First of all, look who’s on the cover of My Paper today!

LOL.

You know what that means? It means that you should now head over to my Xbox blog because that’s what the ad is supposed to make you feel like doing.

You disagree?

Well, then, how about check it out anyway BECAUSE I SAY SO!!

Okay, you may now proceed to devour today’s GGF.

I mean, literarily speaking.

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Table of Contents

1. Tales of Vesperia is THE game to play
2. Give our Singapore champs a chance
3. Question Number 1
4. To party or to game. That is the dilemma
5. Stalking Sheylara
6. Ask the Goonfather
7. Win a Nokia USB charger!!

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Tales of Vesperia is THE game to play

Tales of Vesperia is like a dream come true for me. It combines my two loves — RPG and anime — and I could not gush over it enough. But I’ll attempt to, of course, for such is the nature of Gamer Girl Friday.

First off, Yuri Lowell is unbearably cute.

A good-looking hero is of utmost importance in a game, you must agree.

Also of equal importance is a good-looking heroine to capture the hearts of geeks who spend too much time playing games, and impressionable young ladies looking for role models to cosplay.

Estelle fits the bill to a V. I mean T. Don’t you love her cotton candy pink hair? It makes me want to go out right now to buy a pink wig. Not that I’m one of the impressionable young ladies I mentioned earlier, mind you.

The two cuties look so good together they make me go “awww…”.

What’s that? You don’t really care about how cute they look, you say? You want to know about the gameplay and stuff?

You have a thing or two to learn about appreciating the finer things in life, you know that?

So, Tales of Vesperia is a freaking good game. There is nothing more to be said. Go and buy it right now. In fact, buy an Xbox 360 just so you can play this game and it will be your most well-spent $499 this year.

End of review.

Just kidding.

Tales of Vesperia is immediately immersive with its lush anime illustrations and intriguing plot. You play Yuri Lowell, the game’s main character, who manages to get into trouble with the authorities right from the start.

The game expertly weaves entertaining little cutscenes into the gameplay, which makes you feel like you’re playing an anime. The dialogues are humorous, reminiscent of great anime scripts, and the voiceovers, while dubbed in American English, retain the characteristic kawaii innocence of Japanese anime characters.

Amidst the fast-paced action and delightful adventure, there’s a liberal dose of comic relief in the forms of cutscenes and optional dialogue playbacks.

In the playbacks (I call them playbacks because you can press a button to play them or you can ignore them), the main characters banter about random events that just happened. Light-hearted and humorous, these playbacks bring out each character’s personality and allow you to fall in love with them.

One of the characters in your party is Repede, Yuri’s pet dog, and he gets to join in the banter, as well, although he speaks in barks, yelps and whines.

A new feature in this latest installment of the popular Tales series of games is the dynamic combat system.

During your travels, you will see mobs roaming about freely. You can choose to engage them or walk away from them (most of the time).

Once engaged, your party will go into battle mode and that’s when it gets really fun.

All the characters in the party (up to four) are controllable by live players. Just get your friends to bring their controllers and join in the battle!

Each character’s combat mode (except Yuri’s) is set to “Auto” by default, but you can set it to “Manual”. There is also a “Semi Auto” mode, which is Yuri’s default and is helpful for newbies.

But as you level up and gain new skills and weapons, you’ll definitely want to perform all those neat combos all by yourself!

Unlike the past Tales games, ToV features real-time combat, so fighting skills are important!

At the end of each combat, you’ll see some stats and the characters will utter some funny remarks to make you laugh, and the game continues.

Oh, yes. ToV is in High Definition, although you can’t tell by my crappy screenshots. But it’ll be a beautiful sight on your HD TV that will bring tears to your eyes.

Tales of Vesperia is out in stores now and is exclusive for the Xbox 360. There is no online multiplayer feature, but you can earn achievements for it!

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Give our Singapore champs a chance

Some complications arising in the recent World Cyber Games Singapore National Finals resulted in a few of our champions not having the funds to fly to Germany this November to compete in the Grand Finals.

That’s quite a shame because at least three of them stand a chance to do Singapore proud by returning with medals.

So, SCOGA (Singapore Cybersports & Online Gaming Association) has started a nationwide fundraiser for our cyberatheletes as part of its program to nurture homegrown talent and elevate the status of gaming in Singapore.

Now, then, please support our gamers and give them a chance to represent Singapore and do us all proud by visiting this site now to see how you can help.

Thank you.

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Question Number 1

This is the first question for the Norton Internet Security 2009 contest.

Question #1: If you do not purchase goods or services on the Internet, you can’t become a victim of cybercrime. True or False?

(Just answer “True” or “False”. Don’t have to elaborate, unless you really want to.)

