In Part 1 yesterday, I talked about our adventures in Hollywood, Sci-Fi City, Ancient Egypt and Far Far Away.

Before I continue with Part 2, here are some photos I missed out. Sacha just posted a whole load of photos on Facebook so I’m stealing some for today’s post! =)

She managed to get a nice photo of my hair flying as we got spun around in our Accelerator:

Sacha and Isaiah love going on theme park rides and they collect theme park ride official photos. Nice hobby! =) I hope to see their collection one day.

So, anyway, they bought the photo of our Revenge of the Mummy ride (the one that greatly traumatised me) and kindly scanned it to share with us. Hee.

Here’s a closeup!

So, everyone didn’t believe me when I said I was terrified the whole time during the ride because, in the photo, I was the only person calmly smiling at the camera.

I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS A CAMERA GOING OFF.

In the middle of the ride, I recall Unker Kell and the Goonfather joking about how our car got caught by the speed camera.

At that time, I didn’t even notice a camera flash going off, so I thought maybe they were commenting on how fast our car was going, fast enough to be fined for speeding or something like that.

I was that traumatised. All that was going on in my mind was, “Please let this ride end NOW.”

SO WHY WAS I SMILING CALMLY AT THE CAMERA?

I DON’T KNOW.

The others claim that it’s because I’m so trained in photo-taking that I have a natural instinct to smile for the camera even when I don’t know a camera is there.

-_-

My explanation is that, while I was traumatised, I was at the same time trying very hard not to get too paranoid, so in between screaming my lungs out, I kept telling myself that I was enjoying the ride. It’s a psychological trick, right? Your brain tends to believe what you tell it, so you can psycho yourself out of fearful situations.

So, between screams when the car was going too fast, I was actually forcing myself to smile and repeating in my head, “I’m having fun, this is fun, whee, I love this.”

The look in the photo must have been one of the moments. You can see how strained the smile is if you look closely. I don’t think my psychological trick worked very well, though. I was still terrified despite chanting those magic words.

The whole place was dark and we kept getting scared by scarabs and mummies and evil pharoahs jumping out at us. And there were rooms with fire and you can really feel the heat. It’s really well done, I must admit.

After the ride, I could hardly walk straight. My whole body was jelly. I couldn’t even hold my camera still to take a photo. Haha.

Okay, on with the day!

2:40 pm. Far Far Away

Far Far Away has possibly the best show in Universal Studios Singapore. If you have a chance to visit USS, don’t miss it!

It’s the Shrek 4D adventure!

4D combines 3D films with physical effects like moving seats and water sprays (and more), so you feel like part of the story.

It’s a short story about Shrek rescuing Princess Fiona but I didn’t pay much attention to the story because the effects were so cool and sometimes surprising that I kept getting distracted. Haha. It’s my first time experiencing 4D lah, so a bit suaku okay?

I won’t tell you much more because I don’t want to spoil it for you. Go try it. It’s really worth it!

I think this show has the longest queue in the whole theme park and I’m not surprised. But it’s bearable because we get to queue up in a pretty castle with nice decor and a very nice theme song from Shrek which I love.

Here’s a photo of a cute signage. Maybe it’s for the Magic Potion Spin for kids. Or maybe it’s a fake sign. I don’t remember, but it’s cute.

Close-up:

Hmm, okay, I don’t think it’s for Magic Potion Spin, because that one is indoors, inside the Far Far Away Shop. It’s a mini ferris wheel for kids. It looks so cool!

3:30 pm. Madagascar

Our group got split up for a while here because half of us wanted to queue up to take photos with the lion while the other half ran off to play on the merry-go-rounds.

My friends are such kids! Heh.

The merry-go-round. Nanny Wen is hiding in this photo below. Can you spot her?

I think Madagascar is mostly for kids. Besides the merry-go-round, there’s some kind of a tame, scenic boat ride. We didn’t have time to queue up for it because we wanted to catch the WaterWorld Show at 5 pm.

