The Goonfather tells me that kunoichi (female ninja) always have hair dangling down the sides of their faces. So, for yesterday’s ninja patrol, I let down one side of my hair.

I know the hair clip is a little unglam but my hair refuses to stay up otherwise.

Then again, who says hair clips are unglam? Kuchiki Byakuya from Bleach has like 10,000 clips on his head.

I used to hate Byakuya because I thought he looked faggoty plus he was so evil. But he started getting cooler and cooler in the later episodes and his Bankai is so super cool, so now I love him. But that’s beside the point, so let’s get back to topic.

We started our patrol at Rivervale Mall at 12 pm.

Rivervale Mall is a ghost town, even at 12 pm, so we headed straight for the food court. In Singapore, you can always find people in a food court during lunch hour, even in the most godforsaken corners of the country.

Our instructions were: “Don’t give the flyers to children below 18 (Ninja Gaiden II is rated M18) and old aunties.”

That left us practically no one to give our flyers to, because RM seems to only stock that species of humans.

So we descended upon the small smattering of harmless old uncles, making them spurt their coffee out in shock at being confronted by dubious-looking aliens from mysterious planets.

That was mildly fun.

We left the building half an hour before time because we ran out of people to shock.

We figured that Temasek Polytechnic would have more likely victims for us to terrorise.

We were quite right.

The bridge alone yielded an unlimited number of victims.

I tried to emulate Ryu Hayabusa’s meditative posture, but I think I just succeeded in looking silly.

Which inspired everyone to get silly. We spent 10 minutes fooling around, allowing lucky victims to pass us by unmolested.

With our sacred mission successfully completed, it was time for us to leave the place.

Because cost-cutting is a fashionable activity these days, the ninja management decreed that we had to take public transport like regular peons, so we trooped down to the TP bus stop to wait for a bus.

Except that we were so untrained in the skill of taking public transport that we tried to flag a bus from the wrong direction.

But we still managed to arrived unscathed at Tampines Mall, our final stop for the day.

I was so tired by that time, but I remained professional and continued to display my glazed kunoichi stare.

We also entertained a stunned crowd with our leet ninja skillz.

Everyone broke into applause because they were so impressed by our death-defying stunts.

We must have sold a zillion copies of Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 on this day.

Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?

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I guess you guys will be disappointed to learn that my Ninja Gaiden II costume looks nothing like the one worn by Sonia, who is the new NG femme fatale. This is Sonia:

But don’t compare us, okay. We’re not even meant to be Sonia.

We’re meant to be flyer-distributing generic ninja girls (which Moralis kindly pointed out to me are called kunoichi).

With the luxuriant bus interior backdrop, I think we look more like a couple of Korean tour guides.

And our Ryu Hayabusa was a tourist attraction.

Our jobs were to patrol the streets and scare people into pre-ordering Ninja Gaiden II.

But I think we failed. People were generally more amused than scared and made us stop to pose for photos.

And more photos.

And more more more more more photos.

I’ll post nicer photos after the next event, which will happen in the day, so I’ll be able to get clearer pictures.

And now, secret locations for the next ninja patrol! (In case anyone feels like stalking me or my ninja babe partner, or maybe Ryu Hayabusa.)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
12pm—1pm: Rivervale Mall
2pm—3pm: Temasek Poly
4pm—5pm: Tampines Mall

OMG such out-of-the-way places. I feel faint.

Well, come anyway. We’re giving out thousands of free flyers on that day. Come and get yours.

*lol*

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YES! Today is the day!

The Ninja Gaiden II month-long launch campaign starts today (technically yesterday but today is more fun) and I’m going to be somersaulting around Singapore in my ninja costume.

I wish.

Only the ninja costume bit is true. I have yet to master the art of somersaulting. Maybe not in this life.

There will be three of us, one Ryu Hayabusa and two ninja girls, scaring members of an unsuspecting public with our creepy all-black ninja costumes as we patrol our designated routes performing the unglamorous job of giving out flyers.

That’s about all we’ve been trained to do. They rejected my proposal to fly us to Japan to master the deadly art of ninjitsu. I guess there wasn’t enough time.

I’ll reveal the “secret” locations of our appearances in a while.

I just want to talk a bit about the launch campaign.

Pre-order sales of the Xbox 360 version of the game started yesterday at gaming stores around Singapore.

All pre-ordered copies come with a gift (or three). The exciting part is that you get more gifts if more people pre-order the game!

If the presale figure falls between 1 and 500, everyone will get a Ninja Gaiden II t-shirt.

501 to 1000, you get a t-shirt and a note book.

Over 1000 and Xbox Singapore is giving out a t-shirt and a note book and a special Ninja Gaiden II console skin for the Xbox 360!!!

Read about it at the Xbox NG2 site if you want. If you can’t be bothered, just remember this:

Pre-order Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 from May 1 to 25 to get cool NG2 premiums. Collect your game and gifts on June 3 at Funan the IT Mall.