Aren’t I clever to hide the question here? And aren’t you clever to have found it?

Okay, maybe not.

Now, please do not send me the answer until after the fourth question has been asked because I’d rather receive one e-mail than four e-mails from you.

(But you can send me the answer now if you do not intend to answer anymore questions.)

Okay, watch out for the second question… coming up… I’m not telling you when!

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To party or to game. That is the dilemma

WAR IS COMING REALLY SOON.

One can hardly believe it. We’ve waited for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning for eight whole years. Now that it’s almost at our doorstep, it feels unreal. Like we’re going to wake up tomorrow and be told that April Fool’s Day has migrated across the calendar.

But that’s not going to happen, is it?

Because Electronic Arts has already announced a Warhammer Online launch event on Sep 18 at Games Convention Asia 2008.

Which begs to question: To party or to game?

In the real world, it makes sense to have a launch party on the very day of the launch of a game.

But gamers do not live in the real world as we know it. Especially MMORPG gamers.

On MMORPG launch days, gamers are camping their computers at home, waiting to log in the very moment the game servers are open for business.

Who has time to attend a party??

Okay, maybe EA has timed it so that the event happens just before the servers are brought up so you’ll have time to party and then rush home to zerg the servers, but I don’t know. We don’t have exact times yet.

There is also the fact that Collectors’ Edition owners (one of whom is me, bwahahaha) will already be in the game, enjoying our expensive headstart privilege, which we have to make full use, haven’t we?

Of course, there are the posters, but I’m not sure how the lure of exclusive posters for the first 500 pre-order card wielders will stack up against the reality of actually playing the game.

What would you choose?

OH. This just in!!!

The WAR servers will be brought up some time tonight for the Preview Weekend Plus event, open to Preview Weekend players! Details here!!

Patch your beta client NOW!

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Stalking Sheylara

Yesh. I’ve created yet another way for nutcases to stalk me. Not that I want stalkers, but I couldn’t resist signing up for a 360voice.com account.

This is the very cute website that syncs with your Xbox 360 to tell the world when you logged in and what games you played, using the voice of your Xbox 360.

I never knew my Xbox 360 was so clever and witty. It can blog and it blogs well, too! Here’s the latest entry it wrote:

So, yes, go check out more posts by my Xbox 360. It blogs daily, too. How diligent!

But please try to keep the stalking to a bare minimum, thanks.

Thanks to Dimenxion for recommending this site.

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Ask the Goonfather

The Goonfather is on Q&A duty until such a time as he threatens to set my Neopets on fire if I don’t take him off duty immediately. In the meantime, he is allowing me to force him to answer questions that come in.

Please send your questions to .

Andy asks a comparison question:

Is it advisable to get a PS3 versus an Xbox 360 if I don’t care abt Blu-ray or online gaming? Seems to me that 99% of great games on PS3 will be on Xbox but not the other way round, and I am afraid if I buy the PS3, it will become obsolete like the Sega Saturn back then.

The Goonfather Says:

If you do not care about either, then get whichever you think is the best looking in your room. Or you can choose based on which controller you feel more comfortable with.

Among the three consoles, PS3 has the least chance of becoming obsolete. Anyway, I would recommend the Xbox 360 if you are a Singaporean. Though I am pro Sony PlayStation, the dedication of Microsoft to its consumers has moved me. Unlike PlayStation Asia, which doesn’t give a sh!t about you.

Zhixian asks a Patapon question:

How do you save the Patapon game?

The Goonfather Says:

It you look at your PSP, there is a small hole on both sides of the screen at the bottom. These holes are the speakers which also double as a mic. To the left hole, you need to say, ”Pata pata.” Then, to the right hole, you say, “Pon.” Then back to the left hole, you say, “Pata.”

Now, if you look at the bottom of the screen, an icon of the select button will appear next to the word that looks like “Save”.

Anonymous asks a relationship question:

Should I date my best friend’s sister? My best friend told me if I do, he will thrash me.

The Goonfather Says:

Well, first you need to define your meaning of date. If it’s just a meal and movie, I don’t see a problem.

Second, it depends on your relationship with your best friend. If he is against it, I don’t think you should consider him as a best friend. Best friends are like brother and sister, and what other way could there be to attain this status legally?

I’m also thinking, are you the type who openly share your sexcapades? If you are, then maybe he doesn’t want to listen to stories about his sister.

Steph asks a Wii question:

I was recently in Hong Kong and bought my twin boys Wii Fit. I also bought them Wii Freeloader because the man in the store said it makes them able to play any game in English. So far, our game is only in Chinese. Is there a way to convert the Chinese to English or do I need to go out and buy a Wii Fit in America?

