a one hit wonders, everything seems to be nearly perfect;

"the game play, the graphics and visuals, the environment, the music (ohh...the soundtracks were the bomb..the icing on the cake), the intense online-multiplayer mode, the AIs, the cutscenes, the mind blowing story, the Captain Macmillan, the voiceovers and dialogues and....(you name it)."

Activision

Gamers started to concentrate in CoD4, as it is one of the major game in Game Competitions around. Thanks to the studio and those people involve in making this game happened, Infinity Ward of Activision.

Call of Duty 5 : World At War

And within these 2 years, while CoD4 is still a baby and booming into a serious attention, a new installment of CoDs is being introduced; Call of Duty 5 (CoD5): World at War. There are a few changes were being made, such as the theme for the latest installment is during the World War II (WWII) era, the battles between two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.

Treyarch

The studio that is responsible for CoD5 is Treyarch, who is also the studio who introduced us to CoD2:Big Red One (2005) and CoD3 (2006). The game publisher, Activision acquired both Infinity Ward and Treyarch for the development of the CoD franchise.

Main menu

The game starts with a brief cutscene of WWII, where an introduction with a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations including all of the great powers, which are the Alliances and Axis. The presentation for the introduction was neatly done, a mixture between real video from the WWII and computer generated graphics. The intro has certainly got the adrenalin-pumping feeling.

Cutscene screenshot 1

Cutscene screenshot 2

Cutscene screenshot 2

The first mission is "Semper Fi", where it started with an Ojisan (grandpa/uncle in Japanese) interrogating the player, with an unpleasant background: watching your teamate got beaten up, branded by a cigarette at his eyes and....."viewer discretion advice" you should check for yourself.

First mission : "Semper Fi"

For the graphics, there is not much improvement compare to the CoD4 as Treyarch were using the same game engine as Infinity Ward for CoD4. However, Treyarch did a really good job in visuals and graphics. They did put more focus on the game play in the World at War (CoD5). As expected the missions are still as intense as ever, to that extend, there is a stage where player would only control an armor tank for the whole mission, well that is fresh and a point to be highlighted.

In game screenshot

One of the main highlights is the Cooperative Mission (Co-op) mode, where gamers can link up with friends to complete a mission. The max player for the Co-op mode is not 2..or 3 players; the mode can go up to max of players for those missions, which is something awesome for lan party. In the Co-op mode, players would have to revive an injure teammate; the game will restart to the latest checkpoint once everyone is dead. There will also be a scoreboard to keep those killing records, as well as who died the most. There a suggestion to change to the "insane" difficulty if players would want to enjoy the max excitement, trust me, it is WICKED!!

Call of Duty 5 : World At War

This is still the early part for the review as 2nd part will be coming shortly, more talks on weapons, more on Co-op mode, game plays, and after game thoughts. As conclusion for this part 1 review, there is an interesting caption at the credits (as shown as below).

Ending credits

to be continue......

Fun with Bamboo

Wacom's Bamboo Fun

The Bamboo line is Wacom's first tablet aimed at general input tasks rather than specifically targeting graphics users, and priced to appeal to home users. It is similar in specifications to the most recent Graphire4 tablets. This is the Bamboo Fun -White (small edition), where it comes with a reasonable price. The quality of the packaging is certainly a worth to admire with, as all of item are well covered with foams to avoid scratches. The package comes with :

• Bamboo Fun pen tablet
• Bamboo Fun mouse
• Bamboo Fun pen
• Pen stand
• USB cable
• Quick start guide
• Installation CD (includes tablet driver and electronic user manual)
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Win/4.0 Mac
• Corel Painter Essentials 3.0
• Package of 3 replacement pen nibs

The manual consist of few different languages as; English, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin , as this package is for Asian region.

The Bamboo

The tablet has a glossy finished, which make it look and feels good. The glossy surface also has an advantages where users will not leave their thumbprint marks on it.

The wireless pen(stylus) creates miracle in digital painting and illustrations, as it the best replacement for traditional tools: pencil, charcoal, paintbrush. As an addition, Wacom includes a wireless mouse which is rather fancy and it is battery-free. Like the stylus, the mouse only works on the tablet itself, or in layman term, use the tablet like a mousepad.

The Bamboo with tools

Those 4 buttons can be used for windows application functions(jump to desktop, back, forward..etc) and the touch pad surface can be use for scrolling(very useful) or zooming(i do not see any use for it). Lets no forget the blue bling-bling, which make it even more attractive.

There are 2 disc that come together in the package. The first is the driver for the tablet, which is fairly easy to be installed. By installing the driver, users will be able to configure the functions of those buttons on it: 4 buttons and a touch pad surface. The second disc consist of Corel Painter which an application for dgital painting and illustrations, and Ulead photo editing application.

2 discs: drivers and applications(corel painter/Ulead)

There are few artworks that were done using Bamboo Fun

Fairy


Mewo (eyes)


Village

Conclusions

Wacom has certainly bring the "F" back in Bamboo Fun. The difficulty in using the pen tablet is level 1, users just need to get used to it by, sketching it: hands on the tablet , eyes on the LCD. This product is great for beginners and for those who are finding for an affordable pen tablet.

The Bamboo "F"un

First Gear!

Face mask , Helmet and .......AK-47....!!

Berreta PT 92 AF

Berreta PT 92 AF

Berreta PT 92 AF