I have only one sentence for my intro today: DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT X08 THIS WEEKEND STARTING TODAY!!!

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Table of Contents

1. Fable II — Best console RPG ever!
2. Little Big Planet is a lot of laughs
3. Monopoly for the Xbox 360
4. Dead Space will freak you out
5. Portal: Still Alive? Yes, thanks very much
6. Results of last week’s contest
7. Win a copy of FIFA09 for the Xbox 360!

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Fable II — Best console RPG ever!

You would think everyone must already be thoroughly sick of reading about Fable II because info has been so freely available for the past couple of months. Yet, I get requests even now for a review! So, here’s one (keeping in mind I only played for two hours).

If you’re lazy and don’t want to read on, I’ll give you the verdict right now: Buy the game, then take leave from work for at least a week.

You could spend a zillion hours in this game. And then a zillion more. If you’re crazy. Like the Goonfather.

Decisions at every turn

Within the first half-hour of the game, you’d already be forced to make several decisions that you know will change the course of history. You just don’t know how, yet.

Example #1: You’re asked to kill beetles that are terrorizing some sappy bloke’s warehouse, in return for one gold piece. Just as you’re about to kill ‘em, this shady person comes along and tries to bribe you into leaving the beetles alone and smashing up the wares in the house, instead. The bribe is also worth a gold piece. What a dilemma, eh? Do you want to go trigger happy on innocent cutesy beetles, or do you want to play smash up the house, instead?

Example #2: A lovelorn stranger asks if you would deliver a letter to his bonny love, whom he is forbidden to see (by her shrewish mother). When you enter the house, you’re given the choice to either be a tattertale and hand the letter to the mother, or sneak upstairs and give it to the daughter.

Example #3: You come across a chicken. You can kick it or let it be. (I think if you keep kicking chickens in your town, you’ll earn some crazy Chicken Nazi title and become feared by all manner of fowl.)

There are more scenarios that will cause more permanent consequences to the world, but I’ll let you find out about those yourself!

The best part is that not all situations have clear black or white answers and you just don’t know whether you’re doing a good thing or bad thing by choosing either side.

Free to explore and do stuff

There is one main mission in the game (which I won’t say what because the fun is in finding out). While pursuing the main mission, you’re fulfilling sub missions. Outside of that, there are also random quests you could pick up. Or you could ignore all quests and spend an eternity working (to earn gold), womanizing and, literally, whatever!

You can always jump back into the main story to further the plot by following the glowing trail.

In fact, the game takes great pains to encourage you to deviate from the trail. Awfully nice of it. Otherwise, you could be missing out on all the wonderful hours of random fun!

For example, you could find treasure chests and random cool stuff when you take scenic detours!

Because there’s so much flexibility in Fable II, you could just focus on bits that you like and ignore stuff that you don’t, and still enjoy the game. It’s like there’s something for every kind of gamer!

An emotional journey

Fable creator Peter Molyneux promised that the Fable II story will mess with your emotions (although not in those exact words). It’s no empty promise. With the clever use of animation and dialogue to enhance an engaging storyline, you could get really immersed in the world and feel an attachment to the characters. The joy and sadness that you feel could be real if you let it.

I encourage you to listen to all the dialogue instead of skipping it or walking away (you can do that) because they really make the gameplay more fulfilling. You could also ignore my advice and just bullet train your way on the glowing trail and probably finish the game in 12 hours but why would you want to do that?

Flexible combat system

The Fable II combat system allows you to create a very unique Hero in terms of abilities, which are broken down into Strength (melee), Skill (range) and Will (magic). You could choose to be master of one or Jack of all. (You get more points in each ability by just using it more.)

The three main abilities are further broken down into different ability types which you could pump points into to train up. Here’s a video of the stuff you can train in Fable II.

Check out the one where you can Force Push like a Jedi! OMG!

I love the way experience points are dropped by mobs as little balls of light. When you press the right trigger, the balls will be swept up in a whoosh and sucked into your Hero. I could never get tired of seeing that. (Reminds me Ryu Hayabusa in Ninja Gaiden II sucking up enemy essences.)

Abundance of humour

The writers have tossed a lot of humour and wit into Fable II. Just makes you laugh!

At one point in the game, you enter a town as a hero and a bard will tell you he’s writing a song about you, but only has one line so far. Therefore, he will follow you around to get inspiration for the rest of his song.