The Goonfather Says:

The only way to play Wii Fit in English is to buy the English Wii and the English version of Wii Fit.

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Win a Nokia USB charger!!

Here is this week’s giveaway!

Offcially, it’s called the Nokia Charger via USB Port CA-100 (I don’t know why it has to be so complicated) and it can be used on the following Nokia models:

Mobile phones: 3250, 6070, 6080, 6101, 6103, 6111, 6125, 6131, 6136, 6151, 6233, 6270, 6280, 7360, 7370.

Multimedia devices: N70, N71, N72, N73, N80, N90, N91, N92, N93, N95

Others: E50, E61

This handy gizmo allows you to charge your phone on your PC or laptop, but I don’t need to tell you that, do I?

If you want it, please post a comment for it. One winner will be picked randomly! How very exciting!

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The coming week is going to be hell week for me. Let me list the things I have to do:

1. Blog on Sheylara.com.
2. Blog on Xperts.com.sg.
3. Blog on a new IDA microsite for a new campaign that will be launching on Tuesday (will tell you more soon).
4. Play Tales of Vesperia.
5. Play Warhammer Online.
6. Attend meetings, events, photoshoots, interviews and whatnot, as usual.
7. Hang out with my dear friend Elyxia because she’s scheduling a rare pop in Singapore towards the end of the week.

Well, how I’m going to fit everything into 24 hours a day, I DON’T KNOW.

But you can help me by being understanding if I don’t reply your MSNs, e-mails, comments, Xbox LIVE messages, gaming requests, Twitter messages, SMSes, voice messages, etc, immediately.

Thank you for reading Gamer Girl Friday and we’ll see you next week, different time, same place! =)

Categories: Gamer Girl Friday
6 Comments »

The Force Unleashed was supposed to be this week’s main story. I was going to do a comparison between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. But then, a series of annoying things happened:

1. The PS3 demo refused to be downloaded. After 72 hours of downloading, it was still at 60%.
2. My camera broke a few days ago so I couldn’t film the gameplay like I normally do. I had to use my TV capture device, instead, which is very troublesome because I have to tweak my TV to run at a gimpy 480p before the card would acknowledge it).
3. After spending hours editing the footage and rendering it, the AVI playback was wonky. Then I found out that the raw footage itself was wonky. The audio and video tracks do not sync and each time you play it, it’s different.
4. I tried rendering the video a few times, but they all end up with parts that skip back to replay a random segment, making the video very schizophrenic.
5. I spent two more fruitless hours trying to get it right but it refused to cooperate, so I gave up.

I had to give it up or GGF#16 would never see the light of day.

One reason for the faulty video could be that the raw footage is too big (1.2GB for a 28-min video) for my PC to manage, but I think my PC is quite decent with 2GB ram and a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU running SATA Raid HDDs of 320GB each.

But I’m not a video editing professional and I don’t know how to fix the problem, so no TFU videos today!

That’s alright, though. Today’s big bumper issue should be able to sufficiently distract you.

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Table of Contents

1. Halo Wars redefines the Halo universe
2. The Force Unleashed is too awesome
3. What if you were The Last Guy on earth?
4. Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise4
5. Tales of Vesperia almost here
6. Soul Calibur IV costume contest
7. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
8. I’m playing Warhammer Online. Are you?
9. Results of last week’s contest
10. Ask the Goonfather
11. Mystery giveaway coming up soon!

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Halo Wars redefines the Halo universe

The Halo series, one of the most popular series on the Xbox 360, will come newly-incarnated next year as Halo Wars.

Ensemble Studios, which brought us the well-loved Age of Mythology and Age of Empires series, have spent the last four years developing an RTS game worthy of the Halo universe.

It’s no easy task. No game developer has yet been able to revolutionise the console industry by making the D-pad work on RTS as well as on keyboard and mice. But from what I’ve seen on Halo Wars, it appears that Emsemble Studios is on the right track.

Harter Ryan, the executive producer for Halo Wars, was in Singapore recently to demo the game in an exclusive preview session.

Actually, it was just yesterday.

We were shown the game and given a chance to play it.

One of the journalists asked why the UNSC seemed overpowered against the Covenant and Harter admitted with a laugh that the preview build was purposely made to give journalists an easy time playing the game, because the main purpose is to show off all the cool features of the game.

He assured us that the final build will be very balanced.

But I like it easy. It’s funny watching the Covenant base blow up into smithereens while its helpless infantry fire at my army with ineffectual artillery.

Here are some screenshots of the game:

Looks pretty cool, huh?

In the final product, you’ll be able to play co-op or versus modes in sessions hosting up to six players.