There’s an ogre outhouse in Madagascar which looked cute, so I dragged Nanny Wen with me to explore it.

We ran up the steps and I tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. Boo. Maybe the ogre is inside doing his business. Haha. I was half-expecting something to fly out at me and eat me up!

Nanny Wen bought me a potion bottle! Yay! Love her!

The potion bottle costs S$11.90 and comes with a drink, but the great thing about it is that you can use it to buy more drinks at S$2 per refill. (Usual price of a drink is 3-4 bucks or something.)

I brought the bottle home and washed it so I can reuse it every time I go to USS. =D In fact, I will use it at home, too, cos I love drinking from it. It looks exactly like a mana or heal potion bottle in RPGs. Well, except for Puss in Boot’s picture in front, but I can ignore that.

But then… I wanted to buy a heart-shaped lollipop but she wouldn’t allow me to!! Huh! She said big lollipops are a waste of money cos nobody finishes them.

O_o

Every time I picked one up, she’d snatch it out of my hands and put it back.

-_-

She’d only allow me to take a photo with it.

Sigh.

5 pm. WaterWorld (in Lost World)

I love WaterWorld! The show is awesome! Maybe as awesome as Shrek 4D.

It’s a live performance based on the movie and it’s very exciting, with water splashing all over the place, death-defying stunts and awesome pyrotechnics and explosions!

In the giant theatre, the seats are separated into three categories: Soak Zone, Splash Zone and Safe Zone.

Sit in the Soak Zone (blue seats) if you want to get soaked. Sit in the Splash Zone (green seats) if you only want to get splashed. And go far away to the Safe Zone (red seats) if you’re a scaredy cat.

Expectedly, our group split into two again. LOL.

Before the show started proper, the actors entertained the audience by talking to us and throwing buckets of water at us. SERIOUSLY.

There were lots of useless people in the audience who chose to sit in the Soak Zone but then opened umbrellas every time the actors got out a bucket of water ready to throw.

I don’t know what their problem is. Don’t want to get wet then go sit in the Safe Zone lah.

The actors also invited people from the audience to have Super Soaker competitions. So, they got this guy out and gave him a gun and every one got into positions. And they were supposed to all start shooting at the count of three, right?

At the count of three, the guy realised that he had been given an empty gun. Hahahahahaha. Kena tricked! He got soaked good and proper!

I want to be that guy next time!! =D

Not everyone who sits in the Soak Zone will get wet. I think it mostly only affects people in the dead centre. The Goonfather was very disappointed that he didn’t even get splashed. LOL.

There was some splashing action during the show when the actors rode jet skis and tried to make sure the audience got a bit of the action.

Maybe it’ll be different every time, depending on how close they ride the jets to the edge.

All the actors are male except for one pretty, sexy actress. She’s a real eye candy! ;)

The stage:

I was sitting to the side. Not a very good position cos I got blocked by this huge structure, although some of the scenes were done on it. It’s better to sit right in the middle, so it’ll be a good idea to get to the show before showtime in order to get better seats.

We were there at 5 pm and the middle was already all taken.

But never mind. I’m going back again!

With my potion bottle!

6 pm. Lost World

After WaterWorld, because the Goonfather was disappointed at not getting soaked, he wanted to go back to do the Rapids Adventure in Jurassic Park. In that river ride, there’s a steep slope where your 9-seater round raft slides down and plunges to the bottom violently, causing water to splash all over the participants.

Ponchos are available for rent for this adventure.

Remember, the brave people in our group had gone there during the day while I had cowardly begged off because I needed to recover from the Mummy ride. I was afraid the Rapids would have more roller-coaster action.

But the Goonfather assured me that there was only that one slope at the end. I felt that I could handle one slope, so I decided to join them for their second round.

Six of us went. I was the only newbie. They had all worn ponchos in their first round, except the Goonfather, who got terribly drenched. He smartly made a pact with everyone saying, “Next round, NO PONCHOS ALL.”

Apparently, some of them (Nanny Wen) got pinky tricked into signing up for the pact.