That’s all!

Okay, I’ll now reveal our secret appearance locations for today only.

7pm—8pm: Suntec City (basement food court; e-life; Balaclava)

9pm—10pm: Clarke Quay bridge

11pm—12mn: Cineleisure

Please do not come and laugh at us.

There will be more appearances next week and next next week. Will update again.

Categories: Gaming Notebook
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This won’t be a very detailed review because we only played the game for 15 minutes because the Goonfather forgot to charge his controller.

But 15 minutes and I am already in love with Grand Theft Auto IV! Notwithstanding the fact that it’s all CG, you’ll feel like you’re watching a Hollywood action movie when the game starts.

First, there’s a background story explaining your maiden trip to Liberty City, USA. You’re met by your slimeball cousin who hands you the keys to his car because he’s roaring drunk and wants you to take him home. Once you get behind the wheel, the gameplay starts.

While you’re learning how to handle a car with your controller, your loud, brash cousin talks your ears off with a drunken monologue in his heavily Italian-accented English.

That’s really cool, I think. The cutscenes and the gameplay blend with each other so smoothly that, sometimes, you feel like you’re still watching a cutscene even as you’re controlling Niko Bellic.

I love the game’s AI, but I guess that’s the charm of the GTA series. Residents in Liberty City react to everything you do as people would in real life, no matter what you do. When the Goonfather started ramming an ambulance’s rear repeatedly, the driver freaked and jumped out of his vehicle, leaving it to crash into a wall.

The graphics is amazing, a far cry from earlier GTA titles. Everything is so detailed, even down to the blood spurts when you run over someone.

I’m fine with killing, normally. (In games lah!) I must have killed over ten million mobs (including human ones) over the course of my gaming career. But the graphics and AI in GTA4 are so realistic that I paled visibly when the Goonfather decided that running over people with his car multiple times was fun. I didn’t include those bits in my video because I don’t want my blog to be NSFC (not safe for children).

I was so traumatised on behalf of the Goonfather’s victims.

But the game is still cool and the culture of killing video game characters is something one can quickly adapt to, so it’s not like that’s gonna stop me from playing.

GTA4 is one of those games you could be satisfied with just watching and not playing because it’s like watching a movie. Or maybe that’s just me. Or maybe that’s just the Goonfather. Watching him play any game is like watching a comedy.

The Goonfather is such a fanboy that he pre-ordered the GTA4 Collector’s Edition for the PS3, even though I told him that I’d be getting a review copy for the Xbox 360.

He told me both versions are different. The PS3 version has been said to have marginally better graphics and framerate, while the Xbox 360 version has over 20 hours of downloadable content which the PS3 does not have.

It’s very clear cut to me which the winner is, but you can never talk sense into fanboys.

But all that is moot because I don’t have time to play the damn game!!!

I’ll bet by the time I actually get to play it, GTA5 will be out already.

*sigh*

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So, here’s the saddest irony in the world.

I have in my hands a full-build copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, five days before official release.

But I have no time to play it.

And not just for one reason. Not even two reasons. But three reasons.

1. I have so much work to do I don’t even have enough time to sleep. I hardly even have time to blog, missing a day yesterday and almost missing today.
2. Our projector has just been sold so we have no TV right now. (Our new plasma TV will be delivered to our new place on Saturday.)
3. Our Xbox 360 (together with half our stuff) is now sitting in our new home. We just haven’t officially moved in.

So…

I HAVE THE MOST HAPPENING HYPED UP GAME IN THE WHOLE WORLD BUT NO TV AND NO CONSOLE TO PLAY IT ON!

Talk about agony.

I can’t play till official moving day on Saturday. And even then, I’ll be busy unpacking and setting up all my Internet and gaming connections all day.

So I decided to play a little at the office before going home.

I’m horrible at console games, I’ve decided. The controller has too many buttons and toggles and they are not all nicely labelled like keys on the keyboard.

I couldn’t get Niko Bellic to run properly. I couldn’t shoot the damn gun so I had to suffer this dumb NPC continuously stabbing me in the face. I couldn’t run down the stairs properly, so I got Swordplay to help me get out of the damn building and jump into a car so I could put my driving skills to the test.

He got Niko into a car for me, and the first thing I did when I took over the controller was to make Niko get out of the car again.

What. I was stress testing the car doors okay. You guys ever see the stress test machines at Ikea, where they have the machines open and close closet doors 200 million times a day?

Fine. GTA IV is totally, like, wasted on me.

Hehe.

But I swear I will master console gaming if its the last thing I do. Once I have time to start playing games again, that is.

But someone has to first tell my new boss that he’s working me too hard.

Oh, wait. My boss reads my blog.

OMG.

Hi, boss! =)

Nothing to see here! Kthxbye.

Categories: Gaming Notebook
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