Although not as handy as playing RTS on the PC, the controls are pretty intuitive and suitably comfortable.

You can make Spartans (up to three) and get your Spartan to hijack an enemy tank. That was pretty cool to watch. After the Spartan hops onto the tank, he will start monkeying about, wrestling the enemy tank commander and then throwing him out of the vehicle. Haha! And then the vehicle will change colour to reflect your army’s colour!

We tried the co-op mode. It was fun! I like having a partner to play with so he can make all the tough decisions. I’m quite peace-loving, you know. I just like to build things and will tend to forget to attack my enemy unless the threat comes to my doorstep.

Keep your eyes on my face.

I was wearing shorts okay. They just happened to be very, um, short.

Oh, check out my cap! It’s a Halo Wars UNSC cap.

The Goonfather confiscated it when I brought it back, so I can’t give it away, lol. You can ask him if he wants to give it away. Haha.

Halo Wars will be released for the Xbox 360 in the first half of 2009. For now, here’s a trailer you can dig into:

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The Force Unleashed is too awesome

I wanted to show you the video of the gameplay, but I can’t, so I’ll just talk about it.

It’s really awesome. There’s something very satisfying about destroying enemies without having to use a weapon. Without having to even touch them physically, in fact.

That, I think, is the largest appeal of The Force Unleashed. You play Darth Vader’s apprentice, ordered to cause havoc to the universe with your force powers.

How awesome!

I found it a little hard to hover enemies with precision before smashing them at chosen spots because you have to use both thumbsticks to move your target around. But I guess it’s something that will come naturally after some practice.

There are infinite possibilities for using the force! Pick up a droid and smash it at a stormtrooper. Pick up the stormtrooper and hurl him over the railings to fall to his death. Pick up a stormtrooper and make him airsick by turning him round and round in the air. Pick up a very large random object and smash it into an army of stormtroopers.

It’s like being a kid at a candy store. There’s so much damage you can do and so many ways to do it that you’ll go nuts.

Check out the official website for info and videos, if you haven’t already.

While waiting for TFU to come out on all the major consoles and handhelds in mid September, you can get into the mood first with TFU on your mobile phone.

If you have an N-Gage enabled Nokia phone, you can start playing it next week!

It’s a very different gameplay from the console versions but it’s the same storyline and music and everything.

Because of the limitations of a mobile phone, the game has been simplified into making patterns with your keypad. So, like, each enemy will have a certain pattern next to him. You’ll have to “draw” the pattern to kill him before he kills you.

There are also patterns you have to memorise to perform ad hoc actions such as healing yourself or force pushing an object out of the way.

The action can get quite frantic, especially when you have a zillion patterns on the screen and you have to decide which enemy to destroy first.

Something to consider if you’re a Star Wars fan.

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What if you were the last guy on earth?

Okay, you won’t exactly be the last guy, but you’d be the last sane guy on earth. Your mission is to save endless hordes of rabid, screaming people from zombies. If you don’t, they’ll all get eaten by the zombies and then you’d really be the last guy on earth.

The Last Guy is an arcade-style game available for download on the PlayStation 3. It’s a Snake-meets-Pac-Man sort of game.

So, you’re this guy running about in the city. Your job is to collect people. They’ll follow you once you pick them up so you’ve got a line of screaming people running behind you, getting longer and longer.

You have to avoid zombies. The zombies don’t exactly eat your people when they collide, but they will scatter them up. Your people will shriek their heads off, break the line and run off in a zillion directions so you’ll have to collect them all over again. Annoying!

You have a time limit to collect a minimum number of people and bring them to a safe zone.

This game will make you schizophrenic with the speedy action and the screaming people. The zombies move slower than you do, but they’re everywhere and it’s really hard to avoid them when you’ve got a long train of panicky peeps trailing behind you.

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Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

For the record, I haven’t played any of the earlier Viva Piñata games but I was given a copy of Trouble in Paradise yesterday, so I tried it out.

What a cute game! I felt like I was playing SimGarden. The premise is that Piñata Central’s computer records have been wiped by evil ruffians, which threaten the happiness of parties all over the world. So your job is to make a beautiful garden to attract cute piñatas, and then nurture them into full candiosity to send out to parties.

The thing I like most about the game is the cute piñatas. They’re really very cute, whether they’re roaming about your garden, sleeping, or making babies. Yeah! You can manipulate a pair of same-species piñatas into falling in love and making babies. Haha.

This is a photo I took right off my TV using a phone camera. Trying to take a good photo of them is like trying to take a good photo of toddlers. They just refuse to stay still! You spend a lot of time zooming in and out and twirling perspectives to get a nice framing, and then the piñatas either look away or walk away. Damn things!!

But they’re so cute I forgive them.