So, I was the only poncho-wearing coward in this ride.

It was fun!!

In each ride, we all sat in a circular formation, and the boat would spin round and round depending on the current. At the last splash, usually only half the people would get soaked while the other half would get splashed, depending on which end the boat lands.

After the first round, we all decided to go again to test our theory that the Goonfather’s side will always be the one who gets soaked because he’s the heaviest.

Everyone persuaded me to remove my poncho this time. I was already half wet, anyway, because the poncho was a gimpy thin plastic sheet, not a real poncho. So I took it off and received a lot of cheering. =)

Our theory was wrong. The Goonfather didn’t get soaked the second round (his third). It was our fellow passengers, an ang moh family with their little girl, who were really friendly and fun people. They stayed with us for both rounds.

After our ride:

My front didn’t get wet so much because I always instinctively bent over when we landed so the water would splash on my back instead of front.

It was great! Haha… Next time I’ll wear the right clothes and slippers instead of shoes so I won’t have to be so scared of the water. :P

Lost World is cool. I think it has the most rides. There’s also Canopy Flyer (a fast-moving ride in a sky-lift type of carriage), which I didn’t dare take. I’m afraid of heights. It’s so annoying, all these stupid phobias I can’t get rid of!!!

And Dino-Saurin, a merry-go-round in pterodactyl-ships.

Erm… it’s supposedly for kids but they let adults in, too. This one I dare to take. Haha. You can pilot your ship up and down using a button while the thing is going round and round the figurative mulberry bush.

Unker Kell and Wang Wang behind us!

There’s also Amber Rock Climb. This one has a separate charge of S$10, so we didn’t do it.

And random dino eggs! LOL @ the Goonfather. He looks so contented in his egg.

7 pm. Hollywood.

Back to Hollywood for dinner!

We ate at Mel’s Drive-In. Nice cheeseburgers!

Then we stopped by Superstar Candies to buy sweets.

By this time, my camera had run out of batteries. Actually, it had run out earlier but I was using my phones to take photos. But by 7 pm, I was tired of taking photos. I mean, I was literally tired.

I just got this one lousy shot of the night scene:

After Hours at Universal Studios Singapore starts at 7 pm. You can enter the park for only S$5 and enjoy the sights and have dinner there. All the rides and shows are closed, though, which is why it’s so cheap.

But on Fridays and Saturdays, there’s a pyrotechnics and fireworks show in Hollywood at 9:30 pm and it’s definitely worth the S$5!

We hung around there until after the fireworks, then went to upgrade our day passes to annual passes.

Annual passes cost S$318. You can upgrade a S$72 day pass on the same day by just paying the difference. So, it’s like, try before you pay the full sum!

The Goonfather, Wang Wang, Unker Kell and I decided we wanted to visit USS many more times (there are still some rides and shows we haven’t tried, and we want to eat turkey leg again), so the four of us got annual passes.

For S$318, you can enjoy unlimited entries to the park all year round (minus 53 block-out days which are public holidays and long weekends). You also get a $25 gift voucher for stores in the park, a 5% discount in the stores, a ticket to Voyage De La Vie and two USS pins. Oh, and sneak previews of new rides and attractions! I look forward to that!

I wish I could have the Superstar Pass, though. That’s costs S$1,098 but there are no block-out dates and you get priority queues to all the attractions. And a S$100 gift voucher!

Too expensive for me. Boo.

But I’m happy with my normal Fun Pass. I can’t wait to go back again! Oh, I think we’re going this Saturday because we need to use our free Voyage De La Vie ticket by Sep 30, so we’ll drop by USS to eat a turkey leg. Heh.

10 pm. Bye!

We finished everything at 10 pm. Just nice, that’s the time the park closes.

Our carpark charge was S$26!!! But that works out to be about S$2 an hour, so I suppose it’s reasonable. We were there the entire day, from opening time to closing time.

I’m so happy that Universal Studios came to Singapore!

10 pm. Sep 4. Universal Studios Singapore.