And so he does! While at times irritating, he’s also very funny as he pads along with you, engrossed in his monologues and occasionally belting out a cringe-worthy line.

Objects can be funny, too. Check out these hilarious warrants for arrest:

And this funny loading screen tip:

Addicted to making swords

In Fable II, you earn gold in a multitude of ways, including doing quests, working, investing and being a pain in the neck (robbing, stealing, plundering and pillaging).

The work system is pretty innovative. The first job you get is blacksmithing and you start off by pounding on swords for 4 gold each. You could make swords as long as you want, or as long as your eyeballs haven’t popped out their sockets from intense concentration.

Press a button when the ball rolls into the green patch, which is growing smaller by the nanasecond, to get a successful hit.

Pounding on that stupid metal is actually addictive because you can score multiplier bonuses.

Nailing a hit four times without a miss yields a perfect sword. Each perfect sword adds 1 to your multiplier. The higher your multiplier, the more gold each subsequent sword will earn you. As long as you don’t miss, your swords are worth more with each one made.

If you’re on a roll and raking in the multipliers, you never want to stop making swords.

Of course, you don’t have to work a day of your life if you don’t want to. You could just as easily earn money by being a crook! ;)

Graphics and animation

I’m confused about the graphics. I don’t know whether I like it or not. The cutscene animations are beautiful, for sure.

And I suppose the gameplay graphics aren’t really bad. The drawings are creative and the colours rich. I just don’t like the somewhat blocky avatars. They look a little funny and feel sluggish when walking or running.

But don’t judge the graphics from my crappy screenshots here, which I snapped right off my TV. :P

Your loyal companion

I love my dog! There’s a lovely story about your meeting, but I won’t spoil it for you.

Your dog has one main objective in life and that is to get you to explore the world and stop being a bore, fixated on following the glowing golden trail.

It will bark when it finds a treasure chest in some isolated corner of the zone and try to tempt you off the trail. “Woof!” it will say, “I found us some treeeeaaasuuuuure!” Then you’ll have no choice but to get off your trail because nobody can resist an unopened treasure chest.

Sometimes, it will also find something buried in the ground that you’ll have to dig up.

There was one time my dog found me a treasure chest and then blocked my way so I couldn’t get to it.

As you can see, it’s in a narrow space and there are crates and barrels blocking the sides. I couldn’t walk in to access the chest.

I tried everything to get the dog to shoo but it refused to budge. Finally, I tried smashing up the barrels and that worked!

These little surprises value-add the game significantly, I think.

Two-player co-op

When your Xbox LIVE friends are in the same zone as you are, you will see them as glowing orbs. You have the choice to ignore them totally or connect with them.

I received a connection request from one of my friends at one point and this screen popped out:

I accepted the request and my friend ported into my world. That was quite fun, killing stuff together, but it was not fun that I couldn’t find my headset (because my room is too messy) so we couldn’t communicate via voice chat.

Tip: Keep your headset charged and handy at all times.

Final word

Well, what do you know, I never meant to say so much about the game, but it’s such a HUGE game that you could talk too much about it and then still realise that you haven’t even covered half of it… even though you’ve only played it for two hours.

I haven’t even talked about the socialising aspect of the game, which is the Goonfather’s favourite past-time. He’s literally spent hours chatting up women and trying to make them all love him to the max. I don’t know what he does with them after that. To be honest, I don’t care to know.

Assuming that you actually have time to play it, Fable II is a must-have! Well, what the heck, even if you don’t have time to play it, make time!

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Little Big Planet is a lot of laughs

This is a super cute game I’m sure many girls (and guys, too) will like! It’s a platformer which you can (and should) co-op with your friends (up to four players) to get through stages. You can sabo each other, too, which is really funny, but that will just delay your progress.

But Little Big Planet doesn’t really have an end to strive for. The fun of the game is in interacting with the elements, playing around with your avatar, decorating your stage with stickers and, later, creating levels which you can share with the PS3 community.

Here’s a video of my friends playing the game.

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Monopoly for the Xbox 360

I LOVE THIS GAME!!

Monopoly gave me 16 Xbox LIVE achievements, which translates to 330 whopping Gamerscore points within an hour!