I don’t have much patience decorating a garden (I’m not really a plants and garden sort of person) so my garden turned out looking really ugly because I was planting stuff all over the place without much thought.

Trouble in Paradise has a multiplayer option but I haven’t had a chance to try it out since the game hasn’t been officially released yet and there’s no one to play with. (It will be out on Sep 2 in Singapore.)

Special piñatas cards will be made available which give you exclusive piñatas when you scan the cards with your Xbox LIVE vision camera.

Each game comes with one card!

I’m looking forward to exploring the multiplayer elements after the game’s release.

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise is an Xbox 360 exclusive.

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Tales of Vesperia almost here

Besides Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, I also received Tales of Vesperia yesterday. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to play it.

So, all I can do is show you some photos of the box and the manual, sorry.

Tales of Vesperia includes an offline multiplay feature for battle scenes for up to four players. The game will be officially released in Singapore on Sep 4.

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Soul Calibur IV costume contest

I know you’ve been having a blast making all sorts of outrageous costumes for your Soul Calibur IV characters. Now it’s time to show off your creativity!

I’m running a Soul Calibur IV costume contest over at my Xbox blog, so do check it out!

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Professor Layton and the Curious Village

This is an old game (there’s even a sequel already) for the Nintendo DS but I’m featuring it because I just discovered it.

Hot Mama (and evil temptress) Shelly recommended Professor Layton and the Curious Village to me after recommending Weffriddles, which I mentioned last week.

Thanks to her, I lost a few nights of sleep playing this game way beyond socially-accepted waking hours.

I love this game, which is why I need to talk about it despite probably half of you already having played it. The other half haven’t and they need to know about it!

It’s a game of puzzles. In the game, you’re a professor who got invited to a curious village to solve a curious mystery. While you go about looking for clues, more mysteries pop up and you have to solve those, too.

While solving those greater mysterious, you’re constantly put to the test with quick puzzles, most of which test your IQ and maths as well as your ability to look at things from different perspectives.

There are 135 puzzles in this first installment, not counting the bonus ones you can download.

Here are some sample puzzles:

#1

#2

#3

And here’s the answer to the puzzle I set out yesterday.

The puzzle:

The answer:

TEXT ME

You can get the answer by looking at your keyboard. The bite marks tell you where to look! So, like, G has a bite mark above it, so look at the key above G… which it T! Get it? :)

Highlight the space above to see the answer.

Hope you like these puzzles as much as I do!

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I’m playing Warhammer Online. Are you?

Just thought I should let you guys know that I’ve bought a Collector’s Edition copy of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. It’s like the biggest MMORPG since WoW, so I bought it even though I knew I wouldn’t have time to play it.

The game launches officially on Sep 17, but CE owners can start playing the Open Beta on Sep 7, and then get a few-day headstart in the live game. Woot!

Then again, even if you give me one year headstart, I’ll still be lousier than you considering the amount of time I have to play MMORPGs, which is none. A case in point is Age of Conan. Three months after activating my AoC account, my character is still at level 10. LOL. (The account is still active as we speak. I’ll have to remember to cancel it soon.)

Anyway, here’s a funny quiz WAR fans can do while waiting for the game to release.

It tells you what realm and race you’re most affiliated with!

I got Empire, which is the human goody-two-shoes type. Haha.

I will be playing in the realm of Destruction (a guild decision) on the server Darklands (tentative).

Are you playing?

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Results of last week’s contest

Last week’s giveaway of the very coveted item of a Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000 attracted many potential happy owners, which significantly reduced everyone’s chances.

But, well, that’s life. If you don’t win today, you’ll win another day if you keep at it. It took Sylvester Stallone 10 years to sell his first Rocky script and star in it, did you know?

So, anyway, Randomiser picks #15 as the winner today.

I should be evil and make you go check last week’s post to find out who’s #15 yourself. More exciting, no?

But, nah. I shan’t do that because I’m not as evil as temptress Shelly, so I shall name the winner. It’s… Numby!

Ding Gratz! You get the LifeCam! Will contact you via e-mail soon as I get a moment.

(Or you winners can actually contact me, instead, to make life easier for me. If not, I have to go search through my database to find your e-mail address. :P)

Alrighty. Till the next giveaway!

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Ask the Goonfather

Sheylara is taking a break from answering questions here because her paying job of answering questions on Xbox LIVE is tiring her out.

So, the Goonfather is taking over the Q&A segment in GGF indefinitely (until I feel ready to take over again).

The Goonfather is Sheylara’s goon partner (not father!) and he’s a huge gaming buff with more knowledge on games than Sheylara, so please throw all your questions at him!