Exhaustion. But happiness. I happily shelled out S$246 more to upgrade my S$72 day pass to an annual pass. My friends and I had decided after a long day of fun that we wanted to go back to Universal Studios Singapore again. And again. And again.

(12 hours earlier…)

10 am. Hollywood.

Bright and early at 10 am (well, it’s bright and early for me; I hadn’t quite woken up yet), we took our first photo with the popcorn car at the entrance of USS.

We were a group of 10 that day but only five of us were there on time, so we lounged around and got some breakfast at Celebrity Cafe & Bakery while waiting for the rest.

I had the Best Actress meal. It was a chicken and avocado foccacia with some weird noodle soup and a soft drink. I doubt that Hollywood best actresses actually eat these things. I think they eat celery sticks and whole grains, and drink sparkling spring water.

Isaiah and Sacha turned up in couple wear. Too cute lah, they all.

12 pm. Hollywood.

We sure took our time at breakfast. It was high noon by the time we got off our asses to explore the park seriously.

As I was taking random photos of the street, Nanny Wen said, “Stop taking random photos of the street!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s a boring photo if no one I know is in it!”

Is that a valid argument?

Anyway, I decided to humour her. I ran ahead in front of her and took a photo of her waving her cap around pretending to be a tour guide.

I decided to get some group photos while the group was still a group and not lost souls scattered all over the island.

We caught the Monster Rock Musical at the Pantages Hollywood Theatre but I felt it was only so-so. It was just a bunch of famous movie monsters singing and dancing and not much of a story. I hope they change the show soon.

1 pm. Sci-Fi City.

There was this scary-looking extremely-tall girl in Sci-Fi City. I don’t know who she’s supposed to be.

Our first ride of the day was the Accelerator! It’s like the Disneyland Tea Cups. You know how you can steer inside the cup so that the cup spins madly counter to the spinning platform, right? So, like, the harder you turn the steering wheel, the more crazily your cup spins.

Queueing up for the ride.

I didn’t dare sit with the Goonfather because he had an evil glint in his eye. I decided to sit with Kerr and Minou because I deem them safer people.

Unfortunately, each cup can hold five people, so we needed to have two more with us and they turned out to be Isaiah and Sacha.

Isaiah is as evil as the Goonfather when it comes to rides.

See! Proof!

It was mad slidage all over the cup!!

Isaiah was exhausted by the end of the ride. Haha. He was the one who did most of the work, with just a bit of help from Kerr.

In the Goonfather’s cup…

There were only four because Elyxia refused to play. Lucky for her, because ALL FOUR OF THEM ARE NUTS.

All of them spun their cup violently from start to end. From the outside, Elyxia said she could see that their cup was the fastest spinning one and it was so fast she got dizzy looking at them.

Even when the platform and all the cups came to a stop at the end of the ride, their cup was still spinning madly!!

That was fun, though. I want to go on it again!

1:30 pm. Ancient Egypt.

There were these tall statues at the entrance, right. I got all the girls to climb up and take a photo at the feet of one of them.

As I was happily getting into position and smiling for the camera, Nanny Wen suddenly gasped and shrieked at me, “QY!!!!!!!”

“Huh?” I said.

“Behind you!!!” she yelled.

I looked behind me and got the shock of my life!

This scary Egyptian fella had crept up beside me to pose for pictures with us!!!

It was hilarious after the initial shock.

Close-up:

Kell managed to capture the very moment when Nanny Wen was alerting me to our surprise visitor. Great job! I actually didn’t know he was there until I turned around!

What a funny guy! We saw him much later posing for photos (officially this time) with tourists. Good guy! Heheh.

The Goonfather seemed to like Ancient Egypt a lot. He actually volunteered to pose for pictures (a rare occurence for him).

When we walked past a fire hydrant, he went, “OMG OMG I WANT A PHOTO WITH THIS!!”

Everyone was puzzled until he said, “Hey, it’s cool okay! It’s an ancient Egyptian fire hydrant leh!!”