Okay, apart from that, Monopoly was a good companion to me during my childhood years. Once, when we were young and bored with life, my cousin and I devised a version called Quadruple Monopoly.

We combined four different sets of Monopoly (yes, we actually owned four different versions of the board game) and played all four boards concurrently by jumping from board to board via Chance cards. After half a day, we were still nowhere near completing the game.

It was fun, though.

Anyhoo, the Xbox 360 Monopoly is a hoot. I love the animations. The little tokens will hop in a cute manner when travelling across the board and the little Monopoly man will run along with them while making encouraging comments.

Watch the video!

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Dead Space will freak you out

I wasn’t going to mention this game because I didn’t get a copy, but Naive Guy sent me this e-mail yesterday:

Hey Girl,

Just giving you a heads up on this game. Its out for both Xbox 360 and PS3 and it’s a very good game. It’s a Sci-Fi horror survivor kind of game. The enviornment of the game is great and the first 10 minutes of teh game will give you a heart attack.

You should check it out or even let teh Goonfather play with it a bit. Even better, play it at night with teh audio turned up loud and you will understand why this game is so freakily frightening.

Well, it’s not that I don’t want to play this game. I’ve wanted it since I knew about it like half a year ago. But I don’t have the freaking time to play so many games. *sob*

So, to make myself happy, I’ll just post a screenshot and read Naive Guy’s review.

Dead Space is a very highly rated game, so I think everyone should try it out and scare yourself nuts!

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Portal: Still Alive? Yes, thanks very much

Wow, I must be so lucky! I received a review submission from a reader who named himself “a loyal fan and supporter of GGF”.

Everyone go “awwwwwwwww” now. Isn’t that sweet? I read his review and I think it’s pretty good. It makes me want to play the game!! So, let’s see what he has to say!

Portal: Still Alive
An Xbox LIVE Arcade Game

Review by a loyal fan and supporter of GGF

I read rave reviews of Portal back in 2007 when it came packaged with The Orange Box, but never actually played it. (Sigh, what to do, my home PC is only for surfing and office work, so the graphics card can’t even support Half-Life 2).

I know The Orange Box was released on the Xbox 360 as well, but, hey, I can’t buy every game I want, right? I only count money, I don’t print it. So, I was most interested to discover that Portal has just been released for download on Xbox LIVE Marketplace as an Arcade title.

So, it was with great anticipation that I downloaded the trial version onto my Xbox 360 (tentatively named Archimedes, as inspired by Sheylara’s Aristotle).

Upon loading the game, the first thing I noticed was the familiar FPS feel of Half-Life. Another HL mod like Counterstrike, I initially thought. But Portal is no shooter, although you DO eventually acquire a Portal Gun which lets you create portals anywhere in your environment.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. A little background first.

The premise of Portal is deceptively plain. For reasons unknown, you’re a test subject for a company named Aperture Science. (Sure, that works for me.)

Well, who’s THAT chick? was my second thought.

Upon further investigation, that other person in the room was actually ME. Don’t ask, just play the game and you’ll know what I mean.

Your task is to solve puzzles, which basically involves using portals to find ways out of the room. Success will lead you to another room with another puzzle. Its not unreasonable to think this will lead to your eventual release.

Here’s where the Portal Gun comes in. After a couple of tutorial rooms where portals are opened for you by the AI at specific intervals, you’re presented with your own means of creating portals, that is, the gun.

There are two types of portals you can create, Blue and Orange. You can create these portals ANYWHERE. I mean walls, ceilings and floors. There are also objects you can pick up to help you out.

I haven’t gone deep enough into the game to understand the difference between the two portals but, from what I’ve seen, it’s in your best interest to grasp the concepts presented as soon as possible. If not, you’d just be this shmuck creating portals and going through them for absolutely no reason other than to pass time.

If you enjoy puzzle games like Braid, I think you will no doubt find an enjoyable challenge in Portal. I know I can’t wait to get further into it.

One thing to note, though. This is a single player experience (like Braid). Help is few and far between. You are occasionally guided by this AI voice but subtitles would be appreciated. It’s kinda tough listening to the AI when your wife and kids are clamoring for attention in the same room.

Portal: Still Alive differs from the PC release in that there are new bonus puzzles. And don’t forget those sweet, sweet achievements! But if you already have The Orange Box, I don’t think you should shell out the cash just for these extras. Unless, of course, you’re a Gamerscore junkie.