You can also ask him stupid non-gaming related questions because he likes to be amused. Just don’t piss him off or you’ll never live to tell your children about it.

Please e-mail all questions to:

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Mystery giveaway coming up soon!

I will be announcing a contest on Monday which will interest both gamers and non-gamers and involve several winners (not just one). Because of that, the contest will be slightly harder than just posting a comment, but it’ll be worth it.

So, watch out for it!! Akan Datang!! :)

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Woah! What a big issue today! Don’t you hate it when they release stuff all at once? Well, no rest for gamers all over the world. Keep gaming, and don’t lose the passion!

Gamer Girl Friday signing out.

Categories: Gamer Girl Friday
17 Comments »

Yes, I’m a bad girl. It’s unintentional, I must stress. Due to an inordinate amount of work and meetings and events, I can’t complete this week’s GGF on time, so please forgive me, be patient and wait a while.

I didn’t even have time to go to Comex yesterday as planned. =(

GGF will be out some time tomorrow, early or late I can’t say.

Well, at least I’m putting out a GGF#15.5, however lame it is. Can’t say I don’t try!

In the meantime, here’s a puzzle to keep you busy.

This is taken from an old NDS game called Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which I will talk about more in GGF#16 and reveal to you the culprit who introduced me to this very evil game.

Can you solve this puzzle?

Um, no prizes for getting the answer because it can easily be googled. Haha. But see if you can solve it by yourself, just for fun!

Alrighty.

I’ll be back!

Categories: Gamer Girl Friday
15 Comments »

You know what my favourite thing about Gamer Girl Friday is? It’s the contests. I love giving stuff away and seeing happy people.

I was born with that crazy affliction, I think. I’ve loved giving presents since as early as I can remember. Once, on my 8th birthday, I invited my friends over for a birthday party and organised a treasure hunt for them. I ended up giving out more presents than I received.

Of course, my poor parents had to foot the bill for my generosity. Haha.

So, anyway, the reason I’m talking about contests and giving out stuff is because I will be running about two contests a week now. One in Gamer Girl Friday and one in my Xbox blog! Check out the latest giveaway over at Xbox Xperts!

Enjoy the contests!

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Table of Contents

1. Too Human is too fun
2. Norton security for gamers
3. The WAR trailer you’re forced to watch
4. Something to make you go aaaaaargghhh!
5. Results of last week’s contest
6. Win a Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000!!

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Too Human is too fun

I already wrote a short review of Too Human on my Xbox blog, so I shan’t say anymore about it now except that I’m loving it.

But here’s the video of me playing the game if you haven’t already watched it.

Too Human is the latest Xbox 360 exclusive title to be launched. It’s an action RPG with multiplayer options.

I have to be honest. I didn’t like the game at first. Then the Goonfather showed me how to do some cool combos and how to kill the annoying mini boss, and then I loved it! Haha.

Yes, you can learn how to kill the annoying mini boss in the video.

By the way, last GGF’s contest winner received his prize of Too Human three days before the game was officially released in Singapore!

I shall not reveal his name in case he’s shy. But then I don’t think he is, since he agreed to be photographed. But just in case lah.

Congratulations again!

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Norton security for gamers

Exciting news for PC gamers! You don’t have to turn off your anti-virus program when playing a game, anymore.

Norton claims to have developed a product with “zero-impact” performance, delivering top-of-the-line security without affecting your PC performance the slightest bit.

And it won’t pop stupid messages out at you, either, while you’re in the middle of a dragon raid or whille you’re busy getting your ass fragged, unless it has absolutely critical news to deliver to you, such as an army of viruses commandeered by your neglected girlfriend is about to mount an attack on your hard disk right now.

But I’m sure that’s not going to happen.

So, anyway, I had the pleasure of witnessing first-hand how Norton Internet Security 2009 works. David Hall, the regional product marketing manager of Symantec came to Singapore to demo the product for us. How nice of him!

The demo was held in a private dining room in Le Strada.

There was a lot of good food but I’m hesitant about posting photos of food because Jesta is now in China on a very noble mission and I don’t have the heart to annoy him.

Wait till he returns to Singapore. Haha.

Okay, digression over. Let’s look at some of the exciting features you can expect in Norton Internet Security 2009.

• Goes into “silent mode” when you run a full-screen application.
• Simplified user interface.
• Reduction in weekly scanning times without compromising security.
• Performs scanning and updates only when you’re not using the computer.
• A new layer of protection to stop security threats before they even touch you.
• Anti-bot features.

Of course, it’s not only for gamers, being very relevant and useful to non-gamers as well. It’s just that, for the first time, we’re seeing a security software that won’t annoy gamers.