Doh.

The Revenge of the Mummy ride was awesome. Except that it was too exciting for me. I don’t like roller coaster rides. My stomach cannot take plunges through space.

The ride description: “A high-speed psychological thrill ride through sharp turns, full rotation and fast reverse, you’ll be fighting against fiery fireballs, flesh-eating scarab beetles and an army of merciless warrior mummies — all in total darkness.”

It’s really very good. Scary and quite realistic in terms of atmosphere, story and the physical motions. I wish I could enjoy it, really, but I was so scared the whole ride I wanted to puke. Haha.

The thrill-seekers in our group went for another go of the ride later in the day.

2 pm. Far Far Away.

At this point of time, our group split up. The thrill-seekers wanted to do more crazy rides in The Lost World. I needed to recover from the Mummy ride so, me, Minou and Kerr went off to the safer land of Far Far Away and watched the Donkey LIVE show.

The holding area before we’re ushered into the cosy theatre:

(Photo-taking isn’t allowed in all the shows and some rides. Which is a good thing, I suppose. Otherwise, this entry will end up having 200 photos.)

I thought Donkey LIVE was gonna be a kiddy thing but it was surprisingly good. It’s an animated thing where Donkey appears on the screen as an animation, like in Shrek.

But the amazing thing is that he interacts with the audience, asking them questions and stuff. I got volunteered and had the opportunity to chat with donkey about the merlion and boyfriends, lol. There’s a real actor voicing donkey backstage. I don’t know how they make the animation match whatever the actor is saying.

After this, we had lunch at Friar’s Good Food while waiting for the rest to finish up in The Lost World.

We had smoked turkey leg for lunch (available at a street stall outside Friar’s). IT WAS GREAT. Nanny Wen and I shared one leg. It’s really huge. I don’t think I can finish it alone! It’s quite salty, though, so prepare a big drink or get some carbo stuff to eat it with if you can’t handle too-salty stuff.

We sighted Puss in Boots in Far Far Away! Yay! He’s such a handsome cat!

Okay, sorry for the anti-climax. I’m gonna have to continue this tomorrow because time’s up. Haha. Got an appointment to run off to. I think this is plenty for one day, anyway!

Come back tomorrow! =)

To be continued…

Last night (technically this morning), I played Vacation Mogul HD from 2 am till 5:30 am. It’s that fun. I’ve almost completed it. Only one island left to play. Boohoo.

All the missions are replayable, though. You can go back and replay them any time till you get gold trophies for all of them, which is what I did. =D

Okay, more mini reviews on iPad games today!

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Highborn HD (US$2.99 Introductory Price)

I bought this because reviews say that it’s funny. There’s a lot of sarcastic, irreverent, slapstick humour in Highborn (in dialogues and character descriptions) and that’s all I need to convince me to buy a game.

I’ll show you examples in a minute but, first, the gameplay.

Highborn is a mission-based turn-based strategy game where you control a hero and his team of knights, archers and healers, to fight whatever the mission throws at you.

There are no tutorials or instructions, so you’ll be lost for about a minute. But it’s pretty straightforward. You can pick it up quickly with just a bit of initial trial and error.

The main game board is a grid with terrain, buildings and people occupying squares. The people look like human-shaped board game tokens and it’s funny to watch them hop on the squares when you make them move.

If you choose to attack, the game goes into a close-up animation sequence of two small armies fighting, which is rather cute to watch.

Now, here’s a bit of funny dialogue between Archie (the first hero) and Minotaur (the first boss). They say a lot more than this but I can’t publish the entire dialogue here.

Minotaur:
SNORT! What is going on? You fools let him get one of our towns! Capture it back! I can’t come out and deal with this right now; it’s “Take Your Kids to Work Day” and little Bobbytaur got his nose stuck in the copier.”

(Later… after you manage to kill him…)

Minotaur:
SNORT! No! How could you defeat me? I don’t believe it! You made me look like such a wuss in front of my kids. Jerk!