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Results of last week’s contest

Morte and SpiritAngelo won exclusive invites to the exclusive launch ceremony of X08, happening this afternoon!! Congratulations, guys, and thank you for your interest in X08. I WILL SEE YOU THERE SOON! :)

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Win a copy of FIFA09 for the Xbox 360!

Sports games fans rejoice! I am giving away a copy of FIFA09 for the Xbox 360 this week!

Become a first-team coach with the power to tune and balance 140 attacking and 40 defending options!

Enjoy more responsive first-time shooting, passing and one-touches, plus more controlled dribbling!

Receive weekly player form updates based on real-world data through the Adidas Live Season service!

Play as your favourite superstar or create a player of your own and master a single position during a four-year campaign!

Okay, I kind of cheated because I copied those lines off the box. Haha.

And now…

HOW TO WIN THIS GAME!!!

To be eligible, you must be on my friends list on Xbox LIVE (on either of my two Gamertags).

To win, you must do two things:

1. Send me an Xbox LIVE message quoting the password “DENTAL FLOSS” and also mention what name you’re using to post comments here.
2. Post a message here explaining what you would do if you were stuck on a deserted island with only a soccer ball and a packet of dental floss.

Funniest and most creative response will win (providing you fulfill the other requirements)!

In case of similar ideas, the earlier post will take precedence.

Deadline is Oct 30, 2008, 1800 hours.

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ALRIGHT! I’M OFF TO X08 NOW! SEE YOU AT MARINA SQUARE ATRIUM TODAY, TOMORROW AND SUNDAY!!!

Whenever I flip open a magazine or newspaper, knowing I will find a write-up about me inside, it is always with a lot of trepidation.

I fear to find myself quoted out of context or, worse, misquoted totally. I fear to see ugly photos of me. I fear to see that I’ve been stashed in a dingy corner of a publication between an ad selling used carpets and another selling egg-beaters.

My interview in today’s Digital Life isn’t too bad. It only has a photo that makes me look like a gerbil with spastic limbs.

I hope people won’t look at it too much. I hope they’ll be distracted by all the other colourful, screaming pictures of games and cartoon fonts and Lara Croft’s assets in the 16-page X08 supplement.

If not, I will kick their butts.

Well, anyway, what’s done is done. See you at X08!

Filming in KL — Day 3
Oct 8, 2008

Today was like the climax of our trip, with all the heavy-duty scenes scheduled. Most of them I can’t talk about (or show pictures of) because they’re spoilers.

But I’ll talk about our bitch fight scene.

Maria and I had a fight scene in this dirty alley.

It was quite awesome. We did it so realistically that one Indian auntie actually ran up to us to try to break up our fight in the middle of a take.

Kan was really proud of us afterwards. He said, “That auntie paid you the highest compliment actors can receive.”

Here’s a before-fight photo of me:

Here’s an after-fight photo of me (my hair should be messier but then my hair could never get messed up naturally):

Close-up:

This is a real scratch I acquired during the fight. Not makeup.

But it wasn’t really bad. It has healed since.

The more jialat one is my middle finger.

Two weeks later, now, it still hurts when I touch it or flex my finger.

I heal slow. That’s why my favourite X-Men character is Wolverine. I really envy him. Plus Hugh Jackman is…

One word: Swoon.

I cannot resist men with long floppy hair!

I also collected about 15 or more scars and bruises, as well as lost a substantial bunch of hair, but I’d better not scare you with a montage of gory photos like one of those Chinese medicine roadshow posters.

Here’s just a mild example (photo of my right forearm, taken three days after the fight scene):

Anyway, that was quite fun. The fight scene, that is.

We went back to the rubbish dump later in the day. The rubbish pile had increased considerably after just one day.

For comparison, this was taken on Oct 7:

Oct 8 (from roughly the same angle):

It wasn’t drizzling today, so the smell was stronger than the day before and there were more flies and rats around (yech).

Nevertheless, cast and crew (which consisted of only five people) doggedly pressed on.

At the end of the day, we rewarded ourselves with bananas for dinner.

You know how eateries in Malaysia have plates of bananas sitting around for the taking?

Okay we didn’t really have bananas for dinner. We just ate some while waiting for our real food to arrive.