You can try it out yourself now. A beta version is available for download here. It’s very close to the final build now and will be launching any time soon (Symantec doesn’t want to commit to an ETA), so try it out now for free!

And keep your eye on my blog if you want a chance to win one of these indispensable silent helpers. Details will be announced soonish!

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The WAR trailer you’re forced to watch

Mythic Entertainment has released a Warhammer Online trailer, causing much frenzy among gaming communities of the world. which have already begun to foam at the mouth with anticipation of the imminent launch.

I have tons of friends asking me to join their guilds. There are so many that I am going nuts deciding whom to join.

And I have friends forcing me to watch the new trailer or else they “dun fren me”.

So, fine, I watched it.

I guess it’s pretty good.

OKAY FINE IT’S FREAKING AWESOME.

I hate Mythic. It’s going to make me a gaming addict for the second time (first time being Dark Age of Camelot).

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Something to make you go aaaaaargghhh!

Thanks to Shelly, I just spent 10 minutes of my life staring bug-eyed at a black screen.

She introduced me to this Internet puzzle adventure site called weffriddles.

It’s one of those “games” in which you have to solve a “riddle” on each page to advance to the next page (level). I love those because you never know what to expect. Each level is very different from the last. And you really need to think out, around, under, above, and inside out of the box to figure it out.

weffriddles seems to be largely text-based. I can’t be sure, I’m only at level 3. But I’ve played a similar game before which is graphical. It was infuriatingly fun and addictive, only I can’t remember what it’s called.

Anyway, I love how wefriddles has a forum where people provide hints. Spoilers and outright answers are discouraged, so you can have more fun figuring it out yourself.

I took 10 minutes to find the answer to get past the first level because I was using the wrong browser. This is one time Internet Explorer wins. And that was a very subtle hint. Not that you’ll need any, I’m sure.

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Results of last week’s contest

Last week’s contest was to win a Friendster thumbdrive!

I’m quite surprised by the number of responses I got for this. Although it’s lower than the GT5 windbreaker and Too Human, it’s still higher than I expected for a tiny little thumbdrive!

Well, regardless, we have a winner this week!

And the winner is… modchip!!! :)

Yay! Congratulations!

I want to say that I’m a little surprised that modchip won. lol. I’m not being mean, okay, I’m just about to reveal how I pick winners every week.

First, I put your names on a spreadsheet in the order of your entry. So, like, if you signed up first, you’re number 1. If you signed up second, you’re number 2.

Then I get the randomiser to pick a number from 1 to 30 (assuming there are 30 participants).

Now, modchip is always number 1 because he’s almost always the first to comment on my blogs! While I believe intellectually that the randomiser doesn’t play favourites, I always feel psychologically that first and last have smaller chances of getting picked. I know that’s illogical, but life isn’t always logical.

So, when the randomiser returned “1″ today, out of 24 choices, I was quite shocked.

Oh, but I’m happy for modchip. Congrats again! One Friendster thumbdrive coming to you! :)

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Win a Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000!!!!

Share life’s most memorable moments—anywhere you go!

That’s what the product page says, and here’s what the product looks like:

So, yes, I have a box of this and I need to help it find a happy owner.

Will you be the one?

Click here to read about its features.

Please post a comment here to apply to be a happy owner of a LifeCam VX-7000!

Winner will be picked via randomiser.

Last day for entry is Thursday, Aug 28, 2008.

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Don’t forget to join me on Xbox LIVE tonight and tomorrow night, 8pm till 11pm! And, if you’re not on LIVE yet, visit my Xbox blog to learn how fun it can be!

Signing out here, signing in to LIVE.

Categories: Gamer Girl Friday
54 Comments »

It is with a rather zonked state of mind that I address you today.

I haven’t slept all night. I started working on GGF last night at 10:30 pm and didn’t stop until 7:30 am, when I decided to go stun myself awake with a cold shower.

Another hour to neaten it up before I get ready to start my day with a morning meeting, and then an afternoon meeting, an evening event and a night engagement.

I see mushrooms dancing in my peripheral vision. GGF is zonked out her mind! Hurray.

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Table of Contents

1. Video demo of Braid on Xbox LIVE Arcade
2. Fable II Pub Games is out!
3. Sheylara at World Cyber Games (Again)
4. Too Human is too popular!
5. Ask Sheylara
6. Win a cool Friendster thumbdrive!!

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Video demo of Braid on Xbox LIVE Arcade

Oh, gosh. It takes freaking forever to make videos.

But here’s a video of me explaining the gameplay in Braid.

I love this game. I’ll talk a little about it in case you don’t like to watch videos.

So, Braid is an Xbox LIVE Arcade game which you can download for a small fee.