Archie:
All right, now you tell me who is behind this evil tyranny or I’m gonna call your wife and let her know you brought your kids on to the battlefield.

(End of example.)

Currently, Highborn only has eight missions listed under Chapter One. There’s a note saying that Chapter Two will be coming soon but I don’t know if that will cost extra. Probably.

There’s also a multiplayer option through OpenFeint – The coolest thing since sliced awesome (their words, not mine).

You can have multiple multiplayer games going on at once. Like Words With Friends, I guess. Haven’t tried it because it seems to be bugged. When I tap on OpenFeint, the box that pops up is supposed to let me sign up, but it’s a blank page, instead.

Okay, enough. My mini reviews are getting too long!

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Color Cross HD (US$2.99)

If you like picross puzzles, you’ll love this. Color Cross has multiple colours per puzzle, unlike the usual picross’ monotone. It’s like having multiple puzzles on one puzzle. It’s very fun that way.

Picross is short for picture crossword, if you didn’t know. And if you haven’t tried a picross, you should. I think you can find some free ones online just to understand what it’s about. Google it.

I love the puzzles in Color Cross but I hate the user interface. It certainly needs more work. The graphics is ugly (not the puzzle pictures, but everything else), the sound effects are super annoying and I hate that they don’t allow you to turn off mistakes.

(If you tap a square where there isn’t supposed to be a pixel, the game tells you right away and you get time penalised. Some picross games allow you to turn this off to make the game harder plus minimise accidental tapping.)

Also, the game doesn’t mark the categories where you’ve completed all the puzzles. There are tons of categories organised by theme, so it gets impossible to keep track if you like jumping from theme to theme.

Despite all these annoyances, I’d still recommend this Color Cross… until I find a better one.

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Pinball HD (US$0.99 Sale Price – Normal US$2.99)

The graphics is waaaaay amazing and worth the price of admission. It does take some getting used to playing pinball on the iPad but it’s not a huge mountain to climb.

The game offers a few different views, each of which gives you a different experience.

Portrait modes offers a top-down view while landscape mode offers a cool, diagonal angle (picture above).

Zoom out to see the whole table and play it static. Or zoom in to enjoy glorious graphic details in HD as the camera pans around smoothly, following the ball. (Slide both thumbs up or down the screen to toggle.)

There are three different tables (different themes) but they all seem to follow the same template, roughly, so that’s a bit disappointing because then it doesn’t quite feel like three different pinball mahines even though they look different.

Pinball fans will love it but I’m a fussy pinball player. I need more surprises, bonus features, multi-balls, etc. So, I only like this game rahter than love it. Pinball HD has bonus features but not enough. It’s mostly the amazing graphics that does it for me.

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Tap Tap Radiation (Free)

Yay. Finally a free game worthy of my time to download and play.

I was never a Tap Tap fan even though it’s a huge hit on the iPhone. Nanny Wen is always calling me lousy for not having Tap Tap on my phone. I just found it too monotonous.

Now, though, I shall once again demonstrate my nauseating iPad fan-gerism by declaring, “iPad makes everything fun!”

On the iPad, the three tap spots are not static at the bottom of the screen, like on the iPhone. They actually move around, so you have to move with them while tapping your beats.

After a while, you’ll look positively spastic as you twist your fingers all over to follow the moving circles without missing a beat. Try not to play this in front of a girl/boy you’re trying to impress until you’ve mastered looking glamorous while getting a perfect score.

Another challenging feature is that, in some songs, you’re getting like a top-down view instead of the diagonal angle you’re used to on the iPhone. This makes it harder to gauge when to tap, especially on hard and extreme modes.

The best thing about Tap Tap Radiation, though, is that it’s free to download and you get 40 songs free from the start. Requires three other separate downloads once you get the game. I’m not sure if these will be available permanently. The base game comes with six songs.

No iPad should be without Tap Tap Radiation! It’s free, anyway, so.