DEAN ATE FIVE BANANAS. DON’T ASK ME HOW.

He said, “I love bananas.”

He’s such a weird person!

I will do a separate post on food in KL another day!

While the world fluttered about in economic frenzy, I was busy lazing about at a beach resort in Penang.

We frolicked in the sand and jet skied.

We soaked in the peace and tranquility of our environment even as we put ourselves at increased risk of skin cancer.

Nearby, someone’s pet dog found the courage to pursue its dreams of being an ostrich.

We all had to put in a huge load of effort to enjoy ourselves while the world around us suffered its financial crisis.

Continue reading…

I have two minutes to blog today, so here’s another archived entry. It’s quite interesting (for myself) to read my old writings and laugh at my state of mind back then.

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The following post first appeared on Sheylara.com on Mar 25, 2004.

I need bigger boobs

I am quite happy today, disregarding the fact that my boobs are not performing to standard, but, you see, my happiness has something to do with boobs. In a way.

If you’re not a hermit, which I assume by brilliant Sherlock-ly deduction that you’re not, based on the fact that you’re reading my blog, then you would have noticed that cosmetic surgery is on the rise.

More and more beauty salons are springing up and bombarding us with sleazy ads on MRT trains of models with their assets spilling out onto your lap. Magazines and newspapers revisit the subject of cosmetic surgery every month. More women are admitting to having “done it”. More cosmetic surgeons are buying mansions and Porshes.

All that, in itself, is unremarkable. What’s remarkable is that fewer and fewer people are viewing the act as taboo or shameless or [insert bad adjective yourself because I'm too lazy to think another one up].

In the first place, what is so wrong with cosmetic surgery? Let us examine the classic arguments against it:

1. You should be happy with what God gave you.
2. Beauty comes from within.
3. Men should always keep the toilet seat down.

I’ve always wanted to tell the people who spout these gems to shove it up their nostrils. Now I can.

Shove it up your nostrils because:

#1

NOBODY is happy with what God gave them. Not even you. Do you want to know what God gave you? God gave you an infant’s body with cute baby human parts and a dumb baby brain. What the hell are you doing changing all that? How DARE you grow up and how DARE you go to school and modify the dumb baby brain God gave you?

I’ll give you a concession. Let’s assume that growing up is part of God’s plans for you. Fine. Then why do you go to the hospital when you have cancer (or SARS or a bunion)? God gave you the cancer/SARS/bunion. You should jolly well lie around at home all day and give thanks because you’re going to meet Him soon.

And if half your face gets burnt off in a fire, ask your doctors not to fix it because you’re perfectly happy looking like Freddy Krueger.

#2

It’s not like you’ve never admired beautiful things and (outwardly) beautiful people. And, like it or not, you can’t help but to favour beautiful things/people a little more at first sight.

And EVERYONE wants to be a little more beautiful on the outside and a little more favoured by other people. Otherwise, you wouldn’t go shopping for nice clothes. You wouldn’t go to the salon to get a nice haircut. You wouldn’t spend half your salary buying goo to slather on your face in the hope that skincare and makeup can help you look like Claudia Schiffer’s navel.

You would go to work carrying an NTUC plastic bag instead of a Hugo Boss brief case or Gucci handbag. You would stop shaving and stop buying pimple cream and stop going to the gym to get that nicely toned body.

Why do you do any or all of these things if you don’t want to look good on the outside? So, you go ahead and get those fake eyelashes and I’ll get my new nose, thank you.

#3

Who the hell cares? Women should stop being lazy and put the seat down yourselves.

Now that I have presented my arguments, I can explain why I am happy. I’m happy because I believe that, with the help of the media, there are now fewer bigots on earth who would point their fingers at women who go for cosmetic surgery, accuse them of witchcraft and burn them at the stake.

Which means that I can start planning my shopping list of new body parts and stop worrying about people accusing me of being an evil temptress whose plan is to seduce all men to their doom with my newly acquired body-to-die-for.

Now, all I need is a brilliant scheme to get the money to fund my shopping spree, and to find a reputable surgeon who won’t make me look like Michael Jackson.

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Afterword: No, I still haven’t gotten any surgery done because no one would donate to my boob fund. And I was wrong. The number of bigots against cosmetic surgery doesn’t seem to have decreased over the last four years.