It looks like a 2D platformer, but it’s actually a puzzle game. You can die but you won’t die. That is, when you get eaten by monsters, you can rewind to when you haven’t gotten eaten, and then continue from there and try not to get eaten again.

Running around the world and not dying, you collect jigsaw puzzle pieces to make nice pictures. The pieces are scattered around the world and they just annoy the heck out of you because you can see them but you can’t get at them.

You have to really crack your brain in this game. And then crack it somemore. Until your brain hates you.

But I like the music, the graphics and the gameplay. It’s unique and refreshing. If you like abusing your brain and stomping on monsters’ heads, get it.

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Fable II Pub Games is out!

That’s right. This is the arcade mini game thingy which you can play now to earn gold for the Fable II game that’s coming in October.

Here’s a boring video I took of it. Well, watch it if you want to see what the mini games look like.

There are three gambling games and you’re given 500 gold to start off with. If you lose it all and go into debt, you’re in trouble when you start Fable II.

It’s freaking hard to win money. I’ve already lost like 300 gold. Haha.

Oh, well. Have never been good at gambling, anyway.

But I like the games. The graphics and sound effects are really cool!

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Sheylara at World Cyber Games (Again)

I mentioned last week that Bryan De Silva from RazorTV interviewed me for a segment. The video is out!

Click.

We did an interview and then we played Guitar Hero 3.

Bryan made funny faces. IT’S ALL IN THE VIDEO.

And I made victory poses.

That was on Thursday.

On Saturday, I went to WCG again because the Xbox ambassador had to make an appearance and tell everyone to subscribe to Xbox LIVE.

We did that on the main stage of WCG.

More interviews.

And friendly matches.

Offstage, I played several matches of Project Gotham Racing 4 with Xbox fans.

Which I sucked at. But it was fun. And no one booed me, nice chaps, all.

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Too Human is too popular!

I received a record number of entries for last week’s Too Human giveaway. There were 46 entrants. Wow. Didn’t know this game was so popular!

You know what… I’ve got the game in my hands already! Mwahaha!

I got two copies on Tuesday but, get a load of this, I haven’t had time since then to even open the box to kiss the disc.

In any case, I can’t publish a review of it yet because the game hasn’t officially launched and I don’t want Silicon Knights coming after me.

So… WHO IS THE LUCKY WINNER OF A BRAND NEW COPY OF TOO HUMAN?

He is… Kurow31!!!

(Or maybe he’s a she. I have no idea.)

Congratulations!!!!! You are very lucky because you’ll be playing Too Human two days before the rest of Singapore (that is, assuming you live in Singapore)!!!

The USA launch is Aug 19 while Singapore stores will only stock it on Aug 21. But I’m allowed to give it away on the 19th, so you’ll be getting it on that day if we can arrange a meetup.

Will be contacting you via e-mail!

Please thank the Singapore Xbox Team for your prize!

The rest of you who didn’t win, don’t be too disappointed. There will be more giveaways in the future!

Alrighty?

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Ask Sheylara

Ask me any gaming-related questions! Post them in the comments or e-mail me, I don’t really care. I will try to answer all questions (unless I get like 500 questions a day).

James Millbower asks a Wii question:

I have a modified Japanese Wii set that appears to be fully-bricked. Can it be fixed like a semi-brick Wii set by inserting a Japanese game with a firmware update that is higher than my Wii version? If it can be corrected, where can I buy a Japanese game in the US?

Sheylara Says:

I’m afraid I have bad news for you. There is currently no fix for a fully bricked Wii. Well, that’s actually why they called it a “brick” in the first place. Sorry, pal.

Chak asks an Xbox joystick question:

Do you have any idea where to download drivers for Xbox joysticks to use on the PC?

Sheylara Says:

I didn’t actually answer this question for Chak because he answered it himself before I could do it, lol. But I’m posting it here anyway in case anyone ever wants to ask the same question. You can download the driver here.

Lambert asks an Xbox LIVE question:

What’s your Gamerscore?

Sheylara Says:

Er… please don’t ask. If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you. No, actually, ask me in a year’s time. That will give me time to, uh, actually have a number to tell you.

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Win a cool Friendster thumbdrive!!

Look at this cutie!!

The sad part is that it has a capacity of only 500MB.

But the happy part is that it’s one of those thingamajigs you can take and show off to your friends and piss them off because they can’t buy one even if they had money.

Unless you sold it to them at a very high price, in which case, you should share some of that doosh with me, okay?

So… who wants it?

Yes, same old same old. Post a comment saying you want it before next Friday!

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And now… PLEASE GO READ MY XBOX BLOG. I mean, like, regularly. It’s very lonely.

Aww.

Categories: Gamer Girl Friday
37 Comments »