Of course, later on, you’ll be tempted to buy your favourite songs when they’re made available, but that’s your problem. Current lineup includes Lady Gaga and Pink. Very limited choices. My bank account breathes a sigh of relief.

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Jigsaw Box (US$2.99)

I didn’t buy this. Yet. I downloaded the lite version. I was in the mood to play jigsaw puzzles and there are a whole freaking load of them in App Store, so I spent quite a bit of time looking through all of them before finally deciding on this.

Jigsaw Box has decent pictures and a decent user interface. I love the sound it makes when two pieces snap to each other. There’s a very gentle “tac” sound and joined pieces because inseparable, which helps you move them around to make space for loose pieces.

Jigsaw Box Lite has three categories: Famous Landmarks, Castles and Kids. (There are many more in the paid version.)

Yes! There are kid puzzles so this is great for young families.

The advantage that iPad jigsaw puzzles have over real ones is that you get to cheat. If you don’t like that word, let’s just say that the iPad takes the work out of jigsaw puzzling, leaving you with only the fun part.

You can choose the game to show only edges first, so you don’t need to pick them out yourself. Join up all the edges first without being distracted by other peices!

(Another jigsaw game I downloaded – Bright Puzzles – allows you to show only pieces from a specific quadrant, which is a bit more cheating. But it’s up to you. You can choose to be a hero and sort through an entire mountain of pieces yourself. But I don’t quite like it cos it makes an annoying sound when you fit pieces together.)

The free version of Jigsaw Box comes with 16 puzzles while the paid version has more than 100. Wow.

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Arrow Words (Free)

For crossword puzzle fans. I’m not a huge fan but I like to do them occasionally. I downloaded this because it’s free and because it’s an interesting version of crossword puzzles.

I kinda like it. Since the clues are on the board itself, you don’t have to keep looking left and right and then try to find numbers that correspond to the clues you want to solve. Nice.

Free version comes with nine puzzles in three difficulty modes. More puzzles can be downloaded for cash. Sneaky people, them!

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Now, I am going to try very hard not to buy anymore iPad games for the rest of the month, so don’t count on more reviews for some time.

lol.

I’ll be travelling from the 17th to 29th of this month anyway, so probably won’t have time to play and review new games during that time.

Well, let’s just see what happens. You never know with the unpredictable Gamer Girl Friday! Cos she doesn’t even know herself.

I thought the last six iPad games I bought were going to keep me happy at least a month or so.

I still haven’t completed all of them and I still enjoy them. But App Store always manages to sneakily get into my line of sight. Seriously!

And App Store is to an iPad gamer what a candy store is to a kid. You want everything. You can’t have too many of everything.

That’s how I ended up with 24 games on my iPad at last count. (5 iPhone imports, 8 free/trial games, 11 bought.)

I want to talk about Vacation Mogul today and I’m quite long-winded about it so there will be two GGFs this week so I can cover more games.

Yay.

Vacation Mogul HD (US$6.99)

This was actually an accident. I was browsing iTunes when I acidentally bought Vacation Mogul for iPhone (US$2.99). I had just wanted to read the product description but clicked on the buy button, instead.

And the worse thing was that, a minute prior to that, I had thought to myself, “It’s so easy to accidentally buy apps in iTunes. Based on Murphy’s Law, it’s probably gonna happen to me one day.”

Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy.

(In iTunes, when you click on the price tag, it’s an instant purchase since they’ve got all your credit card details already. There’s no warning: “You’re buying this game. Accept? Decline?”

I mean, I like that cos it’s very convenient but it sure is risky for dodos like me.)

The good news is that the accident was a happy one. Vacation Mogul is so fun that, after doing the first few tutorial missions, I went and bought the iPad version.

Because of my doofusness, I ended up playing through the tutorial missions four times (that’s 20 missions in total).

First time was on the iPhone. It was fun, so I decided to see how it would feel on the iPad’s bigger screen, although I had to put up with slightly blurry graphics from the stretch.

Then I decided to download the free iPad version to compare the difference. That’s a third playthrough. The gameplay is still the same but HD graphics just can’t be beat. It really enhances gaming experience (for me, anyway).

That’s when I impulsively put down another US$6.99 for a game I already own which I had accidentally bought in the first place.

Since there’s no data porting between the free and paid version, I had to play the tute missions a fourth time.

Fortunately, the game is fun enough for that not to be a huge chore.

Vacation Mogul combines fun simulation gameplay with an interesting plot.

You inherit five islands from your recently-deceased uncle and are tasked to make thriving resorts out of them. Then, something happens to make you suspect that your uncle was murdered. So, in between being a future resort tycoon, you have to investigate your uncles’s death.

The game is mission-based, where you get a different goal to accomplish each level. Complete it faster to earn more money and experience points.

Experience points are needed to make blueprints for new resort amenities (to attract more tourists), as well as game bonuses that help you do your missions better.

It’s really addictive. I mean, I’d rather be playing it now than writing this review but I’m sensible like that and know when it’s crucial to do the right thing, lol.

There are also fun little surprises along the way. One part of the plot leads to a hidden objects mini game. An easier one than a proper hidden objects game, but still cool. You’re allowed to skip this, though. It’s just for fun and doesn’t add to game progress.

If you have an iPad, I’d totally recommend the iPad version over the iPhone one. Both are mostly the same, but why squint your eyes when you can enjoy beautiful HD colours and feel assured that you won’t mispress anything on the iPhone’s tiny real esate?

The main difference between both versions (quite neglible if you’re not the fussy sort) is that you can see all five islands on one screen on the iPad. On the iPhone, you have to scroll through them one by one. Not a big deal.

Likewise, on the research page where you buy new blueprints and bonuses, you can see the whole list on the iPad but only scrollable sections on the iPhone. This is slightly more important because you want to see at once what blueprints get unlocked next.

iPad:

iPhone:

The missions themselves are the same. No scrolling required. And that’s the crucial part. But it does help when it’s on a bigger screen. It always does.

There’s a free version for the iPad which you can download to try. I think you can play through the entire game on it (although I can’t be too sure cos I only played one main island before getting the paid version).

The catch is that a pop-up message will interrupt you after every mission to persuade you to buy the game so you can get rid of the annoying message.

Anyway, I’m not writing a full review of this game because it’s already been out for months. Just wanted to talk about it because I’m quite pleased that an accidental purchase became a pleasant surprise.

Will introduce more iPad games tomorrow!

I was going to blog about my Changlong Zoo trip. Lots of cute animals! Pandas, koalas, baby white tigers, baby elephants, obscene kangaroos!

Okay that last one is not cute, but it’s interesting.

Then I looked at my folder with 300+ photos and metaphorically fainted.

But since it was a metaphorical faint, I recovered with superhuman speed and proceeded to diligently go through all the photos to eliminate no-goods.

I managed to delete 100+ photos but that still leaves me with about 200.

It’s time for another metaphorical faint, perhaps a long one this time. I suddenly don’t feel like blogging about the zoo anymore.

It’s a good thing we arrived at the zoo late and had to hurry through everything before the 6.30pm closing time. Otherwise, I might have ended up with 600 photos.

I need to do this another day when I am more alive. Woke up prematurely this morning so am feeling half dead.

And hungry.

I’ll leave you with a video clip, instead. It only takes half an hour to upload and I can iPad game while it’s uploading. =D

(Don’t worry, I can feel the iPad obssesion slowly fading away… although I just downloaded like 10 more games in the last two days, lol. But I will get over it soon enough. )

Anyway, I took this video of a young panda eating bamboo leaves at the zoo. I love watching cute animals eat. It’s so cute! But I’m sad we didn’t get to see any baby pandas. Nothing in the world could be cuter than baby pandas, I think!

By the way, people have been asking me about my manga drawing course. Sorry, I stopped blogging about it because I skipped many weeks due to having events or being overseas on Saturdays. And also because our Japanese teacher quit after three lessons! LOL. Will blog about that soon.

Okay, here’s the video!